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!

Board game preview: HOW THE BOARD WORKS

I said I would and here I go. Time to show you the board for the New York edition and give you the scoop on how it works. By the way, if you haven't signed up for the mailing list, you're missing out content and stories that don't go anywhere else. This will include giveaways and contests. So what are you waiting for?

This is the New York Game board. It will fold in six sections.

Click on image for larger view

To re-explain the game a little bit, the object is to complete a random assigned goal before other players. A goal may have you hunting beasts or monsters, recruiting a number of allies, gathering artifacts, or just beating up other players. There are far more goals than even that, just to point out. Everything you try to gain in your goal will come from an event deck that you reveal cards from on every turn after you make a move. You might find that daunting to depend on luck of the draw to complete a goal, but fear not. The board will help you.

STARTING ZONES: The white flares around the edges of the board are the starting zones. Since the game supports 2-6 players, there are 6 zones. The player who goes first gets first choice of where to start. Starting at the right spot can put you closer to map points that support your goal. But even if you are on the losing end of that equation, there is a way around it.

AIRPORTS: If you look closely, you can see three airplane symbols on the map. When you land on a plane you can immediately continue your movement via any other plane on the map. Trivial fact: At least two of the airports are positioned where real airports are in the real New York City.

DRAW 2: When you land on a number 2, you get to reveal 2 cards from the event deck instead of one with no other restrictions. A normal move only reveals one card.

FOCAL POINTS: The red X's on the map are Focal Points. When you land on one, you reveal 3 cards from the event deck with a couple of restrictions. One, you can't evade or run away from anything that comes at you. Two, if there are freebie cards in the reveal, you can't have them unless you defeat any threats that appeared with them. The only control you have is if there are multiple combats or traps. In those cases, you only have to do one combat and you can discard the rest. Same for traps. But a combat and a trap will both stay and you must deal with both before you can take an item or artifact from the focal point. As an additional bonus to this, if you succeed against all threats of a focal point and there is an artifact, you do not have to make the obtain roll for the artifact. It becomes free.

FORCE POINTS: A force point is a location on the map that allows you to make a die roll on a d20 to force a specific card type from the event deck. For any of these points, you roll a 15 or more with no modifiers and you get to reveal until the specified type comes out. Then you shuffle the other cards back into the deck. A card forced cannot be evaded, so be careful. There is a symbol for each card type that can be forced from the deck to achieve your goal:

Pot of gold: Shop: force an item card

Ancient Ax: Museum: force an artifact

Paw Print: Zoo: force a beast

Tombstone: Cemetery: force a monster

Letter H: Hero base: force a good character

Letter V: Villain base: force an evil character

HOSPITAL: The red heart with a cross is the hospital. You can land there for a chance at healing yourself.

ZONES: Each colored location of the map is a zone that caters to a certain type of threat card (except Staten Island). In those zones, when a card of the zone type is revealed, you cannot evade it and it has +2 attack against you in combat. 

Bronx: Monster zone

Queens: Beast zone

Brooklyn: Villain (evil character) zone

Manhatten: Hero (good character) zone

The odd ball on these is Staten Island, the power zone. For each time you enter Staten Island (so long as you didn't start your turn there) you get to roll a d20. If you roll 15 or higher, you get a power from the power deck. The limit on powers is 3, so you might have to pick and choose. There are other ways to get powers built into the game so no worries if you can't get to that side of the map enough.

Any marked location on the map falls under a rule that you cannot start your turn on it, move away and go right back to it. You have to leave any one marked space for an entire round, before going back to it. If your movement allows you to reach another marked space of the same type, that is a legal move. 

And that's the board! What do you think? Enough action to go around? Tell me your thoughts in comments and thanks for reading! Remember to check out the links in the upper right for the books and the original game!

Board game preview! MONSTERS!!

It's time for another board game preview! This time I'm going to share some monsters that will come for you out of the event deck as you search New York city for your goal to win the game. If your goal card says you have to fight monsters, this is what you'll face!

This is for the Galaxy Zento Adventure Game: New York City. The game is tied into two other expansions that can be mixed and matched for how you want to play and is based on the stories and novels (see links in upper right of page).

 I know you can't see exactly what they do yet, but I will explain the card layout. The symbols are for the monster's stats.
Star:  Attack power added to a d20 attack roll
Shield: Defense you have to roll on d20 with your own attack power.
Arrow: Evade level you have to roll on d20 to escape it without fighting it.
Naturally, each monster will have perks and challenges of their own.

The Were-beast is a combination threat that you treat as a monster but can count as a beast. If it defeats you in combat it passes its curse to you and you become the next were-beast and a special enemy to everyone else in the game. You can count on it not being a pushover in combat too.













