Gryphon Forge Blog

Wow - my 1st GenCon,

There’s a way too many words to describe the all sights and sounds. It was definitely one of the biggest geekfest’s i’ve ever been to. Here’s a short version of the highlights:

Day 1 - arrival, fligth was ok (Matt and I got bumped to 1st class on the flight). Checked into the Hotel (not bad), and went straight to the Irish Pub for dinner and drinks.

Day 2 - Setup the GryphonForge booth. The Convention Center likes to save $$ on air conditioning as it was flaming hot! Took us about an hour and half to setup the booth (looked really good!!) and by then we were all drenched with sweat! We then went back to Hotel and had a blast working on new game ideas and refining the previous work we did on our next project. Then off to dinner at the Pub at the mall and more drinks. Then we decided to see the movie “Tropic Thunder”. I haven’t laughed so hard during a movie in a long long time. Best line… “I’m a lead farmer mutha F@#$r” ROFL!!.

Day 3 - 1st day of the Con. We weren’t really sure what to expect, but we had great traffic to the booth. We all took turns doing demo’s of Wizard’s Gambit… hundreds of demo’s! By the end of the day my voice was horse! We only had time a few breaks to check out the show and we were all pretty exhausted. After the show ended, we had play events scheduled at the RAM pub from 10pm - 12pm. The play events at the RAM were great! We had more than 20 people show up and 5 games going on simultaneous. The response from people playing was overwhelming - everyone seemed to have a really great time. To the chaps from the UK I played with - Cheers!

Day 4 - 2nd day of the Con. Waking up was tough. My voice was shot and I had a slight hangover from all the drinks at the RAM the night before. As soon as the doors opened, we had lots of traffic again… and back to demo’ing. After a couple hours I seemed to catch my 2nd wind and my voice came back. One of the reasons for the traffic was the “Cheese Weasel” game we signed up to be part of. While this did help us with sales of the game, it also became a challenge to keep the demo’s going while constantly getting interupted to punch peoples quest cards. Again that evening we had play sessions scheduled at the Hyatt. We had a light turnout and only 2 games to play. But again everyone had a great time. Back the hotel and the bar and more drinks

Day 5 - More Demo’ing Wizard’s Gambit and punching Cheese Weasel quest cards. We turn up the sales pitch now and try to knock out as many copies as we can. Since this was Saturday and largest crowds on hand we pulled out all the stops. That evening another round of play sessions - this time we had enough for 3 games for Matt, Eric, and I to all run one. Back to Hotel and bar and more drinks.

Day 6 - Last day. I’m tired of demo’ing but surprisingly many people are coming back and just asking to buy a copy. I guess it’s true people wait till the last day to make their purchases. It’s kind of a challenge to get people to purchase just based off a 2- min. demo, but it was a good feeling that almost everyone that came to a play session came be and bought a copy. That was really rewarding to see. After the show closed, we cleaned up the booth and then… finally… got to do some gaming. We met another new designer who was in the booth next to us and we decided to try out each others games. We went back their Hotel and play a round of Wizard’s Gambit and then a round of God Dice. Thanks Rick and Frank for the game and for being really cool booth partners. Good Luck with God Dice!

Day 7 - the Flight home (Matt and I got bumped to 1st class again - sorry Eric ).

Some other random thoughts:

- seeing all the stormtroopers, darth vader’s, joker’s, pirates, barbarians, cat-things, ets was like a chaotic halloween party! The half-naked chainmail chicks were cool too!

- Where are all the people in Indianapolis? You could cross any street in downtown without having to wait on traffic. Only the opening ceremony for the new Colts stadium seem to bring out the people.

- The RAM is way cool brew pub. Seeing the GryphonForge banner and Wizard’s Gambit cards hanging from the ceiling was awsome!

I’m sure i forgot many things - it’s still kind of a blur. I’ll edit as more details come out of the fog…

-rob

Wow! …and thank you.

What an amazing response for Gryphon Forge and Wizard’s Gambit at the GAMA Trade Show. Retailers loved Wizard’s Gambit and their stores should have copies on shelves in the near future. In addition to the retailer support, we managed to pick up distributors in the US, Canada, UK, France, and Taiwan.

A “Thank you” goes out to everyone that stopped by the Gryphon Forge booth. The support you showed us was overwhelming.

With our success at GTS, we are busy at work on an expansion for Wizard’s Gambit and our next release. With a little hard work, we hope to have them available later this year. But first, we are gearing up for exhibiting at Gen Con in Indianapolis. If you are going to Gen Con, make sure that you stop by and visit us.

Thank you to all that have supported us and our adventure into the Game Publishing world. We still have a long journey ahead, but everyone is welcome to join in for the ride.

Happy Gaming to all!

Eric

I thought it would be a good idea to start a series of discussions on the various spells and incantations available in Wizard’s Gambit. The purpose is to discuss the various pro’s and con’s to each spell & incantation card and the strategies that can be used to maximize their effectiveness.

This weeks discussion: Spell, Dojo’s Mojo

Points: 2
Claim Cost: 1x (Ash, Tooth, Breath, Tear)

Spell Ability: When an opponent claims a spell, that player must replace the spell in the spell pool from one of his own spell book. The replaced spell may be the spell just claimed.

This can be a powerful spell, especially late in the game. It’s core ability allows the controlling player to temporarily freeze the max card size of their opponents spell books. This means opponents must give up an already claimed spell when claiming a new one. For players with no claimed spells, this can be particularly devastating as they are unable to claim any spell.

As with any active spell ability, this, of course, is a temporary condition as the controlling player must continue to claim new spells in order to progress in the game. In addition, ther are several ways to combat this ability.

Ways to counter:
1. Gambit that players Spell book, inactivating their spell book.
2. A player with an active Shield Spell can prevent this spells ability from effecting him.
3. Force or entice that player to claim another spell, activating a new spell ability.

Other ways to deal with:
4. A player with the Replicate Spell ability can “even the score” and force the original player to deal with the same situation

I have used this spell several times. It’s very poweful to temporarily allow you to make good progress in setting up your hand to claim your next spell. I also find that once you play this spell ability, all other players turn on you and really lay the smack down on you. It draws fire like no tomorrow. Claim at your own risk.

comments?

RG

We are excited to announce that we will be attending the GAMA Trade Show here in April.

The show is designed for retailers to get a first glance at some of the latest and greatest games that the Gaming Industry has to offer. It also provides them with an opportunity for your local gaming stores to pick up copies of those games.

Gryphon Forge will have a booth at GTS and we are excited about the possibilities. You should be seeing Wizard’s Gambit nation-wide by the beginning of May.

We will provide an update when we return.

As my first Gryphon Forge Founders post I thought I would give some insights on my thoughts on game design – specifically some things we think about at Gryphon Forge when putting together a new concept starting with a prototype. This particular topic will cover a subtle but important aspect of overall design that is really important to any game: The difference between actual fun and perceived fun.

We’re all familiar with actual fun in a card or board game. This is the quantifiable fun you have after you’ve played a game – perhaps a new game for the first time. You usually learn about the game from a friend in your gaming group, from the local game store’s game night event, from a parent or relative, or a game you picked up from a review in magazine. Regardless of how you came to play it, you enjoyed yourself and may even want to play again. You would describe the game as one you like and recommend it to other friends, etc.

The more elusive type of fun is perceived fun, and probably more important in some ways than actual fun. Perceived fun is your measure of how fun a game is before you’ve ever played it! We’ve all experienced perceived fun too: When looking at the back of a box in a game store, when walking around a Con and watching others play a game, or looking at an advertisement online or in a magazine. You might see a game that looks really fun – even fun enough to buy! But the design of this aspect of the game is totally different from getting the mechanics right or keeping the rules simple.

For game designers, nailing both actual and perceived fun is key to the overall success of a game you intend to produce and sell. And it is readily obvious why both kinds of fun are important. You need perceived fun to get a game off the shelf and actual fun to keep people playing and spread the word on your game by word of mouth, review, etc.

Some thoughts on how to demonstrate perceived fun in a game include:

1. Ensure art quality is up to a high bar. Think about if you were to buy just the game art – is it good enough to hang on the wall? A lot of games that don’t look fun to play have lower quality art or are produced and finished at a lower quality.

2. Create an enticing box layout. Is your game pictured in a way that shows the fun in action? Are pieces arranged in such a way that makes it look like a really cool event is taking place? If your game has a lot of pieces, are they arranged in a way that makes the game seem easy to learn? Remember complex games are only easy to play once you’ve played them a few times, so depicting simplified play is important on games with high complexity.

3. Ensure you have some variance in your game components – especially if they are like components such as cards. If it’s a simpler game such as a card game, do you show enough variety in your cards to look interesting? Games with a homogeneous look to the elements will look less fun overall.

4. Tied closely to point #3 – Make sure the overall theme of the game is consistent. Do you have an overall look and feel that is tied together thematically or by style? Games that appear to be a disjointed collection of parts will look less fun or convey complexity that may not really be there.

Of course, as a game designer you want to achieve success on both the perceived fun and actual fun. Failure in either area can be failure for your games - especially if your game is actually fun, but doesn’t look like it. Here at Gryphon Forge, we work on the actual fun first for our games, then brainstorm ideas on how to ensure that our games are perceived as fun too using many of the methods above.

Post a comment if you thought this was an interesting topic. Eric and I will be sharing our thoughts and ideas on game design going forward.

Matt

Welcome to the Gryphon Forge Blog.

Yesterday marked a new beginning for us at Gryphon Forge. Our first shipment of Wizard’s Gambit came in. As excited as we are about our progress, many of you have been just as excited and have been inquiring about the game, our company, and even Matt & I, the Founders. Therefore we have begun this Blog, so that you too can join us as we move forward with our company.

That being said, this coming week we should have our game available to you on the Gryphon Forge web site. With our first game under our belt, we are already beginning work on our next release, which will continue the storyline from Wizard’s Gambit in the world of Hyrathia. For more information on Wizard’s Gambit, I refer you to the Gryphon Forge web site.

As for myself… I am a Gamer by night, but a cop by day. I supervise the Detectives of a Major Crimes Unit at a municipal police department in the Seattle area. I love my work, but I am torn away sometimes by my love for gaming. So much so, that Matt and I formed this company so that we can follow our dream of designing and publishing our own games.

In addition to being a Police Officer, I am President of our Police Officer’s Guild. I am also a father of two. One of which is only two months old. I can’t wait for both of them to grow old enough for us to game together.

My hobbies are gaming, photography, and paintball.

I am new to this blogging, so please be pateint with my short first attempt at blogging. I am more of a man of action than words. However, let me leave you with this thought. Between my Job, my volunteer position as the President of the Police Guild, my company with Matt, and my family with young ones, I have found time to pursue my dreams and take care of my family. It is hard work, frustrating at times. But if I can do it and succeed, so can you. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you can’t do something. If they do, do it just to spite them, showing them that they were wrong. Dang! It feels good to be right.

Welcome again to our Blog, and welcome to the Gryphon Forge Experience.

Eric