Believe it or not it was created by a team of three people. Robert Ricks aka the Creator (Me), Irene Ricks aka Dream Girl (My Wife) and Mike Pierson (My best friend/Partner) October 2003 Mike and I were partners in a design firm we owned called LETHAL MEDIA in Oakland CA. We were doing a lot of things in the music industry (Websites, Logos, and Packaging mostly for lots of independent labels)... One day we were sitting around discussing games of different sorts and I mentioned TCG/CCGs like MAGIC the Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh! and Pokemon to Mike to see if he'd like to duel me cause they were hella fun. Mike dismissed me with a wave of his hand and laughed "Man I don't play magical fantasy things like that." Then it hit me like a lightning bolt. "What if there was a gangsta card game, one that had some serious urban stuff in it? Like gangs and Pimps and Cops...?" He paused and thought about it. "Hmmm... I guess I'd check it out then." So I got started designing the basic infrastruture of what was to be known as The STREET WARriorS. The early test versions of the game were a huge success with various folks who were introduced to it, and so both Mike and I began laying out the base rules and marketing strategy. Soon after Irene got involved adding her 2 cents... We decided we wanted to do the gaming thing full time and phased out LETHAL MEDIA and created LETHAL ENTERTAINMENT, INC. I discovered my wife was pregnant and we decided since I was going to work on this full time we should move to a location where I could work the long hours and still manage the finances. So we moved to "BFE" with my wife's sister and I set up the lab in the basement and development went hard and furious... Over 3,000 hours went into the initial design of STREET WARriorS with all of the design work being done by me. During the development we were fortunate enough to meet with some great people like Chris, Dave, and James. They have been more help then they know and schooled us on what we needed to do from the business end of things... The development of STREET WARrioRS was by far the hardest thing I have ever done and the most rewarding. There were three PCs rendering around the clock and mad amounts of Coke and Dr. Pepper were consumed. Mike and Irene kept me honest as I slaved away not letting me cut corners or lose sight of the vision... October 2004, I finished the final character and did a little jig. I had finished the design and then the tedious Q&A commenced. Irene, James Lin, (and a small army of friends and family) tore each card apart and checked and rechecked until everyone was satisfied... But there was a small problem, the game was a little too edgy for some of the early investors/advisors and James warned it would be a bad thing to be too over the top and he was right. Yes it's true we had some seriously foul language in there (At least 20-30 "F" Words...) |
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And so after some serious thought and discussion we edited ourselves down. We shopped around looking for the best printers in the industry... We found some really great folks at UVColor and PBM Graphics who were very helpful to us, and assisted us on every aspect of the submission. Notable folks like Nate, Andy and Mike at UVColor are deserving of a serious thank you. I had done all the design work but when it came to doing holofoil cards and the actual final edits I didn't know what to do next and needed some help. Nate and Andy walked me through and explained everything to me. Also Greg, Bonnie, Will, and WC from PBM Graphics handled the other end of the business with Packaging and layout and sorting strategies. Let's just say for us being a small fish in a big pond, they treated us very well and we just want to publicly say they seriously rock and are true professionals which I highly recommend to anyone who cares! So here we are with a fresh new ALPHA set ready to take on the industry. We have a lot of crazy ideas, and are passionate about putting out some cool stuff. We are putting together a team of "real" business guys (aka the Suits) to handle the biz end of things and we will be doing more designs and cooking up more ideas in the lab. We are gonna do some things a little different then what others do, and take some big risks, but that's what we're about. In fact I've got a tat on my arm that reads, "Aut vincere aut mori" (Either conquer or die)... Recently we attended GTS in Vegas and now know what we have in store for us. It's going to be a hard pressed battle, but we are more then up to it. With good people advising us like James, Dave, Chris, Jamie and new members of the team Joe helping us make our battle plans, I am more then confident we can actually make some history. So to all the folks helping us a sincere THANK YOU!, and to those who doubt us I'd just like to say, "We may make games, but to us this isn't a game... It's our lives!" Thanks for reading, - The Creator (Rob Ricks) |
