Designer Diary 071726 - The Game I Never Planned to Make

Every racing game ends at the finish line. But what if you were introduced to it after it was over?

The crowd has gone home. The dust is settling over the Scorchbelt. Twisted hulls, broken engines, shattered vents, the pieces of incredible machines that were fighting for glory only minutes before, litter the track.

The fans see wreckage. But the FIXR bots see opportunity.

Tiny, two-foot-tall salvage robots race onto the abandoned track, digging through the debris for anything worth saving. They're loyal to their crews, resourceful, and occasionally willing to bend the rules.

Their motto is, "It's only illegal if you get caught."

That little robot wasn't where this story started. But it was where everything changed.

A little over a year ago I began designing Sand Slicers, a big box sci-fi racing board game set on the desert world of K'ta'jah. But there was one problem: I'd never launched a Kickstarter before. I decided I wanted to try something more manageable, like a card game.

And that's where FIXR began.

I've always loved little sci-fi robots with oversized personalities. In Sand Slicers, they aren't heroes or villains. They are practical, logical, and clever. I designed them, put them in CAD, and 3D printed them. And when I held the first one in my hands, I realized I had accidentally created the mascot for the whole Sand Slicers universe. 

Then it struck me that there was a gateway game in their story. 

Not to mention it was a reasonably low-risk project to create a card game that introduced players to the world of Sand Slicers.

But, somewhere along the way, something unexpected happened and FIXR had stopped being an experiment. I was making a game that I love. I was creating something that I want other people to play. The more I worked on the game, the more the world itself came alive. The cards weren't just game pieces anymore. They became artifacts from a living world.

And, unexpectedly, this "small project" has become one of my favorite things I've ever designed!

Over the coming weeks I'd love to share more of this world with you.

The manufacturers and the FIXR bots. The artwork and the design decisions. The stories hiding inside individual cards.

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If you'd like to follow the development of Sand Slicers and FIXR, get early looks at new artwork, designer diaries, behind-the-scenes stories, and Kickstarter updates, I'd love to have you aboard. Join the Founders Crew with just an email address!