Still Seeking my A-Team

It's no big secret that I'm still looking for a team to take GZ to the next level. While I do have a couple of people pitching in some artwork here and there for the board game expansions, I'm definitely seeking more than that.

I want to find someone who can be committed to the project from beginning to end. Not just an artist who does a few illustrations and walks, but someone willing to do more than that. I need people to help me get the word out and take on social media marketing, preaching to the masses, and yeah; even selling some games. Someone with a work ethic that may even rival my own (and mine is pretty strong if I do say so myself).

GZ can totally go places and I know it can. That's why I'll never stop creating, doing the artwork, or writing or trying to sell the game and get it in peoples hands.

I know what I seek is not a small or minor request. It comes with all the risks of failure that anyone could dream of. I've certainly taken some hard knocks in moving forward. But look, I'm still here. That  has to count for something. As a partner, I don't think you could find anyone more serious about it.

But it will take commitment and hard work with rolled up sleeves to make it happen. I'm not looking to give out ownership, but do know that I never forget those who help me and I will give back. Upon success, it's like this. If the game makes money, YOU make money. If I make money, YOU make money.

You have to be strong, have geek roots and be willing to work with me.

Who has what it takes to be part of my A-Team? Well, here are the places I want to go:

Graphic novels
App Games
Video Games
Card Games
Board Games
Already doing novels and short stories to establish a history.
Coloring Books

GZ needs a pro website with all the bells and whistles. It needs consistent and cool art postings of the characters in action. It definitely needs better pics of the female characters! I admit it.

The person or persons I'm talking about would have access to the GZ Facebook page as Admins so they can freely post GZ stuff and same for any websites or the blogspot. I do have a couple of people in mind that I'm about to approach, but we will see what happens.

How game are you? Are you who I'm looking for?

Galaxy Zento Heroclix!

No, no, I'm  not actually getting my characters made into clix yet. Sorry, I sure wish I were. No, today I'm diving into my personal fantasy of having my characters made into clix. What's Heroclix? Heroclix is a tabletop game played on a map. It uses figurines of comicbook characters on special game dials to simulate comic book battles. Here, are a couple of site you can visit to learn about it:

Heroclix.com

HCRealms.com

HeroclixWorld.com

Anyway, it's my fantasy that one fine day my characters will become a set of Heroclix. I will likely do more than one blog on this. Why? Because I've actually made a set and designed dials too! HA! Credit for how I was able to make the dial maps goes to HCRealms. Love those guys. So if you don't totally understand this, it's okay. This post is just part of my dream.

So, allow me to show you the team of PAC (Parahuman Activity Commission), federal agents. They are in my novel Chaos Rising available on Amazon.

SANDSTORM: You see him right there, the worlds most powerful elemental. He has quite a few special powers (black bordered sections). General info for those who don't know the game. Each vertical section of numbers shows up in a special window on the plastic dial base. See the symbols on the left? Those are for (in order from top to bottom) Movement (how many spaces the character can go); Attack (how good the character is at attacking other characters); Defense (the number an attacker has to make with dice to hit this character) and Damage (how many times you turn another character's dial toward KO when this character hits them).

Now back to it. Those who know heroclix may just choke a little at the sight of power like this. His ability to switch up powers serves to show just how many ways he can use his elemental forces. Since he's an elemental/weather controller and shape changer, it all makes sense. He has a high price tag in use since he costs 260 points. You wouldn't see him in lower point games.

ELECTRODE: The Nuclear-Electric Man moves at twice the speed of light and hurls super powered lightning. He's Sandstorm's partner and protege. His points allow for  a duo team with his partner in a 400 point match. I'm confident they'd be dangerous. I should also mention their Team Ability since listed on a team (PAC). When outwitted their defense rises by 1. His trait is powerful, but outwittable, unlike most.

