Raffle Drawing This Thursday!

So this Thursday we're going to have a raffle. It's pretty awesome and it has almost nothing to do with tabletop gaming. We're giving two free tickets to the Columbus Crew game on June 13, 2018. You'll get to come with us and have a fun time at the soccer match. I know it has to do with gaming though so you'll definitely have fun if you're into it.

So definitely follow the instructions in this facebook event to get a shot at coming with us: https://www.facebook.com/events/888659364639064/

As we already covered previously, we're also going to be at Origins Game Fair so definitely hit up booth #566!!!

Multiverse Musing

Have you ever heard of the theory (more like hypothesis) of the multiverse?

I was just recently making some oatmeal because I want to live a healthier lifestyle. It's something I used to do all the time because it was healthier than other choices and filling. Filling for at least an hour anyway. And hey! I was poor and it was cheap too.

While I was making the oatmeal my wife decided to comment that I am supposed to let it sit there so the water can cook the oatmeal. I was of course stirring the oatmeal as one commonly would do if they like a fusion of flavors from the two different oatmeal packets they were using.

As she was telling me this and I was stirring my food I had this thought in my head about sending some of it her way and saying "is it cooked?" like some kind of childish moron. Obviously I didn't follow through with this but it got me thinking about how bad that would have been and how glad I was that I am living in the better reality than what I have imagined.

Now, unfortunately I am living in the reality where I told her the thought had crossed my mind. It seems I'm not the most intelligent version of my multiverse self.

Still though. it makes you think. Is the thing that crossed my mind a window into another part of the multiverse? Well.... probably not, but I can't disprove that the mad scientists of Gamma Grunts don't exist in some other reality. (good luck proving/disproving any negative claim)

With that being said I've come to realize that the creation of Gamma Grunts is a window into the world we have always wanted to create. It's a window I plan on keeping open as long as possible because I enjoy what we are doing here. Sure, I've got some writers block at the moment, but I'm at least glad we are in this universe instead of the one where Mecha-Hitler wrote his tragic poem Mein Ananas. Yes, I know it had critical reviews, but it just is not my cup of tea. Too much fruit on Pizza....

I was more a fan of Gandhi's take on "Terminator 7, Death to the Machines". It just has that Gandhi flair. Also, that universe has a lot more movies to watch than this one, which is hard to believe, I KNOW RIGHT? But hey, that's the Multiverse !

Keep it Crazy -

Mad Scientist Kyle

Combos are Everything

Marcon was so awesome! There were a few of us game designers who all hung out together and talked shop every day of the convention. We also play tested our games with attendees of the convention and got some great feedback/exposure. There was a really awesome moment that came up in gameplay that made me giddy with how it played out.

I was playing with 3 other people Saturday morning of the convention. Things were ramping up and rather than playing a full game to 20 Infamy, they requested we play a shorter one to 10. One of the guys we were playing had the lead at 7 Infamy and I was close behind him at 6 Infamy. He had 4 grunts that he was attacking me with and I had nothing to defend myself with. I knew I had the card, "Angler" in my deck so I just had to hope for luck. I decided to just flip the top card of my deck to satisfy the damage being dealt and boy was I lucky. The top card was, "Angler" and I smashed it and that was it. He only got 2 Infamy from me smashing that from the card from deck, which put him 1 Infamy away from winning. As you can see below, it also lashed back at the player who damaged me for 2 damage.

So my opponent hadn't won but he had to smash cards to satisfy the damage that I was dealing to him in response. Little did I know that he had, "Mini Angler" in his hand which is the 1 cost version of the card I got him with. So he was able to smash, "Mini Angler" and cause me to smash 1 more point to make him victorious.

Moments like these are why we created Gamma Grunts the way we did. The gotcha moments. The large, devastating attacks, and the triggered reactions. I loved that I was there to witness that moment and see the satisfaction in the player's face. I hope to witness that many more times to come.

I'm excited to spend more time at conventions with our game and getting to see those interactions during gameplay more and more. Next convention, Wizard World Columbus 2018, June 8-10. Shortly after that, Origins Game Fair, June 13-17. 

