Hagoth Demo Copy!!

Recently Seth from Mayday Games sent me on of the demo copies of Hagoth. He received 3 from the factory. These demo copies are sent as a way of checking to make sure everything is good before doing the full print run.

I figured I'd share some pictures of the game up to this point. For the most part everything looks good. There are a few things that need to be fixed before full production, but that is being taken care of and shouldn't take too long to finish.

It's great to get the game in my hands and see pretty much what it's going to be like once it's officially released. It sure is a lot different from the prototypes I had put together at the beginning. It's actually really cool to see how it has changed over time. I'm going to do a write up of the development of the game from idea to publication. But that won't be ready until the game has been officially released.

 

Also, SaltCon that is taking place this weekend (there's a link to the site in the right-hand column of the blog here). Seth will be there and is going to be running a session or two with Hagoth so that people can see the game and learn how to play it!

Hagoth at GenCon 2009

Seth had told me that he would be taking Hagoth (both the prototype that he put together and a big banner that he had made) to GenCon this year (it ended last week).

Anyway, he also had the other game he is doing, Space Junkyard, with him. He had a finished version of that game. Anyway, up on boardgamegeek now is an image of Space Junkyard at GenCon. And, looking closely enough at the image you can pick out Hagoth on the side. Here's the image (with nice annotations included, ha, ha). Thanks to Chester for finding this little gem.
















I'm getting very excited to see the final, produced version of Hagoth. Scott did a great job with the artwork and I know that the components will also be very well done!

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.

New Game & the Satisfaction that's Come from It

I have been working on a children's game, aimed at 5 year olds and up. It's a cooperative game where the players are working toward completely building a temple. It's turned out to be pretty basic, but I think that's important because younger children will be playing it. Anyway, they roll dice and collect "resources" that are then used to "build" parts of a temple. Once they have all the parts they can put them all together and voila! a TEMPLE!!

I got a good prototype put together and Sunday morning before church (we go at 11:00 am) my kids played through it once. My three oldest played (a 7 year old, 5 year old, and 4 year old). The four year old had a hard time understanding that the three of them were playing together on a team. He liked collecting the pennies (which represent tithing) and always commented about how he had more than his sisters. The older two grasped the whole idea and could play through quite easily. They, in fact, helped the four year old several times with his rolls and whatnot.

The best part of the whole thing was that they were totally enjoying themselves! They played for about 30 minutes and were loving their time together. They were working toward a common goal and no one (well our four year old got a little distracted a few times) complained about playing or got tired of it and moved on to something else. It was very satisfying to hear them working together and having a good time playing a game that they could play together without much supervision from my wife and I (we were working on getting the other two ready). All I can say is that it was very satisfying. I was very happy, and still am.

We've Got a Plan

So we've had quite a bit of activity on the Google Group lately. It was pretty much started when Chester (boardgamegeek profile) found us and joined in. He is very fired up and excited about getting something like this (i.e., Mormon themed games) out for publishers and distributors to see and pick up. We talked on the phone last night for a little over an hour about the idea. It goes something like this:

A Co-op will be created (we'll call it something like Zion Game Designers International (ZGDI)). We will hook up with the LDS Booksellers Association (become a member) and start attending their annual convention (happens in August; we'll be shooting for the convention in 2010). At the conventions we will have a booth where members of ZGDI will display their games. Members will bring games that are 'Ready for the Box.' If it isn't ready to be sold, then that is just what it is - not ready to be sold. Those at the LDSBA are there to make plans for the entire next year - decisions will be made on what goes into what store and what publisher will buy what game. Prototypes don't need to be professional in appearance, but they need to be functional and the game needs to have all the bugs worked out and read to be sold. That's another part of where we come in as a group, we'll be vetting games and helping get them ready for the LDSBA. This will give us access to the publishers and distributors in the LDS world of books, and we hope to get them to adopt new game designs as well.

He explained it to be sort of like an Essen-type setup: a convention where designers come with hopes of hooking up with a publisher. We'll be there for publishers and distributors to see us and our games. The Co-op will give us a chance to save on costs (all costs split by those of us who are members of the Co-op) and also provide us a way of letting the publishers and distributors know that we will always have quality products for them to consider. In essence, as a Co-op we would put our "stamp of approval" on the games that the members bring to the LDSBA conventions.

We also hope to be able to showcase our games at the Gathering of Strangers (that will hopefully happen this summer here in Utah). We hope to be able to go there with some games ready for others to play. Then we can get LDS people's feedback on the games and have that for 'market research' to back up our pitches to the LDSBA.

Anyway, it's a lot to take in. It makes me very excited though. I hope we can get this all set up and ready to go. I'm especially excited that someone other than me is excited to give quality Mormon themed games to the world!

Thanks to Chester for this brilliant idea!!

GameBits

I've opened my own shop at Shapeways.


I call it GameBits. In essence, anyone can check out the models I've designed and buy them. Shapeways will ship them directly to you!

I am going to offer any bit (component) that I design for my games. I will also model any bit that anyone would like to use in their own design/prototype; sort of like commission, I guess. It's just a lot of fun designing my own pieces for my games as well as designing the games!

I currently have 3 models up. I've got the ships I used for Hagoth, the Titles of Liberty for Peril, and I just put up a meeple that I thought was cool. I mean, they're so common now-a-days.

Shapeways

Update 3/19/09: I just got the lost ship in the mail (it came with an extra one). It didn't seem like it took much time to travel via "normal mail" and not UPS.

My models from Shapeways showed up in the mail!!!


The box was extra big for the models that I ordered, but I appreciate the nice packing that help make sure things will be safe and sound as they travel around the world to me from the Netherlands!







I ordered both the ships and the Titles of Liberty. They ended up being a little smaller than I thought they would be, but they work just fine.






The Ships


We painted these red, blue, and yellow (left some white) for Hagoth. I'll be posting pictures and things of Hagoth soon. I've pretty much got the design all finished. It's just a matter of putting the whole thing together.





The Titles


The bases are supposed to look like the top of a tower. That part, as well as the pole, will be gray. Then the Title itself will be painted (I'm not sure what color; like I have said many a time, I'm not an artist).




The material is kind of weird. My wife says it reminds her of salt. But it totally works for me.

My overall experience with Shapeways has been extremely good. I ordered when they were running a 25% off sale. A couple days after I uploaded the models and order, I got an email from Elena in production. She told me that the sail part of the ship was a little skinny and probably wouldn't come out when printed. She also told me that I could take a shot at fixing it and they would still honor the sale price. I made 3 attempts and finally got one that would work well. I kind of wish she would have said something about the Titles. A couple were broken as the pole was really skinny. Anyway, there was also 1 ship missing in my package, so I emailed Elena. She found it and put it in the mail, not UPS like the original package, but it will be here soon nonetheless. All I can say is that they are great to work with and look to give the customer the best experience possible. It's quite a difference from most of my experiences with stores I walk into. I am completely satisfied.