An apology to our regular (and casual!) readers! Jay and I have been very busy, lately. Sadly, not game designing as much as we’d like, but rather just getting caught up with life. Of course, we were also enjoying the last of the summer days with family and friends – so that was fun!
A few things that *did* happen over August / early September were the finalization of our contracts for Swashbucklers (now with Queen) and But Wait There’s More (with Toy Vault). So, be on the look out for a Kickstarter campaign from your favourite Design Duo (i.e. us) in the near future! Whether the games remain EXACTLY as designed, we’ll have to wait and see…
During the waning days of August was Ontario’s largest fan convention – FanExpo. This is serious geekness at its finest! Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Cosplay, Anime, Comics, Video Games, and – of course, Board/Card Games. I was able to sit on the a panel with several other Game Artisans (Daryl Andrews, Daryl Chow, and Al Leduc). A lot of the questions asked were about iPad appification, the current state of the market, and finding game playtest groups. All in all, a good time.
We got to hear one of Canada’s more prominent designers, Eric Lang (he of Chaos in the Old World and Quarriors fame) speak about some pretty cool stuff like psychogrammes of player types – as a therapist, this intrigues me. While I probably subconciously design for certain player types, Eric is trying to take it to a new level!
I purchased a commission of the Modulator from Midnight Men (a game by Yves Tourigny and myself) drawn by Vancouver-native, Jason Copland. As you can see, he is a VERY talented artist! Kudos to him for capturing the vibe Yves envisioned really well!
Marquis and Lucas from UniForge were also at FanExpo with their ginormous Jenga that’s always a hit! It was awesome to see Al Leduc’s game Frankendie in it’s fully produced glory. Great artwork as seen over there <—-. I have a copy of that coming to me via Kickstarter as well as Yves Tourigny’s Top This! which was available to play in prototype form at the UniForge table. Can’t wait to play both with the kids – they’ll love the rolling, flicking, goodness!
Oh! In other recent news, we’ve gotten word back that along with a German-Language edition of Belfort, TMG has also signed up co-publishers in Poland and Japan – can’t wait to see those! The German edition will have new artwork and be ready for an Essen 2012 release, I believe. I know that Seth Jaffee (Belfort’s Developer) will be in Essen this year to represent TMG, so I hope to get pics of happy Europeans playing the game there!
[Insert German Cover Art Here When We Find Out What It Looks Like!]
So yeah, busy month!
~ Sen-Foong Lim
Inspiration to Publication 