Chapter & Verse Update

I just wanted to send out this quick update about Mark Hansen's Chapter & Verse CCG (go the Facebook page here.) He's been working on updating the artwork on the cards. He's got 13 card prototype images up on the Facebook page. He's also got an update to the rules. So go on over to the game's website (here) and give it a try. The rules are here and the card set is here. I'm sure he's ready for more input on the game.

Hagoth Artwork Update

We are getting closer to having the finished product for Hagoth: Builder of Ships!! I can't wait to get the game in my hands! It's looking fantastic! So, I figured I'd show a little bit of the update to the cards.

Here we have Hagoth portrayed standing on one of his ships with wood and tools in hand. This will be the back of the cards. We also have the Sail card which is used to sail your ships on the board, moving them closer to the Land Northward.

This graphic displays several of the ship design cards that are used as you play the game. This is the largest ships that can be built. Using just the four corners will produce a different, smaller ship.

Thanks goes to Scott (here) for the beautiful artwork and to Seth (from Mayday Games) for letting me share this here on the blog.

And the Winner is....!

We have a winner (well there was actually a tie)! Both logo 1 and logo 4 received 4 votes! Therefore, I will be displaying both on the blog here. They'll be rotated or changed from time to time. Thank you all for voting. I appreciate your input into what we've got going here.

Armor of God rejected

I just got word from FRED Distribution that they are not going to do my Armor of God game (it wouldn't have ended up to be the Armor of God (here) had they decided to do it, the theme would have been changed). It's disappointing but I did get some valuable feedback, such as there isn't enough "meat" to the game. They wanted something more to be done with the pieces of armor that players collect, instead of just adding to your faith points.

So, I've got some stuff to work out with the game if I want to resubmit to FRED. I was also given a couple of other companies that the game might fit better. I'm not sure if I want to submit the Armor of God to other companies. I'd probably work out a different theme and then go ahead and submit to them. I guess I'm just not sure what I will do with the game at this point. I do know that in a very short while I'll have a couple copies that I'll be selling and one copy that I'll be giving away to some special person via the blog here (I'm working out a way of choosing that special recipient, probably some sort of contest or something, so look for that in the near future).

Thanks again to Tony Peters for allowing me to use his awesome artwork (Armor of God Cards post)!!

New Poll: Vote for your favorite logo

Well, the results from the last poll are in and it looks like a game based on the wars and contentions between the Nephites and Lamanites would make the best board/card game! What a coincidence that is! I talked about one (here) that the church put out over 30 years ago in the seminary manuals: Nephite & Lamanite Wars. I haven't been able to play it yet, but it looks like fun.

There is also Peril in the Promised Land (one of my designs) that you can read about here. It is a cooperative game where all players take on the role of Nephite captains and attempt to retake their cities from the Lamanites, while also protecting Zarahemla from the advancing King-men.

The new poll (which will only run for 1 week) asks you to vote on your favorite logo from the following 4:

Number 1

Number 2

Number 3

Number 4

After the poll is over the logo that gets the most votes will become the logo for this here blog! Also, any input you might have on these logos is greatly appreciated. Don't hesitate to leave comments.

Armor of God Cards

These (link) aren't really a game, but they have really cool artwork and they are cards after all. Anyway, designed and created by Antony Peters (who spent over a year of his spare time working on them) these Armor of God cards are currently available in 3 different versions: Spartan, Mayan, and Modern (with other sets coming soon).

Tony worked with the Young Men in his stake and was looking for a way of getting the young men to make correct decisions, do what is right. He wanted something concrete that young men could hold in their hands and kind of experience. These were his idea and they look awesome!!

Here is the Sword of the Spirit in Modern, Mayan, and Spartan versions.

You can order the sets on Tony's website (here). You can get an individual set for $2 or get all three sets for $5! Tony is also working on a book that will include some of the artwork from these cards (here).

Scott J Wakefield

I wanted to share a little about the artist who is doing the art for Hagoth: Builder of Ships. His name is Scott J Wakefield (check out his portfolio). Personally, I think he's done a great job with Hagoth. The images I've seen look outstanding, and, as I've said before (numerous times), I can't wait to get a copy of the final published game in my hands!!

Scott recently finished his Master of Fine Arts at Utah State University. He also just published a children's book entitled Woodchuck Chuck (here's a link to the free ebook). You can also purchase a hard copy for $12.95 from his website.

Sons of Mosiah

Not exactly what you would call related to games, but I thought I'd share it anyhow.

Jay Fullmer has started his own company: Sons of Mosiah. The focus right now is in developing a book. The book, titled Hidden Stories of the Book of Mormon, will include over 160 pages and will relate, using Jay's paintings and illustrations, some of the "less well known" stories of the Book of Mormon.