Getting creative with your character

Mad scientist Kyle here!

So, this post isn't really related to Gamma Grunts at all. It's about Dungeons and Dragons and being creative with your characters.

The other day I was at my biweekly DnD game where I am currently playing my Half Orc Barbarian Thnag. As characters go he isn't too bright. He is mostly built for smashing things wholly at random and causing chaos because he is chaotic neutral.

From the previous session he had just finished fighting off about 3 dinosaurs a magical old man, and several guards in the middle of a riot caused by his companion Ludgut (the most legendary of half orc bards). The rest of the party had run off doing their own things while I was in the thick of battle defending my newly created horde of whomever would join me.

There is one detail about Thnag that I haven't told you about yet. He is an elemental barbarian currently doing sands as his element. What's so special about this you may ask? He can cause fire damage to everything in a 10 foot radius in addition to having the power to light objects on fire.

Now, as Thnag had just taken several moonblasts and spears to the face he wasn't doing so well(one HP left). With this in mind I got the bright idea to cause a panic as an escape plan for the party. So, as Thnag ran into the forest still on his rage he started burning everything around him as he ran and started screaming "Dragon!". As he made his way into the areas with tents he naturally continued this process until his rage failed.

It was at this time a contingent of about 100 city guards had surrounded the dinosaur pens and the rest of the party members in that general area. So, continuing with the plan Thnag ran screaming at the guards about a dragon and managed to convince them of the danger as they looked back at the blaze of flames and destruction behind him.

A little over 60 of the guards had successfully been deceived by this trick as the rest were engaged with dinosaurs stomping them. Sadly though the dragon trick didn't work on the leader of the guards and his two lieutenants by his side.

In an effort to convince them further Thnag burst into his rage again and pretended a dragon had shot him with fire breath immersing himself in flames. This was good enough to convince some more guards but not the ones staring directly at him. So with a boop on the nose Thnag fell unconscious and made a guard feel like a true man for having taken out this nearly 7 foot tall half force immersed in flames of death in one hit.

This all just goes to show that your characters, although may be dumb and nearly dead, can quite easily deal with an army of people if you can be creative about it.

Tune in next time for some more hijinks and news about Gamma Grunts.

Marcon... Already?!

We're going to Marcon, a convention in downtown Columbus, Ohio. We're going to be joining other game designers to add a little something different this year. It's really an awesome opportunity and we're really excited to be a part of it.

So, be sure to hit us up at Marcon if you're coming out. We'd love to hang out. If you aren't coming, you need to hurry up and change your plans before it's too late.

Check it out here: http://marcon.org/

Thoughts of a mad scientist - Kyle's thoughts

Good afternoon, good evening, and good morning to everyone!

This is Mad Scientist Kyle here just making a post to say play testing has been going well. We have been getting a lot of feedback and have been able to fine-tune Gamma Grunts to a point where it is essentially ready for Kickstarter barring a few little details. Why don't we put it up now? Because we want to ensure we are putting our best blood, sweat, and tears out there for people to support and doing that still requires some things.

I'd like to take a second to talk about the great people that have been play testing with us. We have had everything from novice to highly experience gamers play testing our game. These wonderful people have been interested in a wide variety of games like Euros, TCGs, Deck Builders, and many other game styles.

Their feedback has helped us incorporate a whole slew of interesting ideas and design considerations. For example, just recently a group of play testers help us to understand how over powered the card Rail Gunner was so we brought his power level back in line with everything else. They even helped bring attention to how our initial card art was just a little too dark for the text to be easily readable.

One specific shout out I want to do is for Nate of Nerdarchy. He play tested our game and pointed out something no one else had even realized. The names of our cards weren't all in the Mad Scientist theme. Sure, our art ideas were, but the names weren't which was a crucial design consideration we just plain missed.

This just goes to show the mantra of game design is PLAY TEST PLAY TEST PLAY TEST!


Thanks for your time and have a great day!

Card Layout Design

Check out this really awesome looking card layout. It's finally here for all to see. 

