{"id":26718,"date":"2015-04-16T20:06:04","date_gmt":"2015-04-16T20:06:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/the-clone-that-wasnt\/"},"modified":"2015-04-16T20:06:04","modified_gmt":"2015-04-16T20:06:04","slug":"the-clone-that-wasnt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/the-clone-that-wasnt\/","title":{"rendered":"The clone that\u00a0wasn’t"},"content":{"rendered":"

mostlysignssomeportents<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n
\"image\"<\/figure>\n

<\/p>\n

Could you design a brand-new game using only a deck of classic
\nplaying cards? It\u2019s a cool idea \u2013 repurposing familiar components in an
\n original context. But the design for the game that would become Donsol<\/i> was born out of necessity, the mother of invention. A pack of cards was all the creators had on hand. <\/p>\n

Devine Lu Linvega developed the iOS version of Donsol<\/i><\/a>,
\n a game that sees heart suits re-cast as \u201chealth potions,\u201d clubs and
\nspades as \u201cmonsters\u201d. Starting with four cards, the player gathers
\nhealth and fights enemies, making their way through an imagined dungeon
\nspace making combat calculations \u2013 the health cards versus the
\nmonsters. It\u2019s a fascinating idea. <\/p>\n

The only problem is that completely unbeknownst to Linvega, someone had already made it. <\/p>\n

Donsol<\/i> is almost exactly like Zach Gage\u2019s Scoundrel<\/i><\/a>. Was malicious copying afoot, or is it just that there\u2019s only so much you can do with a deck of cards after all? <\/p>\n

Linvega met John Eternal, who works for Sony, on the Train Jam<\/a>
\n earlier this year. Game developers buy tickets to buy the cross-country
\n train to San Francisco, with the annual Game Developers Conference as
\nthe final destination. On the trip, they form tiny teams and make small
\ngames \u2013 in game development, the \u201cjam\u201d environment posits that with
\nunique settings and specific constraints, collaborative new ideas and
\nrelationships can form. <\/p>\n

According to Linvega, Eternal turned up for the jam, but left his
\n power supply behind. \u201cStuck on a train for 52 hours, he had to\u2026
\nimprovise,\u201d Linvega tells me. \u201cHe had a deck of cards, and he made this
\ngame.\u201d <\/p>\n

Linvega and his colleague enjoyed the result so much that Linvega volunteered to make a score-keeping app for Donsol<\/i> on iOS. He ended up helping iterate on the design and contributing his stark, distinctive art style to the cards. <\/p>\n

When Zach Gage found out about Donsol<\/i>, it was an unsettling experience: The game was \u201cbasically identical<\/a>\u201d to Scoundrel<\/i><\/a>,
\n a game the prolific designer had created in 2011 along with Kurt Bieg.
\nThe similarities were so strong Gage found it hard to believe neither
\nLinvega, whom he knew, and Eternal, whom he didn\u2019t, had seen Scoundrel<\/i> before. <\/p>\n

Read the rest\u2026<\/a>
<\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

mostlysignssomeportents: Could you design a brand-new game using only a deck of classic playing cards? It\u2019s a cool idea \u2013 repurposing familiar components in an original context. But the design for the game that would become Donsol was born out of necessity, the mother of invention. A pack of cards was all the creators had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[1530,1529,1531],"class_list":["post-26718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-words","tag-expressive-potential","tag-game-grammar","tag-game-vocabulary"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6PWot-6WW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26718\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}