Design – the origin of Monpa¶

Written (in French) then translated by Mots on the 12 April 2026.

The idea behind the project¶

We (Mots and TheBakaRem) are fans of trading card games, and played the most famous such as Yu-Gi-Oh!, Pokémon, Magic: the Gathering, Hearthstone… There are so many of them.

Around 2021, I was creating custom Magic cards, and tried to write a card that could not exist in Magic, because the rules do not allow it:

This effect cannot work, because Magic does not allow taking into consideration the physical placement of cards on the field (except in silver-bordered cards, and the two banned cards Chaos Orb and Falling Star). This custom effect was inspired by the two above cards, but I tried to make it a defensive permanent instead of an offensive spell.

This gave us the desire to try and create our own game, that would be based on the physical position of cards on the board. Such games already exist, the most famous of all being Yu-Gi-Oh!. But we also wanted to create our own fictional universe based on the monster people genre.

I don’t remember whichever came first, the game or the world. It was probably the game, but the world was designed while the idea of the game was growing.

The first sketches¶

At first, almost nothing was decided. We didn’t know what cost system t use, what would the victory condition be, deck size, and game speed. The only things that were clearly decided from the start were:

• to use a commander (also called avatar by some game designers).
• a grid board and emphasis on placement.

The first draft for a board was this one.
C: commander, O: objects, S: servants

Then, that one.
S: servant or object, D: deck, G: graveyard, C: commander

And last, this board, which didn’t change much then, save the zone for the favour and the mana zone.
S: servant or object, D: deck, G: graveyard, C: commander

The mana system came a lot later, but we’ll save that for another time.

To conclude this article, here’s the very first card sketch: