The Espada game is an exclusively digital project, it has a tactical, turn-based gameplay where the player uses cards to perform actions and thus progress in the adventure. 

The mechanics in games are essential, especially in Espada, where everything the player can do is directly linked to them. So our first step was to test what had been developed so far. However, how could we test if there was still nothing concrete programmed, just the design, concepts and arts. 

The project has a deadline and limited resources to be used, so we chose to carry out a general test in a much simpler and faster way, that would allow the visualization of the mechanics and elements, a way to validate if we are going to get where we want. 

We chose to develop a test in the board game format, the tactical mechanics that we want to explore in our game favor a lot for this. This type of initial testing is very important and helps to validate much of what we want to put into our game.  

And it's not just in our case, the initial test on paper, whether as a board game, RPG, or any other way is excellent to start ensuring that the idea will follow an interesting path. In general, it is not even necessary to worry about something polished, use only what is enough to test, such as imagination, paper, pencil, tokens or dices and it is already great. The goal is to test everything possible at the moment, and sometimes even simplifying the mechanics a little so that they are easy to reproduce manually. 

After a few meetings, sheets and pencils, it was possible to test much of what we wanted. The result was very interesting for the team, we could see problems that we had not identified about the use of cards as actions. We validate that in general the game works and that it has very fun points, especially when we think about the synergies that are possible. Other details were a bit vague and this resulted in questions about whether we should remove certain mechanics or not, as they did not generate a good or bad weight. Unfortunately, we found certain items that we could not test satisfactorily as a board game, however, they are simpler and we believe that they will not get in the way during the programming phase of the project, in the future these items will be tested and so we will make the decision to keep or not.  

The entire project will always continue to be tested, even if it is only by the team, it is very important to ensure that the chosen path is as correct as possible. An absolute guarantee that the idea of the game and its mechanics are excellent is impossible, so we try to achieve at least a certain level of satisfaction, since certainty will come only when players can play the project in an immersive and fun way.