Final Art Update

This is it guys! On tomorrow (Monday the 25th) we will be sending the final version of the cards to be printed from the printers. It is my hope to have them printed in a week and a half.

First off, I'd like to give a big, big thanks to Deanna Vaida who did all of the card art and Elliott Lutton who designed the Masquerade book and card layout. You can find Deanna's websites here and here. Elliott's main website is here.

And without further ado, here they are:

Blacksmith Roger- Roger is a tough man who spends his whole day smelting and hammering weapons for the guards. His is a booster card and offers a bonus to other card's attack.

Alchemist Leon- Roger's counterpart, Leon is a tricky wizard-like man who secretly experiments on his patients, testing potions and ointments on them. He grants a bonus to defense for all other cards.

Dancer Isabella- This exotic dancer comes from the South and captures the attention of all those around her. She plays the role of a mesmerizer in the game, distracting the opponent and weakening their cards. 

Henry the Bard- Henry is a singer who used to play the flute, but after an incident with a noble no longer carries any wind instruments. He's a cheery fellow who goes around bringing joy to anyone around him.

Nan the Disgruntled- Nan is the embodiment of anger in the commoners towards the nobility. She voices the rage they all feel towards the rich and even appears in the first chapter of Masquerade.

Squire Terry- Despite being so young, Terry is tougher than he looks. He's one of the orphans Newgate trains and is on his way to being a strong guard. In the book, he serves as a messenger for Wymund.

Doctor Pestilence- The special 61st card as requested by supporter Kenneth Deshotel.  According to Kenneth "An eerie man hidden behind a plague doctor mask.  He dons a long dark robe fastened with large buttons and a wide brimmed hat.  Little is known of this mysterious man but many believe him to be a doctor gone crazed.  He has a very ominous aurora about him and is often seen to be followed by ravens.  He always carries a twisted wooden cane and special herbs for his “medical practices”.  He addopted the name "Dr. Pestilence" due to his infatuation with disease and the number of deaths that seem to follow in his wake."

Thank you everyone for your support. More news will follow when the process of printing begins.

More Art!

Here we go with another update from our wonderful card artist Deanna, this time with 4 more and 2 on the way for the week!

Rollin Hodgkin: A wolf-masked assassin under the employment of Count Wymund. In the book, he's the most dangerous assassin in the city and sides with Newgate and Mary for most of the story. In the game, he's a one hit wonder that can do 12 damage, killing any card in the game.

Gunter Newgate: The second protagonist in the book and the most famous character in Masquerade, Newgate is a veteran soldier haunted by his past demons. He hides this fear by being strict and training himself to exhaustion. In the game, he's another powerhouse, being the card with the best overall stats (8 attack and 8 defense).

Jop Carnell: The best information broker in Avalot, Carnell is a small wizardy man who likes to boast that he knows everything. Underneath his arrogant attitude is a sleazy politician who will switch sides in an instant. He has high defense in the game.

Lance Wymund: A young count who has inherited his father's riches. Wymund is a resourceful, handsome, and charismatic young nobleman who believes in supporting the lower class rather than abusing them, like most nobles do. In the game, he is a weak card until the King or Queen is in play.

More card art will be updated as it is given to me, as always. Stay tuned next time when I start posting the new cover art from our graphic designer, Elliott!

Today Might be the Day

That's probably a pretty self explanatory post. The bank in my hometown is opening today, so here's hoping that they will finally approve my account and I can get back to work on starting the Masquerade Kickstarter. It really is just a waiting game this point.

In other news though, I've recently been playing with the ideas of where I'd like to go next with the Masquerade project or any side projects in general.

The first thing that came to mind was continuing the Masquerade story.

Lately I've been trying to come up with a new plot with some interesting characters to advance the story behind Masquerade. I didn't originally intend to have a sequel to Masquerade, but now that I've finished the story I can see that there's a lot more places I can take the plot. There's more I'd like to say and more adventures that will follow Mary and Newgate.

While I don't want to say anything about the plot idea I have in mind just yet (It's likely to change in an instant knowing me), I will definitely confirm that a sequel will be more than likely depending on the success of Masquerade.

I think I may have mentioned in a previous post that I'd like to eventually publish Masquerade (the book) full time with a company. That means I'll have to start looking around for an agent once I do a little editing. I would also like to wait for the Kickstarter to see how popular the idea is. If it proves really success, it will make finding someone to publish my book that much more easier.

I was also thinking about working on another tabletop game idea, only this time it would be a stealth game tabletop game. I don't think anyone's ever attempted doing something like that and I have a few ideas on how to make it stealthy while including all the elements of a sneaking game like one you would play on a console or computer.

Again, we'll just have to see where the Kickstarter goes. Here's hoping it starts this week!

The Website

So some good news before I launch the Kickstarter, I found someone who promised to put up the website before December 1st. And she's a professional no less!

In celebration of this, I've decided to post what the website is going to look like when it's complete. That's right, all the pages up for viewing. Check it out!

The Home Page

I was going with the theme of letters, wax stamps, and childish character drawings. I made the decision that it's actually Mary, from the book, doing these doodles. It's fitting with the style that someone her age would draw in and it adds depth because we get to see what she sees in the world around her.