ATOMIZER: He can cause inanimate objects to go atomic by mental command. He can control those explosions to any magnitude (as far as he knows). His favorite object is a ping pong ball. He tosses them at perpetrators to subdue them shockwave style.  He's Redeagle's partner. His special attack power has been done before so it shouldn't be too much of stretch. It lasts his whole dial but his attack numbers aren't outrageous.

REDEAGLE: The Native American hero with animal senses, super strength and a wicked eye for shooting. He and his partner Atomizer fit nicely in a very small team for 200 points. They would also work well for general built teams. I think his dial is really pretty basic for sharpshooter character with a couple extra powers.

BLACKTIDE: This dial demonstrates his disintegrative powers and all the ways they work. He punches through defense like a champion and it's nearly lethal to attack him up close. Fortunately, he has to get fairly close to be dangerous. But that's where his partner, Nyhtwulf comes in.

NYHTWULF: The Twilie demon who is Blacktide's partner, point costed to be with his friend. It's dangerous to attack Blacktide up close, and dangerous to attack his partner from range. Never mind the fact that Nyhtwulf can carry a friend 12 spaces. They can almost human shield each other.

So playing them all together as one massive team will cost 849 points. Not awful for a large point team. I don't think they are terribly off balance either. Each team of two fits in a team point category and should be able to hold their own there. So, Heroclix fans, what do you think of my guys as clix? What would you do differently? Let your voice be heard in comments and have a great day!

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!

Farewell, Clint Thomas. We barely knew ye.

What I have to say today is special and dedicated but also fitting for my standing in this blog overall. Those who follow me know that I have a special place in heart for people who stand up for what they believe in, no matter what other people may think. That was Clint Thomas all the way.

Clint ran the only comic book shop in Monroe, Louisiana. On top of that, it's the smallest shop I ever saw in my life. But don't let that fool you for one second. Clint was a kind and generous man. He'd cut you a deal on your purchase without you even asking. You'd be surprised too. But that's just what he loved to do for people.

"Are you sure that's all you want to charge me?"

"Heck yeah. It's no big deal."

That's par for the course around there. For a small shop, Clint still managed to pack folks in for gaming tournaments. Free comic book day is a standing room only event and everyone who is anyone shows up. I never heard him complain and I never  heard anyone say a harsh word in his store. That was just the environment and I knew I wanted to come back.

Now, people who don't frequent comic books stores and who didn't know him very well, laughed at him and I'll tell you why. Every election time, Clint would run for Mayor. This year he ran for Sheriff. And this is why I'm writing about him today. Clint didn't care what anyone else thought of what he was doing. He could do it and so he did. He had no fear of failure. Not being voted into office was zero deterrent to him. He pursued his dreams maybe better than half the people around here.

I admit, when I was new to this town and heard he ran for Mayor, I thought he was crazy. Then I got to know him. Crazy like a fox. Because he had no fear to pursue his dreams. We could all learn a lot from that alone. Clint was a true example of how other people's opinions don't have to rule your life. They sure didn't rule his and he was a better man for it.

Clint left this world in the way a lot of people say they'd prefer. In his sleep. Maybe that's part of his reward toward the next life. Painless transition. I sure hope so.

Clint always put my Galaxy Zento stuff up in his store and never asked a thing in return. But when I could, I bought things from him. It was the least I could do. Everyone is going to miss him. I don't know what will become of that little store now, but it will never be the same. If they keep it open, I'll sure go there. If not; it shall be fondly remembered.

In spite of Multiple Sclerosis

Really, it's more like 'in spite of anything barring my path', but I think you'll get the idea. It's helpful to remind myself what spurs me on to overcome disability and be even borderline productive. With the seasonal change bringing barometric changes, the cognitive fogs have been slapping me around. Imagine allergy season getting you moderately stoned every day instead of plugged up. Or consider that your cognitive abilities (to think clearly) are plugged up instead of your sinuses.

All the more reason to fight like a cornered animal.

The less you do, the more MS takes away. The less you use any particular life skill (especially physical) the faster MS takes that away. You have to pace yourself, but definitely don't want to just give up. Even so, MS, or as people are calling it now 'the MonSter; does a lot of damage to a lot of people. It's not so easy to just overcome.