The Chimera can attack you three times in a row before you get to attack once. That means it rolls to hit your defense three times in a single attack turn. You should hope you've built up your defense or can make just as many tries yourself to even it out. Thanks to its snake tail, its also venomous and will poison you if you lose a fight against it. Poison has multiple effects in the game to include hindering movement, blocking powers or abilities, or blinding you so you can't make ranged attacks. Fortunately, poison is somewhat easy to get rid of since all you have to do is be healed of any amount including zero.

The Harpy is a mean monster that can attack twice in combat. If you beat it, you get to keep its card and gain a special artifact weapon called the Harpy Feather. It grants you a boost to your own attack for future combats.

Power Ghoul is a pretty basic monster with a very straightforward effect. If you beat him, you get a new power from the power deck. If you lose, you lose a power if you had one in the first place. Since New York comes with a full deck of powers, there are more chances to get powers than in any expansion so far.

New York comes with a slew of spider cards thanks to what happened in Chicago in the novel Chaos Rising. This one comes with two attacks in combat and is venomous. Thanks to other effects in the game (traps and events) spiders can pop out at you nearly anywhere or anytime during game play.













That isn't all the cards that count as monsters, but it's a nice sharp view of what is coming. I have some artwork left to do and a rule book and hope to release New York this summer! In my next edition I will spoil the game board itself! For now, here's some links to the other expansions!

CHESSMEN or first edition

EXP 1

Hey, want to know what comes after this? The all new Chessmen card expansion will have all the characters from both Chessmen Novels! All the heroic Chessmen, their allies and enemies will be on hand to merge with your gaming experience. All new special edition cards, team memberships, and more still in planning stage! 

Check out the Chessmen and a Contest!

It's time for another GZ update blog and I have more for you than just Chessmen. I have a preview for you too. First I want to show you brand new artwork for the Chessmen. For those who don't know, the Chessmen are a team of heroes from the world of Chyssia. They were forced to flee their home world with the infant princess in order to protect her life. The story has been called a space opera with super powers and you can get your hands on the first book of the series for just 99 cents HERE. Some of this art has only been seen in the email newsletters so far so don't hesitate to sign up for that at the end of this post or in the upper left of this blog page.

Here's Falconer and Sersi, the leaders of the team. Falconer is a powerful elemental capable of commanding any element or weather. He can reshape stone, convert it to water and back to stone, summon lightning, and create storms of any magnitude. Sersi is a mystical falcon with spell casting abilities. Watch out for her thunder dive, it can wreck a tank!

Next we have Helshred, the unlikely hero. Despite his fearsome appearance and odd behaviors, he is the most loyal member of the team and heroic to boot. He is an amnesiac due to the wound on his head and he can never remove those bladed gauntlets. Helshred desperately wants to regain the knowledge of his past and hopes that Falconer can one day help him do that. Helshred is agile and acrobatic, capable of short distance teleportation. Since the gauntlets are indestructible, he's practically a living weapon. They can slice through nearly anything. His tail is prehensile and can grasp a weapon or a person.

Reigndale is a soldier of Amnath and a highly experienced marksman. He knows military tactics and strategies. He is also  a solid hand to hand combatant. Reigndale is ashamed of his people because they are part of the coup that forces the Chessmen from their home. He turns his back on them to serve the princess. Reigndale has a secret that even he doesn't understand. Somewhere within him is another person.

That person is Daxeon the Vengor (vengeance) Angel. At certain times of need, Reigndale's body will disappear and be replaced with Daxeon who is so fearsome on sight, lesser beings flee. He fights with cosmic energies and a blue diamond sword. He can exist in the vacuum of space. Daxeon is super strong and can lift well over 100 tons. He fights in raging fury and when any threats are eliminated, he vanishes and brings back Reigndale.

Viro was an astronaut from the planet Ruwano. He was investigating energy readings from a small star when his ship was overcome by strange radiation. He was rescued by a race called the Cyborians but they had to seal his body in armor. Viro is always encompassed in a green gas within his armor. He can create viruses that can do nearly anything he imagines. He can heal, dissolve, strengthen, weaken, or alter the properties of nearly anything. His power is limited and he often has to rest and recharge. Viro lives in constant caution of anything that could break open his armor for he could destroy and entire world.

Halley is the guardian of the Halley's comet shield. The powerful artifact allows him to fly in space just like a blazing comet. With it's power he can smash through enemies and even the hull of starships. The shield also collects and stores energy from attacks that it protects Halley from. Once enough is stored, the shield can fired a powerful energy blast that can clear trees or knock a space craft out of the sky. Halley is the only human member of the team. He was abducted as a child to be studied, but found the shield and escaped into space.

Major Xeroh is a cumulative mimic. He can use the cumulative physical attributes (strength, speed, endurance,) and powers of any beings within about 50 yards. Even without other people to boost him, he can fly in space and has his own physical strength. The eye piece is a scanner that tells him what sort of powers people have at a distance before he gets close enough to register them with his power. He also uses it to scout long distances ahead for danger. Xeroh is boisterous and often comical without intending to be. Like Viro, he comes from Ruwano.

