Cantrip Games
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Hey everybody, we have some big news today!

These gifs are test animations from the Story War animated short! Making a cartoon was our Kickstarter’s $200k stretch goal, and I bet you thought we were bluffing, didn’t you? You totally did.

The short will be animated by Lindsay and Alex Small-Butera (who made Baman Piderman and the gifs above) and it will be written and storyboarded by KC Green (who does Gunshow and the Regular Show comic). We’ll be posting about the cartoon’s progress on this blog, and we expect it to be finished by the end of the summer.

Our Kickstarter is over, but you can still pre-order Story War here!

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22 / 04
1,350 notes
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Check it out, here are the Warrior, Item and Battlefield card backs for Story War! Click on them and check out the details! The logo was designed by Ned Hugar, the border was designed by Maré Odomo and the textures were designed by Farid Safaie.

It took us MONTHS to settle on these. There were so many challenges involved with coming up with the card backs: We wanted each one to evoke a book cover and also their role in the game. But they couldn’t be too literal because we intend to do expansions that share a common card backs but have different “themes” - for example, a scifi expansion would look odd if it had a leathery book texture on the opposite side. But the cards need to all have the same backs so that they can be mixed together. So I told all of that to Maré and he came up with that book-like white border which looks really great.

We went with red triangles for Warriors, because it evokes “attack” and blue circles for Items because it evokes “defense,” and green checkers for Battlefields because it looks like a chess board or a field. We originally had “gold” for items, and they were briefly called “Treasure” and they were a thing you earned and spent. But we decided that items are used in much more interesting ways if they replenish automatically. Also, yellow is a difficult color to balance with white and”red green blue” sort of makes more sense as a set than “red green yellow.”

Each card back needs to have some distinctive texture so that Story War can be played by color blind people or in low light - I’ve tried playing it with non-textured backs in bars, etc, with colored lighting, and it’s always difficult to tell the decks apart. The textures are designed to make it easy to tell which card is wich without relying 100% on color, but also keeping all three backs on a unified theme. Farid did a great job on these.

The logo was the first thing I designed with Ned Hugar. Originally it had some lightning bolts around the sides - the stars and lightning bolts were going to be a recurring motif, but people kept parsing the lightning bolts as superscripted “S” shapes, so we got rid of them. The star became the logo for the game, and it’s a recurring motif you’ll see a lot on the card art.

Before we even had a logo, we had a celtic knot looking star thing as the “Triforce”-like symbol for Story War:

image

We eventually settled on a more cartoony art style and a less serious tone, so we got rid of this star (which we called the “five point lotus” - SO SERIOUS) and replaced it with the new star. We originally called the new star the “cute star” at first, but have since renamed it the Wishing Star.

We decided to make the Wishing Star it’s own item card after discovering problems with the genie. It was hard to limit the genie’s powers, and also a genie felt like he should be a servant to someone else - it didn’t make sense to put our “wishing” mechanic on a Warrior card. So instead we added the Wishing Star, which will grant any wish your heart desires but not without an “ironic twist”:

image

The idea that the Wishing Star can do whatever you want, but someone else (the judge) is going to mess it up for you is sort of the core idea behind Story War.

I think a lot of people will hear about the concept of Story War and get excited about the idea that it allows for unbridled creative freedom, like Minecraft in Create Mode - but that’s not quite the case. The fact that Story War is a mandatory 3-or-more player game means your creative freedom is reined in by input from other people, which I think is a really interesting concept. I’m really glad the Wishing Star exists, even though it was one of the last new items we added, it feels like a thing that was meant to be in Story War all along.

We’ve got less than 2 days to send the game to the printers. If you didn’t get a chance to back our Kickstarter you can always pre-order Story War here.

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06 / 04
91 notes
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We’ve just added some brave new Warrior cards! If you back Story War at the Deluxe Pack level you’ll get these eight officially licensed Bravest Warriors cards!

Story War is a storytelling party game where players take on the role of fictional characters and then try to convince another player acting as a judge that their characters would win in a fight against their opponent’s characters. We started out with that classic “who would win in a fight between Batman and Superman” conversation and we kept developing the cards and playtesting the rules until we came up with this really fun game.

But obviously we can’t make a game about Batman and Superman without DC Comics’ permission! So we had to start out with public domain characters like Medusa and King Midas. One of the ideas behind Story War is that we’d build the game on public domain characters and then slowly introduce more licensed character expansions over time.

