What do you get when you take a chaotic man who loves toku and has some free time on his hands? You get MoodyMoonBlues, creator of Gotchard based game, Gotchanko!
Gotchard is a season I’d say I’m enjoying a bit. That said, something bothers me about this season – and all card game based seasons of toku, frankly – is that there really is no associated card game. I get it, putting the cards into the funny looking device is the main thing you want to do with the cards, but I’m a semi pro card game player, give me a fun game with arbitrary rules and a sense of pride at the end of games and I’ll be happy. It’s a shame nothing like that exists…
You know the whole thing where they did surgery on a grape? This is cooler.
Once I saw this project going around, I knew I had to get my grubby lil’ hands on it. Though my boss suggested something even better: an interview. So I followed Mr. Blues and asked the man if he’d like to have an interview. To which, he said… yes. I mean of course the answer was yes. How do you think I got this article up? So with that out of the way, let’s welcome the man himself: Mr. Moody Moon Blues.
Getting Started
Danno: So, let’s start with… who are you?
Blues: Hi, I’m Moody Moon Blues. Honestly, I’m just a random toku enjoyer. I’m a game dev and full stacks developer. If I had to pick my favorite season of Kamen Rider, it’d have to be OOO.
D: Good choice. With that outta the way, do we want to get to the game we’re here to talk about?
B: It was a completely spontaneous project, to be honest. I actually wanted to make a Geats battle royale game, as well, last year. Though, I stopped because of the lack of assets.
D: That’s a shame. Fits perfectly too.
B: Yeah. This game almost didn’t exist either. With the whole Unity drama going on, I was considering learning a new system. The drama being how they were going to charge developers fees for each install of a game.
D: Thankfully that got resolved pretty quickly. Though, you still gotta worry about Toei catching up to you.
B: Yeah. I actually had a nightmare the other night about being served a C&D from Toei.
Development
D: Yeesh. Other than that, what was a struggle with the game’s development?
B: I really tried to include the alchemy system, close to the show. Show how the cards form together to make Wild Forms. Though the assets for all of the Wild Forms aren’t in circulation yet so I decided to go with something different. A system similar to Hearthstone.
Eventually the discussion went on until we got to separate cards. To which I got to have a sneak peek at some cards to come, including Legend Rider cards.
B: Like I said before, the first ideas surrounded using the Legendary Rider cards in their pairings like how they do in the Gotchard driver.
D: Probably could’ve done something to make that work.
B: Though the second idea, once the Hearthstone idea came around, was to give them unique keywords. Or titles for their own effects, which are meant to be slightly stronger than the average Chemy card.
I then got a bigger peek at all the other cards to hit the system.
B: So we’re obviously looking at a PC release for this. Maybe a website just for ease of access. Though I’ve considered mobile apps, that task is a bit too daunting.
D: Plus the fear of Toei is still in your heart, isn’t it?
B: Very much so, yes.
D: When can we expect a proper ruleset release?
B: We’re going to beta test with a lot of stuff but after then there should be a proper ruleset release. Though what you should expect is Hearthstone.
Game Mechanics
D: Ooo, fun. I am a card game nerd so could I ask what the deck size and the amount of cards each you can play are?
B: So 25 card minimum deck size. 35 cards max. 4 of each card can be played. Hearthstone is a main inspiration but I get frustrated with the 2 card copy max rule in it. Magic is my first card game, though, so I’m happy with a 4 card max.
D: What about a banlist or limit on certain cards?
B: So far I have no plans for that.
I then decided to go silent as I was doing mental gymnastics in my mind to put together a decklist. Which then lead us down a path of talking about optimization.
D: So what are the main decks you want players to have some focus on while playing the game?
Blues then proceeded to explain three decks he and his team have officially made:
1. Insect/Plants – Use smaller insects and plants to stall so you can use larger boss monsters – Boss Monster: BeetlX/Buglesia
2. Vehicle Based Deck – Manipulate the “on destruction” effects of Chemies to gain advantage – Boss Monster: Exceed Fighter
3. Antrooper – mid-range token spam – Boss Monster: Antrooper
We then talked a bit about phase 2 and the potential it could bring to the game. Like more Chemies to bring over to play around with, more Legendary Rider cards and more original cards from him to diversify things more. Which brought us to the end of our interview.
Closing Out
D: Is there anything you’d like to say into this microphone I’ve given you?
B: Yes. My Twitter is @MoodyMoonBlues. I’m mostly active on Twitter but I also have a YouTube channel linked in my profile. I’ve got another project cooking, which is my answer to Twitter but for tokusatsu fans, and please go check out ‘Gotchanko!’ whenever I release it.
I wanted to thank Mr. Blues for having this interview, for showing so many things off and for having a fun energy throughout the entire interview. Like he says, go check him out!
Has this piqued your interest into MoodyMoonBlue’s project? Would you like to see us cover it more? Let us know in the comments and stay tuned to The Toku Source for continued coverage of the game’s development.