Messiah is quite possibly the most powerful member of the team. He carries the power of Faith. It is the only power that Xeroh cannot copy. He can use faith to heal or accomplish amazing feats. He can fly in space and boost the abilities of others to astronomical levels. He can be stronger or faster than nearly anything he faces. He has even used his power to stop the cannon blast of a starship from killing his friends before he knocked the ship out of the sky with a gesture. Even if it weren't for faith, Messiah is a master martial artist. His past is as much a mystery as Helshred, but only because he doesn't speak of it.

There you have them, the Chessmen! Now for that preview I promised. It's nothing less than the board for the next edition of the adventure board game! Check it out!

The new board is far more interactive in the game than the first one. There are spaces where a roll of the dice can force a card you want to come out of the event deck. Each location has built in dangers depending on what you draw for your turn. For example, the Bronx is the "Monster zone". Monsters revealed in this area cannot be evaded and have +2 to their attack for combat. But if you are looking for monsters, just hang around the cemeteries. You're bound to find them. Worried about distance across the board? Don't. Just land on one of the airplane spaces to instantly go to any other same space on the board and continue your move normally. The starbursts are starting zones for up to 6 players. Much more will be coming out on the game in the newsletter so be sure to sign up!



Finally it's time for that contest! How would you like to have you or someone else drawn as a super hero or villain? Well here's your chance! It's a coloring contest. All you have to do is color the picture and send it or a photo of it to Galaxyzento@gmail.com by April 30! Easy! Print it out or color online and send it to me! If you win, I will draw the person of your choice from a photo you provide! Have fun! And that's all for this edition!

SIGN UP!
 

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!

So I've started up the mailing list

That's what all the gurus say to do. Get a mailing list going in order to get more people interested and latched on to your brand. Well, there is one phrase that definitely does not work in this business;

If you build it, they will come....

Not so fast. You have to go find them and while I've had some fellow authors croon to me about how easy it was for them.. I have had no such luck.

It's literally the ''superhero age" in movies and books even though comics have suffered. I can't think of a time my brand could possibly be more relevant.  But in a world that wants Spider-mans and Captain Americas how does an Indy brand get noticed?

Well, I'm still struggling to follow guru advice, but I can tell you it is practically never as cut and dried as presented. I'm saying this to you, fellow Indy creator because we live in a tough market. So what am I doing about it now?

Well, opting onto my mailing list (upper left corner of my blog page) will net you a free book. But it won't stop at that. I'm going to make sure my mailing list gives cool updates, more freebies, new artwork, and whatever else I can think of to stuff into that package until it bursts. I want every email you get on my list to feel like you're opening a birthday present. I want fun in your inbox.  Maybe some puzzles or coloring pages you can print out for the kids? Or totally keep them to yourself, I won't mind.

I'm changing the cover of Chaos Rising today. It may take a couple of days for that change to go live, but it will and I will make sure people know about it. Eventually all the covers will be changed. Yeah, you're getting to see that cover right here as the header to this blog post.

And soon I think I'm going to offer a chance to have yourself drawn as a superhero or fantasy character straight from a photo you send me. More details on that if we can get this off the ground.

That's what I'm doing about it now. My next steps are more writing and art of course. I have to keep creating and keep things moving. Direction has always been hard for me. I can wind up with too many projects on the plate but that's easy to do as a one man band.

So that's the update for now. Off to do more creating.

Changing covers

Yes it's time for me to make some changes. I've been rehashing how I'm trying to sell my books and I've gathered some tips. Fact is, even if you are a respected or reputable artist, you need to know a few things about how layouts are done. You also need your cover to accurately convey your story. It also helps if it doesn't look like a child drew it. I've come to the decision that the critics I recently spoke to must be right. So it's time to make changes and recirculate. On top of that I will be adding quite a bit of extra advice like setting up a mail list. I have some ideas for it and I will be looking to make getting my email a fun thing to do.

As for the covers, well, let's take a look at the first novel of the GZ series, Chessmen.

I've realized that the problems are almost too many to list. My book isn't about Chess rather a royal guard of a distant planet. They come to be called "Chessmen".  They are heroes. That's what I do. Heroes. I wanted a near comic book appeal for the story while accenting the planet they are from. Well, I should have sought more advice at someplace like KBoards.com a long time ago. Still I will with this new cover.

Well, what do you think of it? I'm hoping that showing two actual characters from the book will make it clearer what they reader is getting into. I'm quoting a reader in a blurb at the bottom. I think that should be okay. It has the comic appeal I'm going for and simplifies. I'll be looking for what people think of it. Do you like it? Is it appealing? Tell me your thoughts in comments.