Kickstarter

Our Journey

Kickstarter

How did we end up creating Chakravyuha TCG?

Back in India, I grew up listening to and learning about Puranas, Mahabharata, and Ramayana. It was the 80's and with limited channel options, I am glad I watched TV series such as Mahabharat and Ramayan, which contributed to some of this learning though the episodes were very melodramatic. Fast forward to 2020, during the lockdown I had an opportunity to spend some quality time with my now 11 and 15-year Olds. I took this opportunity to introduce my kids to ancient texts through books and even made them watch a few episodes of the new Mahabharat, and Mahadev series however failed miserably.
I quickly realized that in today's YouTube and TikTok era, there was a need to break this material down into small bite-size information that piqued the curiosity and interest of the kids. I started by narrating short stories based on specific characters from Mahabharata and asked the kids to narrate back what they had learned and remembered. I soon discovered that kids remembered the warriors from Mahabharata like they remember their Trading Cards, in terms of summary, lineage, types, strengths, and weaknesses. They quickly helped me see the underlying structure of how they remembered.
Warrior = Janma (Birth) + Shiksha (Education) + Sadhana (Practice/Penance) + Astra (Weapons) + Vardaan (Divine blessings) - Shraap (Divine Curses)
This got me thinking of how it may be a fun idea to cast the ancient warriors into trading cards and structure a strategy game where the warrior card is created based on the above format but separating out their Astra, Vardaan, and Shraaps which can be used as separate cards. Adding to that the Vyuha battle formations took the game to the next level. With these cards, we also were able to explore complex concepts such as "What if Karna did not get a Shraap from Parshurama?" and many such areas. We started out with basic cards to battle. The initial cards were in fact handwritten and without any images (like the ones shown below). We kept trying and improving till we developed the current version of the Chakravyuha Trading Card Game.
First Cards
Chakravyuha Cards
There were several challenges we faced along the way. One example that comes to mind was how to handle the exponential scale of strengths of Yodha in the ancient texts (shown in the table below).
Warrior Level
Designation
Strength as per ancient texts (Multiples of Yodha)
Logarithmic scale
Shakti Range in Chakravyuha Card
Level 1
Yodha
1 - 9
1.0-1.9
100-400
Level 2
Yodha
10 - 99
2.0-2.9
500-800
Level 3
Yodha
100 - 999
3.0-3.9
900-1500
Level 4
Yodha
1000 - 2499
4.0-4.25
1600-1800
Level 5
Ardha-Rathi
2500 - 4999
4.25-4.5
1900-2000
Level 6
Rathi
5000 - 59999
4.5-5.6
2100 - 3100
Level 7
AtiRathi
60000 - 719999
5.6-6.7
3200 - 4500
Level 8
MahaRathi
720000 - 8640000
6.7-7.9
4500 - 6200
So if we consider Bhima who had the strength of 8 Rathis, equivalent to 480,000 Yodhas, in Chakravyuha, it translates to 6.48 on the logarithmic scale and his Chakravyuha Shakti is 4200. Similarly, if we consider Arjuna who had the strength of 2 MahaRathis, equivalent to 1440,000 Yodhas, in Chakravyuha, it translates to 7.1 on the logarithmic scale and his Chakravyuha Shakti is 5000. There are so many more interesting stories to share and we will do that through our social channels as the campaign develops.