For our first blog post, I thought I would start at the beginning... Where does "dogs of war" come from? Well, the phrase was first coined by Shakespeare, implemented in his work of "Julius Caesar". His character, Marc Antony, is standing over Caesar's dead body, claiming revenge against those who killed him. He says a monarch's voice shall "Cry 'havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war", implying the release of the hounds across the enemy's land to pillage and destroy.
As far as our game goes, it certainly seemed to fit. It's a competitive game, with each player trying to hold their own. One of the first mechanisms we started with was a fight action. The players can target each other and basically trade punches. But we didn't at all want it to come across as a dog fighting game. We DO NOT support that concept in the least! I plan to have a blog post in the future detailing information on how we worked the mechanism in contrast to that later on. So while fighting is a part of the game, it's only one of six different actions a player can take on their turn. Another part of the game is "tricks". A trick card can be played, and this is often an immediate terrible or silly consequence, usually played as a reaction to something like starting a fight. Much of the gameplay has a fun-yet-retaliatory feel to it, so the Shakespearean idiom seemed to work.
As we have play-tested the game, though, we have found that fighting isn't the most common action. This caused us to re-evaluate the name at one point. But, the idea of war consisting only of soldiers on a battlefield is faulty. Wars are fought, not only with troops, but with resources, land, power, and societal advancement, too. And that's what the game is really all about: dogs learning to forge their own basic civilizations, from being cared for by humans to having to take care of their own! And that may sometimes mean going to "war"...
If that sounds like fun to you, please consider following us on social media to stay up to date on the game release, OR join us over on Patreon to support the development!
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