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The Butterfly Highway
The Butterfly People
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4. FLUTTER, an EPIC butterfly quest game
Invention Statement of Flutter
What?
This is a game about butterflies, where you attract butterflies by making an awesome garden consisting of tons of different plants. With this game, you not only have fun, but you learn a lot too!
Why?
Our butterfly friends are dying at an unprecedented rate. We NEED to help them! This is a huge problem; most of us know insects like butterflies, bees and birds are declining, but don't know how to help.
Introducing Flutter!!!
Flutter is an EPIC card game that teaches you about the different species of butterfly, their life cycle, and how to grow a butterfly garden! The game contains native plant cards, which you use to attract these beautiful creatures. The players learn strategies to help protect them from predators, natural events, and harmful chemicals, all in the form of effect cards. There is no better way to educate kids of all ages than through fun games like Flutter!
I hope we can all unite to help these important pollinators. GO BUTTERFLIES!!!
Who?
This game is intended for families, butterfly enthusiasts, nature geeks, parties, and kids ages 5 and up.
Ever wanted a game which is addicting, with just the right amount of strategy, which also teaches you something new?
Then this game is for you!
Development of Flutter
When I heard that the bumblebees were endangered, I developed an App to teach my community about Pollinator Gardening. However, I was not convinced that my job was done. I wanted kids like me to care about Pollinators. While a lot of people are scared of Bees, because they sting (not all of them). But everyone likes Butterflies! What people don't know is that the same plants that attracts butterflies also attract other pollinators such as: bees, wasps, birds and beetles. My mission is to get people to plant for butterflies and help our planet go green. Many different garden game ideas ran through my head and the butterfly game was the easiest to get started.
The game first started out during the 2019 Christmas Holidays as a story-telling game to talk about Monarch Migration. Where the players would have different cards which represented actions. There would also be a player called the narrator. The narrator used special cards called story cards to create events for the players. After some attempts to turn it into a prototype, I realized my idea was too abstract.
So, I started from scratch. That’s when I got the idea that I could make a Pokemon style game, where players collect cards and battle each other with their plants and butterflies! I made a mind map (which is like a chart diagram) about the structure of my game. I am home-schooled and learn new things by working on projects. This was going to be one heck of a project! While I was making my prototype, Xmind, Excel and Powerpoint became my favorite tools!
- Research
First I needed some inspiration and a good understanding of how card games work.
I looked at my favorite ones :) Pokemon, Yugioh!, and also checked out Exploding Kittens (the most backed kickstarter project ever)
I used the Pokemon layout to help me design my cards.
I used the Yugioh! system to design my stats and score.
And I figured out technical things like: my deck composition, what to put on my cards, complexity of my game ... with Exploding Kittens' layout.
Pro Tip: Rules sheet on games and Youtube game reviews gave me a solid structure to create my Mindmap!
Next, I needed to learn more about Butterflies.
I learned about different types of butterflies:
Gossamer-Wings
Brushfoots
Swallowtails
Whites, Sulphurs, and Skippers
And found some cool butterfly resources:
Wikipedia
Wikimedia Commons (for images)
Finally, I needed to find some butterfly species and plants.
Using the resources I listed above, I compiled an excel sheet of all the data I found.
- Collect Data
After I created an excel sheet of my data, I converted it into a mind map.
A mind map is like a visual representation of complex data, so everyone can understand it better.
It's also very useful for organizing information.
PS: To me, MIND MAPS ARE SUPREME
My first Mindmap aka 'Invention Log' for Flutter
Mindmap is a cool tool because it allowed me to organize my information in a word document! I told ya it was awesome :)
Flutter - Develop your idea! My Log documentation extracted from XMind
1. Thematic
Deck Building Game.
2. Aesthetics
Beautiful
Cute
Bold Theme
3. Players
As many as you like. 2 - 4 players recommended (but you can put as many players as you want, as long as each player has a deck of 25 cards or more.)
4. Goal
It's about creating a butterfly conservatory. Attracting and breeding many species of butterflies, and providing them with food by planting host and nectar plants. Throughout the game players compete to get butterflies and play all sorts of tactical cards to give them superpowers and beat their opponents. It's an objective based game, where you always have goals to complete so you can earn points. But lookout, for once you attract a butterfly, it's all-out war, as other players compete against you to claim the species that are rightfully yours!
5. Replayability
Very Replayable, it's a card game for jeff's sake. With all the possible cards you can get (butterflies, plants, effects), and the many orders you can play them! It's never the same game twice. (More on game mechanics in Tactics/Strategy)
6. Game Length
TBD
7. Ease of Play
Easy
8. Components
Collectable cards.
Butterflies
Male
Female
Plants
Host
Nectar
Effects
Egg tokens
9. Tactics/Strategy
1. Objectives
Objectives are how you win the game.
Objectives are like mini goals you have to complete that score you points. To win an objective, complete it before the other players, and make sure you meet
all the requirements. In a typical game, it's best of 5 objectives. (As in who wins the most out of 5).
2. Cards
Cards are the life of the game.
There are 3 types of cards.
1. Butterfly Cards
These are the things that score you the most points. The better (rarer) the butterfly card, the more points and bonuses it will give you. Look at the card for it's stats. Each card has two sides: the stats side, and the life cycle side.
Life Cycle
This side shows each stage of the butterfly, it start as caterpillar, as you grow your species you will progress through the stages. The Life Cycle side is on the back of the card.
Stats
Name of the Butterfly
Rarity
The better the rarity, the better the rewards of the butterfly card.
1. Minimum Pull
More on pull in 'attracting butterflies'. Pull is a score that tells you how likely you are to attract a butterfly. On a butterfly card is a minimum pull score, which tells you how much of this 'pull' number you need, at minimum to attract that species.
