Sunday, February 28, 2010

Temple: Action Shots

Quick post this time, just wanted to give a big big thank you to Sarah and William, who not only purchased and played Temple, but were kind enough to pose for pictures while having a great time!







Thanks! You guys rock!

Friday, January 29, 2010

Temple on Board Game Geek

Soon after the release of what is truly a groundbreaking strategy game that will rival checkers with respect to ubiquity and chess with respect to writing computers to beat humans with depth search algorithms instead of actual intelligence, we have another occasion of particular import: Temple has been scribed in the annals of the Board Game Geek.

We've finally made it!

Basically this means there's another community of devout board game folk that can find out about Temple, which is awesome. I must thank my friend Dave in San Diego for both turning me on to the site, as well as spearheading the initiative from an internal announcement perspective.

On my list of things yet to announce where Temple is concerned is the release of "gameplay pictures". Let this serve as a formal request - I you have pictures of people playing Temple, please send them our way. (That's gameful.enjoyment@gmail.com for those of you who hate to click on the "mailto" links only to have your computer try to configure Microsoft Outlook because you only ever use webmail nowadays) Submission includes the implicit agreement that I can post them to places (namely, this here blog, The Game Crafter, and Board Game Geek). While we're parenthetically referring to the Board Game Geek, please rate our game once you've played it through. If you liked it, say so! This will help others to stumble upon our little masterpiece.

I will let everyone know once pictures are posted, and, as always, should anything else of particular excitement occur.

Cheers!

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Introducing Temple!

After much work and anticipation - well, anticipation on our part mostly - Temple, our debut game, is ready for purchase by the public! Temple, to which we have alluded, is a strategy board game. The salesman-spiel (as well as the ability to purchase the game for your very own) can be found at http://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/temple. The whole process was very fast - I actually received the game a mere 3 days after ordering it, which covers production and shipping. Granted, they give a far larger number than that to cover their bases, in the event of heavy production days I would imagine, but overall the end product is rather impressive.

Back to the game. Temple is a strategy board game in which players must place their pawns in certain configurations. Each player has two active "goal cards" at any one time, allowing them some flexibility, but the cards will require most, if not all, of their pieces to be satisfied. Now, one of my favorite bits regarding the strategy element: the goal cards are visible to all players. So now you can work on your own goals, or act to sabotage your opponents. This really does provide an interesting dynamic to the game, and I'm quite pleased with it.

Another favorite bit is regarding the movement of the pieces on the board. Most of the time you are constrained to moving your own pieces side to side. However, in some scenarios you get the opportunity to swap any two pieces on the board, regardless of color (thanks to my wife Liz for that little gem). This means you could circumvent someone who is blocking you, or lay waste to two opponents' plans in one act.

Obviously this all takes place in a setting of constrained space, but in order to make the "crowdedness" of the game scale with the introduction of more people, we made the board size variable. Depending on the number of players, you use a different portion of the board. I must say, and this is where I will wax loquacious on the visuals, that Allison, our resident graphical expert, really did a super job. Determining how to handle variable board sizes, ensuring card orientation, and all of the card, board, and related graphics associated with this little venture really helped breathe a life into this game that would have otherwise remained pencil drawings on some posterboard. Case in point, see the graphic below.



I mean, look at it. You've got the stone texture transitioning to each element in the corners, and an awesome lined detail of a temple. The font is really well done too. It's no Papyrus, but still...

So, I daresay I have gone on and on about this topic near to the point of exhaustion (either of the topic, or for you, the reader). Now I must implore you to support your local businesses, your local artists, and your local, um... game-designers. Go buy Temple - it's a great game, and it directly benefits the creators, as well as a site that gives small independent game creators a chance to build a game and make a few bucks. Go on! Go!

Cheers,

Saturday, January 16, 2010

First Post!

Firstly and at the most fore, welcome to Gameful Enjoyment! This here is our spigot from whence flows content and pure joy into the blogosphere. Content and joy taking the form of board and card games. We are but two people, one of whom had an idea for a board game, and the other agreed to provide the graphical beauty. Expect some amount of self promotion to occur here - this is after all a place that we will tell you about upcoming games and products! - but it may not be limited to merely GE-proper.

Returning to point, we have been tirelessly working to craft our very first ever super exciting board game! The game is called Temple, and it is truly a wonderful strategy game. Simple to learn, fun to play, and so on and such forth. We will spare you no small detail when the game becomes available, rest assured. I'm sure you are thinking how such an endeavour could be undertaken. Well.

The fine folks at The Game Crafter have put together a service that allows burgeoning new talent, and people like us (no entrance exam, thankfully), to create and sell games (board, card, et cetera). Basically you give them your specifications, which includes graphics for boards, cards, instructions, and the like, as well as a listing of the requisite pieces. They tell you the cost, you set the price, and profits are had. This allows people who have an idea but don't have the representation of a game publisher to make their ideas become physical, and - I expect - very professional and exciting looking. And, as they print the games on demand, we need not stash a room full of games that need selling because we had to meet a minimum for printing. All in all, it's a pretty slick deal.

The end result is that soon - very, very soon - you the consumer will be able to purchase games made by us the producers. We will be sure to give you all a shout when our debut effort is ready to go, but in the meantime, with bated breath await!

Cheers!