Dreams of Tomorrow is a beautiful game that is live on Kickstarter now. The game has fully funded and is available for $22 plus shipping. The Kickstarter is live until November 8, 2018.
Can you give us a “Tale of the Tape” for your game? The title, genre, playtime, age ranges, etc.
Dreams of Tomorrow, set collection and shifting action spaces, 45 minutes, 8+, 1-6 players. Dreams of Tomorrow is a competitive set collection game about weaving dreams, manipulating action spaces, and careful timing of abilities.
Players are dream engineers trying to save their present by sending dreams to the past. Longer dream sequences that are better connected have a higher chance of changing the future, but there’s also certain elements of dreams that are more impactful than others. Dreams can also grant the dream engineer certain abilities, so all these aspects must be weighed when choosing what kind of dream sequence to create. The last round triggers when any one dream engineer has added five dreams to their dream sequence. Can you shape a dream so powerful it can change the world?
When is your Kickstarter going live?
The Kickstarter went live October 15th and runs through November 8, 2018
Where are you in production/development? How close are you to complete?
Pretty close!
Are there any other games that you think are comparable to your game?
I haven’t played many other games with rondels that are actually published….
You’re a game designer. You could have made any game you wanted. Why did you make THIS game?
I signed and developed this game. I signed it because the shifting actions spaces (rondel) seemed really unique and I had liked the original theme (building totem poles). This game is also really positive and family friendly, with quick turns that matter, which are all things that I really enjoy in a game.
What was your design process like?
I’ll answer from the development process side. My development process took a lot of iteration; first balance the numbers, then to balance and create new abilities for the dreams to have. The game when signed had only one way to manipulate the action spaces and I really pumped up this aspect so that if you want to do this and you have the resources, you can. I also rethemed the game to be dreams and this was actually a really easy experience, as the mechanics seemed to fit even better with the new theme. In general, my development process is playtesting, making a change, and playtesting again, over and over again, until I think that everything about the game is perfect.
What is the number one reason why a family MUST purchase this game?
It packs in a lot of replayability with two game modes (Pleasant Night and Troubled Night), the ability to add in a robot player to add in more challenge, and the fact that the game plays different at all the different player counts.
How long has this game been in development?
Over a year.
What obstacles did you encounter making this game?
The original game was based on building a totem pole. While searching for an illustrator for the game, I learned that that theme was pretty offensive to Native Americans. I spent about a few days thinking about different themes and how they would fit with the mechanics and eventually got to Dreams and Time Travel. Now, the theme and everything fits like it was designed that way!
Another obstacle was trying to design a solo experience that had just the right amount of player interaction and depth without too much overhead. I ended up creating one good robot player, then making changes to make it a bit harder, then a lot harder, to end up with three levels of difficulty with the robot player.
A third problem to solve was the Troubled Night mode; I received feedback during a few playtest sessions that having a game about dreams should incorporate nightmares, as well. Figuring out how to make the Night Mare work well and be thematic enough was hard. Too much disruption really irritated gamers, but not enough didn’t feel enough like a Nightmare.
What did your first prototype look like?
The first prototype I received comprised of sleeved tarot cards with a lot of permanent marker on it. As the designer knew, things were going to change and that was one way to have some art on the cards but not have to make new cards everytime.
Why did you get into making games?
I went to a panel at a convention about making games and became inspired to start creating my own.
What other information do you want us to know about you, your company, and/or your game?
My website is weirdgiraffegames.com
Twitter is weirdgiraffes
To check out the Kickstarter click here.
