Bloody Knuckles

We celebrated our first successful Kickstarter project last night with wine, food and friends. 

 

As I write this post, Corey is cutting and shaping runes in the garage. We are actually having to weed out the bloody runes from the rest of them so we aren’t sending any out with spilled blood. Who knows, maybe that would make them more appealing? Corey isn’t the only one spilling blood for the love of the game, our friends that volunteer to help are taking their share of injuries, too. All for the love of the game!  On the days he is building our game, he comes home dirty, bloody, and happy. His hands are chewed up and his nose is caked with sawdust, but he smiles all night. 

We may spend several months making copies of Runes & Bones and focusing on our education materials, so don’t look for new projects before June! In the meantime, we will keep our blog updated with other gaming related topics and send out monthly newsletters to keep people posted about our projects. 

Our online presence may be spotty in the next week or so, however. We are not only building the games, we are expecting a grand child. She is due today and we can’t wait to see her!

 

Be patient with us the next few weeks and know that we are making runes, sculpting bones, and spending time with the new baby!

Orcish Wisdom

Our latest game, Runes & Bones, has seven days left to close. We have been very happy with the popularity and success of this project, and have been spending every spare moment making games. Ok, confession time… Corey has been spending every spare moment building the games, but now is where my part comes in. I will be helping him sand, burn and mark the runes and then my favorite part – the bones!

To make the bones we take an enormous bucket of Sculpey, roll out and shape the clay bones, and then bake them in the oven. I can do that all day, it reminds me of play dough, and who doesn’t love play dough?

Ok, not a bucket of Sculpey, but we are going to find one!

We are excited to hear whispers of an Unpub Game convention coming to Denver the first week of April and are already planning our games to bring. Unpub is a group of game developers that do nothing but network, share advice and experience, and play test new and exciting games. The developers group we are forming will kick off the week after Unpub, and we hope to meet many local developers at the convention that share our love of game creation.

A rare glimpse of Wasad Qa, Spirit Talker, in his natural environment..

 

 

 

My loving husband’s alter ego, Wasad Qa, is now joining our game company. Our first Wasad Qa video is now on our Kickstarter page, but you can watch it here.

 

 

There is no better way to spend your days than doing what you love, and those words were always hollow to me before launching this game company. Success is not what brings happiness – happiness is what brings success.

Runes & Bones Deluxe

Our latest game release, Runes & Bones, has been a huge success. Our request was $500, hoping to send a few hand made copies out into the world. We are currently over $3000, and nearly sold out of every set.

This week has been a flurry of updates, stretch goals, and reaching out to other companies to partner with. We have included a new digital game called Sticknia, which is a hoot to play!

In addition to Sticknia, we added a deluxe version of Runes & Bones, leather bags, and personalized runes.

Thank you to everybody who pledged their support, and we are excited about where this game is leading us!

If you haven’t already, please swing by our Kickstarter page and check out Runes & Bones!

Runes & Bones

Runes & Bones have been sources of power and divination for Tribal Orc Spirit Talkers for countless generations.  As the wisdom of the few remaining spirit talkers fell to the blood lust that consumes the race, the Runes and Bones once used to guide the strategy of the warriors now serve only to entertain them.  What once was an honored system of divination, now serves as a campfire game for Orcish warriors everywhere.

Corey and I have spent many hours over the last week hand crafting our newest game, Runes & Bones.  It is now live on Kickstarter. We launched our game this morning, and we met our modest goal by noon. As hand making these versions of the game are time intensive, we are making a limited number of copies with the goal of getting a few copies in the hands of players.  It is our hope that with the game in the public, we can receive reviews and feedback and be more prepared to launch the manufacturing campaign this year.

We made our goal before noon, and are currently at 166% funded.

In our video, we show the process of making this game by hand. It’s a lot of fun, but a lot of work. It’s a good thing we love what we do!

We are overwhelmed with gratitude and excited about the interest and enthusiasm for our game and our company. We cannot thank our backers and supporters enough.

Please check out our game, if you haven’t already!

RUNES & BONES EDITION ZERO

Valentine’s Day Delight

Valentine’s Day is a day for lovers, old and new, to celebrate all they have found in each other. Valentine’s Day is for chocolates, flowers, romance.. even for geeky gamers.

