I Do My Own Stunts!

Back in 2023, I was diagnosed (for a second time!) with Hodgkin's Lymphoma - a blood cancer. While I was undergoing chemotherapy, I was placed on disability. That summer I missed several conventions - San Diego Comic Con and Gen-Con among them.

So I decided to hold my own convention! I sold comics, I gave away sketches and for the last day, I said "I will make an original tabletop game. I don't know what it will be but it will have dice and a ghost in it!" I ended up creating and posting the development of "Escape from Rotter Mansion" - a spooky dice game that 11 people bought sight unseen!

I had so much fun making Escape from Rotter Mansion that I decided to do make another original game while I was recovering from a bone-marrow transplant in 2024. This time I told people "I'm making a game that uses a wind-up monster." This time 31 people backed the game! That game was "Oh No! There Goes Tokyo!" and you can read about the development of the game here!

Oh No! There Goes Tokyo! turned out great (look for a big announcement regarding it soon!) and now I'm ready to make a NEW GAME!

 

This time  I want to make a game with meeples and about Hollywood Stunt People! I don't know much about the game... yet, but I will be blogging about the process - here and on my Facebook page - from the initial idea to the completed, shipped game which I call...

Here's where YOU come in. If you want to "back" a copy of the game, send me an EMAIL me here. 
 

A finished copy of "I Do My Own Stunts" will cost $65 each plus shipping. If you are an international customer, we will have to calculate shipping costs. The game is expected to ship in the late fall, I'm shooting for a pre-Christmas release. I would LOVE to have 51 customers this time! Please help by backing and spreading the word!

There are still many decisions about the game to make, but here are a few initial idea pages from my sketchbook.

 

  

Ready? Then let's get game this rolling! Welcome aboard!

Introducing: The Next One!

Back in 2023, I was diagnosed with a second case of Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Knowing I was going to miss Gen-Con and Comic Con that year, I decided to have "my own" Con online.

For each day of the week, sketches were drawn, comics and toys were sold and virtual event culminated in "Game Day" where I decided to design a bespoke board game and sell it to a limited number (10) of people. I told the world "I don't know what the game is going to be, but it will have dice and a ghost in it."  The game that ended up being created was Escape from Rotter Mansion.

 

 

Eleven people bought a copy, sight unseen. And I delivered it in time for Halloween! I considered it a success!

I had so much fun making it, I decided to do it again in the spring as I was recovering from a bone marrow transplant. This time I said "I don't know what the game is going to be, but it will use a wind-up monster in it." That game ended up being Oh No! There Goes Tokyo!

This time 31 people bought copies of the game - Famous game designer Bruno Faidutti personally requested a copy! - Another huge success IMHO!

 

 
After a rough start to the 2025, I've decided that it's time to make another game!  

 

I don't know what type of game it's going to be yet, but it will have meeples in it. And it will be about Hollywood Stunt Performers!

 

 

How can you get a copy?  

 

Pre-orders will start on June 14th (my birthday!). Reach out to me to let me know you are interested in buying a copy HERE. My goal is to sell 50 - 100 copies of this new game. (The current estimated price will be $60 plus shipping - subject to change)

Please spread the word. The more people I can get on-board, the better the game will be! It's gonna be a lot of fun!

The Making of OH NO! There Goes Tokyo! (Part Four)

 This is the final installment about how I created the board game Oh No! There Goes Tokyo!

 Game Update #25: I received three boxes of boxes from Panda Manufacturing. Inside were 30 boxes, tuck boxes and token sheets. There's nothing like seeing the final box in person!!!

The box and its contents didn't just magically appear. It was the result of correspondence between myself and Panda Manufacturing. I worked with Tyler and once he had the files and knew what I wanted, he sent me images of the components for me to review. I've never shown these publicly, because I wanted them (like the Thank You and the squashed Scott image) to be a surprise!

Game Update #26: Rulebook!

 

I posted the in-progress rule book on my Facebook page and was immediately swamped with suggestions, corrections and feedback. Thanks to everyone's feedback, the rule book was corrected, updated and sent to the printer. Once it has been printed, then all the components will be complete and the game will be ready for shipping! Exciting!!

 

The final rule book will be posted on the BGG site.

 

Game Update #27: The Home Stretch!

 

Firstly, a HUGE stack of boxes appeared on my doorstep last week, and inside those boxes were more beautiful boxes... and token coins! Each box was individually wrapped for safety, but as they were missing most of the game components inside, so I had to open each one up in other to assemble them!

