The Journey so Far

My name's Collin, and I'm the Art Director and Chief Operations Officer of Luminous Games. I'm a former teacher turned content analyst by trade, but I've always played games competitively. I never expected to work in the gaming industry despite loving games my entire life. I had no plans of being involved in a huge project with so many moving parts. Now that I'm 2 years into making this game, I wouldn't trade all of the frustration, learning, or fun for anything in the world.

Assembling the team

I’ve known Gabe since 2008 when we met playing Magic: The Gathering at Pat’s Games in Austin, Texas. We quickly became friends, and we would spend nearly every weekend at our apartment while we jammed dozens of games of Standard. We played competitively, traveling to every PTQ we could.

Flash forward a couple years and we’ve both moved to San Marcos, Texas, where we met Colin. He worked for the local card shop, Alpha Strike Games, and the obsession with MTG returned in full force. The next few years were more of the same: Spending every bit of free time jamming games either at the store or at our apartment, traveling to PTQs all over the state (and sometimes out of state), and watching Gabe finally take one down in Lubbock.

But then we all graduated or moved away. Colin and Gabe left the state, and we fell out of touch the way people do. That was until Colin moved back to Austin and told me he was working on a new card game that he thought had legs. I wanted to see him again and figured I’d give him my opinion. We met up and played. The game was fun. The rules were simple and engaging, and even though the cards were just sharpied blank playing cards, I could imagine the world.

We talked more, and it became obvious that Colin had an entire vision. He also told me that he had about 900 more cards made and an entire system devised. At this point, none of us really thought it was anything more than just a fun thing to work on in our spare time.

Colin was already working with Nathan to develop the game and solidify the rules, and I didn’t have any plans on joining the team in any capacity other than playing it occasionally, but it was fun, and I would continue to chat with Colin and help him out with ideas.

I met Cory when I began working for a social media marketing company in 2015 and we quickly became friends due to our love of board games, comics, and tabletop RPGs. Well, at the time I had never played D&D, but we got together a group of players and have been playing a weekly campaign every week since with him as the DM.

Colin mentioned wanting to write rich, detailed lore and stories to accompany the game, and I was friends with Cory who was the best storyteller I knew, and that’s how Cory got involved. Gabe, who was living in Florida, was still consulting as well. 

Let's get serious

Flash forward to Gen Con 2023. Colin wanted to bring a more refined version of the game, so I got more involved to help develop pre constructed decks to demo. We also came up with some basic card design and printed out the game so that it wouldn’t just be sharpies on blank playing cards. I spent so much time cutting out cards to put into sleeves.

The most important thing, though, was that Colin, Gabe, Cory, Nathan, and I were all in the same place at the same time for the first time.

We got to some friends who would be there to get their opinions; to see if we had anything worth pursuing. Overwhelmingly, everyone who played the game had a blast and said they would play it more or buy it. That’s when we knew we had something that was worth taking more seriously.

Up until then, it was just something we did on the side for fun. Now, it was a business. We hit the ground running and quickly realized that none of us really understood what it took to run a business or the logistics that went into developing a card game. It’s a lot. But we worked together, learned, talked to experts in the field, and worked to set up an LLC, develop an art direction, budget, and do all the other business stuff that you have to do if you want to succeed. 

Lead up to Gen Con 2024

Most of 2023 was spent learning what not to do or developing cards and ideas that weren’t cooked enough, but each failure was a learning opportunity that only made the game better. 

The entire year of 2024 has largely been spent shoring up the business side. We learned that we were pretty good at making a card game that was fun, challenging, and engaging, but so, so, so much more goes into getting a physical product in your hand than we imagined.

Major milestones in 2024:

• Starting our LLC
• Getting our first pieces of concept art and card illustrations contracted and completed
• Developing a final-ish version of our card frame and card back
• Signing up and making it into the Early Exposure Playtest Hall at Gen Con 2024
• Finishing our website
• Speaking with investors
• Finalizing our rulebook
• Finished the first two Factions in order to begin widespread playtesting

It's been an absolute joy to work with the brilliant artists that have been giving us their expertise and passion to bring our world to life. It's in large part thanks to them that we are going to have a well-realized prototype to show play testers at Gen Con and beyond.

It’s a lot, but it’s been a wild ride with great friends, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything else.