Legions of Kadmon Diary #2 - The Journey So Far

Normally, any website would have an 'Our Story' Page prepared. Perhaps to give a little insight on the face behind the game. For me, I much rather share an extensive writing. Having worked on Legions of Kadmon in the dark for a long time, the journey had been quite a lonely one. It excites me to share my journey as I worked on this game. Will sharing this much bite me in the back one day? Perhaps? But I don't care. It's a journey I am proud of, and I hope that (even if only for a bit) it'll inspire other creators out there. Eventually I'm going to need that 'Our Story' page (it's more marketable), but for now, for those who are interested, have a read at the journey so far.

I've got to warn you that this post is very long and can be quite a hefty read. I love telling stories, and that's how I would like to format my DevLogs. Think of it as reading my journal. So, if you think that it's not your cup of tea, it's totally fine skipping past DevLogs. I will put up a separate type of post called 'Updates' for something more 'to the point' when it comes to the development of Legions of Kadmon. But, if you'd want to have a closer look on my experiences, design philosophy, world building philosophies, or rather, how my brain work in general, please stick around.

Alright! Shall we begin?

The Beginning

It all started from a casual board game session. That night, we played one of the most infuriating game I've ever played in my life. It was none other than Eric M. Lang's Bloodborne: The Card Game. Playing that game, an uncanny concoction of emotion came as a part of the package. The game was frustrating to play, to a point where many of us in the playgroup deemed the card game to be as hard as the original video game. Yet why is it so addictive? Why is dying over and over again so much fun?

Share

A friend of mine became quite obsessed with trying to build a board game around this format. He came up with different ideas, and chose to lean a lot on his love for skeletons. The idea of necromancy was born then, and frankly speaking, the idea of killing and stealing another creature was something that came out as a result of that.

The very first playtest we had, I remembered telling my skeleton-loving friend, "There is much potential in this mechanic. We can develop it and package it into a proper game." I invested in that idea, and spent many hours world building and prepared a story to imagine why the game was played. The concept of Death Summoning was born then.

I couldn't love skeletons as much as my friend did. So I restructured the creatures involved in the game into zombies, ghosts and creatures of the night. I based their creation of the three components of life: Body, Soul and Mind. And I'd say that I managed to sell that idea well.

And of course, I realised how important it was to have characters in the game. Named properly and completed with a backstory. After all, characters connect the heart of the game with the heart of the players.

So, I wrote and I wrote and I wrote.

Kadmon was Born

Thinking back, it was scary finding out how much I managed to write in a single night. It was my first time in the course of working on Legions of Kadmon that I forgot to sleep. Morbidia was born that night. Its people, its terrain, and down to its history and important events was written down in a single document (which I am not going to share) stored in a memory space of my laptop. From that outline, I laid out an overarching plot that involved an evil king and a dark magic practitioner who toppled society by summoning the Dead. We referred to the magician as 'the Lich' back then. A character with no name with an unknown origin. But someone we knew was incredibly powerful.

Using that document as a base, I developed an early prototype of the game. I took images off the Internet as placeholders, re-imagining them as the characters I have written about. I designed card abilities and unit properties based on how I want those characters to be portrayed. I developed an archetype for each Unit Type, based of the sort of creature each units represent. I remembered designing the Undead as the kind of units that would overwhelm the board. The Spirit, I designed it to have a much weaker Unit Stats (Power and Life) but giving them an overpowered Spells. The Horrors were a reverse of the Spirits.

During this stage, my characters had some backstory but never too detailed. I knew, of course, the kind of characters I wanted in the game. I know I would want a character that filled the 'honorable one' slot, which brought me Michael. I also wanted to include a skeleton gunslinger to pay homage to my skeleton-loving friend whom back then was my partner in this project (I even told him that Kilgore is his descendant). And I'd also want a 'waifu' character which led me to Ianira. These three characters are my first three babies. I remembered giving them quite a flavourful abilities in the early stages of the game. If you make comparisons to the current version of the game, I'm sure you'll see an awful lot of similarities.

Unfortunately, my inexperience as a Game Designer really showed in the early stages. In my desire to tell stories through the card abilities, I bastardised the game to a point of being unplayable. The game dragged on and on, taking 6 hours to conclude. It didn't have any momentum. The game became extremely random and more frustrating to play than Bloodborne.

Though, I refused to give up on flavour. I knew that the failure came because something was wrong in the core mechanics of the game. And I was also aware that there was way too many units in the roster. So, I cut and cleaned up. I put up another version of the game and playtested it. Another failure, rinse and repeat. We playtested every two weeks for three months. Each with a different version, and each with a reduced game time. Slowly, I began to see improvement. And even though I had to rework many core mechanics, seeing how Legions of Kadmon is now made all that effort worth it.

