Monday, May 27, 2013

Starting to "Figure" it Out

We might have found a way to make our board possible, still hashing out the details with the manufacturing company but it is looking good. Huge sigh of relief from over here, let me tell you!
We have also started moving forwards with the figurines for the player pieces, a couple theories are out in the air, but the cars the figurines will be based off of are pretty solid.
In the base game we have the Titanium Tank, the Suburbia Station, the Fast Formula, the Redneck Racer, the Mighty Motor, and the Rod Rocket.

 (REALLY, REALLY ROUGH SKETCHES - courtesy of Hanna and Jeff)

The other cars on there are some currently unnamed ones, that might be in one of the future expansion packs! If you come up with any totally sweet cars, let us know, we might just use them.

See you on the next lap,
The Spark Team

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Custom Dice and Custom Dies

As our game progresses into actually being playable, we are faced with unique conundrums.
One of the best features of our game is its ability to be customized. You can change how you play the game every time you play because the board itself acts more like a puzzle than a normal game board. We love this feature, everyone we talk to loves this feature. But, no one can print this feature...
Don't be mistaken!  We are not giving up!!
There are still a ton of options to explore, and we have only just begun our hunt for the right printing company. Luckily, all of the other pieces are more manageable!  Yay!

Some other things we were able to polish lately were the "Garage Cards." Now acting as equipable cards, they are really taking the game to a whole new level of fun!
Also, after talking with Bradley, it sounds like the graphics are coming along as well! Hopefully, I will be able to put up some test images in the coming weeks!

See you on the next lap!
The Spark Team

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Of Parts and Pieces


 Everything is coming together, slowly, but it is getting there.  So far we have the board and movement finalized, with "Car Cards" just about there as well.  Realizing you have no idea what we are talking about, let me clue you in.


The board is a racetrack similar to those of Nascar and Indy car races, minus the pit lane. Instead there are 4 "Pit Stops" that act as healing points for your normal hazards of car races and the ones inflicted by you opponents weapons. ( yes, weapons ) You have three types of cards in your "Garage;" Crew cards, Part cards, and Vehicle cards, all assigned by the luck of the draw.
Your Crew cards display crew members and their abilities, like a Mechanic allows you to heal anywhere on the track, or a Professional Driver allows you to move diagonally on the track.
The Part cards contain your weapons, like machine guns, as well as specialty parts, like High Traction wheels. These cards can also give you additional speed and armor bonus as well as nulling some of the nastier Chance cards. Not all of these cards are good though, there is always the Faulty Engine to watch out for!
Vehicle cards are, well, your base vehicle. Some have speed and armor modifiers based on what type of car it is, like the Titanium Tank will come with a +2 armor without any parts added to it.
The last type of card is not kept in your Garage, and it is the Chance card. We really haven't gotten anywhere near to finalizing these cards, or even figuring how you activate them. We have plenty of ideas that could work, just nothing final yet. I can tell you that they can be both positive and negative, giving you a re-roll one turn and sending you flying back 6 spaces the next.

Still have plenty more to do, but it never ceases to be fun.
See you on the next lap,
The Spark team


Thursday, April 25, 2013

And There Was a Board!

We apologize for the tardiness of this update, but we have made giant inroads on Spark 500 and I think that deserves a few days!

The Spark team met this past weekend (some in person, some on skype) to take our board design out of our minds and onto the table. And after three long hours we have a functional board and lots and lots of empty glue sticks. Unfortunately, there is still a ton of work to be done for the other parts of the game.


(this isn't even the final form!)
My hope is that we will begin play testing with a complete game in a couple weeks and start drawing up the rules and help guides. We have even started drawing some base designs for expansion packs that will make Spark 500 even more fun!

See you on the next lap!
The Spark Team

Sunday, April 14, 2013

The Beginning of the Road

Today, a group of 20-somethings sat down and decided enough was enough, a game needed to be made.  A game that had a little bit of everything they loved about board games with the usual Hoosier twist. The result of one very long Facebook chat was this: The Races of Spark. An adaptable, customizable board game based around a regular car race where none of the usual laws of physics work. Sound fun? We think so. Stay tuned for our next update on 4/21/13.

See you on the next lap.
-The Spark Team