I really hate the fact that I can't work a regular shift job. I have to be able to rest at any given time my body requires. I also have to be able to move around because my nerves go haywire from time to time. So I work from home and put my power into things I always wanted to do.

Wanted to write books about my fantasy universe: published 3 of them so far.

Wanted to make my own board/card games: published one board game so far.

Want my son, who has autism to understand that Dad is still productive: working so far.

My hands don't want to do my artwork. I force myself forward anyway. I will fight for what I love to do until I can't sign my name anymore. That's why I dedicate my artwork to everyone who fights MS or other disabilities  to keep doing what they love to do. That includes just being able to get out of bed on any give day.

You have to have some spite against the disease. You really do. It's amazing what you can accomplish if you just turn Hulk against MS. Decide that MS can go to hell and you're going to make it across the room today (or to the park, or whatever). Yeah, I'm stubborn in some of the wrong ways too, but you kind of have to be. What are the wrong ways? Well, you pay for what you do in a day when you have MS. The harder you exert yourself, the harder MS tends to hit back. So if I got outside and dig that rotten portion of tree root sticking up in my yard, I'll probably be physically and mentally useless for about three days.

I'll probably still try to do it.

Just to spite my MS as if it were an entity that could understand said spite.

So, between showing my son the importance of never giving up and giving MS the finger; you pretty much have my reason for doing anything. What do you do in spite of your MS? Let me know in the comments. I'll end this with an uplifting song:

Amazing People: The Blind Roboticist

They call him, Robo Doc. Dr. Marco Bitetto is an award winning roboticist. That means he develops robots and artificial intelligence programs for robots. But hold on. Those of you who follow me regularly, know that I'm all about people who don't give up based on various disabilities to do what they love. So how does Robo Doc fit the bill. Well...

He's blind.

Not only has he had to overcome blindness, but when he was a kid; the so called experts labelled him as retarded. He had to overcome blindness and dysgraphia to teach himself how to write. He also learned two languages on his own. Wait a second; what the heck is dysgraphia? For him, it was insult to injury.

Dysgraphia is a disorder in the ability to write. We aren't just talking about bad handwriting here. It's more like a short circuit in the neuro-process that allows you to write words. It also messes with other fine motor skills as you might imagine. But the Doc didn't let this stop him.

He developed programs that helped him move forward. He achieved a Bacheoler of Science Degree in Computer Systems Engineering from the State University of New York in 1991. He even worked as an engineer for a radio station.

During his education at the University, he was so distinguished in his skill set that he earned scholarships and grants the whole way through. Basically, he was paid to go to school. Try that on for size. He built two laboratories in his house to do his undergraduate work.

Really, you can see a great deal about him to the technical and historical at his Amazon page HERE. Read down the column on the left!

Now he's developed artificial intelligence programs that could seriously change the world for the disabled. And he's not looking to start a business, rather help the people of the disabled community overcome as he has. Some of the AI programs he's developed have worked for him as a voice interviewer, translations of color and patterns to sound, and the applications for these could be limitless.

You can see a video that demonstrates an artificial intelligence called Kate on his Amazon page. If you have a love or fascination with robotics programming, you should check out his books too.

You can also find Robo Doc at Goodreads HERE.

Cards of the Boardgame: The PC's

I've tried doing a video series called Card Talk, to show how the cards work in Galaxy Zento the board game. Sadly, I just don't have good lighting or a location conducive to making the videos right. So it's time to go the blogspot way.

PC means Player Character. During game setup, each player is dealt a PC at random. Each PC has specific strengths and weaknesses. Fortunately, you can build on the weaknesses if you're even slightly lucky. The game has 6 PC's (but more are on the way) so let's go over them. First a quick explanation of the symbols/stats:

Star: This is the PC's attack modifier. When ever a d20 is rolled for an attack, this number is added to the result in order to reach the target's defense.

Shield: This is a PC's defense. The number that has to be reached on a d20 roll for a hit.

