History

It all started in January 2022 when Philip Jankovic, the team's creative lead, had the idea to create a card game set in the Wild West after previously playing "Inscription" and "Red Dead Redemption 2". After brainstorming, he came up with the idea to have a revolver drum as the playing field and different kinds of bullets as cards. Utilizing the revolver chambers and the rotation of the drum after firing, he created the first paper prototype.

The first prototype was played in a 1v1 setting and the gameplay was quite different from what it is now. Both players had revolvers and would shoot each other's bullets. It was fun for a short while, but generally didn't work very well. However, many cards that can be seen in the game now were already part of that first experiment, such as Bewitched Bullet or Incendiary Bullet. But the gameplay concept still had a long way to go.

After a lot of trial and error and brainstorming, the game was changed to a single-player game in the roguelite deckbuilder genre, which was just a better fit for the revolver gameplay. So, as a small software development project Philip Jankovic together with his classmate David Angelo created an early prototype. The prototype still had a lot of problems gamedesign wise. However it was a step in the right direction.

On the school event days in 2022, Philip found himself in a room with Marvin Kurka, a programmer, with whom he shared ideas. This resulted in them working together in the fall of 2022 ot start the next project with the goal of creating a working demo. This was done in the context of the subject 'ITP', where the students learn project management. Together with Dylan Calderon and Christoph Allmer, a demo was created and presented. In that version of the game, a complete revamp of the rules was done, including the introduction of "Cover", so that the player can protect themselves from the enemy. The effect system of the cards was revamped as well, allowing for cohesive and interesting effects to be implemented. Additionally, the visual part of the game was developed further, the color scheme was introduced and the first rendition of the art style was created. For Philip Jankovic, who did not have any prior experience with drawing, .Forty-Five was a big step into the unknown.

In the first half of 2023, Dylan and Christoph left the team, and new people joined in their place. Nils Hubman joined and is responsible for marketing as well as project management. To support Philip in the visual department, Markus Böheim joined, providing the needed contrast to Philip Jankovic's very messy design style with clean and organized designs. The fifth person to join was Felix Zwicklestorfer, a second programmer, needed to keep up with the amount of workload the team set itself. The team worked on the second-semester project in ITP, this time implementing the map system for the game.

In the summer of 2023, .Forty-Five was proposed as a diploma project by the five team members. The project includes a deck-building system, numerous new cards, various enemy types, and ultimately, the release on Steam. There is still a lot of work to be done, but the team is looking forward to continuing their efforts!