I spoke with the creator of MonPak- here are his answers to my questions:
Q: Please describe your trading card game!
A: MonPak is more of a collectable monster gallery first, and a game second. The art style is reminiscent of early pokemon art. The stats on the cards are very simple, and there are currently a couple of different games that can be played with them, with more coming in the future.
Q: What inspired you to create your own TCG?
A: I'm a monster artist and I wanted a way to let people collect the monsters that I make. I thought that cards would be a natural fit. I grew up playing with Pokemon cards and Digimon cards and many others. There's just something about holding a card that is so much more satisfying than looking at an illustration on a screen.
Q: What TCGs did you grow up playing as a kid?
A: Oops I already answered this one, but I played a lot of the Pokemon TCG. Although it's very fun, I think I mostly collected them for the art. My friends used to play Yugioh and give me their spare cards, and I would just stare at them and admire the art.
Q: What sets MonPak apart from other TCGs?
A: MonPak can be played many different ways. It's more like a platform where people can make up their own game rules. Currently there are two official rulesets for MonPak, Score Grabber and Tetrarena. Score Grabber is something I came up with after I made the cards just so I could have some gameplay to go with them. Tetrarena was created by a fan of mine, Purple Sea, who won a game rules contest. Terarena is a lot of fun and I look forward to making more card games with Purple Sea in the future. Seriously, I recommend Tetrarena to anyone who has a MonPak deck.
Q: How did you come up with the name MonPak?
A: It's short for Monster Pack. "Pack" refers to a pack of cards. When you buy a MonPak booster pack you're receiving a pack of monsters. I'm bad with naming things but I think "MonPak" is pretty cute.
Q: How long have you been working on the game?
A: Maybe a year or a year and a half. Most of that time was spent designing the cards. It was hard to finally pull the trigger (last July I think) and produce the final cards and put them up for sale.
Q: What is the illustration/design process like?
A: None of the illustrations are actually done for MonPak. They're done for other projects, but end up in MonPak as well. One goal of mine with MonPak is to showcase monster art from other artists, so MonPak Season 1 features ten illustrations from three other artists; Doodle_Dayzz, Yukomon, and SenpaiSlik. MonPak also just released a limited edition pack called Feral Frost that features art from nine different artists. As far as the card design is concerned, I wanted it to look like something a little retro, to match my monster art style. I'm interested in making new card designs for each season as well. But for the first season I really wanted it to look like it could be a lost card game from the '90s / 2000s.
Q: What are your future plans for MonPak?
A: Season 2 is coming sometime soon, and I'd like to make a lot more limited edition packs as well. I love working with other artists, and I'm hoping someday MonPak can be seen as a place where up-and-coming monster artists can be featured and get their name out there. I'm also working on another card game called Yaju Masters, so in the future it might become more difficult for me to work on MonPak, but maybe someday it can be produced by a small team instead of just me. Who knows! There's a lot of passion from the fakemon and monster art community out there, and so far MonPak is more popular than I thought it would be.
Q: Will you be at any upcoming conventions?
A: I don't have any convention plans, but it would be cool to do someday. MonPak is just a hobby of mine at the moment, but if something like this ever becomes my day job I'll definitely be showing up at conventions.
Q: Do you have any advice for someone looking to make their own TCG?
A: I don't know if I'm the right person to ask for advice. I just had a lot of art piled up and wanted people to be able to collect it. I see a lot of successful card games on instagram and twitter, and I guess you could say I'm jealous. As an artist, though, if you have an idea for a project like this I think you'll find people who are into it and want to support you. I actually limit the amount of card packs I put on sale because it always momentarily takes over my life. Maintaining a shop and packing and shipping orders is very time consuming.
Lastly I just want to give a shoutout to every artist I've collaborated with, and every person who's supported MonPak. In the future I'll have hundreds more monsters to collect, more ways to play, and more card games to dig into. Thanks!
For more, check out https://monpak.carrd.co and follow @monpaktcg on Instagram
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