If it’s been a bit quiet around here lately it’s because I’ve been very busy putting things together, working on rules, creating graphics and otherwise building on games in order get them ready for release. As a one man production band (who is also trying to join university faculty at numerous schools and do the odd job to keep the green flowing) this means that I tend to neglect the social media more than I should, so here is an update for those worried that their favorite projects might be vaporware (short answer: I never produce vaporware, it all gets done)…

QBB

Quarterback Blitz is reaching the end of the prototyping stage. I plan to start shopping it ’round to production companies at the end of this month. All that really remains is finishing the miniature prototypes, but in the meantime, play-testing is going along at full speed with the makeshift models I kludged together out of electric football players and assorted gaming bases. I even managed to get the cards done up professionally by a great printing company in Hong Kong (who printed and delivered my cards in 5 days total). Here are some images of those below:

So QBB is going gangbusters, if the enthusiasm shown in play-testing is any indicator (even with people who don’t like football as a rule), and has most of my attention at this time. It looks to be a winner with sports fans and gamers and a big seller for JM and whatever company agrees to produce it.

VOID HUNTERS & BARBARIANS OF HEAVY METAL

I have spent the last few months really debating with myself over whether or not this company will make RPGs anymore. A variety of catalysts from the state of the industry, to the behavior of the customer base, to the financial viability of making anything more than pizza money off of all the blood, sweat and soul that goes into making a good RPG, were pushing me to say to heck with the whole hobby. Seriously. It is, frankly, easier, cheaper and more rewarding to build board, card and electronic games, and wit them, good transmedia friendly IP.

After a good long think, I decided to go ahead and finish at least two of my RPG projects and see where they go before giving up on the industry altogether and just focusing on all those other things. Fortunately, I have some willing partners who are going to help me see those two games to life as the first all digital table-top RPGs.

Void Hunters is now going by the title VOID: the RPG of Seventies Science Fiction and I have completely divorced it from Goodman Games Dungeon Crawl Classics game. I loves me some DCC (seriously, if you haven’t tried it, get your butt to their site and join the band), but the restrictions were too stifling and I’ve decided to design my own mechanics while adopting some of the attitudes of that great game: Red Shirts dying by the dozen, player characters struggling to survive in a hostile universe, unforgiving patrons and merciless horrors in the dark, all of this will be part of the experience. It is at the back of the line, development wise, but I add material to it daily and should have a demo to show soon.

BoHM is my passion project and one of the main IP concepts I want to develop along transmedia lines. As a result, I’m looking to do a lot of different things with it, including seeing it materialize as a Digital TTRPG. But first, I’m going to be working on smaller, non RPG games to develop the background and prototype systems for what will be a mechanically unique take on RPGs. Can’t say much on that  right now, but as soon as the QBB prototype is finished and the proposal sent out, I’m getting right on a slew of material set in the BoHM universe. Watch this space.

FOR GLORY! & THE PIRATE GAME

For Glory! is done, it is just waiting on production. That requires money however, and, in the course of considering gaming in the 21st century and the old models of doing things, my partner and I have decided that it is ludicrous for us to go the route of, say, Ticket to Ride or Small World and build a physical game first and a digital version later. The up front costs of production and distribution are so ludicrously high these days, we have decided that it is better to do the digital version first and, if sales justify it, use some of the money from that to produce a physical copy. The up front costs for digital games are so much lower, the entry level so much cheaper for the consumer, and the ability to automate and expand so much more convenient for everyone, that I’m all about digital devices as a board gaming platform (and have been for a number of years). So I’d expect to see For Glory! released on a tablet near you before a physical copy rolls off the presses.

The one exception to this seems to be card games. My experience producing QBB’s cards has shown me that there is a much better chance of a return on your investment with sufficient quality to justify physical card games. As such, the Pirate Game, which was formerly planned to be a proper board game, is now being redesigned using a new system I’m developing to function as a card based wargame. As this system will be the basis of the larger BoHM plans I mentioned earlier, I will be working heavily on this after QBB is wrapped up for the month.

RAAARGH! THE GAME OF GIANT B MOVIE MONSTER COMBAT

Some of you may remember this project from last year. It is an actual video game, not a table top  board game or RPG, and it has been waiting for mobile technology to catch up a bit and the right production team to come along. Well, the good news is that I am in final negotiations with a company to finally finish it. Most of the design work is done and all that is left is programming and testing, so I look forward to this tearing up a tablet near you soon.

SUMMARY

So that’s what’s on the block. Fortunately, a lot of it is well on its way to done, so we should see 2 or 3 of these out by the end of the year with the rest following up shortly thereafter in 2015. In the meantime, I’ll try and get some more specific updates on individual games up later this week,,,