Miss Mary Mack (MMM) is an online trading card game that has players battle their witches through the use of Spells, Summons, Enchantments, and Potions in a gameplay blend of Hearthstone, Magic The Gathering, and Inscryption.
Overview
Here is a brief rundown of the various tasks I completed in these 15 weeks:
Developed a prototype on Miro, spanning 200 cards and full game rules.
Constructed a spreadsheet database for all the cards to be stored on. To learn more about this, visit this page here.
Devised specific spreadsheets that pulled from the main database, allowing for seamless version control.
Uploaded a playtest game to the Steam community workshop.
Managed a Discord server for playtesters.
Analyzed playtest feedback and further developed the rules and cards.
Collaborated with the project director to educate them on the expectations of the video game community.
Presented the game to the project investor and marketing team to showcase our progress.
Ideated new game systems and expansions for future development.
15 Week Summary
I began working as Lead Designer with my coworker and friend, Dany Francis, at the end of March 2022. We were the only designers for the project, so our first step was to take the prototype document from our project director and begin fleshing out game mechanics. We started our prototyping on Miro which allowed us an online environment that was easily modifiable. It was the equivalent of us being in person with a bunch of sticky notes. For our first month, we were spending 20 hours a week in Miro. During that time, we formulated the basic rules for how the game should function, created over 200 unique cards, and playtested every iteration.
It soon became apparent that we would need to find a more permanent solution for our cards to live. Our goal was to have cards that could be used with Tabletop Simulator (TTS). We tried using Canva, but it was soon evident that updating our cards was going to be incredibly difficult. I soon landed on our solution that used two programs to get our cards to TTS; Google Sheets and nanDeck. The idea behind this was that nanDeck was able to view a Google Sheet and transpose the data into a formatted card. With my experience in spreadsheets, I handled the technical side of our Google Sheet database as we copied our Miro cards over. I then learned the functionalities of nanDeck and within two weeks, we had a TTS game with formatted cards.
Dany and I transitioned into picking apart our rules and cards through multiple playtests. Our current responsibility was to have the starter decks that players would begin the game with being balanced, satisfying to play, and conveyed the mechanics of each element. We quickly realized that we were at a point where playtests between the two of us were becoming less beneficial, so we reached out to friends to help us. Teaching others our rules and watching them play immediately showed us areas where our game was lacking. The back and forth of playtests and updates began.
We soon had a detailed rule document and a scripted game environment for TTS. Despite the valuable feedback we were getting, there appeared to be little more we were able to do other than playtest and tweak cards in response. Dany had to leave the project and after some time of working by myself without any promise for the game's future, I also had to leave. I was waiting for the project investor to secure a meeting with a prospective marketing team that would hopefully end with us continuing development. Unfortunately, after I was given the opportunity to present our game, the project was abandoned for reasons outside of the marketing team's decision.
Conclusion
This experience as a whole is something that I am incredibly proud of. My work on our spreadsheet database is a feat that still impresses me now looking back on it. I gathered a lot of invaluable experience from working on this trading card game prototype, especially more interpersonal skills like conversing with and presenting to my project director and investor. In a show of good faith, the investor sold the games IP rights to me so that I may continue its development in the future.