Scott King's Blog, page 28

2015 Calendar Kickstarter Ends Tomorrow!

This is it. If you want to get a custom 2015 Gaming Calendar, where you get to pick the photos that go in it, then this is your last chance.  The campaign ends at 9p.m. Eastern Standard Time tomorrow (Friday August 29th) so make sure you head over to Kickstarter before then:  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/th3rdworld/2015-gaming-calendar

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Last Week For The 2015 Gaming Calendar!

The Kickstarter for the 2015 Gaming Calendar ends on Friday at 9p.m. est. The base calendar will be for sale this fall but this is your ONLY chance to pick up a custom calendar where you get to pick what photos go in it and what additional holidays (like birthdays or anniversaries) are included!

Contest:

In addition, one of my go to gaming Podcasts, Rolling Dice and Taking Names, is sponsoring a contest. All you need to do is go here and fill out this simple one answer survey. The winner will get a free print of any of the photos included in the 2015 Gaming Calendar!

Fan Art:

Also I’m pleased to share the first ever FAN ART I’ve gotten for my photography! @TalonStrikes on twitter did this bad boy:



It’s pretty darn awesome. Thank you Talon!

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TSS Dice In The Mouth Challenge!

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge has been spreading like wildfire, which is fabulous. ALS is a more than a worthy cause. But don’t forget that there are a lot of other amazing charities. Personally, I’m a big fan of Hospice. What those men and woman do is heartbreaking hard work that truly makes a difference. The last year of my father’s life would’ve been drastically different if Hospice hadn’t helped us.

Of course if you don’t have a charity that you already have an emotional attachment for then I suggest checking out Gamers for Cures, founded by Dan Patriss.

“Gamers for Cures is something I came up with about 4 years ago,” Patriss said. “Shortly after Lauren, my daughter, got diagnosed with Turner Syndrome, I wanted to find a way to give back. At the time there were tons of people doing Extra Life for video gaming, but almost no one was doing it for board games. Since we have about the best community of any for any hobby I decided to try and create a charity. The initial idea was to do 2 events a year. One, our main one would be a 24 hour Board Game Marathon to benefit Turner Syndrome Society of the US, and the other a Breast cancer walk in the spring.”

Every year, Patriss runs a 24 hour gaming marathon. It’s like the walks/runs you see for cancer only instead of walking, gamers game! It’s not so much about playing games straight for twenty four hours as it is about raising money and trying to spread word about Turner Syndrome.

“The main point of the marathon is to raise awareness and money for Turner Syndrome,” Patriss said. “Turner Syndrome (TS) is a chromosomal condition that describes girls and women with common features that are caused by complete or partial absence of the second sex chromosome. Common problems include short stature, premature ovarian failure, thyroid problems, and heart and kidney abnormalities. TS occurs in approximately 1 of every 2,000 live female births and is responsible for as many as 10% of all miscarriages.”

As a precursor to this year’s 24 hour event, which takes place on November 4th, Patriss and some other gamer media types have created the #DiceInTheMouthChallenge. To participate you take a photo of yourself with dice in your mouth, post it onto any social media site and then donate at least $1 toward the Turner Syndrome Society.

PLEASE KEEP IN MIND that this challenge can be a choking hazard. Do not let children do it and do not do it alone. Seriously, this is eighteen & up only!

“The Dice in the mouth challenge was started by Stephen Avery,” Patriss said. “He had been wanting to find a good way to help us out for the event since we spoke at length one night at Origins. This week he tweeted out a harmless picture of himself with dice in his mouth and the link to the Gamers For Cure First Giving site. We decided to keep challenging people and see what we can make this become.”

Keep in mind that if you don’t happen to own dice or simply aren’t very social then you can still help by chipping in as little as a $1!

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Cupcakes vs. Brownies is now on Amazon!

If you missed the kickstarter then don’t worry because Cupcakes vs. Brownies is now on Amazon! Both the print book and e-book are available now.

http://www.amazon.com/Cupcakes-vs-Brownies-Scott-King/dp/0692211810/

FYI: We are producing an audiobook but it won’t be for sale until sometime in September.

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Creators Cast!

I’m pleased to announce that my new podcast, Creators Cast, is now live on iTunes! In every episode I sit down with a creative type and talk to them about who they are and what they do. Each episode lasts fifteen to twenty minutes and new episodes will publish every Friday.

iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/creators-cast/id907534102?mt=2

If you don’t use iTunes or prefer to manually download an episode you can do so by going to the libsyn feed.

Libsyn http://creatorscast.libsyn.com/

In these debut episodes I was lucky enough to chat with Ryan Penagos and Chris Kirkman. Penagos is one of Marvel’s social media gurus and he serves as Marvels Executive Editoral Director for digital media. Plus he loves tacos. Plus he got to visit the set for Avengers: Age of Ultron. Kirkman on the other hand is an indie games publisher who has some awesome tips on how to pitch projects to publishers.

Enjoy and please let me know what you think!

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Dead of Winter: A Crossroads Game Preview!

Winter has come… and it is AWESOME.

I first got to play Dead of Winter last fall at BGG.Con. My opinion of the game hasn’t changed and the mechanics are as tight as I remember, but the game itself looks way better.

Dead of Winter is co-designed by Issac Vega and Jonathan Gilmour and is published by Plaid Hat Games. The game is a semi co-op set in a zombie apocalypse world. In it players try to accomplish a main goal while at the same time trying to achieve their secret objective. If a player fails to meet their secret goal they still lose the game, even if the main objective is complected.