Obviously the logo in the center of the card is definitely a filler piece for now but just imagine how great it's going to look with grunts filling these cards. You'll notice the borders might seem a little large but that's to account for drift when the cards are printed. There's going to be far more coming but I wanted to share the layout this week. 

More to come but what do you like about the card layout, dislike about it, and would you change anything? 

Thoughts of a Mad Scientist: World Governments

I often ask myself what would it be like to have one world government. It's an important question to ask oneself when striving towards world domination. If you aren't comfortable with the idea of running a government why would you want to conquer the entire world anyways?

Other mad scientists may want to conquer the world because they just want to see the world burn like the psychopathic cheaters and thieves they are. Many mad scientists thrive on chaos and destruction. Lets face it, smashing things is fun. I enjoy it too.

I would like to think that my motivation for conquering the world are humane. I find myself looking at each of the governments around the world and see how horrible they treat everyone. Shouldn't they be freed? Shouldn't everyone be free? YES they should, EVERYONE SHOULD BE FREE. Even if it smashes them. Muahahahahahahahaha!

Oh what the world will be like when My Grunts have finished beating out those Other grunts and mad Scientist. One world order under me. Dr. Cassini Medtt would be a paradise where everyone can enjoy the convenience of one currency with my face on it. And maybe my cat. His face too.

If you think about the existing governments of the world you can identify many different problems,  inefficiencies, and corruptions among each of them. Politicians stealing from the coffers, stagnate rules blocking actions, and Casual Fridays to name a few of the problems. Under my rule, we will start by renaming all the governments to The Unified Earth Directorate. That way there is only one thing for people to remember. Honestly, who can remember the well over 210 countries names and thousands of government organizations. Not me... So probably not you either.

Yes, all of the corruption will be streamlined into one central location. The Department of Corruption! It will cover all of our needs. It will do all the things everyone is used to happening in their governments to keep everyone comfortable with the turmoil going on during the transition.

Doesn't make sense? Well why should it, you're not in my head are you? ARE YOU?!?!

Origins Game Fair and a Potential Free MLS Game With Us

First off, check out our logo!!! It's finally here. We're pretty excited to be able to show it off. Let us know what you think.

As you can probably tell, stuff is really ramping up here on the Gamma Grunts front. We are still working on logistics while James Koenig, our artist, has started illustrating this week. We are continuing to learn what people expect from our game and how our product can really fit the desires people have. This has been a combination of talking to both consumers and industry folks, getting information where we can.

The first person who really helped was Brent Critchfield from Studio Woe. He created a game named, Gruff (www.studiowoe.com) where you play a mutated goat herder who is battling against other mutated goat herders. It was such a fun game with such unique art (see above) that Kyle and I fell in love with his product. Well, Brent runs the company himself and has ran successful Kickstarters in the past so he was the perfect candidate to ask questions about how the process goes. 

I spoke with him on the phone for about 2 1/2 hours last year about what we need to think about for every step of production and logistics. At the end of the conversation I realized that this is a lot of work and you can't go into this thinking only about the romantic idea of bringing your game to fruition. It takes a lot of ambition, a lot of sleepless nights filled with planning, a lot of research into which tools are usable on a budget, figuring out which marketing/promotion techniques work best for your situation, planning for worst and best case scenarios, and at the end of the day putting your money where your dreams are because before you go to Kickstarter, you have to work harder than you have ever worked before. This wasn't what he went over with me directly on this phone call but rather he gave me the first few tools I needed to get started. 

So with all of this, Kyle and I are proud to officially announce that we are going to have a booth at Origins. We'll be demoing the game and will have early copies we'll be raffling off every day of Origins. We also have a big prize for Wednesday night.

We're also going to take one lucky person out to a Columbus Crew Soccer Club match against Atlanta on June 13th, 2018. Check it out here: Facebook event

Thought's of a Mad Scientist: Other Mad Scientists

THIEVES!

CHARLATANS!

CONDEMN-ABLE ACTIONS!

My Ideas have been stolen from me!

The very thought of it all is maddening.