2. Host score
Every 6 turns, if you have a female butterfly you flip a coin. If you are successful, You can make one of your species to lay an egg. Each species can lay 3 eggs. More on eggs in Maintaining butterflies. The host score tells you whether or not a particular species will lay an egg upon a successful coin flip. Each butterfly has a minimum host score on the card in order for it to mate and lay eggs. The minimum host score also tells you whether or not your caterpillar can grow every 2 turns. More on growth in 'Maintaining Butterflies'. The host score is for the caterpillar stage.
3. Other
This is a group of stats which tell you what bonuses and how many points the butterfly can give you. This side is shown on the front of the card.
2. Plant Cards
Name
Rarity
The better the rarity of the plant card, the better it's stats
Type
Whether it's a host or nectar plant. If it's a host plant, it gives a much higher host score than a nectar plant.
Stats
1. Pull
Tells you the generic pull it adds.
2. Bonus Specific Pull
Gives you extra pull for a couple species.
Add up the pull for your overall pull score.
3. Special Abilities.
Tells you some special things the plant can do under certain conditions.
Activate special ability if conditions are met.
3. Special Cards
These cards can boost your plants, do stuff to your opponent, give you special powers, add extra actions to your turn, etc.
Read the card to know what it does.
3. Attracting butterflies
Every 3 turns, a butterfly will enter.
Add up the pull on your plant cards and any specific species bonuses, whoever has the most pull will get the species in caterpillar form.
If you have a host score >= the minimum host score, you can make the caterpillar grow every 2 turns.
Keep in mind until the caterpillar becomes a chrysalis someone else can still overcome your pull.
After it comes out as a butterfly the fight for pull starts once again.
If you still manage to keep it, it's yours forever.
To succeed in pull fights, stay on top for 3 turns.
If someone overcomes your pull, they get the species the next turn.
Your number of turns with success remains, so if you get it back you will continue where you left off.
4. Maintaining Butterflies
Once you got a butterfly, read the butterfly card under 'cards'. Place an egg token on the butterfly It will mature every 2 turns.
The growth phases are, egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly.
10. Setup
Lay out the deck and read everything.
11. Rules
Once you finish the setup, read Tactics/Strategy. After reading both look at the rules then play the game.
To get an objective for the turn/round, Make the first player choose an objective category or 'genre'. (Eg. Attract a butterfly, plant something, etc.) Examples of objective 'genres' are on the instructions. Once the first player chooses a genre, the second needs to add more to it. For Example, if the first player chose plant something, then one possible thing the second player can add is "Plant a host plant" or "Plant Milkweed". Keep in mind that the second player can only add one thing. Repeat the paragraph above for each of the players. Once you have a wacky objective (hey, I never said it would be normal), Let the first player start.
Each player on their turn, can play two actions.
Have Fun!!!
12. Scoring
Complete best of 5 objectives. Each objective you score 2 points per player. Attracting and breeding gives 5 points to a player (5 per adult butterfly).
Whoever scores the most points wins.
13. Bonus
Speak to Mrs. Mommy
14. Ideas to add
Butterfly Categories
Sub-species
Seasons
Regions
Water
I made a detailed excel document for each butterfly type and their feeding choices.
Them I sorted my information using a Mindmap of course! Here is a sample of my mind map to list Host and Nectar Plants.
Though butterflies in Nature have multiple hosts and nectar plants, it got confusing very quickly.
Even before making cards, my parents suggested to match a butterfly to a host and have common nectar cards for all the butterflies.
Answers to Questions from the Design Guide
Is this toy or game for younger kids, older kids, senior citizens, or all ages?
This toy is for families, parties, and kids 5+
• Theme: Will this game be about something like Dogs or American History, or will it be without a theme at all like Chess or a Ball?
Theme: Butterflies
• Will it be played inside or outside? Standing up or sitting down?
It will be played inside and outside, and sitting down.
• If this is played on a table, can you do a version that you hold
It is a card game, and thus very holdable and portable.
• What parts does it need?
Cards
• Describe how people play with it?
People hold their cards in their hand, every turn they play a card: Plants and Effect cards. If they get a butterfly card, they should place it where everyone can see it. We call this the 'butterfly roosting area'. The goal of the game is to attract these butterflies to your garden by collecting plant cards. There are nectar plants which are common to all butterflies for food and host plants which is specific to each butterfly to lay eggs. You need three nectar plants to attract a butterfly. Once the butterfly has been attracted successfully to the garden, the player needs to collect its matching host plant and 3 life cycle cards (Eggs, caterpillar, cocoon). First to complete three butterfly life cycles wins. It also includes a catch up cards for ages 10+ which introduces them to the dangers and the strategies for survival of the butterfly in their garden.
• How many people can play? Will it work better with more people or less people?
2-4 people can play. It's more fun in a group.
• When does it end? Do players have to reach a specific goal? Do they have to score a certain number of points or be the first to collect something?
The goal is to get 3 butterflies successfully finish their cycle.
• What will it be made out from? Wood, plastic, metal? Which parts?
Paper
• Do any of the parts move? How?
No parts move unless you manually move them.
• How safe is it to play with?
Very safe. It is made from paper.
• How big is it? What happens if you make it smaller or bigger?
It is a compact game created using 2.5 X 3.5 standard playing cards. It can't be smaller, but it can't be bigger either without making the cards huge. Size dosn't change gameplay, but it changes compactness and portability. Small size is more compact but harder to play, and larger size is less compact.
• What colors do you imagine it being?
Orange, Green, Blue, Red, Pink