The man is checking his email for the steps to a dance that will forcibly repel ants from his trousers. He has a chronic condition.

#396; In which Trade Secrets are revealed

  — April 4th, 2008

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Was I lying on Tuesday? Possibly. Was it all a grand April Fool’s gag that everyone took as a lighthearted jest? Judging from the many heartfelt emails, perhaps not. Thank you for the kind support, everyone! Back to Victorian engravings we go.

Here’s something that will make it up to you: the online anthology Dark Horse Presents has just published an original 8-page Wondermark story! A spiritual successor to my print-only comic book Treachery!, the new story is entitled Ransom!, and was a ton of fun to make. It contains Victorian engravings aplenty, people who emailed me

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Bolted Production Update & Playtests

June 23, 2025 by David Malki !
From a recent playtest!

Some quick updates on my Wondermark card game Bolted!

I’m working on getting this game finished and off to print, but there are still a few things to iron out.

Specifically: One big change that I’ve introduced is an extra mechanic that allows for additional strategic choice in the game.  If you don’t want to play a card onto your creature, you can instead “scrap” that card for a variety of different effects.

This opens up a new dimension of strategy and also allows for the creation of combos that can be really fun to pull off! I think it’s a great new wrinkle for the game.

It’s all pretty straightforward.

Join Virtual Playtesting With Me

I’m now doing more playtesting to confirm:

  • That the secondary effect options are interesting without being too overwhelming.
  • That the effects I’ve designed are fun, and affect the game flow positively.
  • That what you can do is clearly explained to players.

To get in more reps with the updated rules, I’m hosting more virtual playtesting this week:

Feel free to grab a slot at: picktime.com/wondermark

If you’ve played before, I’d love to have you back! If you’ve never played, I’d love to have you too!

Unsupervised Playtesting

Pretty soon, I’m going to be sending out the rulebook to folks to confirm it’s clear and understandable. Please feel free to sign up here if you want to be on that specific review list!

(If you’ve signed up for this earlier, I’ve still got your info and will be in touch soon enough.) 

Other Updates

  • I THOUGHT I was basically done with the art for this game, but then I unfortunately stumbled across thousands of additional vintage images. (As documented here.) This might necessitate some new additions.
  • I’m going into much more detail on the finer points of game updates and design over on my Discord. Feel free to pop in there to ask any questions or get into the nitty-gritty with me!
  • If you happen to be in Seattle, I’m also doing in-person playtesting most Wednesdays at the Playtest Northwest meetups. Drop me a line on Discord if you want to connect in-person at one of those.
  • I’m pretty excited about this game, friends!!
The end-game state of the creature first shown at the top of this update

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