So we hope Story War will slowly grow into something like the card game version of Super Smash Brothers. And luckily for us, everyone at Cartoon Hangover is super cool and they gave us permission to make these eight new Bravest Warriors cards, which represent our first major step in that Smash-like direction!

Bravest Warriors is a great franchise to play Story War with because all of these adorable characters come with their own set of super powers. And if you want to learn the nuances of the kinds of stories you can tell with each card, all you have to do is watch the Bravest Warriors web series on YouTube!

All Story War cards are printed with a common card back, so you could easily shuffle the Bravest Warriors into your Story War deck and take them out if the people you’re playing with aren’t familiar with the show.

These eight cards are exclusively available as a Kickstarter bonus! Trying to get these cards after the campaign ends would be like trying to make oatmeal cry. So if you want to get these Bravest Warriors cards you’ll have to go back Story War on Kickstarter at the Deluxe Pack level!

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13 / 03
5,204 notes
The Story War Kickstarter just reached $30k! That means we’re 150% funded and we hit our first major stretch goal milestone! Our first new game mode is called Myth Master! It uses all the same cards as Story War and is structured similarly, the key difference is that you are playing as yourself manifested into the battlefield and you are summoning Warriors from the cards in your hand. The ultimate objective isn’t just to take out the other player’s Warriors, it’s to take out the human player who is controlling them, just like in Magic the Gathering, YuGiOh, and the Pokemon manga*! “Myth Master” was actually the original working title for Story War. The first time I ever playtested it was in a hallway at Babycastles - I needed to find some people to play against, and Peter Berkman came out of an elevator and wanted to play. He recruited dozens of people to join in and we kept trying new rules and by the end of the night we had this system where players played cards from their hand one at a time to ‘summon’ a new Warrior into battle. We eventually decided to go into a the more open-ended direction that currently exists as Story War’s default rules - which is that the Warriors just happen to all be in the Battlefield when the battle begins. This allows for creative conjecture as to why they’re in the Battlefield and their relationship to the setting and each other. But summoning Warriors like Pokemon is pretty cool too! So now that we’ve hit $30k, I’m going to spend the next few weeks playtesting the Myth Master rule set and refining it and then packaging it in an easy-to-understand PDF rule sheet that you can print out for free! We have a couple more game mode ideas we want to develop and a lot more expansion cards to make, so please, help us reach all of our stretch goals! (* in the Pokemon manga the objective of battle is often to kill the other trainer, it’s pretty metal)

The Story War Kickstarter just reached $30k! That means we’re 150% funded and we hit our first major stretch goal milestone!

image

Our first new game mode is called Myth Master! It uses all the same cards as Story War and is structured similarly, the key difference is that you are playing as yourself manifested into the battlefield and you are summoning Warriors from the cards in your hand. The ultimate objective isn’t just to take out the other player’s Warriors, it’s to take out the human player who is controlling them, just like in Magic the Gathering, YuGiOh, and the Pokemon manga*!

“Myth Master” was actually the original working title for Story War. The first time I ever playtested it was in a hallway at Babycastles - I needed to find some people to play against, and Peter Berkman came out of an elevator and wanted to play. He recruited dozens of people to join in and we kept trying new rules and by the end of the night we had this system where players played cards from their hand one at a time to ‘summon’ a new Warrior into battle.

We eventually decided to go into a the more open-ended direction that currently exists as Story War’s default rules - which is that the Warriors just happen to all be in the Battlefield when the battle begins. This allows for creative conjecture as to why they’re in the Battlefield and their relationship to the setting and each other.

But summoning Warriors like Pokemon is pretty cool too! So now that we’ve hit $30k, I’m going to spend the next few weeks playtesting the Myth Master rule set and refining it and then packaging it in an easy-to-understand PDF rule sheet that you can print out for free!

We have a couple more game mode ideas we want to develop and a lot more expansion cards to make, so please, help us reach all of our stretch goals!

