The Real Thing...

Last weekend, I was on my way back to Jersey from Virginia, and stopped by one of those slot parlours in Delaware. Slots is not my casino game of choice, though I often make machine time for video poker. Machine time, keep that in mind. Lately, the slot parlours (don't call them casinos), have been adding video table games such as blackjack, poker and let it ride. These tables have a huge upright video screen on which the simulated dealer (sim) is projected. The players sit side-by-side before the screen and have individual video monitors on the console before them to place their bets, etc. Back to the sims. The sims have the creepy ability to make eye contact with the passerbys. The damn eyes follow you! Kinda like one of those haunted house portraits... The sim dealers are buff or buxom models, sometimes clad in bathing suits (if the background is an island casino, etc). The sim video loops between them looking at the passerbys (while they wait for the players to place bets), shuffling and dealing. Kinda clever, all in all. But it's not real.

I sat down at a $2 Let It Ride table. Can't find $2 tables out in Vegas, so this seemed like a good deal. All the components you would expect were there: Bonus Bet, Three Card Bonus, etc. It was the game as it should be. But it's not real. By the third deal, I was getting bad vibes. First off, I didn't have poker chips to play with. I had no tangible sense of the game. Sure I could look at the video and see my remaining balance, but that was too much like banking. Numbers on a computer screen is Excel to me. It's work. And, what's worse, it's reality. Poker chips have some type of charge to them. The weight. The softness. It just works psychological wonders.

The other thing that was missing was the cards. In the table game, three cards are dealt face down. You pick them up and look at them. You shuffle them as you want. You use them to scratch the table to indicate a bet should be taken down. The sound of a playing card scratching the table felt, it's almost religious. With the sim, all I had was a button to take down my bet. Lastly, the comradery of your fellow players and the dealer was gone. You can't replicate that. Generally, the dealers give you some consolation if the cards are against you. They react to the odds and the gods in the game. With the sims, you get nothing. No sympathy. No humor. No consolation. Just console.

After a few more hands I had to bolt. The sim was starting to make me realize how money-guzzling stupid the game is, especially when you strip away all the physical components: cards, poker chips, banter. Losing against a computer, any game, makes a person feel dumb. Add losing money to that equation and you feel like a flippin' moron.

Sometimes it is about the game pieces...

Of Mice & Minion Masters...

Before...
Right out of the 1954 movie, "Them!". I had high hopes for these two minions. Level 7 Giant Fire Ants with a nasty afterburn from their bites (i think it was D10 Wounds at the Spante for the next four innings). They marched confidently into battle, as ants often do...
After...

And they were quickly dispatched by the Arks, who showed them who rules the checkered mat!

Best laid plans...

Halfway May

Welp, May's half over, almost, and the content structure of Pirates Of Penzantium is done for the first pass. I pretty much know the chapters and have most of the text in place. The cover is done, once again by Kennon, and the roughs for all the art is in. June will be layout and design, and, proofing, proofing, proofing. It will be interesting to see how all the pieces fit together this time. Last year, Old Skool was a complete uphill learning experience. This year, with the page styles already established, a large chunk of the battle has already been fought. I don't want to say I'm more prepared, I'm just on the battlefield a little earlier and waiting for the enemy to rear its head. All this said, I'm hoping to be to print late-June. Aside from the POP work, I've been overhauling that chunky website o' mine and that fills in any extra time I didn't have to begin with! Halfway May. A new website, a new book and another birthday will finish off this month nicely. God willing!

Pirates and Copper...

I've been working like mad getting the content of the Pirates Of Penzantium completed. Right now, the full book is conceptually in place. I've got about twelve chapters (the same as Old Skool) and looking at about 60 pages. These are text doc pages, not layout. With art and formatting that will probably grow to about 75 pages. I am trying to keep this book slightly smaller than Old Skool, but it might end up being the same page count. Hard to say right now. One lesson learned from last year's publishing endeavors is to have the rough text proofed prior to layout. This allows much quicker editing and all the art doesn't get in the way of the proofer (it's easy to be distracted by all cool art and special formatting). It's just as critical to proof again once layout is complete as the manipulated text can easily get messed up. What I found last year was that there was a ton of errors, stupid errors, that I should have caught pre-formatting.

The second bit of news is that WEGS Copper has been shelved until Pirates is complete. Pirates is the priority right now. As all 12 of you who read this blog should know, Copper is the advanced version of Old Skool. While Old Skool has a small and loyal band of followers (the aforementioned 12), I just don't think it's critical to release; from a timing standpoint it has no urgency - yet. Pirates allows me to open another channel into the system while at the same time expanding the WEGS 101 rule set. Pirates has the potential to hook a new type of player and provide existing Old Skoolers a whole new way of playing, whereas Copper is really focused on the experienced Wegshog. The big bonus to Pirates is that I will have two introductory books to sell at conventions, not just one. Setting up at a booth with a single product for sale is very lame. Just ask me, I've been doing it for month's now. Embarrassing, man! My hope is that folks passing the table will now say:

Two products... Wow, that's a game company!

Death and Coffee...

From one of the seminars I attended last week at the GAMA Trade Show in Vegas... There was a discussion of sales cycles... It was pointed out that from a consumer standpoint coffee is something that you can market for daily consumption. Coffee is something that most folks will buy once a day (assuming they're coffee drinkers and your target audience). All that the coffee companies have to do is set up a store and be there waiting. Opposite that is funeral homes where it is estimated that there's a sale once per seven years. Seven years is a long wait. Maybe that's why morticians have that strange, patient, lurking look... And why those coffee counter folks are so damn happy!

Point is that hobby store customers wander in every now and then to the store - and it ain't daily. When they do wander in, you want your product to jump off the shelves and into their hands. The only way to do that is by making sure your product is eye-catching and sells them the moment they see it. This means front cover, back cover, spine, all slanted to sell. It's important too that when they casually flip the pages of the book, that sells them too.

I'm hoping WEGS sales teeter more toward coffee than death.

Right now it's sure hard to tell!

Last Week... This Month...

Last week...

Las Vegas.

A whirlwind of gaming activity and business stuff and some gambling, too! The Game Manufacturers Association (GAMA) held their GTS (Gama Trade Show) at Bally's in Las Vegas. WEGS 101 was featured for the evening gaming as part of the Play With The Creator series. It was a great time. There were lots of great seminars and workshops, the best of which was a focus group session where 6 industry folks sat down with me and WEGS 101. Without allowing me to speak, they took the book and deck and assessed it on face value. It was a great reality check. After assessing it, they started asking questions as to what the game actually was - questions generated from their cold reading of the front/back cover and paging through the interior a bit. They basically gave it the "once over" that any customer walking into a store would. Then they hit me with all the questions that a shopper would have about the product - the stuff I didn't include on the covers. I had great feedback on the pros and cons. This seminar alone was the value of the $125 registration fee. There's lots more to discuss on the GTS - but that'll have to wait...

This month...

May!

I'm going to do short blitzes on the blog. My energies are pouring over the summer Pirates of Penzantium release at this point. So, luckily for all 9 of you who check this blog, the blogging will be shorter and to the point. Random thoughts... Strange short rants... Production updates and worries... The odd pic or two... Quick hits!