What happened you may ask? I was watching the evening news and it turns out some other Mad Scientists have been creating Gamma Juice and Grunts! How exactly do I know you might ask? Well isn't it obvious? When the headlines are "The White House, Kremlin, Blue House and British Parliament have all been attacked by ogreish monsters the first thought might be OH!, we're in a "Fantasy World" that must have been dreamed up by some guy and his partner to make and sell a game. WELL YOU'D BE WRONG!

The only way this could have happened is if someone used gamma juice to create Grunts! MY DESIGN!

OOOOOHHHHHH THOSE OTHERS WILL RUE THE DAY THEY STOLE MY DESIGNS!

Muahahahahahahahaha.

Simple Manufacturing and Shipping

We covered some preparation info in our previous post, Kickstarter 101 but now it's time to cover how manufacturing works. There are a lot of companies to consider but I'll start with what's important to think about. This is not the end all be all to how it is for everyone but these are the things that we've had to think of thus far in our game creation journey.

If you're looking to stay in the United States and want to print off smaller batches of games, one of THE BEST options for you is The Game Crafter. They have a ridiculous amount of tools that they use to make small publishers successful and go above and beyond to make sure people are satisfied. They even have podcasts and blogs that help give advice about how all of this works. I've spent every day listening to their podcast and have listened to hours of content that has been filled with some of the best advice I could've asked for. Seriously, consider these guys for your shipping if it's in your cards. (pun intended) Even if it isn't in the cards, utilize these guys and check out what they put out.

As for everyone else, I can list off quite a few manufacturers that do great work but I won't. There are people who have larger lists that are definitely more complete than I could manage. For instance, check out The Hitchhiker's Guide To Game Manufacturers by James Mathe. It separates everything by cost and quality. Whatever matters most to you depends on your situation and your game. What I will go over is what we've considered with everything:

1. If your game has cards, think about the thickness of the cards ahead of time. Try to get some games with varying thicknesses to reference but I'll save you some work. The standard for a lot of games is at least 300 GSM (grams per square meter). Anything less is not practical for playing over time. That being said if you have less cards in your game, going as high as 350 GSM might be an option for you. You'll be the best judge of this but no matter what you do, make sure you research it ahead of time. In addition, consider whether you want them to be uncoated, glossy, or made out of linen. These are all very important for you to know ahead of time.

2. With manufacturing, another thing to think about is what size your components will be. The companies who you work with might be able to help with this but it's good for you to think about this ahead of time. Go to your game shelf and try to find a game that's similar to yours. If you don't, then you should look up games that are like yours online to see what they did. Most of the time you can find photos of the inside of the boxes when you search for them. When you find them, consider what their game includes and think about whether you like how they packaged their product. Then you can plan accordingly when you tell the manufacturer what you're expecting.

3. Contact manufacturers ahead of time so you can get quotes. Quotes are free and are very helpful with your decision making. Some of the best manufacturers out there are expensive if you are printing a small run. One thing to mention before we go further is what the term, "Landed Cost" means. It literally means the cost per printed product for it to arrive to wherever you need to ship it out from. It's the printing cost plus what it costs to ship it to you. So, if you're printing 500 copies through Company A, the landed cost could be $15 per product whereas if you go with Company B, the landed cost could be $10 per product. If you just go with Company A without first contacting Company B, you could be out extra money.

4. Always remember to plan around the Chinese New Year. This year, companies were shut down from 2/7/18-2/23/18. That means over two weeks where you can't get anything done with your manufacturing companies. If you are manufacturing outside of the US, this is most likely going to affect you and you should just plan around it.

This may seem simple but when it comes down to it, it's important stuff to consider if you haven't come across it yet. There's loads more to consider but check out James Mathe's blog to narrow it down.

The last thing I'll mention is to think about how you're going to ship everything. If you don't want to manage all of the shipping yourself and spend hours upon hours fulfilling your orders, think about going with another company. A great company that handles storage and shipping combined is Ship Naked. They are also really nice folks and have warehouses around the country to fulfill whatever your company's needs are. These are just great tools for you to consider depending on how successful your campaign is.

What are you looking for in a manufacturer? What is most important to you when trying to find someone to print your games?