If you have played any Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) like World of Warcraft, Rifts, or Star Wars the Old Republic then you have more than likely created many characters and adventured across the virtual lands of these fantasy universes. During visit to these fantasy worlds you have more than likely have ventured into one of the many dungeons in search of powerful weapons and artifacts for your character. In the early days of these games there were some players who went into these dungeons with the purpose of gathering up all of the loot for themselves even if they couldn’t use the items. The community dubbed these players as ninjas. While the creators of these worlds have since placed new mechanics and features into the looting systems of their games and decreased the hardships of players from losing out on acquiring the sought after items for their characters; a new game company is looking at the past to inspire a new card game for gamers to play.

Grunt Games LLC is the recent startup game development company by Dewayne Cameron and is based out of Grovetown Georgia. A retired U.S. Army veteran and most recently a game designer who worked developing learning games and simulators for the U.S. military. . Founded in July of 2016 Grunt Games is has been developing a table top card game which is to launch in the Fall of 2017. Lewt Ninja the title of the game was inspired by Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) looting system and the sub-cultural references to players who are known for taking items and gear from other players. In the game of Lewt Ninja 2 to 5 players can play as one of the five hero characters classes that come with the game. Each of the classes has special abilities that will help defend against or steal loot away from the other members of your group.

Players will use three different decks; the Monster, Loot, and Player decks. Players draw monster cards to determine how much loot will be dropped for players to roll on. Monsters have also have special abilities that can affect how each round can be played by either changing how loot is decided or to what cards can be played or not played during the round.

Once a monster has been revealed players will then reveal the loot dropped by the monster. Players try to win and collect all 8 pieces of their hero’s armor in order to win the game. At the same time they will try to deny the other members of their group from gaining their armor pieces. Even if a player doesn’t get all of their armor they still have a chance to win the game by winning all of the loot they possibly can. 

To win loot players will lay down roll cards that have numeric values, the player with the highest value wins the loot. But winning the roll doesn’t mean you have won the round. Players can then play special cards that will allow them to steal or even block another player from stealing loot.

In addition to the normal game play Lewt ninja has two other game modes; Legendary and Vote to kick. In legendary mode players will need to collect their characters hero eight piece armor set as well as their hero’s weapon. In Vote to kick mode players are booted from the game when they lose three pieces of their characters 8 piece armor set to other players. Lewt Ninja is a standalone game that includes 189 cards …everything that 2-5 players need for endless hours of treasure stealing, back stabbing fun!

The game includes:
40 – Monster Cards
58 – Loot Cards
81 – Player Action Cards
10 – Character Class Hero Cards
Instruction Booklet

In addition to rulebook, Lewt Ninja includes our highest-quality, most shuffle-friendly cards. There’s no better way to start playing like a Ninja.

Sit down with the designer and owner of Grunt Games LLC Dewayne Cameron

Q: What were your first thoughts that made you want to design Lewt Ninja?

DC: I wanted to make a game that was fun and something people could get together and just laugh at the silliness of the rules and art work. I actually wanted to do like hearthstone heroes by Blizzard Entertainment; but I realized that was going to be huge undertaking by myself and my budget. So I took it to the skeleton mechanics and began molding the game to what you see today.

Q: What was your biggest challenge as the only designer for the game?

DC: I would say the biggest challenge I had was patience. It was easy to actually look at the mechanics and the gameplay and see how people would interact with the game. What was hard was actually waiting on everyone else that I had hired to work on the game to come up with their pieces of the puzzle. Working from home is a lot different than walking into an office every day and seeing what your team is doing. Now granted I had some awesome people working for me that worked fast but when you have those moments with nothing to do you want to reach and start pestering people but you have to refrain from all of that and let them do their job.

Q: How long did the design take before you had a prototype ready for play-testing?

DC: I had the core game mechanics done in about a week. Designing out every card was bit longer I think it was about 3 weeks to write every card and do the research on terminology that was used on MMO games. Then another 2 weeks to design a rough idea of what I wanted the cards to look lick for the artist to have a starting point on the.

Q: How did you organize the play-testing?

DC: I was actually really lucky on finding play tester for the game. My son’s high school has a Gamers Club. So I just packed up everything for the prototype and some extra stuff and went with him to his club meetings. I picked random kids and had them play the game. I would sit back and watch them trying not to answer questions but watch their interpretation of rules and mechanics unfold.