As part of the project Jay made a trip to Central America (Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala) for research. During the trip he collected props and reference pictures for the paintings for the book.

This project sounds very interesting and I'm excited to see the progress as Jay shares it through his blog. I leave you with a couple of Book of Mormon images courtesy of Jay.

Total War Title of Liberty Mod

Darren, from the UK, is a video game "modder." And he did his thing on Total War a while ago. He added Book of Mormon names and places to the game, allowing players to enter the Promised Land and the battles that took place between the Nephites and Lamanites! Check out this game trailer:


View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com


As it is a mod, you will need a copy of Total War with the Barbarian Invasion expansion, along with the mod file provided by Darren, via the Book of Mormon Battles website (link).

On the Book of Mormon Battles page, near the bottom, Darren gives thanks to several who contributed to helping him complete the project. It looks like there were a bunch of people who helped out. It's great to see that so many are open and willing to share their talents with others.

Overall, it looks like a fantastic game! I really need to get a copy and try it out.

BookofMormonBattles.com

A few weeks ago I talked with James H Fullmer about his games and his experiences designing them and getting them published (link). Today I wanted to talk a little about his website: www.bookofmormonbattles.com.

Jay has put a lot of stuff up on his site. The first link goes to a page of games. It highlights his 2 games, Book of Mormon Battles and Warriors of the Promised Land, and also shows off his Book of Mormon chess set that he designed! Below that though, he has several games that you can play online or print and play on paper. The Book of Mormon Match Game is a nice online matching game created using his artwork from Book of Mormon Battles.

Weapons of War (link)
This section of the website is pretty cool. Jay goes through, step by step of how to make padded weapons (swords & shields currently, with more weapons to come). He does this both in written format and via video. Here's the video of how to create a padded sword (looks pretty fun)!


Watch Making a Level 1 Foam Padded Sword in Entertainment | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

He also has an "interactive" (interactive because you can move around and look at things and even zoom in) map of the Promised Land. Jay says that the map is based on the book Mormon's Map by John L Sorenson. It would be cool to add in some 3d buildings for the cities and stuff like that (a la Google Earth).

All in all, it's a great site to learn more about Jay Fullmer and his work, what he thinks, what he likes to do, etc. I'm sure that kids out there would highly enjoy putting together some padded weapons to use on each other.

Bi-Weekly Poll & BoMToons

I've decided to attempt to solicit ideas and opinions from any who read this glorious blog. To accomplish this I'll put polls up for about 2 weeks at a time. The first one asks about your favorite Mormon themed game. If your favorite isn't listed please let me know and I'll revise the list so that it is included. Let me know what you think!

BomToons (link)
I came across the BoMToons website quite a while ago but have finally decided to write a little about it (it fits here now that this site is about games in general not just board/card games). Anyway, it is a website that hosts flash format games based on Book of Mormon stories and LDS/Mormon culture. From their site: it was "started as the crazy idea of a few returned missionaries who wanted to feature some of the funnier things from the Book of Mormon and Mormon culture."

They have several games. I found that I enjoyed playing BoM Battle Beat and LDS BMX.

They also have a section with flash animated short cartoons. Very interesting stuff. And you can even order 2 different t-shirts with their logo and games on them!

Logo Contest Update: I've already received 2 entries in the contest!! And I've decided that I'll post the entries and then let everyone vote on the one they like the best. That way we can get a look that everyone likes, not just me.

My Portfolio

Published Games


Hagoth: Builder of Ships (pre-order the game)
Being published by Mayday Games


 
Published Artwork

Nepal: Trade & Intrigue at the Top of the World
Being published (2nd edition) by BluePantherLLC. Now available!



Designed Games
Armor of God
Peril in the Promised Land
Temple Builders

A Gathering of Strangers

That was a whole lot of fun!! I was able to make the trip down to Salt Lake City on both Friday and Saturday. I had never attended A Gathering of Strangers, or any game convention for that matter, before, but I really enjoyed it and can't wait for next year!

Friday I presented my game, the Armor of God, in the guild competition. It went pretty smoothly. There were 2 groups of 5 judges (from places like FRED Distribution, Out of the Box Games, and Games Unplugged), so the game was played twice. Then the judges rated the game following Mike Compton's Evaluation Form (find it on baordgamegeek here). A total of 8 games were entered into the competition. I'm not sure what place I ended up taking, but it wasn't in the top 4. Not really a big deal though. I mean, I didn't really expect to win. There are a whole lot of great games that the members of the guild design. It was just great to be a part of it and I can't wait to get the feedback from the judges. I'm sure it will help me improve the game a lot.