Our Valentine’s Day is going to be a date to remember, we are going to Genghis Con, a game convention in Denver. This will be our second year at the game convention in Denver, and I admit I am giddy with excitement. It will be held at the Red Lion hotel from February 14th to the 17th, we have booked our room and reserved our game slots!

Preregistration ends tomorrow, so please sign up and come play with us. It’s a wickedly fun time!

Here are a few pictures of last year that I borrowed from their site:

Now, if that doesn’t look like fun, I don’t know what does! I am thinking about putting my hair up Princess Leia style and bringing my cloak (that Corey made for me personally) for special effects. What do you think?

(Gun picture added for my lovely friend, Kells)

Project Update:

We played our game, Goblin Pit Fight, at the game store with some new friends and had a great time with it. The game stores are the perfect place to meet like minded geeks and have a great time! We are working on the logistics and hammering out details of our next game – this game makes me giggle with every new development. I think game developing and creation is the most fun job in the world. Where else is your mission to create fun and have fun doing it?

We now have a newsletter that we will be sending out once a month. If you want to follow our work without the hassle of reading our blog several times a week, feel free to sign up here. We will only send you out monthly updates, and your email address will not be offered to any eyes other than our own.

In the meantime, I am getting all geared up for the convention. Who knows, maybe I will even post pics of our Valentine’s Day night in all of our nerdy glory!

A Brief History of Card Games

I grew up playing games. Playing chess, checkers, cribbage are some of my earliest memories, with our parent’s game night inlcuding 6 to 20 people hanging out, drinking beer and playing pinochle, cribbage, and trying to beat one of “the kids” in a game of chess.

Games have brought people together throughout the ages. The earliest record of card games can be found in 9th century China. It was then called the “Leaf Game” and played by royalty. By the 11th century, card games are found throughout Asia. Characters from popular novels were the faces and the cards each had four suits, very similar to today. The cards were printed onto domino tiles when they were widely used and looked very similar to Mahjong.

Playing cards were introduced to Europe in the 14th century, with the first documentation being a ban on them in 1377. Believed to be brought through Egypt, they resembled both styles of cards found in India. They were round, intricately hand painted, and had four suits.

In the middle ages, a new era of commerce and industry was changing society. Towns and markets were the center of activity and new ideas, and playing cards became a luxury for the wealthy with time on their hands.

“By the sixteenth century, popular sayings had entered into everyday language, as well as literature, poetry and popular ballads relating to card playing, including metaphors based on cards and card games (“devil’s picture book”), the moral character of gamblers (“cheats, swindlers, card-sharps”) and the divinatory, amorous, social, religious or political meaning of cards. At the same time they were a bond which united people together.” – History of Cards

Cards remained part of society and culture ever since, and there has always been a stigma associated with being a card player. Outlaws, rebels, and bad boys were the real card players, and that stereotype still hangs around today, regardless of all the bridge clubs we have.

Project Update:

This is a slow time for our project, Goblin Pit Fight. We haven’t lost hope for this game, despite it’s slow movement on Kickstarter and are working with other game manufacturers for alternative ways to produce our game. We are also working out the logistics for other games we have in the works, and will fill you in when we have a more concrete plan.

If you would like more comprehensive information about the history of card games, please check out THIS site, where we found one of our pictures and much of our information. See you next week, tonight is Poker Night!

Game Night

This afternoon we will be hanging out at our local game store, Total Escape Games, playing Goblin Pit Fight and possibly play testing another game for a member of our Board Game Group on Facebook.

This has been a full week of gaming, last night we played Space Alert with our friends, pizza and beer. If you haven’t checked this one out yet – run, don’t walk, to you local game store and buy it. Who knew fighting aliens could be so much fun?

We are board game designers because we are board game lovers. Board games provide us fun nights with our friends in a personal, face to face kind of way. Video games are great escapes, board games are great times. Game nights bring friends, beer, laughter, food and a quality of relationship that you just can’t replicate with Xbox Live. Yesterday was the last night we had to spend with our dear friend, James, before he returns to Japan.

