Kongai On Wired
Wired interviewed me last week about Kongai, the virtual card game I designed for Kongregate.com. We're in closed beta right now, so I'm in the thick of balancing things. I think it's going well.
Kongai is interesting because it investigates a mysterious skill that most people don't even realize exists beyond myth and legend: reading the opponent's mind. Incidentally, my upcoming physical card game called Yomi explores similar territory.
Cheers to Kongregate for doing a great job implementing this design, they've been terrific to work with, and you know I don't say things like that unless I mean it. It's actually incredible how this game started out. Kongregate *asked* me what a good game for them would be. Usually companies say, "we're making this platform game with the Spongebob license or whatever the heck, and can you fill in the details?" But Kongregate actually asked a game designer what an interesting game would be that would let people earn cards or game pieces by playing other people's games on Kongregate. Well, Kongai was my answer and we all lived happily ever after.
I wish some other companies would ask me what would be a good game to make! Card games, fighting games, undefined genres with experimental ideas, and an MMO that zigs when everyone else zags would be a few things among my answers. At the very least, I know which awesome, unknown games to borrow from. ;)
You'll see Kongai in the news even more soon and someday you might even play it! In the meantime, here's some blog coverage of the game.
--Sirlin
April 11th, 2008 at 11:37 am
It sounds pretty fun, too bad I didn’t get a beta invite.
I look forward to when it goes public.
April 11th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
I am so totally afraid this game will get me hooked like Magic… and yet, how could I refuse playing a game made by Sirlin? Keep us posted!
April 13th, 2008 at 2:27 am
One thing I’d like to know Sirlin — did you give any story or setting to Kongai? I’m one of those people who think such things aren’t just wallpaper for numbers dancing around. Street Fighter wouldn’t be as popular if it were just differently sized hitboxes with names against black backgrounds.
(actually, now that I think about it, SF has some of my favorite all-time plot twists)
April 13th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Heh, thanks to Sirlin’s mention about a card game he was making for Kongregate.com, I signed up to the site, and have been busy playing their games and attaining their badges and cards since then.
One question, though; isn’t the idea of rewarding players who signed up to Kongregate.com earlier (and thus attained more cards) over newer players antithetical to the type of level playing field you wish to implement for any well-balanced competitive game, be it in the fighting or card game genre?
April 14th, 2008 at 4:37 am
KIMaster, you might be interested in this thread:
http://www.sirlin.net/forums/showthread.php?t=268
April 14th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Chad Miller-
Thanks, that clears up a lot of my questions. The weekly challenges are very easy to beat, but some weeks, I simply don’t have the time to play on the site, and signing up in the middle of March makes many of them inaccessible.
It would be cool if the card challenges stayed on Kongregate for an indefinite period of time, instead of only a week.