During those time, preparing playtest sessions, I built Morbidia more and more. More parts of the world were becoming clearer. I named the evil king's kingdom, Verdania. I named the town Michael was born in to be Garrenborough. At one point, Kilgore was a gunslinger from another world, and I wanted him to carry a HK416! (An idea that didn't last a moon and something we shall not talk about again).

Yet, one eluded me, and my skeleton-loving friend brought it up during one of our playtest session.

"You've named many characters and settings, yet we still don't know the Lich's name," he said.
"Why can't we leave it to be a nameless Lich?" I asked.
"He's the final boss. How can he be nameless? Isn't he supposed to be in the posters?"
Truth was, I never really gave the Lich much thought. He was one of the few characters that didn't see much development since the first outline I had written.
"What about Kadmon?" he suggested.
"That sounds ugly." I laughed it off. "People are going to joke that he's a digimon."
"Hey, it's a big thing in Judaism."
"I'll think about it."
'Kadmon' stuck with me. And I thought, when the time is right, I'll meet you proper, Kadmon. And I'll get to see the kind of person you really are.

How Much?

One of the biggest problem we encountered, and I dare say a root to most problems to come was cost. And I am not only referring to money, but also time and effort.

I remembered asking my sister about the cost of hiring an illustrator. I showed her an illustration for Magic the Gathering, wondering how much it'd cost me to commission one. To which she replied, "This will cost you $1000 per piece easily." I blanched when I heard her answer. Delivering the news to my skeleton-loving friend, he felt that perhaps going for a different art style might be wiser, suggesting a cartoon / caricature sort of style that you could find in games like Unstable Unicorn. I wasn't too pleased. I imagined Morbidia being portrayed as such and I just couldn't be satisfied. Part of me believed that Legions of Kadmon had the potential to tell stories of epic proportion, not just a one-off game to be completed in within a three months timeframe. I decided then that, I would take things slow. And if I needed the money, I'd work and commit to Legions of Kadmon in my pastime.

Working as a Game Programmer eight hours a day while developing Legions of Kadmon in the evening was exhausting. Often times, I would return in the evening drained and I had to force myself to write a paragraph of character description. My weekends was spent on refining and reviewing mechanics. I could no longer afford having playtests every two weeks, simply because I couldn't keep up with valuable patches. The timeline of the game dragged, and perhaps due to the end-goal looking further and further away, my skeleton-loving friend slowly withdrew from the project.

Before I realised it, the project became a one-man show. And I couldn't blame my skeleton-loving friend really. Perhaps my goal and his for the project was different to begin with. I wanted to invest more in the world I've created, and he just wanted to publish the game as soon as possible. I could see that he was becoming less invested and the time we'd spend to playtest Legions of Kadmon was used to play other board games instead.

I continued to work on Legions of Kadmon alone. And in one random night, I found a solution to the conundrum that had wrecking my mind for a long time. I managed to find the right way to play the game. A structure where I could have fun, and the core mechanic of 'kill stealing' could be highlighted. Enough randomness to keep the game exciting, but not too much that it'd just halt the momentum of the entire game. At this point, playtime hovered around 2 hours and cutting that 4 hours from the original 6 hours playtime was a huge achievement for me.

But I have a problem – my ego. I felt bad asking my skeleton-loving friend to playtest this version of the game. A part of me blamed myself for forcing my vision onto the project that was meant to be developed by both of us. So I never did.

Instead, I tried to share my passion for this project with a colleague in the company I was working for. And when I told him that I was working on a board game, his response broke my heart because what he said had just happened to me. He told me, "No matter how excited you are, working on a project with a friend, none of it would come into fruition. Everyone have their own things to do in life."

Tragic.

That was the closest I was to giving up.

A Dream to Fulfill

In my attempt to find solace, I figured that perhaps taking a little break might be the way to go. I began to head elsewhere, wrote about a different world and fantasised. I revisited the many prose I had written back when I was in secondary school. There, I found an old and dusted dream I thought I had lost when I took Mechanical Engineering in college.

A universe, consisting of many worlds with a unified magic system.

(OK! You might be wondering where this is going because it has nothing to do with Legions of Kadmon. But hear me out!)

I took my old notes and revisited old friends — characters I had written in the past. I read a writing of mine, a multi-world event where characters from my different worlds clashed.

A spark. “Morbidia can be a part of this!”

I opened that old document where I kept all the world-building material I had for Morbidia. I realised then that no cost – money, time or effort – is too much compared to the amount of regrets I’ll have if I chose to give this project up.

So I sat down in front of my keyboard once again.

And I wrote.

