Ambush!
November 2019 - Present
Co-created with Masato Lin, Brendan Tighe, and Tongwei Dai
Team Leader, Lead Designer, Video Editor
Card Game, Kickstarter Campaign
Ambush! combines the strategy and card specialization of fantasy card games such as Magic: The Gathering with the fast, fun gameplay of Egyptian Rat Slap. Ambush! was included in the USC Games Expo in 2020, and launched successfully on Kickstarter in November 2020 after raising over $2000.
Players use a variety of cards, each of which has its own special effects, against their opponents to damage their castle and weaken their forces. Every card that's used is placed on the "battlefield" in the center of the play area, and the reveal of an Ambush! card at just the right time turns this play area into a frenzy as players rush to pick up all the previously played cards.
Central to my design philosophy was the balancing of complexity with efficiency. The fast-paced nature of the game required that card effects be simple and easy for new players to grasp quickly. However, I still wanted to reward players who were more experienced or who took the time to strategize when they were able to. To accommodate this, Ambush! places most of its complexity on the interactions that cards have with each other and the battlefield, allowing the card effects themselves to remain short and easily understood.
After successfully pitching the game to a class and forming a small team, I spent a period of 6 weeks designing the game, working with artists and graphic designers, and organizing and running playtesting sessions to design, create, and polish the game. The team continued working on the game even after the class had ended, improving the art and running additional playtests. In February of 2020, we sent out copies of the game to over 60 backers.