The assembly process! First came the components - the custom building cubes and meeples were all sorted and bagged. There should be 80 cubes and 12 meeples in each box That times 30 is... well, math was never my best subject. Let's just say there were a lot of them! (I should know, I double counted each one!) 

I also discovered a mistake when I received the cards from Printerstudio.com. A purple insurance card was labeled "blue". I printed up replacement cards and considered just including it with instructions on which card to replace... but you know what? It was too much effort to do. And besides, it was cathartic to tear up the offending error card and replace it with the correct one! 

 

All of those cards, including the brand-new Big Al Big Ten Point card (the card to give you something to spend your cash on late in the game) were packed up into a ziploc baggie.

 

Now for the star of the game! Each windup Kaiju was hand-tested to make sure they worked (there were a few that didn't make the cut!) and packed away in its special crate. Its foam-packing should keep them extra-safe during transport!

 

 

This week, the last component arrived from my friends at Print & Play Admagic - the rule book! It turned out great and fit right inside the box!

 

All the components were assembled into the box (you can also use the below image as a guide to help you repack your game!) and were ready for shipping!

 

 

Game update #28: Shipping day! 

 

Packing up thirty board game for shipping is a time consuming process. I spent most of the day first boxing them all and then taking them to my local post office.

 

When I arrived at the post office, I realized that the cost of shipping had gone up. I originally priced it at $17.70 for a pre-paid mailer and when I got to the post office, I saw that it had gone up to $19.50! Ugh. Now I know why everyone always says that shipping is the most troublesome part of doing one of these projects.

Because of the price difference, I reached out to all of the customers who lived in Los Angeles to see if it was OK for me to delivery the game in person. Fortunately, most of them agreed!
 

Game update #29: First delivery!! 

 

Congrats to Colleen for being my first local pickup and for supporting my crazy game efforts!! Soon I was delivering games all over town. The First To Play LA playtesting event allowed me to deliver several customers at once.

Soon, photos were coming in from other customers online! It's a great feeling seeing so many people so excited about receiving the game!

Thanks again for everyone who backed the game! I couldn't have done it without you!

Post-Mortum: There were several lessons that I learned over the course of this project that will help me make better game productions in the future:

1. Start with plenty of options. While "Make a game with a windup monster" give me a direction, it wasn't until I explored all the options for game play. While I ended up going with my first idea, it was good to explore and get those other ones out of my system. Also, testing all of the different components (blocks vs. dice) helped steer me in the right direction on what to use for the game.

2. Don't be so hasty. Having to redo the map was a big hit to the budget, as was having to re-print or print new cards. For the map, I should have explored and understood all of the options the printer had first. As for the cards, I was in a hurry to finish them and as a result, missed the "blue/purple" typo.

3. Don't rely on the internet for information. My research online had indicated that the colors I picked were all color-blind friendly. However, real-world testing proved otherwise and one of the colors (Teal) couldn't be distinguished by a color blind player. From now on, I test these things in the real world first before committing to them.

4. Don't hand-do everything. I originally was going to hand-write the rule book, which would have been an extremely time consuming process. In fact, I was daunted by the prospect that it slowed me down for a week or two. It was when I found a similar font that I was re-energized to finish the rule book.

 

5. When in doubt, crowdsource. One of the better decisions was to put the rule book in front of my social network. They jumped right to it, pointing out errors and providing invaluable feedback.

6. Be mindful of oversea interactions. A big slow down was dealing with an overseas printer. One day is really two (or three) when it comes to communication. And even though I tried to avoid it, I was hit by the "National Day" week slow down that China experiences in October right when I was in the heat of talking with the printer.

7. I still have to learn how to stay on budget. I was doing pretty good with my budget until I realized I had to redo the maps. Then I got temped to "plus up" the box, tuck box and tokens. And finally, the unexpected change in shipping costs caused this project to end up in the red by about $400 overall. Next time, I will do more comparison shopping between printers to help bring costs down.

 

Despite some of these mistakes, I'm very proud of Oh No! There Goes Tokyo! I am planning on pitching it to publishers at the upcoming GAMA trade show. Whatever the commercial version ends up being, I will make sure that this bespoke version will be different enough to keep the original run unique. 

Be sure to stay in touch for when I announce the next game project around February of 2025!