James has been a lifelong gaming friend of Corey’s, and a new friend to me.  James lives in Japan with his wife, Keiko, and new son Jamie. The last few weeks he has returned to the states for work and has spent most of his free time helping us with our project. He has play tested, offered feedback, helped with the design and visited game stores with us. He is also a project backer, even though he will receive a copy of the game either way. This level of support and friendship could not have been found without their mutual love of board games.

Thanks so much for everything, James, and safe travels home!

Project Update:

As mentioned above, we will be playing Goblin Pit Fight tonight at our local game store. We love this store and cannot wait to feature it in our next post. If you are anywhere near the area, swing by. We would love to meet you, play a game, and generally hang out.

We ordered the t-shirts today and are excited to get them in the hands of our contest winners. We also can’t wait to get our own and proudly sport them at Genghis Con in Denver in a couple of weeks.

Thanks again to all of our friends and supporters, and make sure to swing by our Kickstarter page, the Goblin Pit Fight.

GOBLIN PIT FIGHT

We Broke a Thousand, Baby!

In preparation for this project launch, we made a game. We labored and toiled over our game. We worked on game mechanics, art, budgets and play testing.  

What we missed were the stories of others who have gone before us. As I am hearing them now, I realize that there is no sense in recreating the wheel, the answers are already out there. My next steps are to reach out to others and see how they did it – how they made their hobby a way of life. 

Lessons learned:

1. It takes courage to try something new.

2.  Gamers are always a hoot to read and listen to on podcasts.

3. The road from A to B isn’t always a clear, straight line.

 

Project Update:

We crossed the 10 percent to goal line today with 51 backers! We are thrilled that we have come this far and 51 different people are willing to believe in our dream and back our project!

The Fire Tribe cards are complete and ready for print. We are so pleased with how they have developed, maintaining the original look while making the icons larger and easier to play with. Here is one of the new cards:

 Thanks to everyone who has backed and supported us, with a special thanks to the supporter that pushed us over our milestone and made our day!

 

GOBLIN PIT FIGHT

The Trouble with Goblins

The trouble with goblins is that they are such nasty little creatures, they are hard to drum up sympathy for.

The trouble with after hours geeks is this: We are, by and large, introverts. We had to take off our game developer hats and put on our marketing hats, which we wear much less often. These hats will fit much more comfortably every time we wear them.

We made huge changes to our campaign and game and posted them last night. We have been working around the clock with artists, our focus group, and getting the word out. With the new changes in the project, we are excited and ready to show it off with pride. Tonight, Corey and his local support team are out and about, hitting local game stores and playing the game. This is the most fun part of promotion, of course, the chance to play the game. There was a point last week where we were working so hard that we forgot to have fun, and really, isn’t that what games are for?

Lessons learned:

1. All work and no play is no way to promote fun.

2. Art takes time, don’t under estimate how long it takes.

3. We are fortunate people with the best support team anybody could ask for.

Project Update:

We have redone our artwork and worked closely with a focus group to achieve the our new masterpiece. Here is an example of the new art:

We posted the contests that are running last night, click here if you missed it. We are pretty excited about the Goblins Awareness T-Shirts and had a ball making up..errr… researching goblins statistics!

We created a new promo video focusing on the injustice that goblins face. I know I posted it last night, but I have to post it again tonight. It cracks me up every time I watch it!

Thanks for following our adventure, this has been worlds of fun! Don’t forget to check out our project, The Goblin Pit Fight:

GOBLIN PIT FIGHT

52 Goblin Challenge

This week’s contest for the glorious prize of a “Goblin Awareness T-shirt”.

5 awesome gamers will take the prize by flexing their geek muscles.

Goblin Pit Fight has 52 goblins in the deck.  They are very upset that the high level adventurers have slain their families.  Those same high level adventurers have left town to chase a dragon or defeat an evil sorcerer.

52 goblins attack your town!  Angry and jealous of the cushy life you live.

You have 4 “level 1” adventurers.  Describe what your party is made of and how you would deal with this 52 goblin challenge. Post a comment here with your response to the 52 Goblin Challenge.

Check next Monday’s update on our Kickstarter page for winners of this contest and the “Nominate Your Local Game Store” contest.

Goblin Pit Fight