Rickety Rat is dead, long live Rickety Games!

Ok, I am calling it. The Rickety Rat animation is dead. After completing the last animatic so long ago, I recognized the script needs major work and it's way too long to animate already, and I haven't even thought about the animation in a year, so I am saying it's dead.

But! Remember that boardgame I was making as promotional material for the animation? Yeah, yeah I really like making boardgames. And possibly flash games. So I am just going to do that. I don't really know where it's going, or how I can monetize off it, but for now, I'm using the characters to make a series of board and card games. I just really like making boardgames man!

And it's not to say that I won't use Rickety and his friends for other things. I may just use clips from the movie and make little animations from the parts I really like, or make new shorter animations because I really like the characters. But for now, I'm using them for boardgames. I haven't really seen that before, a collection of boardgames telling a story about a group of characters, so maybe I'll do something with that.

So far, I'm working on two that I really like. The original one, A Rickety Road to the Top, is still being worked on, but it's a game I never feel like playing, which is never a good sign. I might drop it or redo it again.

Right now I'm working on a simple card game about the love of consumerism!  The main focus is buying more things makes you happy, and the person who is the first to reach consumerist bliss is the winner!

I play-tested it with my friends, and we mostly agreed it was hard keeping track of your money and happiness. It's just math guys! But playing through, there are any number of things that could make your happiness level fluctuate, so having a visual representation of how much happiness and money you have at any given time is useful instead of just keeping a number in your head.

On the left is my original character card, in which people are expected to keep track of their money and happiness. Needless to say pen and paper needed to be involved. On the right, I added sliders! Aren't they cute?!

I edited the character cards to give them sliders so players could mark how much happiness and money they have.  I liked the design, but the application left a bit to be desired. It was too small, and hard to move the arrows around. So I made it bigger!

Super-sized playing card!

It helped a little bit, but it's still too damn hard to move the sliders around. I have to cut more than the slit to make the slider more moveable. I'm also using regular paper here, so we'll have to see if it works any better on a harder stock of paper.  But just in case, I tried designing a new way of showing the money and happiness graphically.

Circiles! I need those metal doodads you put through paper sometimes.  I always have to buy 100 of them but they're somehow never around when I need them!

I designed circles, which might work better if I had the fasteners.  Which, if I were making this a downloadable PDF and someone had to go out and buy fasteners for it, might be a problem. I also think the slider looks better graphically, but we'll see when I print both out on a harder card stock.

UPDATE: I had them both printed, and not just one of each, I did a full-line of each just too see how annoying it would get after 6-8 times. Also, it's good incase I mess up! Also also, I went out and bought fasteners. They were not as easy to find as I'd thought they'd be.

Went out and bought fasteners! Now I have plenty ahahaha!

So after cutting them out and making two of each, I have to say I'm leaning towards the circles. Even though I need another element other than paper to make them(well technically I need tape for the itty bitty sliders), it's three times faster to make them and waaaay less annoying. There's so much cutting I have to do with the sliders, mostly for the slits. You basically need an exacto knife or have a really good handle on a scissors, and even then, you need to cut a thicker strip out just so the slider can move properly, and move all the way to the ends. It's a real hassle.

This is what the cards look like beforehand. Notice much more complicated the one on the left is! 

The only problem with the circles is that it's kind of had to turn them, but now that I think of it, it would probably be easier to make the arrow the spinny part and have the circle stay in place on the card. Oh Josh you drunk halfwit, get your shit together.

Welp this weekend I plan on play-testing them, so I'll see how everything works out!