Rare Kingdom: A story of design and dice

Rare Kingdom is one of the Starcade game designs that has really been a frontrunner for development. It was designed by Kevin Kulp with assistance and testing by the team. Here's Kevin's story about where it all started.

Rare Kingdom started life as another idea. Dollar stores can sometimes be the go to place to find cheap prototyping supplies. And if you have an open mind, a place full of ideas. Over a year ago I kept coming across trick dice in the store, and I became fascinated with the idea of making a game around loaded dice. I found it a good challenge to think of how to use a cheaters die in a game. I would eventually come around to the idea of a bluffing game. Every player would have a bag of dice, 6 to be precise, and scattered among those dice would be 6 loaded dice, loaded on the 6 side. All the dice would be the same color and you have to trade with the other players to get the loaded dice to win. Think you have the loaded dice? Simply roll and prove it. Like many ideas I have it sat for a while.

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The Starcade Games

It's been a little while since we talked. The Starcade design team has been fine tuning a half dozen different game concepts, narrowing down the best one to move forward to development and production. There is such a variety of game ideas from amusements like the Black Hole Carousels and Core Beast battles to games based off of the various Plexes and their specialties.

Here are a few photos to show you what we've been up to.

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A-Pexplex

The A-Pexplex is popular because of the best streets for playing Bumper Czars. Very large' 'army play' is common here. Huge teams riding famous conquerors and their armies, classing in the streets. Ramps are everywhere, and the architecture tends to be built for the Czars use.
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Profile - Vince Ciafardoni

Vince Ciafardoni is an artist for the Starcade project. Here's a little bit more about him, in his own words.

1. Name and favorite flavor of ice cream: 

Vince Ciafardoni – Cookies n’ Crème

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Meri-Goplex

There are many very large cities/areas in Starcade that have been built up with certain unique looks and content. They all tend to have the popular attractions, like any other area, but feature their own distinct style.

Concept art by Michael Pagdon.

MERI-GOPLEX: features all rotating rides and attractions, rotating because they are mounted on large 'gears', that lock together, so the surface of the entire place is like a giant set of interconnected gears. No matter what it is, its rotating. The sky is filled with Nomal, robotic drones that are kept afloat by the slight artificial gravity caused by the endlessly spinning  gears. They constantly record images to be used as keepsakes, can be programmed to spy for nefarious purposes, and often crash. Sometimes multiple Nomal malfunction and start imaging each other, so they become caught in a loop. When this happens they become very intelligent and attack the population below.

Alien Species - Uraes-Seijin

Concept art by Marty Cobb.

On the planet Uraes, a civilized species developed that was unusually affected by a Language Seed (from the Galactic Root). They did not have minds that could formulate language at all, but they developed an inky substance within their bodies and a special pure-white glossy skin, so they could use their fingers to 'write' messages on themselves that could be erased later.

Smaller, simpler ones used this technique to write reminders to themselves on their bodies, to simulate a basic memory, for daily routines. If they ran out of surface area, they had to erase some data to make room for more. Because of this, they could only retain so much information.

Larger ones with more surface area could afford to write more, so became more knowledgeable and intelligent.
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Profile - Michael Pagdon

Michael Pagdon is our lead artist / art director for the Starcade project. Here's a little bit more about him, in his own words.

1. Name and favorite flavor of ice cream: 

My name is Pagdon and my favorite ice cream is OF COURSE cookie dough!

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Core Beasts

Concept art by Maya Milagros DeJesus

Unique creatures from the Core, that are saturated with Magic Energy and have great power. They range from 10 - 50 feet in size. They are not species: each one is different. They normally live on the Core and Battle each other (Battling gives them sustenance). They cannot be truly killed, because the Core will always restore them. (they were born of the Core)

Core Beasts are aligned with one of the 5 Magic Types. (as their major type)

The Core Beasts are actually Anti-Bodies to protect and heal the crust of Edemos. The Core 'sends them' to the surface when a 'weak spot' develops and the magic energy there is too weak. Usually only one Core Beast arrives (but there may be more if the damage is very serious). These creatures will typically try to frighten away those who engager the Magic. For this reason, they sometimes use horror-movie-like techniques to scare people. Often they simply rampage.

The Starcade figured out that trying to stop these creatures was useless. Instead, they came up with ways (as they usually do) to exploit the situation and make it 'fun'.
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Trans-Galactic Coalition (TGC)

Concept art by Jason Tagmire and Alex Strang

The Trans-Galactic Coalition formed between all civilizations with the ability to travel faster-than-light.

The TGC has 3 representatives from each civilization who participate in a constant Trans-Telepathic Feed to share info and make decisions as a group. There is no single leadership. The reps or 'Feeders' stay on their respective planets and have no lives outside of the ongoing Feed and may even be in a constant vegetative state.

'Burned Out Feeders' (usually because of extremely high stress TGC issues, or of old age, are out-of-control dangers, due to heightened mind powers that have no purpose anymore. Some are killed, some exiled, and many escape.

Feeders are selected/elected in various ways, depending on their planet's customs.

The Starcade Project

Concept sketches by Michael Pagdon

Entrepreneurs met and developed a long-term plan to build a leisure planet. Many ideas were proposed and many shot down. Various evildoers tried to take over the meetings w/ their own agendas. The dreaded 'IC' (Infinite Connectivity) was painted as the main enemy that must be stopped.

Eventually it was decided that building a new planet was going to be unrealistically too expensive, so the idea devolved into conquering an existing planet.

To PR the plan, The Starcade Project produced a series of entertainments featuring a character 'IC' who was an evil giant robot, They created a team of heroes (diversified by being of various alien types) called the Starcade Warriors to fight the robot. The property became well-loved and the Starcade Project was now on everyone mind.
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Introducing Team Starcade

Team Starcade is made up of:

Robert Christina - Artist
Vince Ciafardoni - Artist
Marty Cobb - Artist / Designer

Maya Milagros DeJesus - Artist
Kevin Kulp (not pictured) - Designer
Michael Pagdon - Artist
Aaron Plasket - Designer / Developer
George Ragan - Designer
Alex Strang - Writer / Designer / Developer
Jason Tagmire - Project Lead / Designer / Developer
Kenneth Thompson - Designer

We're creating wonderful things for your tabletop amusement in the near future.