Something called a...a..."Board Game?"

Well, awhile back I mentioned that I was working on a game and since then I have had quite a few emails asking about it. I can now tell you that the prototype is DONE! Yes, it’s all done. Why a board game? Well as you may have seen in my last post, I'm just trying to get a little something back from my childhood. Who didn’t love Fireball Island, Torpedo Run and Hero Quest?!?! Many of hours were lost on those games and I wouldn’t change it for the world…

As for our game, it has been played over and over and over, trying to get out all of the kinks. I believe that we have got rid of all of them. For the first dozen times it was played, I basically sat back and watched as other players had at it. After awhile I began to play it as well. I can honestly say that I really enjoy it.
It is different every time it is played as well as there is different ways it can be played. It can be played solitaire, two, three or four players. It can be played everybody against everybody or played with teams.
We ordered pizza and stayed in and played. With the amount of times that we played, we came up with the rough average of game duration to be around 10 minutes per player. So 1 a player game will last 10 minutes and 4 players will have about a 40 minute game.

A little bit about the game…the goal is to make it from point A to point B. Each player chooses 1 of the 6 playable characters, put there pawn on a starting zone and roll to move.

2 of the 6 Player Cards

Along the path (whichever one they choose) they will travel trying to get to the FINAL FIGHT space. Whoever gets there first rolls to see which one of the 6 Bosses they will fight. But on there journey to the Final Fight, they may encounter a countless number of events that will alter the game…some good, some bad.

Players can have an unlucky encounter such as rockslides, lightning strikes, enemy attacks, animal attacks, or dangers inspired by fate. All of which can send you back to start. However, if things go well for the players, they can gather weapons and to make their travels a tad more comfortable, and with around 30 different weapons and items to acquire (each with different abilities) each game will differ from the last.

a few of the Weapons and Items

Also, players not only get their share of good and bad events BUT they may also may have the pleasure of traveling with any COMPANIONS that they may come across. Once a player picks up a companion their game will alter once more. Each companion (8 in total) that players travel with have a direct effect on the player he is traveling with as well as other players.

Some Companion Cards

All in all, I think that this might actually be a pretty enjoyable game for fans to play. Now whether or not it ever sees light of day, I don’t know but worst case scenario…me and my friends have something to play over some pizza and beer…haha

Randon Events Book

Everything layed out

-Jesse

No Movable Parts...and still fun!!!

I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before! For some time now I have been making and selling bookmarks with my art work on them. It was something that was fairly easy to do and I could sell them for a cheep price.

When we started working on Berona’s Hundred Year War, I made some more book marks with characters from the book on them. And they sold right along with the books.

Well this week I was working up a new design for some business cards and then it hit me…the whole backbone behind the book and characters is simply, for me, to recapture my childhood. It seems as though all the things that I loved growing up has been completely stripped from me.

I was obsessed with Transformers when I was younger and have never stopped loving them HOWEVER its so hard for me to continue loving them the way I did when every time I turn around someone is making the comment, “Oh you must have LOVED the movie!” or “my son, little Jimmy, watches his Transformer dvd over and over. He’s a fan too.”

Michael Bay…I slap you!

You know what…Stop including us in that abomination of an attempt to recreate my past!!! Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the move, I really did but in my opinion one thing had nothing to do with the other. There was the transformers that “we” grew up with, and than there is today’s transformers.

G.I. Joe…uhg, don’t even get me started because I'm not even going to dignify that Helen Keller production. Stephen Sommers must have rolled out of bed one morning and said, “hmmm, GI Joe… I seemed to remember hearing that name before. I think I will make a movie about it. It’s about giant mosquitoes right? There weren’t any giant mosquitoes? Oh well, Ill just put a bunch of other crap that I think will look cool.”

Stephen Sommers…I slap you!

Sorry about my rant but you see where I am going. It seems as all the great things that we grew up are being stripped right out of our hands. Toys are being RE-made, movies are being RE-made, TV shows, games, books….all RE-made! Stop it already. If you want to be inspired by something, that’s GREAT, and that’s what its all about but don’t go around taking something we loved and ruining it…because you think it will make you lots of money!

Not EVERYTHING HAS TO HAVE MOVABLE PARTS, it doesn’t all have to have a USB port, it doesn’t all need batteries! There is a little thing out there that I like to call, an “imagination.” I know it can be scary to use it but once you get the hang of it, the options are limitless!

So in closing, please try to use your “imagination” and leave our childhood alone!!!!

Oh yeah, the bookmarks, haha…Here is something that I thought might be fun to have saving your place in your book and also give you a little flashback to what we use to love.

-Jesse

More Speaking....more Signing :)

Ok, nothing big, but I wanted to put up another post here and say a little bit about what we have been up to. We made another trip to Dallas, TX to do another book signing…this one was a bit more of a “special guest” kind of thing. We were set up in a large college class room to speak to some students on the process of the book, as well as the actual book itself. A LOT more people showed up then I was expecting. It defiantly made the whole drive to Texas worth it. This was all done through a Bunch of Short Guys. http://abunchofshortguys.org/ Thanks Guys!
We got to share a little bit about Berona’s War Book II with everyone. We are just as excited as everyone else to get that one in your hands, as well as ours!
I really enjoyed this one because everyone was inquisitive and seemed very interested in what we had to say. We got a wonderful response to the event. Both Anthony and myself enjoyed it.
And to all of you who attended…we wanted to thank you for getting a book, after all it is people like you that we made it for.
Thanks Guys!
-Jesse

Berona

After being asked the question AGAIN…I’ve decided to go ahead and make my next post about the name Berona.

The email received….
“Just wondering how and where you came up with the name "Berona" since it's my last name. I guess I need to read the book.”

My Response….
“You are not the first person to as this question, However you may be the first to ask that actually had the name Berona.
I REALLY wish I had some great inspiring story involving the name Berona, but I don’t. But since you asked....
The original idea was a calendar we called the "One Year War." But like ideas do, it grew into something more. After working on it for a short period of time the calendar idea turned into a book. We could no longer call it the “one year war” so we went with the "Hundred year war."
So we worked on the story for nearly a year and in that year we were asked a couple of times if the story had anything to do with the actual Hundred years war, from the 1337-1453. We, at that point saw the title being a problem. However, we had been calling it that for so long, we couldn’t see ourselves changing it.
SOOOooo, Anthony and myself were sitting in a coffee shop and I suggested that we add a name in front of the title. After a short moment of thinking, I RANDOMLY spit out the name “Berona.” The name of the land at war as well as the character who is responsible for the book is called Berona.
To be honest, I didn’t even know it was a real name and on top of that, I don’t think it was suppose to stick. But just like the original title…it stuck. I'm glad it did because we both like it a lot.
And will most likely continue using it in any future “Berona” related projects!
I hope that answers your question
And yes, you need to read the book! :)
-Jesse

BIGGER GAME

I'm done with the next story in Book II, “Bigger Game.” This one gave me a very large headache but I can say that I am very happy with it. I went ahead and put the levels of work that went into this one. Unfortunately it didn’t flow as easily as Stronger, Faster, Young, but that was because I had to do a lot more struggling with the actual layout of the panels. But here is a look at one of the pages and the stages I took for “Bigger Game!”
-Jesse