Board game preview: HOW TO WIN!

Isn't that what everyone wants to know? How to win the game is the single most important key to nearly any game out there. Well, it's time for these previews to heat way up as I show you just a few ways to win at the Galaxy Zento adventure game!

As I've explained before, in game set up, each player is given a random goal. The first player to complete their goal wins. But not all goals are created equal. Thanks to the game being heavily customizable, the host should make sure the main deck is built to support the goals being used. There will be 18 goals with the New York edition, but you don't have to use all of them. For a 6 player game, having 7 to 8 goals possible is plenty. I will get more into main deck arrangements later. For now, let's look at just a few of those 18 new goals!

Achievement Hog:  Of course, the first one I show you is kind of a dirty trick. You might look at the player with this goal and think, "why bother playing any further?". Well, don't let a guy with a ton of achievement tokens deter you. There is a good chance this guy will have a bull's eye on him all game long. Since players can take damage and 5 damage kills a player, you know how to nerf this goal. Getting achievement tokens only happens when you win combats, escape traps, or obtain artifacts. And getting a lot of tokens isn't that easy to build up. But with the right build up of powers or spells, the achievement hog can do a lot to interfere with other players while building up their stash. He'll force you to pay attention around the table as you make way for your own win.





Archaeologist: Gain three artifacts from the deck. Seems simple enough right? The best way to win goals like this one are to utilized force points on the board to make those cards come out for you. If you caught the last posting of this blog, you got to read about them all. There are 7 points on the board that can up the ante for revealing cards from the main deck for any goal like this one. So what's to get in your way? Threats from the main deck and other player's goals of course. There are similar goals for hunting beasts, or fighting enemies. Of course, cursed artifacts don't count. Note that when you start pulling off your goal you get bonuses. Every time you obtain an artifact, you put a goal token on this card to keep track. The bonus allows you better chances at dice rolls to obtain artifacts. But some artifacts you have to fight for.

Combatant: First of all, please not the dedication to our nation's veterans. Then note the goal itself. It's simple. Just win combats. These can be from any assortment of enemies in the deck or other players. To get in combat with a player, you just move adjacent on the board and challenge them. With but a few exceptions, they can't say no. Then hope you win the combat via d20 rolls.

Power Monger: Remember what I said about goal tokens. Well, there are two goals that give them a slightly complicated twist. You will have to track your goal tokens two ways on this card. One is for the bonuses you gain and the other for what actually will apply to win. Powers come from their own separate deck and there are several ways to get your hands on them. Of course, if you get the original game and the expansion, powers can come from the main deck too. Totally up to you when you host a game. Power monger can get really beefed up once he starts cycling powers. The limit to powers is 3 so you have to have 3 before you can start changing them.

Serial Killer: When a player character dies, the player isn't out of the game unless they want to be. If they think they still have a chance. They can continue with their goal and player character card or change them both at random to try again. The Serial Killer is there to help players make those choices (I know. ha ha ha). As you can see, this goal also affects a player's alignment of good or evil. Also note the effect on achievement tokens, allowing this goal to challenge the Achievement Hog. The Serial Killer has to be very opportunistic to win, watching for players to build up toward fatal damage before diving in to take them out.

Strange Addiction: Some effects of the game will poison a player character. Apparently, some of them like it. With this goal, you want to see about getting poisoned without actually killing yourself. Watch out if the Serial Killer is on the table while you try this goal. Getting killed means starting all over again.

King of the Hill: For the last one today, I bring you one more dirty trick. The player of this goal will literally spend the entire game beefing up with items, artifacts and spells for the last combat of the game. Past that, it's wait for someone to call "winner" so the title bout can begin. The winner of that combat is who really wins the game that time around. It's not a guaranteed win, just a different one.











Want to know what the other goals are? Well, you can only find out two ways. One, wait for the game or two, sign up to the mailing list!  See upper left corner or links in upper right. Because that is where I will be spoiling some more of them.

About the artwork. You might wonder, in my universe of heroes and villains, why more of them aren't represented in these cards. That's because the seemingly random people in the cards are meant to represent YOU. You, the player who is exploring this aspect of the GZ universe. Thanks for reading. More to come soon!

Updates March! New covers and game art!

Greetings heroes! Today I have things to share and the first is a brand new cover for Chessmen: Opening Moves designed by Scarlett Rugers of the Book Design House. If you are even a budding author looking to take serious steps, you should consider her services. She is an award winning designer and a published author herself. So check out the link and visit her page. I just love what she did for Chessmen's first book as you can see here.

As if that weren't cool enough, for now you can get the kindle of the first book of the series for just 99 cents. Far out! Just hit the book links up on the right or HERE and grab it!

I recently finished the last image for game cards for the next installment of the board game series for Galaxy Zento. This game will come with a brand new board with more interactive spaces covering an entire map of New York City. It will have Cursed Artifacts and we are going to look at some of those right here!

