Siskoid and the Irredeemable Shagg discuss their passion for the Star Trek Collectible Card Game - how it works, what their favorite elements are, and how it made them the geeks they are, including the secret origin of Siskoid!
Listen to Episode 46 by clicking HERE!
Or you can right-click “download”, choose “Save Target/Link As”, and select a location on your computer to save the file (58 MB).
Or subscribe to Gimme That Star Trek on iTunes!
Highlights of the Star Trek Customizable Card Game to illustrate the episode:
For Siskoid's Rolodex, Siskoid's Dream Cards A to Z, and more, go to siskoid.com!
Siskoid used the ST CCG as inspiration for two homebrew CCGs, the first AVAILABLE HERE, is based on competitive improv (and all in French).
"Star Trek Theme" by Alexander Courage, with the Irredeemable Shagg on vocals. End theme: "Deep Space Nine Theme" by Dennis McCarthy.
Bonus clips from: Star Trek The Next Generation's "Cause and Effect", starring Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner and Michael Dorn; "The Best of Both Worlds, Part I", starring Patrick Stewart.
Thanks for leaving a comment!
Comments
Assuming you feel there's enough to talk about for a full episode (that isn't just repeating what you said here) I'd love to hear you go into detail about the design process.
On the level of designing the game in the first place to get the most possible 'Who Sense', favourite mechanics and expansions as well as any design tidbits in general, such as really difficult elements and episodes to translate into game pieces.
I'm really curious as to the amount of work Timeline must have taken, as well as adapting elements of it so you can play with the Torchwood/SJA casts instead of a TARDIS crew.
Of course, also any entertaining moments during playtesting (assuming you got to playtest much at all), favourite individual cards, if there's ever been anything post-burnout that you've felt inspired to brainstorm cards for... etc etc.
What episodes went into an expansion were based on which ones I had on DVD. So late releases, you'll notice, have very few cards comparatively. Usually, though there were broad themes to each, they were all from 6 stories or a season of New Who. And then it's just about working with what you have, making screenshots and taking notes as you go.
With Timeline, I had to ferret out production stills from stories that either no longer exist in the archive (and weren't yet animated) or just didn't have a story released, but it's a similar design process. What haven't we done? What would be cool. What does this one production still inspire?
TW and SJA, and the mechanics to bring them into play and make them different are totally inspired by the way STCCG brought in DS9 and Voyager, and new factions. A place to report them to, cards that play off their key word (TW or Adventurer), specific objectives and other Who Sense support.
I didn't playtest, but others did. I had a few guys out in the UK who were into proofreading, proofplaying, and even writing the odd card.
It's all so far back in the past, I'd probably have to cycle through 2000 cards to get a sense of favorites, but anything that I had to CG into shape (as indicated in the Where's the picture from? page) has a special place in my heart, all the stuff from novels and audios and other sources, and the "rejects". I really like the look of my 2nd edition cards, though I made very few, and if post-burnout I ever thought of doing more, it would have been for that reason. And I was looking at pack and deck art the other day, and I was pretty keen to make it look like a real product.