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!

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!

GZ Legends 23: Doctor Vampire

            Not everyone appeared on the New York sidewalk and street standing up. Agent Redeagle and Atomizer picked themselves up with notable moaning and groaning for aching body parts. Even Electrode seemed to have a kink in his neck as he leaned against a wall.

            “I punched Death’s brother,” Anubis said, still in a state of wonderment.

            “His little brother,” Nyhtwulf said.

            “Oh that’s even better,” Anubis tossed his hands up.

            “Well, you heard him,” Nyhtwulf said, “You face no penalty and it could be worse. Just be glad you didn’t try to hit his Mother.”

            Anubis dropped his hands by his side now in sheer disbelief, “He has a Mother? Oh I have to know, who is that?”

            “Mother Nature.”

            “Of course it is.”

            “I do not understand why you are so surprised, you work for his Uncle.”

            Anubis shook his head, “And it just gets crazier and crazier doesn’t it?” Anubis looked around for his lance and saw it leaning against a car. He opened his hand and it flew to his grasp. In all the excitement and distraction, he didn’t notice he carried something new. No one did. On Anubis’s right hand was a golden ring with a red gem. I had slipped on his finger from out in the sands of the beach. Now it waited.

            “We need to get in there and find out what’s next,” Sandstorm said. “We still need to find Professor Zombie and finish business with him.”

            “You may not have time for that just yet,” came a voice with a Romanian accent from across the street. The man stood in a dark blue bodysuit with  the winged Caduceus medical symbol the left side of his chest. He had on dark glasses, strange for days without sun, and a long cape. The cape stood up around the collar like something from an old Dracula movie and almost made his short cropped black hair invisible.

            Everyone reacted instantly. Electrode charged up and lit the area while Anubis spun and aimed his lance. Everyone tensed and readied to deal with whoever this was. The man put up his hands gently waved the them slightly to try and show he meant no harm.

            “Please, I understand your stressful position, but I am not here to fight. If you would permit me to introduce myself?”

            “Alright guys, ease up,” Sandstorm said as he stepped out in front of the group towards the stranger. “Things have been nothing less than insane, so forgive us, Mister…?”

            “I am Doctor Vampire, an agent, not unlike yourselves. I need your help.”

            “Well, as you can see, Doctor, the whole world needs our help,” Electrode interrupted.

            “Yes it does,” Dr. Vampire agreed, “That’s why I am here. I am from the Galactic Museum where the most dangerous and exotic artifacts in the universe are kept. Recently, seven of the worst of them were stolen from the museum. We have good reason to believe they have been brought here.”

            “Just how bad are these artifacts? What can they do that we should detour from stopping a madman from destroying a city,” Agent Redeagle asked.

            “A city?” Dr. Vampire responded, “My friend, these artifacts, unchecked, will destroy the world. I believe that the person behind your current predicament is responsible. If I can come in and speak with all of you, I can explain further.”

            “I guess you better do that then,” Sandstorm said.

 *******

Jonathon "Stormy" Knight

            Far across the city, in his hidden lair, Professor Zombie watched as the man with the top hat appeared on the screen.

            “I have great news for you,” Stormy said.

            “That would be good about now, considering they’re likely to be here anytime,” the Professor grumbled.

            “Oh, they won’t be doing that for a while yet if at all. They’re going to be very busy. At that time, I am going to send you a signal and then you will have what I promised you.”

            “You promised I would rule New York.”

            “And you will. On my signal, you may do with New York whatever you desire,” Stormy smiled.

            “You know, you’ve gone some very strange ways about this, Mr. Knight.”

            “Some things, Professor, require a scale of ritual for the desired outcome. Right now it looks like I’m taking over the Earth. I will confide in you this much, I have no intention of doing that. So, on my signal, Professor, do take over New York with all the zeal you please.” The screen flickered out.

*******

Glowing to life

            In another location, far out in the Gulf of Mexico, the living hurricane had still unsettled the waters for hundreds of miles. Even without making it across Florida into the Gulf, the storm had long reach and shook sea beds in all directions. Deep in the waters of the Gulf, systems of high technology hummed to life. He had placed himself in stasis for so many years to avoid detection by his race. Now it seemed that there was activity abnormal to the area. What else could trigger his sensors? In a few seconds he knew it was more than just a stormy sea. He registered the field of darkness around the world and things beyond it. He registered that the people of this world suddenly had little way to communicate with each other. He easily scanned the surface world and registered the fires and discord. He had no idea that this world could become such a playground. It was time to wake up.