I was intrigued by the Playdate since it was announced. I don't know that I always knew I’d be interested in developing for it, but once I had mine in my hands, I think it won me over pretty quickly.
So it wasn't too long before Diana and I decided to give it a shot.
When it came time to choose a project, the list pared itself down pretty quickly. It's a special system and has some particular limitations. The one that rose to top for me was something I’ve wanted to do for a while: a collection of two-player card games.
I knew I wanted to incorporate an educational element, much like we did with Kiki before this. I wanted someone to be able to pick this up and start playing games without needing to know the games beforehand. (…and maybe even before reading rules or going through a tutorial.) Since that approach worked so well for Kiki, I wanted to have a character to base the game around.
To start, I didn't have much of an idea for the character. But the universe (what little there is to be had) was starting to form in my head. This character would be running a business to showcase her love of card games. And therefore, the game would be named after this location.
I started to gather some card game-adjacent phrases, hoping for some inspiration. There were a few good candidates, but one that really stuck with me was "carte blanche" (from piquet). I began to imagine the character being "Blanche" and her card game parlor would be "Carte Blanche". Before long, Diana had brought her to life.
There she is.