(* in the Pokemon manga the objective of battle is often to kill the other trainer, it’s pretty metal)

25 / 02
126 notes
Story War is now live on Kickstarter! (Click here to go to the Story War Kickstarter page!) Man, you guys! We’ve been making this game since last summer and we’re so excited that it’s finally ready to print! All we need now is you, the player, to actually buy the game. What is Story War? It’s a storytelling party game for 3 to 8 players. There’s no numbers or stats or complex rules - each card is simply a name, illustration, and description of a Warrior, Battlefield or Item. It’s up to the players to determine what each character does, and how their Warrior would beat their opponent’s Warriors. Players start each battle by selecting Warriors that they think would have a tactical advantage in a randomly drawn Battlefield, and then  an organic story evolves from the conflict. It’s not about “who would win in a fight” so much as it’s about how they’d win in a fight. Players control their Warriors by describing what they’d do out loud in an open discussion. One player is always acting as an impartial judge that changes after every battle. If a player claims their character is too powerful (for example, claiming a Wizard could pull the moon out of the sky) their opponent can “challenge” that claim and the judge can decide whether or not to allow it - think about how objections work in the courtroom. Challenges are rarely invoked, but the existence of the rule keeps everybody’s narrative grounded. Battles generally start with a scrimmage to control the Battlefield, then once someone has the high ground they’ll go in for a direct attack, then usually Item cards are introduced and add more complexity to the battle. In large team games, Warriors are often matched up one by one and each team gradually whittles each other down. The cards are only a starting point - where the battle ends up depends on the story lines the players try to weave. The best part of Story War is being backed into a corner and having to use ridiculous cartoon logic or a reference to Harry Potter or Pokemon to get yourself out of a jam. “A Blob can’t eat a Skeleton - bones are what amorphous blobs SPIT OUT when they eat something!” “In Harry Potter the Basilisk’s fangs could bite through curses!” “You can’t punch a bird - flying types resist fighting attacks in Pokemon!” As long as the judge accepts your rationale, it’s fair game! Who is Story War for? Everybody! We went out of our way to make Story War as inclusive as possible. We playtested it with a diverse mix of ages, genders, and skill level and we’ve yet to see a single person not have fun with the game. It’s a great way for adults and children to connect on a creative level! We’ve also seen it unlock hidden potential in “non-gamers” - suddenly their storytelling powers come to life and they blow everyone else out of the water! Big games of Story War are played in teams, and we’ve found that the team-based gameplay makes it easier for newcomers. Because you’re never having to battle against a power player alone, you can contribute as much or as little to the game as you want. It’s a game where everybody involved is going to have a good time no matter what! Everybody who participates in a game of Story War will walk away from it with memorable stories that can just remain a special experience shared between them and their friends, or it can even serve as inspiration for their own creative endeavors. Whoa cool, how can I get Story War? If you go to our Kickstarter page you’ll be able to back the project and get a copy of the game. For $10 you can get a print-and-play copy, for $25 we will ship you a physical copy of the Story War cards, and for $40 you can get the game plus the expansion that we’ll be developing with creative input from our backers! If you back at the $60 tier (or $50 after the fan art/fic discount, see below) you can get the Deluxe edition, which contains: A comic book featuring various interpretations of the characters, blank cards that you can draw on yourself, and limited edition cards based on Grumpy Cat, Keyboard Cat, Nyan Cat, Scumbag Hat and Cyberspace: And if you can pledge anything above $100, we will draw custom artwork based on you, your favorite things, or your original characters and print a one of a kind card just for you! There’s a lot of really cool reward tiers, be sure to check them all out! Why Kickstarter? Story War is already finished, our Kickstarter is just to get enough preorders to print the game in bulk, which is about 90% cheaper than doing print-on-demand. Profits will be funneled back into making our first expansion more awesome. Our funding goal to print the game is only $20,000 - but if we reach our $100,000 stretch goal, we’ll be building out a free online multiplayer version of Story War so you can tell cool stories with your e-friends! Check out the Kickstarter page for more details! What else can I do to help make Story War happen? Oh wow it’s so sweet of you to ask that!  A bunch of people have decided to help us out by making fan art and fan fiction, which they’ve put in the #Story War tag! If you post original fan art or fan fiction in the #Story War tag, email your post’s URL to Fan@CantripGames.com and we’ll send you a SECRET CODE that you can use to get $10 off the Deluxe edition of Story War!  The single most helpful thing you can do is reblog this post to get the word out about the Story War Kickstarter! Lets do this!

Story War is now live on Kickstarter!

(Click here to go to the Story War Kickstarter page!)

Man, you guys! We’ve been making this game since last summer and we’re so excited that it’s finally ready to print! All we need now is you, the player, to actually buy the game.

image

What is Story War?

It’s a storytelling party game for 3 to 8 players. There’s no numbers or stats or complex rules - each card is simply a name, illustration, and description of a Warrior, Battlefield or Item. It’s up to the players to determine what each character does, and how their Warrior would beat their opponent’s Warriors.

Players start each battle by selecting Warriors that they think would have a tactical advantage in a randomly drawn Battlefield, and then  an organic story evolves from the conflict. It’s not about “who would win in a fight” so much as it’s about how they’d win in a fight. Players control their Warriors by describing what they’d do out loud in an open discussion.

One player is always acting as an impartial judge that changes after every battle. If a player claims their character is too powerful (for example, claiming a Wizard could pull the moon out of the sky) their opponent can “challenge” that claim and the judge can decide whether or not to allow it - think about how objections work in the courtroom. Challenges are rarely invoked, but the existence of the rule keeps everybody’s narrative grounded.

image

Battles generally start with a scrimmage to control the Battlefield, then once someone has the high ground they’ll go in for a direct attack, then usually Item cards are introduced and add more complexity to the battle. In large team games, Warriors are often matched up one by one and each team gradually whittles each other down. The cards are only a starting point - where the battle ends up depends on the story lines the players try to weave.

The best part of Story War is being backed into a corner and having to use ridiculous cartoon logic or a reference to Harry Potter or Pokemon to get yourself out of a jam. “A Blob can’t eat a Skeleton - bones are what amorphous blobs SPIT OUT when they eat something!” “In Harry Potter the Basilisk’s fangs could bite through curses!” “You can’t punch a bird - flying types resist fighting attacks in Pokemon!” As long as the judge accepts your rationale, it’s fair game!

Who is Story War for?

Everybody! We went out of our way to make Story War as inclusive as possible. We playtested it with a diverse mix of ages, genders, and skill level and we’ve yet to see a single person not have fun with the game. It’s a great way for adults and children to connect on a creative level! We’ve also seen it unlock hidden potential in “non-gamers” - suddenly their storytelling powers come to life and they blow everyone else out of the water!

image

Big games of Story War are played in teams, and we’ve found that the team-based gameplay makes it easier for newcomers. Because you’re never having to battle against a power player alone, you can contribute as much or as little to the game as you want. It’s a game where everybody involved is going to have a good time no matter what!

image

Everybody who participates in a game of Story War will walk away from it with memorable stories that can just remain a special experience shared between them and their friends, or it can even serve as inspiration for their own creative endeavors.

Whoa cool, how can I get Story War?

If you go to our Kickstarter page you’ll be able to back the project and get a copy of the game. For $10 you can get a print-and-play copy, for $25 we will ship you a physical copy of the Story War cards, and for $40 you can get the game plus the expansion that we’ll be developing with creative input from our backers!

If you back at the $60 tier (or $50 after the fan art/fic discount, see below) you can get the Deluxe edition, which contains: A comic book featuring various interpretations of the characters, blank cards that you can draw on yourself, and limited edition cards based on Grumpy Cat, Keyboard Cat, Nyan Cat, Scumbag Hat and Cyberspace:

image

image

And if you can pledge anything above $100, we will draw custom artwork based on you, your favorite things, or your original characters and print a one of a kind card just for you! There’s a lot of really cool reward tiers, be sure to check them all out!

Why Kickstarter?

Story War is already finished, our Kickstarter is just to get enough preorders to print the game in bulk, which is about 90% cheaper than doing print-on-demand. Profits will be funneled back into making our first expansion more awesome. Our funding goal to print the game is only $20,000 - but if we reach our $100,000 stretch goal, we’ll be building out a free online multiplayer version of Story War so you can tell cool stories with your e-friends! Check out the Kickstarter page for more details!

What else can I do to help make Story War happen?

Oh wow it’s so sweet of you to ask that! 

A bunch of people have decided to help us out by making fan art and fan fiction, which they’ve put in the #Story War tag! If you post original fan art or fan fiction in the #Story War tag, email your post’s URL to Fan@CantripGames.com and we’ll send you a SECRET CODE that you can use to get $10 off the Deluxe edition of Story War! 

The single most helpful thing you can do is reblog this post to get the word out about the Story War Kickstarter! Lets do this!

20 / 02
4,524 notes
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vondell-makes-art:

Story War is an ongoing project that i’ve now contributed well over 100 illustrations to. It’s a very fun storytelling card game being developed by Brad O’Farrell, Tom McLean, and myself. I can’t reveal too much of the finished card artwork yet, but here is a small sample of my involvement in the project. Keep tabs on Story War by following our work blog.