This edition of the board game will be directly attached to the novel, Chaos Rising (you saw the new cover for that in my last entry).

The Hearse: The Hearse is a living artifact and a being filled with hate and murder. It's indestructible and will go around the board ramming into players and dealing some damage. If you're lucky and your dice rolls are hot, you can wind up controlling the Hearse which can lead toward victory. No spoilers for the novel so I won't tell you just how nasty Hearse is to deal with by the heroes.

Hourglass of Time: If you get a cursed artifact in the game, you cannot simply rid yourself of it and it limits what other objects or artifacts you can use. And you can't always avoid using them either. The hourglass forces you to use it every time you have a turn. When you do, you get to increase or decrease counters on other players cards by one. This could risk them winning the game, if you want to increase damage that they have taken. OR, it could keep them from winning by reducing their goal tokens. Either way, you risk carrying a bullseye as players come after you for this artifact.

Skull of Sphidra: This macabre helm make of giant spider skull will give you psychic abilities but turn you into a monster in 3 rounds. It will change your character card into the card for Sphidra herself. It will change you from good to evil. The only way to change this, will be for other players to destroy you. And they will have little choice since you can attack all of them at once regardless of board position.


This will be the biggest event deck to draw from yet and playable with other sets. And as always, you don't have to read the lore to enjoy the game, but it helps.

Soon I'll be drafting up the very first edition of the newsletter with even more content that you won't see anywhere else. So be sure to SIGN UP for the mailing list so you don't miss one awesome thing! That includes downloadable printable black and white color sheets for the kids (or yourself). Character spotlight origins! And even flash fiction stories just for readers who sign up!  On top of that, you get Chessmen Opening Moves free just for signing up. Awesome!

Till next time, heroes!

How Galaxy Zento got started

Galaxy Zento has been a long running project for me and the stories have been in my head for decades. Today I'm going to tell you how it all got started. It started as my "do it yourself" role playing game that I developed characters for. But it goes even deeper than that.

In my Junior High years art was my great escape and the one thing that actually made the bullies give me a break. It was the one thing I could do well that impressed others. I was also something of a cartoonist. Crazy Harry was my first character and he was a parody of Dirty Harry from the  movies. CH never used a gun, and he really is quite nuts. I gave him a superhero kind of vibe and made him a private detective. It used to be, when he went crazy, his hair would stand straight up on end, and that was how the bad guys knew it was all over for them.

Harry did things I wanted to do to get even with the world for my bullying. Harry was my outlet and no one ever realized it.

Years go by and as some people know, I ran away from home to escape abuse from my step mother. I really had no safe haven except for times when I was neither at home or school. While I nearly got myself killed, my running finally took root and I didn't have to go back. But then I had new problems that aren't for this entry. Eventually it all let to me going to Job Corps in Clearfield, Utah. Job Corps is a place for young people (mostly troubled) to learn a workable skill and grow up for lack of better terms. It wasn't a very nice place, but I did make friends. It was there, in 1987 that Galaxy Zento was born. I created a crew of heroes called PAC and started drawing mini comics of them.

There was a lot of DnD playing going on at the time and it was still in a controversial stage. I couldn't afford the books for DnD so I followed my Godfather's old advice from when I was a kid.

An OLD pic

"Make your own games."  And so I did. I started making a role playing game of my characters and the stories in my head. It wasn't called Galaxy Zento back then, though. It was called Galaxy Wars.

The immediate problem I had with the name was that everyone associated it with Star Wars. I didn't want that. I wanted my universe to stand on its own. Even though I had no idea what directions I would be going with it at just 17 years old. But there it was and I had some friends playing it with me regularly. Eventually I renamed it Galaxy Zento based on the Japanese word for "journey".

My friends enjoyed it enough that they wanted to play it quite often. There isn't a lot of exciting stuff to do during down time in Job Corps and it made for more colorful time spending. And it grew.

I really had no idea how to make a role playing game and my beginning stats were quite laughable. I actually made life points depend on what you had for weaponry in the very very beginning. That's not the case now, I assure you.

That's basically it, how the idea got started and eventually became the books and games it has now. There is more to the history of GZ and I'll be sharing more of those stories soon.

Homage to MORE guest artists!

Today I want to talk about artists, very particular artists who have agreed to jump in and lend their talent to GZ. Mind you, this is even if they don't have work that's in the set for any reason, they either offered or said yes when I approached them. These are artists you need to know. I'm writing this because I'm grateful beyond words either way.

Big Rob Beltran: This is the man who made my hat. A hat that has lasted for a good 3 years through hot sun and rain storms. It's as awesome as the day I paid 40 bucks for it. This guy will put anything you want on a shirt, hat, shoes and even a bicycle! Check out his Deviant Art page HERE. He's well known in his area conventions and heralds his own special artistic style. People know me better for my hat than without it. That's thanks to this guy.