But this time, it’s not just about Legions of Kadmon. It’s also about that old dream of mine. Because I was certain, that if there was a doorway to realising this universe… it will be Legions of Kadmon.

Without doubts, I made my first real step to publishing Legions of Kadmon. I hired an artist!

At this point, I was fully committed. I've spent my first thousand of dollars.

The colleague that gave me that heartbreak? I asked him to playtest the new Legions of Kadmon. After that session, I’d say that he’s now my biggest supporter and someone I couldn’t be more grateful to have around. After all, he too is a game developer, and his feedbacks had helped me refined the game even further. Working with professionals (artists and other developers) had provided me with insights I couldn’t possibly hope to gain alone.

Around this time, I too received supporting emails from the first artist I hired, Jakub Jagoda (please check him out! His work is amazing). Knowing that there are people out there – someone who you've never met – gave a damn about the work you've been working on, it might be such a little thing. But man... it does wonders!

The Side Quest: A Promised Crown

Alas, I couldn’t possibly pay for all my illustrations at the same time. I needed time to gather money from my monthly salary. So what do I do as I pass the time? Well, there was illustration description to do, but I’m going to need to understand Morbidia even more!

Remember that I still need to get to know Kadmon? Well, that time finally came.

I began a new document. And I wrote “Chapter 1”.

WAIT WHAT? A BOOK?

Yes. A book. I’ve always wanted to write a novel. And I already have an outline for this one (that world-building document I had!).

From August 2022 to September 2023, I wrote a 210k words manuscript for the first book of the Crown series. I plan to write it as a trilogy, telling Kadmon’s journey on becoming the First Death Summoner. Not only did it helped me to appreciate Kadmon more, I managed to delve deeper into Morbidia. I designed clothes and invented a new religion. I learned about the history of guns, and human psychology. Most importantly, I have proper characters now. Characters each with their own motives and values, strengths and weaknesses. By writing this book, it helped me to design and refined the game mechanics I wanted each of those characters to represent.

Writing A Crown for the Promised had added even more value to Legions of Kadmon. Now, every cards, in some ways, carried an identity with them. I used the Normal Units to highlight the setting of the game. They represented different factions and people that I've written in the book. The card illustration depicted elements that were present in the book – the Mark of Verdant, Samael's Sigil, an eight-shooter. I did my fair share of drawing poor sketches of buildings, maps and costumes and those had been incredibly fun too.

Will A Crown for the Promised ever get published? I'LL MAKE SURE IT DOES! The original plan was to provide a special edition copy of the book when I began the Kickstarter campaign for Legions of Kadmon. But I'm going to be honest, the publishing industry is a completely new sector that I am lacking experience in. There is probably a lot of things to learn when it comes to book publishing that I should be aware of. I will try, however, to at least get the Ebook version out alongside the Kickstarter Campaign for Legions of Kadmon. I'll keep you guys posted!

The Next Step and Into the Light

At this stage of development, I've playtested Legions of Kadmon with many different individuals. Interns in the company I'm working for, other colleagues, some of my artists, friends from university, and of course, my skeleton-loving friend too. While sometimes it might take them a while to grasp the mechanic of the game, I love to see the laughter in their faces when Kilgore rekt their board. Or their gasps and WTFs when Ianira stole one of their minions. And for those who managed to read snippets of my book, I love to see how their face lit up when they saw the references made in the game.

As I completed the manuscript of my book, I managed to get most of my game illustrations done, and the board game ready to be played. Now, as my editor worked on the manuscript, I can focus on producing this board game and enter a completely new realm of business and marketing.

But how do I even do that?

Well here's the great thing about working close with the people in the Game Industry. Somehow, everyone just know each other. One of my colleagues linked me up with the guy who made Lord of the Chords, and we had quite a wonderful talk. It was as if he was shining a light to show me a glimpse of the journey's end. And I guess, having a clearer picture of what it's going to look like makes things a little easier. For now, I just had to do what I had been doing. Turning this fantasy into reality.

There'll be more public demonstration from now on. The cat's out of the bag. When the opportunity comes, I hope you'd give Legions of Kadmon a try.

Afterword

I have no idea what the future holds. I don't know if the public will like this game. I don't know if the public will appreciate Morbidia as much as I do. But Legions of Kadmon had been a blessing, because it taught me not only to dream but to work hard for it. This project has taught me reality. A harshness that came alongside being alive on Earth. Everything started with an idea, but an idea is overrated. An idea will remain your own fantasy if you don't write it into a book. A seed couldn't grow into a tree without watering and sunlight. In the end, that was what this entire journey had been all about. To see the little seed I planted grow into a silver banyan tree. And now, the little sapling is ready for the world to see.