Our friends over at Loot Studios have been hard at work creating their newest game, Malediction, which is launching now on Gamefound! This innovative blend of tabletop gaming, cards, and 3D printing is a first in the hobby world and brings a whole new dynamic to gaming. While you're able to play the game right away using just the contents of the starter boxes, you're also provided with high quality STLs to 3D print each of the miniatures represented by the cards. This gives you an easy on ramp into the game, and allows you to expand it at your own pace with some amazing looking miniatures, which are the perfect canvases for Warpaints Fanatic, Air, Speedpaint, and especially the grimdark palette of the John Blanche Masterclass Paint Sets.
Rather than try and explain why we're so excited about it, we decided to recruit Dan Pettersen, the game designer behind Malediction, to answer all of our burning questions.
Malediction is fairly unique for a miniature game, since it’s also a card game! Can you tell us a bit about how that idea came about?
Dan: This goes back to the early days of the project. The original direction was to make a compelling miniatures game whose minis could be 3D printed, and we started off early tests with a pretty barebones system. A passion for card games is something the entire team has in common, so we posited how fun it would be to bring those mechanics in, adding a layer of deck building and dynamism to the playing experience. This allowed for a lot of cool interactions and eventually would grow into the system we have today.
The fact that you can play the game straight out of the box with cardboard tokens, but then download the STL files to 3D print each miniature yourself to further enhance it is a brilliant idea – how was that developed?
Dan: The truth is that this wasn’t at all obvious at the very beginning, but we’ve come to really believe in this concept. In fact, when this approach fell into place, midway through development, it gave us that feeling of “how hasn’t this become a thing yet?” which isn’t a bad place to be, right? Playing to Loot’s strengths, 3D printable miniatures, without alienating people who don’t have access to a printer is proving to have been a major step in the right direction.
We are trying to accomplish something that, to the best of our knowledge, has never been done before in the industry. While having the STL files was something that was there from the project’s inception, we did flirt with using hard plastic models during development because we wanted players to be able to jump straight into playing the game without having to wait for their miniatures to finish printing.
However, the manufacturing and logistics of all these crazy terrain pieces and detailed miniatures would have been nightmarishly difficult and costly had we decided to go with injection molding, not to mention the artistic sacrifices we’d have to make to ensure manufacturability. We were not sure how people would react to standees and this novel approach to miniatures gaming, but we thought it was an idea worth workshopping.
By the time Adepticon 2024 rolled in, things started to become clear: early demo players loved the idea and how it would ultimately translate to a more affordable product in a genre plagued by insanely expensive games. This approach empowers players with the choice of what to print and is a lot more forgiving for artists wanting to experiment with their models, considering they can print out as many copies as they want. We’re really happy with these decisions and can’t wait to see Malediction’s reception as it hits the market.
Can you walk us through a quick rundown of how an average game of Malediction is played and what players can expect?
Dan: The basic goal of the game is reaching a certain amount of mastery over this treacherous place called the Malediction. You can do this by defeating enemy units, and by claiming powerful relics from the husks of their former wielders. These relics are incredibly strong and can completely shift the tides of battle. Before a match starts, players choose a Seeker, a champion of one of the four factions of the game, and create a custom deck that can feature units, items, and spells. Every round of the game players draw cards and gain resources to play them. Players take turns activating units to fight their opponents, claim relics, and conjure spells.
What can players expect from the game in the future?
Dan: We want Malediction to keep expanding and to foster an engaged community of players, painters, and enthusiasts. What I can say right now is that we have already started working on expansions that will build on top of this very solid foundation we’re launching in now.
By embarking on the Malediction journey, we promise you’ll be in for quite an exciting ride!
