Thursday, March 21, 2013

If I Were to Design a Miniatures Game

Miniatures gaming is a freaking awesome business. I mean where else can you charge $40 for a bunch of tiny pieces of plastic that the customers will not only assemble themselves, but then spend hours and hours painting? It's genius.

The cutie below costs $25 and probably stands at 2 inches. He comes as a sheet of plastic in which you pop out the pieces, assemble, and then paint and paint and paint (with the help of a magnifying glass, no less).

So after watching Tad throw his money at such a hobby, I decided I needed to create my own miniatures game and dupe unsuspecting gamers into buying my lazy plastic.

Now, as a former marketer, I've noticed a few things about the gaming world...
1) Nearly every game title contains one of the following words: Dungeon, Quest, Battle, War
2) The act of assembling and painting is supposedly as fun as actually playing the game itself (some gamers will simply assemble and paint without any desire to play!)
3. Gamers are easily excitable with anything Dragon

So, I introduce to you my miniatures game:

DRAGON DUNGEON BATTLE QUEST WARS
In this miniatures game, not only do you get to assemble your dragons, but you can choose your unique look! That's right! Each of the four dragon components (head, body, wings, tail) come sold separately. This means not only will you be spending that much more money, but you'll get to have a completely unique dragon!

Select numerous power card combinations to give your dragon one-of-a-kind feat combos and abilities (cards sold separately in packs).

AND add plenty of magic to the mix by buying, assembling, and painting your very own Dragon Master! (Dragon Masters boost the dragon's abilities for as long as the masters are in play!)

RESERVE YOUR DRAGON PIECES OF PLASTIC TODAY and you'll be battling other dragon in search of dunegon treasure in approximately 40 labor hours!

Dragon Head (20 models to choose from): $25
Dragon Body (20 models to choose from): $25
Dragon Wings (20 models to choose from): $25
Dragon Tail (20 models to choose from): $25

Dragon Master (10 different masters to choose from!): $30

Total before paints, paint supplies, and terrain doo-dads: $130 (and you MUST have all these components before you even THINK about playing).



Tad and I joked about my game idea for awhile.

Then, he showed me this from Kickstarter...



All I know is that they could have chosen a way better name.

Thursday, March 14, 2013

The stuff you find...

I'm in the midst of making my office a REAL office and not just a place where we store random stuff and from which I occasionally work. We're talking an adult work space here. Something that if we had kids would be a DO NOT ENTER zone.

So in the process of whipping this room into shape, I had to empty my desk to replace it with a new one (!).

And it soon became quite apparent to me how long it's been since I've actually looked inside my desk drawers.

Here are a few of the gems I discovered:


Yes, this is exactly what you think it is!! A sheet of really sweet vintage Apple decals. I feel I should have used these on my previous cars (an Audi 100 and then a VW Jetta GLX VR6)...because putting them on a Toyota Corolla just isn't right.




This is the second diary I ever owned (runs from 12-24-93 to 8-24-98), and the level of awesome in this thing is just unreal. I mean FIRST, you have a tampered area where the lock sits because I'd lost the keys one day and needed to bust in, and THEN you have entries such as this:

I am now fully eleven for my birthday was December 22 of last year.
I am not wrapped up in Tyson for there is now Austin St. John and Jason Frank of the Power Rangers. I almost forgot John Bosch of the Power Rangers also...




I had this strange desire one day to give myself a tattoo sleeve, so I bought this pack of temporary tattoos. Not one of my best moments...and of course if I ever follow through I'll need to time it right, because showing up at a professional event with a sleeve of these fading bad boys probably wouldn't be the easiest thing to explain.



My wedding invites and programs!! Not sure why this was particularly exciting aside from the fact that my dessert cards say "Let them eat cake!" and there is a Charles Dickens quote in the program. Tad and I hate Dickens.



Oh, my years in marketing! These colorful catalogues are filled with catchy headlines such as:
Here's lookin' at style!
Color meets clarity.
See things your way.
Styles for the starry-eyed.

It's a wonder I didn't win any awards.



This is an article I wrote for the college newspaper that covers *gasp* tattoos! And whether those with tattoos are going to hell.

I'm not even joking. This is the real deal.

The article made some people mad, including the dude on the right who had a crush on me (I mean he was a blind date my freshman year and what can I say...I'm just really hard to get over).

But things settled down after awhile, and I eventually decided I never ever wanted to be a journalist. I mean what's the point in rattling cages when you can't even take a side?!

Now, where did I put those temporary tattoos again?