The About the Book Page

The book page doesn't have the book cover just yet (I haven't created it after all!) but it certainly adds to the feel I was trying to create. There's even a little Mary sketch in the corner of the page.

About the Creator Page

To match the theme, I couldn't use an actual picture of myself so I came up with the Wanted Poster look with a stamp idea of a photo of myself.

About Game Page

This is probably my second favorite page on the website. It's a letter to Newgate, another major character in the game and story. I love the little note from another character, Carnell, to add to the theme.

And now my least favorite page.

Card Page

Yeah, I just don't like how this page came out. In the future, I'll probably rework it. But for now, it's important to have because I want people interested in the game to have a place where they can download the cards from for free.

The Rulebook Updated!

If you read my last post in the blog, you'll know that I've decided to launch my Kickstarter project on December 1st and there's a lot to do before that. One of the things on the list was to perfect both the card design and the rulebook. This week I've decided to do both, I've already begun to make the new card design with about 20 cards out of 60 already done.

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This is all final card art and text, or at least it is for the results from the Kickstarter. Any minor changes will be added before the cards themselves get printed as real playing cards.

There's also the matter of the updated rulebook. I had been working on it for quite some time and there are only a few changes I need to add to it before it's ready for the final print. I also need to be testing it in the Quality Assurance lab here at Champlain.

If you're curious about what the rulebook now looks like, check out the word version here (http://michaelbujtas.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/masqueraderulebook2-0.docx) or the pdf version here (http://michaelbujtas.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/masqueraderulebook2-0.pdf). Both are the same document.

What I was going for the rulebook this time was a smaller, compact, and more to-the-point design. After all, if I'm going to sell Masquerade to people, I need to expect them to understand the basic rules without me having to explain them.

Please, if you're curious, check out the rulebook and let me know if you spot any errors or inconsistencies. All your editing will be of great help in the future when I finally get around to printing the game. Here's to doing it by next semester!

New Website- Coming Soon!

I know it sounds cliched, with the coming soon thing that is, but Masquerade be having it's own official website where I plan on advertising and eventually selling the products. That and the card back has been where I've really pooling my resources during the weekend.

I promised last week was going to be where I looked into copyrighting the game, but things have been moving forward with the website. I found a friend who is interested in organizing the site as I had envisioned it but he needed me to create all the pages, so I couldn't resist.

Here's what the new homepage is going to look like, call it a teaser:

The style is going for a realistic feel with all sorts of nods to events and characters in the book. The cheery character drawing will also be seen on many of the pages, as you can see from the homepage. A lot of the symbols like the wax stamps and letters are things that appear in the card game as well.

My hope is that this flashy new site will grab people's attention and allow me to show the project more seriously at conventions. The hosting has already been purchased and soon www.themasqueradeproject.com will be going live!

There's also the card backs which I've been working on. I was going for a stained glass window look, but I'm thinking about swapping up the colors for something more relative. Going to ask my artist friends though, but if any of you have feedback, feel free to comment!

This week I hope to print out the latest versions of the cards for a final playtest round to test the rulebook again the week after. I hope things go well!

Gunter Newgate: A Character Study

This is a new little featured I'd like to add to the blog about a popular figure in the card game and one of the main characters in the book, Captain Gunter Newgate.

In both the card game and the book, Newgate is a powerhouse and a badass in every sense of the word (if you excuse the slang). Originally for the design, I had planned for him to be this middle aged man who could kick your butt in a second despite his age. I had been reading a lot of the manga One Piece at the time and one of the characters, Edward Newgate, served as an inspiration for Gunter's last name. As for the name Gunter, that was simply an old fashioned name that I thought was fitting for someone with that much strength. If I ever have two boys when I have children, I'd name the second one Gunter.

I wanted Gunter to have this presence whenever he joined the field in the card game, but I also wanted him to be honored bound to the King. In the Masquerade book, I explore this concept a bit further as well as his past as a soldier. Not wishing to spoil anything, in the book Newgate is one of the main characters (the other being Mary the Mute who is actually his adopted daughter). Gunter is a veteran to one of the most bloodiest battles in the kingdom's history, which explains where he learned his skills as a fighter.

That's where things get interesting, with Gunter I wanted to explore shell-shock in war. The battle may have ended a long time ago but the war for Gunter never really ended. In that sense, he's a bit of a tragic figure who's trying to go through life finding his purpose now that there are no enemies to fight. Of course, that all changes when the King ends up murdered in the first chapter, propelling him into an adventure that I think he'd really rather not have (read the first chapter in this blog if you have time: http://masqueradestory.blogspot.com/2012/09/a-small-teaser.html)

In the book, his character arc really is an exploration in letting go what was lost and overcoming the horrors of war. Gunter is strong physically, but he's aging and is deeply troubled mentally. Only his relationship with the King, an old childhood friend, has been keeping him balanced over the years.

In the card game, he's probably one of the best cards you can have at your side with 8 attack and 8 health while face up. He can utterly destroy just about any card in play and has one of the strongest defenses making him a valuable card to have, as was intended by design. Originally, I wanted to balance him out by putting him under the control of anyone who had the King card so that he could defend them but I scrapped that concept. It was too complicated to have him switching around the field like that when his sole purpose was to break things for you, not dance between players.

Players really connect with him and I think he's a damn good main character for the Masquerade book.

"I serve ONLY his majesty" - Gunter Newgate