“A lot of my time is still wrapped up in my day job, and my family, so I won’t lie. Isaac did a lot of the heavy lifting after we started working together,” Gilmour said. “I stayed involved in the process through tons of late night skype sessions, emails, and meeting up pretty much monthly and reviewing the latest versions and changes and giving feedback.”

The double goals creates an amazing sense of conflict. Players have to balance what they do to ensure that that as a group the game isn’t lost while at the same time being selfish to make sure that they complete their secret objective. To make things even more tense, there is a chance that one of the players may be a traitor who’s secret goal is for the group to fail the main objective.

“Cranking that up to 11 was always a goal,” Gilmour said. “Things like the Crossroad cards, where the players often have to make a very public decision, and deal with the fall out play a big part of that. So do the secret objectives.”

The conflict doesn’t stop there. In addition to the main goal, secret goals, and worrying about traitors, players must also deal with a crisis. Every round a new crisis is revealed. If players take action and resolve it then nothing bad happens. If they fail things get nasty fast.

“Originally, instead of secret objectives, each player had a open betrayal condition that they could just announce, and win the game by themselves,” Gilmour said. “I really liked the paranoia it created. At the start of the game you could say “OK, He’s the junkie, we need to make sure he doesn’t collect too much medicine.” I love games like Cosmic Encounter, and Life Boat that have tons of great social interaction, and they were huge inspirations to me.”

In addition to dealing with all the big conflict, players must also watch the moral track and the round tracker. If either hits zero then the game ends. Players must also risk traveling in the cold, dealing with zombies, and watching both their food pile and waste supply. Basically a whole heck of a lot of things can go wrong in Dead of Winter!

“The theme was zombie from the start,” Gilmour said. “I’m a huge zombie fan, and set out to make the Zombie game that I felt wasn’t being made. I wanted something that focused on the survivors and wasn’t about awesomely blowing away zombies. Don’t get me wrong, those moments in the zombie flicks are great, but they are just set pieces. We talked several times about changing the theme because of the market perception that zombies are “overdone” but we just committed to making the best damn zombie game we could, and anything else would not be true to the game we had been crafting.”

Although Dead of Winter is a zombie game, the mechanics make it more about the social interactions of all the players then about fighting off a zombie horde. Then because of all the conflict there is a sense of story that is created as the game progresses. This is partially helped by the huge amount of playable characters in the game. The cast is massive and offers a nice variety of abilities and special powers.

What it all comes down to though are the Crossroads Cards. They are the heart of Dead of Winter. At the start of each player’s turn, the previous turn-taker draws a card. At the top of the card is a condition. If the condition is already met or becomes met during the current player’s turn then the regular gameplay pauses and the Crossroads card activates.

“The Crossroad cards were really the biggest item that we wanted to get right,” Gilmour said. “We went well over a year of playtesting with it just felling “good” but not “great” but once the crossroad cards fell into place, everything just clicked.”

Most crossroad cards either have the current player deciding between two tough choices or involves several players taking a vote.  In most cases the Crossroads cards force devastatingly hard decisions. For example, one card has a player discovering a horse. The player then has to choice to either keep the horse, which will allow them to move from locations without risk or the player has to decide to kill the horse which will boost the food supply of the whole colony.

“[The Crossroads Cards] changed through the various versions of the game,” Gilmour said. “But we wanted to have something represent the moral decisions the players had to make, and really try to tweak the Self Vs Group dichotomy we were creating.”

Sometimes the Crossroads Cards are silly, sometimes they are good, sometimes they are bad, and sometimes they cause a vote over a really serious morale chooses. The cards truly bring a freshness to the game that helps the theme feel alive. They make Dead of Winter feel personal and engaging. It’s no wonder that Plaid Hat Games is developing a new series of games based on the Crossroads mechanic. It’s smooth, it offers a lot of story, and gives players the feeling that the choices they make truly matter.

“Even though the final version of them is Isaac’s, I’m most proud of the Crossroad cards,” Gilmour said. “They make the game. I love that PHG has embraced the user created content, so that people can keep the game fresh by creating their own cards and stories. I’m also very proud of PHG’s decision to keep the adult content in the game, and keep it very dark. I don’t think enough games do that. Video games are just getting to the point where they can handle mature themes and bring about real discussions, and I am glad we are doing that as well.”

Dead of Winter is debuting this week at GenCon and will be soon appearing online for regular orders. So watch this page to know when you will be able to snag a copy for yourself.

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Added 36 Photos to the 2015 Gaming Calendar!

We hit our second stretch goal for the 2015 Gaming Calendar and now 36 photos have been added to the Custom Calendar pool. So head over to Kickstarter and check out all the new options! 

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Butterfly!

One of the random things that people don’t appreciate here in Gulf Coast Texas is the number of flowers. It doesn’t matter what time of year. There are ALWAYS flowers blooming and lots of different kinds. Lately these purple things have been filling up our backyard and have attracted a lot of butterflies. Though in the winter we had a rose bush that never lost it’s flowers, even in January!

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Lone Star Dome!

This is underside of the rotunda at the Texas State Capitol Building. The star and letters are made of bronze and a good seven or eight stories off the ground. The fun part in taking this photo was laying down flat on the floor while everyone around me, including the security guard stared at me funny.

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The 2015 Gaming Calendar is now on Kickstarter!

I’m so excited for everyone to see all the photos I’ve secretly been taking the past few months!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/th3rdworld/2015-gaming-calendar

I pre-shot 48 games. Just curious but can anyone name them all from the photos?

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