There were a few highlights of the weekend that I wanted to touch on. After the judging on Friday, Carey from FRED Distribution approached me and asked about taking a copy of the prototype to Armor of God home. In other words, he's interested and thinks it's a pretty good game! No guarantees that they will publish it, but success!!! Part of the purpose of the competition was to get publishers to see the games from the guild and hopefully get them interested in the games we had to offer. Carey was also interested in Mike Compton's game Bandits of Persia! It's exciting to see that publishers have an interest in games designed by guild members!

Also on Friday, Seth picked up the finished painting that Scott has been working on for Hagoth!!! Here it is!!!

He brought it to the Gathering. We both had prototypes of the game as well and we got about 10 people to demo it during the weekend. Ryan from The Board Game Guy was very excited! We're getting closer and closer to being ready for production!!

Lastly, I wanted to add that there was a lot of free stuff given away by all the publishers and game stores on hand. On Friday I won a brand new copy of Dominion Intrigue!!! I ended up playing it 3 times that evening (I even won the first of the 3 games, which was pretty big because I don't thing I won anything else during the 2 days). It's a great game!

All in all, I just loved the convention. I got to meet new people (another guy from here in Logan, now we'll have 4 of us here that design games). I got to play a lot of games. And I found someone interested in another one of my designs. Really, what more could I ask for from 2 days?

Conversation with James H Fullmer

I recently was able to speak with James H Fullmer about his experiences with designing, illustrating, and publishing (via Covenant Communications) his two games, Book of Mormon Battles and Warriors of the Promised Land.



Download the conversation here.

I had a list of questions that we discussed. We didn't really read them out loud or anything, so here they are.

1. What made you first decide to design a game?
2. Was the idea Book of Mormon Battles from the beginning or did it sort of evolve to that as you worked on it?
3. How did the design process go? I mean, did you get some paper, cut it up, and mark them for cards, or how did it go?
4. When did Covenant Communications enter the picture? Did you contact them as you were working on the idea or more after you had it all worked out?
5. How did the whole relationship work with Covenant?
6. What was your process for the artwork (there are a lot of images in both games)?
7. What made you decide to go the second game Warriors of the Promised Land?
8. Was the process with that game pretty much the same as with the first?
9. Do you know the print run size for either game?
10. Do you know how successful the games have been (how many have sold)?
11. What did you learn from your experience that you would like to share with other "would-be LDS/Mormon game designers?"

This is my first dive into doing a podcast or recorded interview/conversation, whatever you want to call it. So I learned quite a bit about that. Plus I enjoyed meeting James (Jay as he prefers to go by) and learning about him and his experiences.

Hopefully this will be of benefit to someone besides me, but if not, I enjoyed it and found it enlightening.

Busy Summer

Things have been pretty busy lately. I was looking forward to summer as I thought it would be a little more relaxed and give me more time to work on my games and whatnot. Anyway, I just defended my thesis! So now I have to wait for the secretary to read through it, make the changes, wait for the grad school to read through it, make the changes, and then pay fees, get it bound, etc. Hopefully by the end of August I'll officially be a MASTER! Plus I'm trying to get going on the dissertation proposal, so that's keeping me busy.

I recently got the Armor of God printed by BluePanther. (I'll be posting a comparison between Guild of Blades, Artscow, and BluePanther here a few days.) I'm ready to take it down to SLC for A Gathering of Strangers. I'm really looking forward to that.

As I worked with Steve at BluePanther to get the cards printed he asked me about doing some artwork for his Nepal game! It was quite a surprise to me. I mean, I've been a little hesitant about my art abilities, but this gives me some added confidence that I do pretty good work. It has made me think more seriously about doing my own thing, publishing my games myself. I mean, having someone do the artwork is a big expense, but if I'm able to do it myself that would definitely cut back on costs. We'll see if I can get enough money together to really go out and do something like that. It would be great!!

The Game Design "class" (Game Design Concepts) started at the beginning of this week. It looks like it's going to be fun to follow along and hopefully contribute something. The problem will be trying to find enough time to participate in such a way that will allow for some contributions. There's a lot going on this summer!

On boardgamegeek a competition was posted for teams of 2 to design and produce a print n play cooperative game. Dane and I are going to design and submit to the competition. It will be a lot of fun to work with Dane, brainstorm, playtest, etc. as we move from idea to prototype to production. The brainstorming process has begun!

Lastly, we've had a little more discussion on the Korihor game that our Google Group (join us) is working on designing. This whole experience has been very educational and informative already. It's not easy working together on a game design, especially when it involves people from 5 states, many who have never met face to face, with so many different ideas and perspectives on what will make the game not only work but FUN! It's actually a lot of fun working on this project with the group. I hope that the end result will be a great game that we will figure out how to publish and offer as a ZGDI game!!! Then we'll put it up on our website as a great LDS/Mormon themed offering!

Anyway, quite a bit going on this summer! I guess it's good to keep busy.