Speech Bubble: This is the recruitment ability. Possible allies have to be recruited with a d20 roll. This modifier is added to the result to reach the recruitment number on an ally's card (shown in the same symbol).

Arrow: This is the modifier for evading enemies. Basically sneaking away from conflicts instead of fighting. This is also done with a d20 roll compared to the requirement on a character or creature card in the same symbol.

Not all abilities have symbols. There are modifiers for Spells (if the PC can use them at any time), Traps (to escape them) and Obtain for grabbing mystical artifacts (which are not the same as items). As a note, I will tell you that there are powerful items coming that will require an obtain roll.

So on to the 6 PC's that you can play in GZ. (Click on images for better view)

WIZARD: Why not start with possibly the coolest of the bunch? As you can see, the Wizard is not a hand to hand combatant. He gets no modifier for combat. His defense is low, so you'll want to get him an ally as soon as you can or items if you can find them. Where he becomes a super power is that he is the only one of the six who starts out able to use spells. Spells come from their own deck and get drawn at the beginning of your turn. You don't have to reveal them until they are put into play. The Wizard's modifier for spell use is a 10, making any combat he uses spells in, much better. If he attacks a PC with a spell, there's a good chance he'll hit. And he can be at a comfortable range to do it. As an added bonus, unlike anyone else who gains magic use, he can draw 2 spell cards for his turn instead of 1. When he wins combats with spells, he gets an extra achievement token (used as wild card modifiers where ever you want).

PSYCHIC: The Psychic has decent numbers because, well, being psychic has it's advantages. She's excellent at recruiting allies or avoiding trouble with enemies. She's average at dealing with traps too because she can "see" her way around them. Where she's really great is her special ability. Once per turn you may look at the top card of any deck. You may put that card on the bottom of the deck. You can use this ability to give yourself a chance at a better draw for for your turn, or to prevent the person after you from getting a cool card that happens to be on the top of the deck. If you gain spell use, you can use this ability on the spell deck for yourself. But, you can also use it to mess up spell draw for someone who can draw them. You can only use this trick on your turn though, so use it wisely.

STRONGMAN: The brute of the game. He's good in combat, and that's really about it. He gets a great modifier against beasts and monsters along with gaining an extra achievement token for winning combats with beasts and monsters. Don't be too quick to dismiss him. With his head start in combat (which is extremely important) he only gets better from there as you find things to build him up with. Thanks to his bonus, he's also one of the best PC's to have against a beast called The Monstrosity. We'll get to those later though.

SOLDIER: Extra good at combat, average at recruit and evade, but makes up for it as soon as you give him a weapon item. Modifiers from weapon items give him an extra +2.  His defensive power of +2 attack and defense if attacked by another PC makes him a thorny target. The bigger he gets, the meaner that becomes.

SPEEDSTER: Arguably, the most awesome stats of the game. Super speed is super cool. She gets awesome attack and defense stats and her evade is monumental. A +3 to movement doesn't hurt either. She can either keep far away from PC's that would attack her OR stay close to those she wants to target.  Check out her "disarm" special ability. Once per turn, during movement, you may make an attack roll on an adjacent opponent. If successful, steal 1 item from that player. Continue your movement. So, basically, you're running along, pause next to someone, snag something from them, and run away. How annoying can you be with that?




INVENTOR: Another PC who really doesn't start out as a combatant. He's good at recruiting help and is a master with traps. Giving him items is also awesome. With him, the +4 from a laser rifle becomes +8. Then his attack shoots up to a +10. His tinker ability is also very handy. During your turn, you may discard an item to take any item (not artifact) from the discard and put it into play for yourself. You also don't roll to obtain items (which will be more useful with upcoming expansions).

I'm happy to report that the first expansion for GZ will have 18 new PC's to really spice up your gameplay possibilities. I'll do a report on them later on, when closer to release.

To see more of what this board game is about: go HERE.  To catch the books that the game follows, click on my Author's page link in the upper right.