A pair of entrepreneurs have launched a crowd funding page in the hopes of creating New Zealand's first Māori trading card game.
Christchurch brothers Vincent and Luke Egan have launched the project for a contemporary take on Māori culture.
"We're designing it around appealing to young people who are into the bilingual aspect of being a New Zealander," Vincent says.
"It's basically just spotlighting how awesome the Māori culture is, this like mythology, some of the historic figures and things that happen in Maori culture that a lot of people don't know about."
The card game will start with one fully illustrated and designed deck depicting the primordial battle field of Tumatauenga (The God of War) and Te Whiro (The God of Balance).
The game also gives a perspective into Māori culture by highlighting some crucial concepts like why karakia and waiata are important.
"Most of your deck of cards is consistent of your power source and the power source in this game is the acknowledgement you make to certain parts of the land, the river and mountain and things like that that are important to Māori," Luke says.
"When you talk about yourself [during a Māori introduction] those are the things that you acknowledge so we wanted to use that as quite a big thing in the game and that's how you can then summons your warriors."
The pair, who are leading the project alongside Maui Studios, say they plan to supplement the card game with graphic novels and animation with the broader vision to release New Zealand content that is on par with the likes of Japanese anime.
In just five days they have raised more than $1000 towards their $3500 crowd funding target on Boosted.
The donations will help pay for the design of the individual cards for one card deck, consisting of 50 cards with additional donations to go towards further development.
While they're still in the design stage, the Egan brothers are hoping to get the game out to the public within the next year.
Newshub.
