This was an amazing interview that I had with the creator of Soul-Gate TCG.
Describe your game?
Soul-Gates is a strategic tactical card game played on a grid and features a unique way to play your cards. There are 5 Elements in this game with an Emperor each. You embody one of the five Emperors and battle to reign over the realm as the True-Emperor and God. What inspired you to create your own game? I had always loved playing card games and tabletop games for as long as I can remember. However, as we often could not afford to buy them, I could only play these games at our local library or only watch other kids on the playground play and duel each other. The urge to share these games with my family led to me creating them myself at home with only scissors, pens and used papers. Through the years I made a lot of games that way and also started to create my own games and shared them with my little cousins and friends. Unfortunately that kind of stopped when I got busy with university and work. During Covid, when one was forced to stay at home, I discovered Gamecrafter, which made creating games much easier. This allowed me to start again to pick up where my teenage self left off and to embrace myself again to create a card game. That is also where I slowly discovered the whole HTCG community, which motivated me to keep on working on my game. How did you come up with the game’s name? To be honest, I tried to come up with a catchy name and started out with the prototype name ChaosElementZ (Yes, with a Z at the end, standing for Zodiac). As I was going for a more mythical fantasy theme because of the inspiration I got from the Five Elements. I imagined the Elements that you started with to be Gates to the Soul of the Emperors and therefore later called them that way. I then decided to name my game according to the most unique aspect of the game, which was the Soul-Gates. And to me the name sounded catchy enough, so I stuck with it. How long have you been working on your game? I have been working on the game for over 3 years now. The first concept and gameplay of the first draft was however completely different from what I finally ended up with. It was a very enjoyable journey, where I learned a lot and am still learning from. And the journey is still long away from being over. What makes your game different from other TCGs? When I first started creating Soul-Gates I tried to integrate as many cool mechanics as possible, that I deeply enjoyed and optimized them to fit into the overall gameplay without it feeling too crowded. As I am also a big tabletop fan I tried to fuse the best aspects from boardgames to the standard TCG games and therefore decided to have it be played on a grid to also simulate a battlefield without it losing too much of its “TCG-identity”. The grid-based system allowed for movement and positioning on the game and although the system was fairly easy to understand it provided with a lot of depth. I spent a lot of time working on optimizing it and also came up with the resource system inspired by the Chinese Five Elements. This leads to the Soul-Gates and World-Cycle system where you can channel Five Elements to different Elements depending on the current active Cycle.This lead to interesting and unique game choices and interactions which in my opinion sets Soul-Gates apart from other card games and I have not seen it elsewhere yet. What is one of the biggest challenges you had in creating this game?
One of the biggest challenges I had was definitely trying to create the artwork for this game, as I am not really an artist to begin with and started with this whole process after I decided to create my own game. As Soul-Gates is more of a passion project I knew that I needed to also create art myself to be sustainable, because I was aware that I will not make any money out of it. Another challenge is to also market the game to others and therefore creating a dedicated playerbase, who actually embrace this game, as I intended Soul-Gates to be a competitive card game. Nonetheless, the process and journey so far was a really fun one and I learned a lot. It made me also be able to branch out and try other activities like creating YouTube or playing PnP with a setting in the world of Soul-Gates as well as others. All game creators are juggling a lot of tasks simultaneously and therefore have my full respect. Do you have a favorite card in the game? (If so, let us know why it is your favorite card.) My favorite card in this game has to be Hulijing, the Foxdemon for now, as the art was inspired by a very close friend of mine. I also really love her ability, which creates a lot of possibilities and plays. What are your future plans for the future for your game?
I have just finished the first Battle Box for the Elements of Wood and Earth and am currently working on the other cards for the remaining Elements in order to hopefully finish the first set soon this year, as Soul-Gates is still a TCG after all and it needs its Boosters (lol). There will also be Themed Decks for the other 3 Elements with Metal being the next Element. My goal that I am working towards is to establish a solid player base that enjoys the game. The first battle event will take place in July, where players can compete with each other to collect points. Although it should create a competitive environment, beginners are welcome and you will gain points no matter if you win or lose. At the end there will be a tournament, where there will be prizes like exclusive signed foil cards, cash and cards designed to your liking! I will also host further events down the line to win other great prizes, like exclusive cards and products. As a creator what advice would you give you to others who are trying to presume their dreams?
Be patient, creating a game can be a really long and frustrating process and in the beginning you will not get your game right. It also happens that the first few comments are more negative rather than positive, but do not let that drag you down, but rather filter out the constructive criticisms and use it to improve your game. At the end of the day however, as long as you thoroughly enjoy your game and the creation process, it will be worth it.
You can find more information on Soul-Gate TCG in our indie game archives.
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