Dave Bain: Keeping the hits rolling, you get the amazing styles of this artist who is also on his own convention routes. I got to meet him at Southern Geekfest and hope to do so again. He has a sharp line style that's hard to miss. Check out his work HERE. I can tell you he already picked what he wants to do from the card list, but I'm not going to reveal that today. You'll just have to be surprised.










Gavin Michelli: Another of my good friends with Southern Geek who I met at the convention and every bit as talented as anyone on this list. Check out his amazing TMNT work right HERE. The colors will blow you away.

Ken Davis: Rounding out a trio from Southern Geek (they are an awesome bunch of people check them out), is this man. He's already contributed and at both cards have been shown off online so far. If you missed them, just check past blog articles or visit the Facebook page via links upper right. Ken also has his own signature style and some bookwork under his belt that you can check out HERE.













Billy Barnette: He was the first to jump in and offer assistance in the art and he's been a great help. He also has his own distinct style and a few of the cards he's helped with have been posted! His work has been freelance of late, but I did do a guest artist spot on him some time ago and his work could be seen HERE.

Kevin Woolfork: Speaking of prior articles, I wrote on on this man too. He did the gridwork for the first game board and now he's back! Just look at what he did for my character, Major Xeroh! And of course you can see his work HERE.  What he's going to do for the game cards coming up; well, you'll see. Kevin is well versed in photoshop and great with his colors too.





Jay Morgan: I've mentioned my fellow local author before and I'll mention him again. Examples of his art will show strong colors. For now, I can only send you to his authors page HERE. But you can be sure he's going to fit on this list just as well as the rest.

Ali Lamkin: Last but not least and newest is this man. He's a great form artist with talents he hasn't shown us yet, but just look. The pic is drawn by him and colored by Kevin Woolfork.

Some people may wonder what I'm doing. Well, over half the art is still being done by yours truly with some new twists and tricks. I'm working hard to get this together so that Galaxy Zento the board game will be as truly customizable as it's meant to be. You can bet there is going to be so much more to show and very soon.

Update: Game Cards and Short Story Lineup!

Development continues for all things Galaxy Zento this fall! I do love keeping my roster full of fun things to do. I keep my personal deadlines fairly loose, but there is much to look forward to!

CUSTOM CARD OFFER: I have the artwork for two custom cards for owners of my board game. The special offer still stands until Thanksgiving. Anyone who purchases the Galaxy Zento board game is going to get their own personal character card that only they can play. The cool thing about this is that you can be pretty much anything or anyone you want to be for the custom offer. As you can see from the artwork, one person chose a ranger style elf and another chose a variation of the serial killer, H. H. Holmes. I'm not going to show you their stats but I will tell you this;

The ranger has a ranged attack of 10 spaces. When he get's played there will be no safe place on the board from him. Holmes will drop traps on other players whenever they come out of the main deck against him. It doesn't matter where those players are on the board either. That's just a couple examples of how powerful you could be. All of these customs will sport high character defense and abilities to use magic, making your character the envy of your gaming table. So if you are the kind of host who likes to worry or abuse your players, this is perfect for you. It won't guarantee you to win every game, but you'll sure play like a bad ass. Here's where to get it: LINK.  Note that the game is made print on demand but you should still get it in less than a month or near.

SHORT STORIES: I've been hard at work on the next book of short stories, GZ Tales Vol. 2. I've got a great lineup of killer tales. Keep in mind that they continue a history from Vol. 1 and other stories. They will also connect to future stories. Check out these titles:

London Fables: Explosive candy canes and a trapped bell tower are just the tip of the iceberg when Blacktide and Nyhtwulf to go London to stop a terrorist plot. London may never be the same.

Shadowplay: An invisible killer is practicing his craft on New York's homeless population. Anthony James and Panther Steele have to track down an alien psychopath before he ups his victimology.

Anubis and Horus at the Castle of the Demon King: He's the baddest villain that GZ will ever know and this is just his introduction. Brace yourself.

Brother Whale: The aquatic hero, Killer Whale is an alien to Earth and the last of his kind. When he discovers whale poachers, the kid gloves are off!

The Fight in the Dog: You're going to love seeing justice delivered to these creeps. The animal shape changing hero, Dolphin Man is called in to help stop an animal fighting ring. It's justice animal style!

That's just half the roster for what is going to be a blast of a book! If you haven't  dived into GZ yet, you still can! Just hit the link in the top right corner of this page to my Author's Page! Read the first three books in any order you want! You'll find the stories stand alone well.

COLORING BOOK: Yeah! A coloring book! Why not? I've already posted free coloring pages at the GZ Facebook page. But there's going to be a lot more than that to work with in the coloring books. I'm doing lots of touch up art to make it more worth your while too. Each book will be based on the history of the stories so you can almost follow along from them!

Plans are still moving for the first expansion to the board game that will introduce new characters, traps, and spells. They'll come with instructions for customizing your board game experience. Seeing artwork of multiple artists may also be possible here. The adventuring continues! All I can say for sure is to stay tuned as I continue to crank out the hits. I swear, there's too much going on in my head!