Fun fact about the robot: We let playtesters draw characters on blank cards, and most of them were goofy subversive characters. Except the robot. Every single group drew a robot. Because we clearly needed a straight up robot. So now we have one!

(Source: vondellswain)

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23 / 01
33 notes
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Guys! We did it! We finally finished all 100 pieces of art for Story War! There may be a few tweaks and updates before the final print, but this feels super good!

For those of you that don’t know, Story War is a competitive story telling card game that Frezned, BradOFarrell (me), and Vondell-Swain have been making for the last 6 months. We met over tumblr and most of the people who came to our playtests have been tumblr folk

We’ve done over 100 play tests and we’ve meticulously written and re-written the copy and even re-draw the art to make sure each game is as fun as possible. It’s a subjectivity game about competitive/collaborative story-telling; we’ve worked really hard to identify what is fun and not fun to talk about and we’ve shaped the cards to maximize funness. And now it’s super fun!

If you want to buy a copy, our Kickstarter is launching at the end of the month. If you want to keep in the loop, follow our blog, and we’ll let you know when it comes out! Also if you reblogged this post to help get the word out that would be awesome!

FAN ART CONTEST

We’re also going to be sending a Secret Code that you can use on the kickstarter to get a special edition of the game for a discounted price to anyone who draws fan art and posts it on the #Story War tag. It can be of the characters in this post, or anything on our blog!

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16 / 01
117 notes
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Hey this is Brad here!

Aaah sorry I got a little behind on judging the Story War fan art contest! But here are the people who will be winning prototypes: tropicalwind,  flanngoh, fox-girl!

Additionally, everyone who entered fan art will be given a Secret Code. This code can be used on our Kickstarter to get a special edition of the game at a discounted price! Additionally, anyone else who posts fan art in the #Story War tag, from now on, will be sent the Secret Code.

You’re free to use any characters from the previous contest or any characters you’ve seen on our blog! As long as you have fan art in the #Story War tag, we’ll find you and send you the Secret Code. We wish we could give out free copies to everyone, but that would violate the laws of thermodynamics - so hopefully this will be enough of a “thank you” to all of our awesome ahead-of-the-curve fans!

Also, again, I’m super sorry for posting this a few days late! This week is super busy because Frezned is in town in NYC and the two of us will be shooting the Kickstarter video together this week! Do you wanna be in the video, and/or meet Frezned or me or other Story War fans? Are you in NYC? Then come to the third (and most) important Story War NYC public playtest.

I won’t say this is the “last” playtest, but the prototypes we’re using to do these playtests are going to be mailed out as contest prizes next week. We’re going to order some pretty-dang-finalized “review copies” of the game to send to board game review sites and also to use for playtesting this week, but those probably won’t arrive until after the Kickstarter has begun. So this is definitely the most important playtest, and the last big one until the Kickstarter goes live.

Man I can’t believe how talented you guys are! We really have a great fanbase for a game that’s not even out yet! You guys are super cool.

- Brad

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08 / 01
16 notes
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Hey everybody! We’re about halfway through the week and I wanted to give an update on the fan art contest. This photoset shows most of the entries we’ve gotten so far. There’s still plenty of time, so if you want to win an early prototype copy of Story War, click that link and draw some fan art before Sunday!

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03 / 01
11 notes
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helpfulharrie:

Source: FOERVRAENGD

List of tutorials that helped me with environmental painting:
“How to make your own Perspective Grid in PS” <—- this one is the best thing I’ve ever discovered. Srsly CHECK IT OOOOUUUUT!
Snuffen’s Background Tutorial P1More or less ALL tutorials by Griffsnuff is awesome, so make sure to check out the rest of them!
More or less ALL tutorials made by AquaSixio!

List of youtube channels that also helped and inspired me:

FZDSCHOOL - More or less one of the most known concept art-related resources I know on youtube. It’s great to sit and draw and just listen to the talking.

SinixDesign- This guy is also great! He has some design workshops ever now and then where the viewers can send in their stuff for critique! very encouraging and inspiring!

moatddtutorials- This guy is more into drawing than painting, and has a more cartoony style. He has interesting methods when it comes to perspective. And he also challenge himself in some of his videos (the engine block video is a great example of this)

foxOrian- Also known here on dA for his awesome perspective and composition tutorials. He has a youtube channel where he posts some videos that might be interesting as well.

Here are some good drawing references that our artist vondell found.

(via itsvondell)

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01 / 01
29,712 notes

Preorder Story War here!

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