blog: stuff I made

Bolted! BACK TO LIFE on Kickstarter

While my card game Bolted! is being prepped at the factory, there’s a little window of time here for an additional round of pre-orders!

If you missed the first round of preorders earlier this year, Bolted! is available again for a limited time. Reserve your copy now:

Bolted! on Kickstarter

I spent a ton of time on the promo video and I had a lot of fun! I hope you like it.

A couple of things worth highlighting:

  • Want this to be a holiday gift? The game won’t ship to backers until the spring, but all backers WILL get a downloadable certificate that you can wrap as a present, if you like!
  • I’ll be doing livestreams all month long, playing the game with some of my creative friends! The first one already happened – with Ryan North, Gillian Goerz, and Pat Race – and you can watch it here:

Upcoming scheduled livestreams include:

  • Wed Nov 26 • 5:15pm Pacific • Good As Hell Block
    🐈‍⬛ Sara McHenry (Your McHenries, Hey Pais)
    🐎 Tom McHenry (Your McHenries, Horse Master)
    ⚙️ Jess Fink (Chester 5000 XYV)
    🍄 Eric Colossal (Rutabega the Adventure Chef)
    ↪ Add event to your calendar
     
  • Mon Dec 1 • 12:15pm Pacific • Sickos Block
    🐶 KC Green (Gunshow, Greatures)
    ✒️ Mattie Lubchansky (Boys Weekend, Simplicity)
    💧Tom Harrison (Anime Sickos)
    ↪ Add event to your calendar
     
  • Wed Dec 3 • 12:15pm Pacific • Webcomics Weekly Block
    🐤 Dave Kellett (Sheldon, Drive)
    😈 Brad Guigar (Evil Inc, The Webcomics Handbook)
    📺 Kris Straub (Chainsawsuit, Local58)
    ↪ Add event to your calendar

All livestreams will be at: twitch.tv/davidmalki

More are still TBD! I’ll be posting schedule updates on Bluesky!

If you have backed any of my previous Kickstarter projects, be sure to send me a DM and I’ll include a bonus card with your pledge for free!

(If you backed Bolted! on BackerKit earlier this year, the same offer applies! We should already have your details on file from that one!)

I made this video about a puppet that I also made

Here is a video of me making a puppet! And then performing a little with that puppet!

Some of you may recognize this technique as a callback to another series of puppet videos I made, some years ago. (As demonstrated here)

It’s been a fun idea to revisit, and I plan to do it some more.

This is, of course, related to my Wondermark-themed card game, Bolted!

Which now has final box art:

If you were part of the game’s launch campaign back in the spring, you may have noticed I just posted a detailed backer update about the final printing and shipping schedule.

You can read it if you want LOTS OF DETAILS about the current status & progress of the game! But in summary:

  • I’m sending off the final artwork to the printer VERY SHORTLY
  • The games will be printed in December/January
  • I expect to receive my copies in February/March!

The time it will take to approve the artwork proofs & samples also allows for a perfect li’l window for me to REOPEN PREORDERS.

So if you missed it the first time around, you will now have a BONUS CHANCE to reserve yourself a copy:

Bolted! is coming to Kickstarter!

My (silly but ambitious) goal in this prelaunch period is to gather the same number of “followers” on the prelaunch page, as we had total backers in the original campaign (436). That seems doable, right??

The plan is to launch mid-next week! That’s pretty soon!!

I’m assuming at least some of you reading this are OG Boltheads who jumped on the train early and have been patiently waiting for me to wrap it all up. I’m super grateful for your initial support!

And now that the manufacturing part of it all is in motion, I’m super pleased that the timing will allow for another chance to get it in front of folks for pre-orders.

Since I’m only likely to print this game once, I want to make sure anyone who’s interested will have a chance to grab a copy. So I’ll be talking much more about this in the days to come!!

Bolted Production Update & Playtests

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

[Comment on this post on Discord]

Bolted Game – Design Diary & Playtests

My new card game, Bolted — which has less than a week left in its crowdfunding campaign — is a fun way for anyone to make Wondermark-style characters of their own.

The basic premise of the game, which is that each player is racing to build a composite character out of parts, shares certain qualities with the comics themselves.

One of the most enjoyable parts of making Wondermark comics for me is locating and assembling just the right characters and props. It’s a process that’s mostly invisible (though you can also watch it happen), but I hope some of that creative energy comes through when looking at the finished comics.

Not every comic is a hugely elaborate collage made of parts; sometimes it’s pretty straightforward. But even fairly simple comics can be made of a surprising number of individual pieces:

The original idea for Bolted was just “It’s fun to build weird guys.” The very first prototype that I used for initial playtesting had no Wondermark art at all; I just wanted to see how well the puzzle mechanic worked:

The first application of Wondermark art was also very simple — “what basic images do I have on hand right away?” I wanted to ensure it all worked as a game before spending a ton of extra time on the design of each individual card.

One of the most fun parts of this process since that initial version has been refining the artwork.

Besides the enjoyment of playing the game, I want each piece to be fun and interesting to look at by itself. So especially with some of the “robot-style” connector parts, it’s been a very rewarding process for me to apply ever-more layers of “make it weirder”:

There are 166 individual cards in the game and each day I keep noodling on them, swapping out a hand card for a more expressive one, or adding details to a foot card, or finding better-looking epaulets for a body card. It’s really fun!

And there’s still another art pass to come — all the final cards will be in full color, similar to this:

I’m just waiting to finalize the designs before heading them down the conveyor belt into coloring.

It’s very hard to decide which has been more fun, working on all the art, or the game mechanics themselves!

Because my “north star” with the gameplay itself has been, “what makes building these characters the most fun and interesting?”

Which is exactly the same thing I’ve been doing on my own, while working on on the art.

Get your copy of the game here!

Want to help playtest?

I’ve opened up more remote playtesting times for the coming week, which are hosted by me personally:

It’s been REALLY fun playing the game with randos like you (term of endearment!) and I think the game gets better after each round of feedback.

Sign up to play here!

I am ALSO ready to start opening up UNSUPERVISED playtesting, which means, you read the rules and play the game by yourself. The goal of that is to provide feedback on how clearly the rules are written.

If you’d like to play with your own group — we use a web browser, so you can either play remotely via video chat, or you can play IRL if everyone has a laptop — you can sign up for that here and I’ll follow up with detailed instructions!

Here’s a character created in the online version: