It's been way too long since my last post, but I've been super busy. Between buying a new house and getting it ready for the baby on the way, I haven't had much time to work on games. Going back to school and starting a new job hasn't really made things easier too.
Last weekend was the first Protospiel Minnesota, and I was super excited about it. I was able to get there Friday night after work and got to play test one of my games and several of other people's. Unfortunately, I had some plumbing issues the rest of the weekend and couldn't make it back up to the event. I didn't get to play test any of the games I had hoped to try out. The plumbing also ate away the time I was going to put towards entering the Cardboard Edison game contest. House issues are a pain.
Other than those issues, things have been going great. Siege of Sunfall looks amazing and is all set to launch the Kickstarter next week on February 9th. I'm super excited about it. There is already a review from Father Geek which can be found here. I can't wait to see more reviews. Don't forget to become a fan on the Board Game Geek page. I should have a couple of interviews being released sometime soon with the game as well so watch out for those.
The game I got to play test at Protospiel was Pass The Salt. It's a newer idea that was just handwritten cards with no art, which is not a good way to attract people. I got some great feedback about the game. It was meant for the take-that contest the Game Crafter had a few months back. It's a simple game with not a lot of strategy. I think it's decent so far and needs to have some tweaks but could be a simple card game that could help children learn some math while playing. I just need some decent artwork and a Salt Meeple and it will be all set after a few rules changes.
The other game I'm working on is Catch Diego. I'm super excited about this one. Players are old west bounties hunters trying to collect bounties. They can capture the bounties Dead or Alive, but earn more if they follow the poster. The tracking element in the game adds to the theme. There is a little memory element while players are trying to find where the bounties they are looking for are. Tracking the bad guys isn't always an easy task.
The last time I was able to play test was at the last Protospiel in Madison. I made some nice changes to the game and helped the pacing a lot. Before the game got bogged down and there were some lack of actions on turns. The trick I learned about games where you get hands of not wanting to do anything is to make cards do multiple things. It's never fun to draw a hand of cards and have nothing to play. By having simple multi-purpose cards, you can help alleviate this issue.
I haven't done much with Meltdown! either. Meltdown is the dexterity based co-op where players are working together to shutdown a nuclear reactor. Players do their turns while stacking cubes each round. If their stack of cubes ever falls, the game ends because the nuclear went into meltdown. I need to do some tweaks still. I got some feedback from the last Protospiel but haven't been able to play since.
That's pretty much it for now. I hope to get some play testing done for those three games and possibly make some more. Don't forget to back the Kickstarter for Siege of Fall starting February 9th!