I spoke with the creator of Guidance Card Labyrinth Dice! Here are his answers to my questions:
Q: Please describe your trading card game!
A: Guidance Card Labyrinth Dice, or simply “Labyrinth Dice”, is a trading card game where you send creatures to navigate through a maze and battle fearsome creatures summoned by your opponent! Make your opponent's life reach 0 or make your opponent run out of cards to draw from their deck to win! If your creatures are ever stuck in a corner by your opponent’s creatures, you can roll a six-sided die to increase its strength by the result and have a chance of winning the many battles ahead.
Q: What inspired you to create your own TCG?
A: I love watching card battle anime as well as reading manga of the same genre. Back in high school I hung out with a few friends, one of which was my neighbor, in the school cafeteria during lunch break to play D&D and other roleplaying games. Back then I had one idea for a card game that was called Zodiac Incarnation: Ascending Legacy (ZIAL for short) and at that point I wanted to create an anime for it, but I scrapped it since it was a heavy influence from the likes of Cardfight!! Vanguard. Plus it had non-original characters from the Legend of Spyro trilogy (Though this was beside the point, but I even wanted to make a card game adaptation of the Legend of Spyro series a couple years prior to creating ZIAL).
Q: What TCGs did you grow up playing as a kid?
A: For most of my childhood it was Yu-Gi-Oh!, as well as the recently discontinued Future Card Buddyfight card game. Despite its discontinuation I still binge watch the Buddyfight anime. This you might find interesting: Back in my first-grade years I watched my step dad play the PS2 classic Yu-Gi-Oh! The Duelists of the Roses, and believe me when I said it, I’d watch him for hours on end, from watching his monsters’ unique attack animations to admiring the card artworks that were shown on the screen before the monsters emerged from them and began their attack on the enemy character he would be dueling that day. I drew the monsters that fascinated me the most ever since.
Q: What sets Guidance Card Labyrinth Dice apart from other TCGs?
A: The labyrinth premise for one, since it is randomly generated by the maze cards you and your opponent assemble in the center to create the battlefield. The second part of the game that helps it stand on its own two feet is the dice-rolling mechanic, which I refer to as the “Power die”. This mechanic, as described above, is what allows you to roll a die by paying the mana cost of the creature card again to roll and increase its power by the result, thus giving that dramatic factor in the game to help it seem more interesting. Simply put in a sentence or less: Labyrinth Dice is a dungeon-crawling, tactical card battle hybrid, combining the likes of Yu-Gi-Oh! and D&D or Pathfinder to form a unique gameplay experience.
Q: How did you come up with the name Guidance Card Labyrinth Dice?
A: Let me answer this one with a question: Have you ever been asked as a kid “What do you want to be when you grow up?” At first, it would seem like a question that you have trouble finding an answer to, right? It’s almost like your mind is gradually becoming an endless maze with every possible outcome you would get as you grow older. Yet, when you feel lost and alone, there will always be someone or something there to guide you, whether it’d be your heart, friends or otherwise, true joy lies dormant within you, you just need that thing or person to help you find it. In other words, I wanted the story of the card game to be about self-discovery which is where I got my main inspiration for the game’s title. “Guidance Card” meaning that the passion you carry from this game will carry over to your friends and thus have them support you for whatever you aim to do in life. While “Labyrinth Dice” is about the journey and the chances you take, as well as the friends you make along the way. That is the point of life, and you must cherish every second of it.
Q: How long have you been working on the game?
A: Since my twenty-second birthday, basically 3 years as of right now.
Q: What is the illustration/design process like?
A: Quite simple actually, I use what is commonly known as hard cell-shading for my card artworks, while the heavily detailed backgrounds and visual effects are photobashed.
Q: When will the game officially be released?
A: I plan to begin promoting the game in March of 2024, and I plan to announce the game's release later this year in honor of the 30th anniversary of trading card games, much like how Buddyfight did with the 20th anniversary.
Q: What are your future plans for Guidance Card Labyrinth Dice?
A: I do have plans to create a manga about the card game, as well as to see to it that the game succeeds. For this is my greatest GAMBLE into having a trading card game design career (pun intended).
Q: Will you be at any upcoming conventions?
A: Not as far as game design conventions, since even if I do attempt to be in one, it would probably be too far away. Though I do plan on setting up a booth about the game at the W. Walworth Harrison Public Library’s Litcon 24 in Greenville, TX (Litcon 24 is an anime/manga fan convention that I hear will happen in March of 2024).
Q: Do you have any advice for someone looking to make their own TCG?
A: I would tell them that “You should never worry about the quality of the cards’ artworks, as long as your card game is original and unique with rules that are easy to pick up and fun to play. For I’ve always been told that good graphics do not equal good games.”
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