At some point in time in your life you may find something that you are passionate about, something that you seem cursed to always think about. Something that you can’t stop talking about.
When you find that thing we hope you decide to do something about it. The world needs beauty and joy and we think that’s the best way to create it, with passion!
BAM started the way most things start. You enjoy this thing, but you wish it did this and that differently.
On 07.04.2015 Alex had the idea of a game that combined the Military coin game, with the age old question. If this super and this creature battled it out, who would win?
We love card, board and video games. Comics and Manga. Movies, music and the great pop culture that it creates all over the world.
We started paying attention and listening to what everybody was saying about what they enjoy, and don't enjoy doing at the game table. You start to see and hear some patterns.
I need to build a new deck this is getting repetitive. I don't know if I can afford to keep up with this game anymore. I feel like I am constantly building decks instead of playing. This all looks the same. This all plays the same. So much card chase. I have a cardboard crack addiction. My favorite, another pack of garbage. I will just leave it in a pile for the newer players to go through. This game is taking too long. This game took so long to set up, I don't know if we can finish a full game tonight.
Or if you enjoy some of the more streamlined card and board games.
I wish this had some art, more story, more challenging gameplay and strategy while playing with family and friends at home or on vacation.
We feel if you are going to put all your time into building something, you should at the least try and solve some legacy system problems. Otherwise what’s the point?
Most of the common issues were based around repetitive games. Most card games are built with the power of the deck as the priority. The faster, more consistent your deck and its combos and schemes are the more successful you are. It is great if you enjoy building decks, but if you are looking to focus more on playing the game, your builds will be repetitive, or your store bought builds will not be very competitive at your local game or coffee shop.
We also noticed that in the more mass appeal, in every home card or board game, repetition is not as big of an issue because the emphasis was more on the other players, and an adversarial board state. Poker anyone?
Repetition seemed to be the most consistent issue for many game types. While story and depth was missing from others. We also discovered that card chase could be diminished by removing the static board state created by the health bar style game system. It shifted a card's value to situational, instead of constant. This changed the entire scoring system to a dynamic system with unique combos and exponential play opportunities with each new LOC release. - [Boy, this needs work.]
That means more value for players. WITHOUT considering the Asset cards variations, and the variety of deck builds that are possible in BÆM™; Season One has 4 years of content with all LOCs and Leaders in rotation with the War game type. Skirmish is a bonus of several hundred combinations. We are also refining two additional game types and we have plans to support community created game types in the future. We have had some great ideas come directly from the people we have met over the last several years of conventions and game tests. Thank you to all of you.
Some people love the card chase, some people don't; or they can not, or do not want to spend the money.
There is a growing feeling that even though the card/board game community loves these games, more and more players feel that the game, or more specifically, that some game developers don't love the card/board game community back.
We wanted to make a diverse, dynamic, affordable, but high replay value game that leaned more on the ability of each player rather than a player's deck of cards. We resolved most of the repetition by focusing on the importance of the role of the other players, as well as adversarial or benevolent game board scenarios that create additional challenges to every player equally. Of course, your Leader has the potential to create a unique combo with some LOC's more than others.
We spent the last six years improving it. Making every card exceptional in certain situations. Refining gameplay to macro and micro risk and rewards for abilities and BÆM™ scores, vs the dynamic LOC pool.
Above all, we worked to make the game more fun and accessible.
Visually we wanted to really improve upon the GUI (graphic user interface) of the game using informative design. This added visual cues throughout the game making it easier to understand, so more people could enjoy BAM! It also aided us in designing the Asset cards in BAM to look like comic book covers. You have to love a win-win as a designer. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, and it was completely worth the additional work. There are 50 unique abilities for assets and 8 unique leader abilities in season one. All of these built with visual identities that instantly clue you in to the main function of each ability.
Ally, Distraction!, Draw, Drop, Final Battle (4th Wall), HALT!, Leach, Mimic, Oracle, Portal, Power-Up!, Retire (Pink Slip), Spy, and Transmute. Use Graphic and Description for each ability type.
We were lucky enough to work with artists from North and South America, (with plans to hire globally for future releases), asking everyone to work within their style(s). This allowed us to not only look different from other games, but it made our game and Earth Tau in general a melting pot of different styles of visual story telling within itself. How else are you going to look like a multi decade comic book publishing company from another dimension? Nudge nudge, wink wink.
