Scarab is my Senior Project.  It didn't start out as that though.  Scarab started way before I knew what I wanted to do for a senior project, before I even started thinking about taking the class senior project.  I had played other collectible card games before and decided that I too wanted to make a card game.  I sat down and began to plan out the cards one by one.  Each card went through a couple of revisions and filled up half of a small notebook.  330+ cards all together.  I didn't even know how to play my game even though I had made all these cards for it.  I had based it off of a roleplaying system that I thought would be interesting for a card game.
    A couple of semesters before I was required to take senior project, I realized I should maybe have some idea of what I was going to do when the time came around.  I put off my decision for weeks, which was fine because I had about a year to think about it.  I kept going back to my card game, and wondering what I was going to do with it, and how I was going to do it.  A semester before I needed to take senior project I began to inquire as to what people did in the past for their senior projects and I was looking through books.  I saw a wide variety of projects, and at last decided I was NOT going to do a self promotional piece.
    The final weeks before summer break came.  I kept returning to my card game.  I wondered if it could be a massive work of graphic design.  After all, you design the cards the logo system, each card, packaging, and more.  I approached my professor and inquired.  He looked doubtful, despite my obvious excitement.  I point forth my point and explained all the things that would incorporate graphic design within my project.  He asked me if it would be educational.  I again explained the graphic design connections and slipped a meek no into it.  He bought the idea anyway.  JOY!  Dubious as he was, I went on my merry way and Summer finally arrived.
    A couple weeks into summer I pulled out my notebook of scribbling and thought a great deal about how I was going to do it.  To try and prepare for this coming massacre of my time, I saw a contest inside a CCG magazine and entered.  The contest was to create a card for your favorite CCG and submit it.  Well, I enjoyed Magic and still do.  I scanned a random card, covered the text and blanked out the picture and erased the name of the card.  I had a base to work with.  In a day I manufactured what seemed to be a perfect card, printed it, pasted it to a land, and sent it on its way.  I didn't win despite the quality product I produced, then I realized, I had the perfect size and shape of a card scanned right into my computer.  I went to work.  I think I got a great deal done that summer.  I searched the internet ferociuosly and eventually, near the end of the summer, I finished the first draft of the pyramids.  They were beautiful to me.  Then when school started and Senior Project the class began, I had something to show.  A beginning to prove that yes this ws what I wanted to do and I was going to be good at it.  As weeks went by I worked.  And right into the first few aces of the suit of Sands, I thought of a better format.  A slight change but a change none the less.  The entire pyramids would have to be redone.  I made a few more changes and then I knew the pyramids would really have to be redone.  I'd get back to that.
    Half way through the semester, I finished the suit of sands and needed some good ideas for the Pharoahs and the Jackals.  While driving home one day, pondering my dilemma, the idea of my own photography hit me.  I was hooked.  Immediately I went to work and procrastinated!!!  It was fortunate for me that I didn't procrastinate too long.  I rounded up some people and took around 156 picture, of which only one roll was in color.  The color roll I took to a one hour developer to do.  The other 6 rolls I sat in my basement for 4 and a half hours breathing photography chemicals and praying to the photography gods to make each one a good roll of film.  Well I only lost 1 and half pictures out of 6 rolls, not bad, nobodies perfect.  It was during the evening and late nights and odd hours of the mid day that I accomplished this and other things, because I was also practicing for the play I was in at the time... Little Shop of Horrors.  I didn't realize the effort it take sto be the voice of the plant, but that's another story.  The following day I made prints of the 6 rolls of film.  One after another like a machine.  It took me about 5 to 5 and a half hours.  During that time I wish I had come up for air.  Another instance of breathing photo chemicals for far too long.  The following day  I scanned all these 156 images for 4 to 6 hours.  In groups of 4 images at a time.  These weren't even all the images that I were to use either.  I put off my project little by little and got only minor things accomplished, then Thanksgiving break arrived.
    I promised myself that I would use this week to work on all my homework and most certainly my card game, which was in sore need of some work.  And work I did.  Not the first day I went back home nor the monday after that.  But every other day of the break I did.  I woke up, decided what I was going to accomplish at the least that day and did so.  Waking up at noon, turning on the computer, adn I would sit there until about 1 or two in the morning.  I got up to eat, use the bathroom, change the movie that I was watching out of the other eye, or change the music.  Then I finally finished them all, all revisions that I could see to begin with. . . all cards.  Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, at midnight, I started to print.  All 355 cards, not including the back of the card.  I had spent some time before hand, moving all these cards to another computer so that they could be printed under high quality, and quicker.  At midnight I started this printer's task.  I knew I needed to print all the cards out, the back, and I decided I needed two complete decks of 54 cards each in order to play test my game.  I chose the cards and printed those as well.  And the backs seperately because the computer wouldn't line the two sides of the paper up properly.  To print 572 total cards at about 5 to a page took me 9 hours.  At about 9 or 9:30 AM I went to sleep.  At noon I woke up.
    The night previous on a few of my mistake pages I cut out and made about 5 cards total front and back, through the use of scissors, a keen - contact wearin' - glazed over - eye, and rubber cement.  When I woke up at noon I got ready, I think I showered.  I hope so.  I went to Kinko's to see about the price of lamenation.  After learning a little bit about it, I returned home after taking a little time to myself in the mall and to eat.  I sat down on my bed, put in a movie and picked up a pair of scissors.  I went to work again.  I went to bed about 5 in the morning that night.  I woke up at noone again and finished cutting the cards out.  I seperated them and grabbed the rubber cement.  About 5 in the afternoon, I rushed with my package to Kinko's and began the long procedure of lamenation.  I won't mention costs although they were low.  I will mention though, the people at Kinko's were extremely helpful, kind, and courteous.  About 8 I walked out with a bundle of cards in my hands which needed some trimming, which is exactly how I wanted it.  I came back to school, It was sunday night.  I sat around with some friends and socialized while I cut my cards down to size, one by one.  108 cards later I had two complete decks of Scarab cards ready for the playin'!
    As amzing as this is, it's not done.  After playing the game and looking over the cards, I see mistakes, but this is only the alpha version.  If a company or corporation picks me up as a graphic designer or game designer or whatever and wants to take my game under their wing, then the beta version will be well under production.  If not, At least I've got two decks of carsd to play solitaire with.  I designed Scarab to be played both as a CCG and as a normal deck or 52 playing cards with 2 jokers.  The scarab deck can be used to play any conventional card game as well as any solitaire game and the Scarab game itself.  To go with this game, I have designed Packaging and an advertising campaign to whet the mouths of the prospective buyers.  I also wrote the following article, which concludes my information about Scarab for now.