4 Thumbs and Is Having Game Published?

(Points to myself and Mark (HotseatGames)) THESE GUYS.

At Trashfest (201x?) when I went down to Avery's, I met Zev for the first time. At some point beyond that, he asked me to look at a dudes in a hall type game that was a total mess. I did, it was like the longer, more fiddly, much longer and far less exciting version of Descent.

The setting was distinctly military but had so many obvious flaws and lack of an editorial eye that it was clearly unsaleable. He asked me to come up with something better.

I worked on it a bit for a year, and came up with a design I wasn't happy with but that had bad ass AI and a very unique and never/before/seen campaign system. I showed it to Zev to get a feel for the direction, and he liked some of it but hated the same stuff I did.

At this point I made a better version but that still needed a lot of work. I'm 2 years or so in at this stage. I also "got into it" with some influential reviewers (99.9% my fault) and realized that making enemies would not help Zev. So, I decided I needed a partner who doesn't have enemies and has good ideas. I talked with Mark because despite having no ideas, he has no enemies and has been published before

We started developing the game and got the same results - a mediocre game. Zev wanted something like "Call of Duty" but it proved hard to develop a "twitch" game that was strategic. We showed that version to Zev and got the same remarks - getting better but still not there. I'm now 2-1/2 years in.

Mark and I continued working on it and then I had an epiphany...how to create a game of skill (twitch) in boardgame form. We made it into a game that literally did everything we wanted, with killer AI, that same bad ass campaign system, and that didn't need an "Overlord".

It also has a very unique "physical" design that allows everything to work seamlessly. After 9 rounds and 1000$ of prototyping, hours upon hours of playtesting and map assembly, we were done.

We showed it to everyone we could find, and my playtest group is BRUTALLY honest. The kind of people that look at me and my wife together and ask, "Either you lost it and she kept it, or you have a giant dick", with both of us in the room. To the PERSON, everyone who has played it LOVED IT. We got some great advice from playtesters and delivered a final design, with 8 maps, maybe 20 scenarios that are wildly different and that you won't be able to do them all in one campaign.

We showed it to Zev and got huge smiles. Giving him what he wanted, almost exactly, was immensely satisfying.

Beyond that, we needed to figure out how to make it, physically, because it's very unique. Zev had some killer ideas and we ended up going with them, because it made sense. It originally was to have 4 player models and 4 sets of unique enemy models, but costs were prohibitive so we had to come up with a better way to do what we wanted to do; Zev has a solution that is a good compromise.

We got the contract yesterday, and while we all wanted to launch at GenCon 2017, it's looking like 2018. Still, this game is straight-up bad ass. It's so good that I offered to forfeit my half of the proceeds SPECIFICALLY to get it made because it's exactly the kind of game I've always wanted. And a ton of people have said it's exactly what they want.

I'm going to be donating my half of any proceeds to Wounded Warriors, because this game's design is absolutely rooted in special operations and without the help from some of my former specops friends, it wouldn't have developed the way it did.

Anyhow, just wanted to share.

I think this game is in the wheelhouse of a lot of people here. And even if you don't like it, I promise you, there is nothing like this out there.

Sounds awesome guys, congrats!

Sounds great Pete. Who is going to publish this ? Wiz Kids ( since Zev is involved ) or someone else ?

Congrats!

Badass! I can't wait to hear more about it.

Happy for your success, Pete! Sounds.like a game.I want too. Can't wait to get a copy one day in the Czech Rep.

Hmm....not interested until I see what the stretch goals are...

But congratulations anyway!

It's being done by WizKids. It's with mentioning that he came up with the idea at Z-Man, continued the conversation at Filosofia, and then when he left, he said "If they don't want it, I do!" FILO did not.

You guys are going to dig the shit out of it. I get X copies; I'm keeping 2, and sending one to Doc Mabuse and JJ for Trashfest BC and one to Shellie and Al for Trashfest NE

scissors wrote: Happy for your success, Pete! Sounds.like a game.I want too. Can't wait to get a copy one day in the Czech Rep.

I'll trade you a copy for a CZ-70 .32 ACP. Blued, if you please.

That's fantastic! Really looking forward to seeing what you guys came up with. It is such an awesome feeling when a system just snaps into place.

Or so I'm told.

Geoff

That sounds like what I'm looking for! I'd buy that for a dollar!

Congrats man!

Good job guys, sounds like your hard work and perseverance paid off.

Congrats Pete! And to Hotseatgames for another notch.

It will be interesting to see how long from contract signature to retail this will take, from a tourists perspective.