As the popularity of tabletop games continues to grow all across the world, one local game publisher is making a name for itself with a series of exciting and unique games. Their latest venture Sweet Spot: The Tennis Card Game is currently on Kickstarter and has just met its funding target, thus opening new stretch goals for players. 
It’s a tactical card game that sees players take on the role of tennis pros battling it out in singles or doubles matches. There are more than 100 cards and components in the game, including cubes and oversized player cards – featuring more than 30 actual tennis moves and skills such as Quick Serve and Lob Ball. The Kickstarter campaign ends on 6th October so there’s still time to get a copy of the game.
We managed to grab the designer of Sweet Spot: The Tennis Card Game, Dominic Huang, for a quick chat about the game.
HBG: First, congratulations on hitting your Kickstarter funding goal. So how did you become a game designer and what’s it like being one?
Dominic Huang: The signs are usually detectable from a very early age – for me it was when I was as young as Primary 1 (grade 1) where I had a really good friend named Karthek, and he was a superb artist. With his art and my ideas, we made entire games that used dice to simulate just about everything. In my twenties, I studied game design courses and took to heart all the tons of disciplines of the industry. I have since been working on various projects with both huge and small game studios worldwide, either creating lore or concept ideas, and even entire game designs for publishers. In late 2014, I decided to try flying solo instead of working in big development teams and thus with some friends in Singapore, Medieval Lords was born! I am also currently teaching Advanced Diploma game classes as well as entire game design workshops.
HBG: Tell us about Sweet Spot: The Tennis Card Game. What kind of game is it and who would it appeal to?
Dominic Huang: It is a card game that simulates a game of tennis and is designed around a unique numbers system. It is a game for EVERYONE. Tennis lovers would of course appreciate the game, but so would anyone else. In this game, the Doubles mode is really fun because your teamwork and ability to communicate is tested heavily. Without being able to see each other’s hand, you have to rely on strong communication to win. In Singles mode, it becomes another game entirely – it is all about stamina planning and card type drafting. What type of cards should your hand consist of more? There is also a solo mode. So again yes, while it is a game of tennis, it really is a game for anyone!
HBG: Can you explain the game briefly?
Dominic Huang: The game revolves around 3 types of cards – Service, Tactic and Return. The game is played in rounds, and rounds are won by having a player score more rallies than his opponent. A rally is started when the server plays a Service card with a number value (example: 18). From there, both sides take turns playing Return cards to modify that number down to 0, 1, 2 or 3. It gets tricky because there is also the net to consider – if you modify the number down to 4, 5 or 6, your ball has hit the net and you lose that rally immediately! But there are card modifiers that increase or decrease the numbers. With each card costing stamina, which is a limited resource, you can expect exciting matches as you struggle against your opponent hitting the ball back and forth, planning your modifiers as well as managing your stamina so it does not run out faster than your opponent’s.
HBG: Why did you choose Kickstarter?
Dominic Huang: That’s really a simple one! Because we are a really small indie studio that exists only for the passion of making great games, capital is not something we have in abundance and Kickstarter is a superb way to mitigate costs.
HBG: Thank you and it’s always great to see a successful local game company.
