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PretzCon is returning again in 2015 on Friday, 10 to Sunday, 12 April in Omaha, Nebraska, USA. 93 Made Games are proud to be continuing its major sponsorship of the expo and support its goal of providing a fun and safe environment for gamers of all ages to play. 93 Made Games has sent an expo package containing Viewpoint, Viewpoint Reflections, Monster Town and a whole lot of other goodies for attendees to play and enjoy. Other games for attendees to play include Dominion, Apples to Apples, Machi Koro, Spiderman Yahtzee, Telestrations, Ghost Stories, Boss Monster, Pathfinder, Amerigo, Dungeon Roll, Zombie Dice, Battle for Sularia, Samurai, DC Comics Deck Builder, Bruges, 7 Wonders, Get Lucky, Forbidden Island, Unspeakable Words, Takenoko, Mille Bornes, Cannibal Pygmies in the Jungle of Doom, Escape: Curse of the Temple, Dungeons and Dragons, Fresco, Roar-a-Saurus, Legendary, Settles of Catan, Captain's Wager, Rialto, Pandemic, Splendor, Mysterium, Murder Mystery, Firefly the Board Game, Sons of Anarchy, Pit! With Bell!, Steam Park, La Isla, Dead of Winter, Crokinole, Discount Salmon, Battle of the Bands, Oz Fluxx, Shadows Over Camelot, Cash 'n Guns, Red Dragon Inn, Two Rooms and a Boom!, Cthulhu!!!, Trivial Pursuit, Pirate Fluxx, Fortune and Glory, Dead of Winter, Diamonds, Triassic Terror, Shark Mania, Trailer Park Wars, Hyperborea, Piraten Kapern, Hulk Smash!, The Mastermind Affair, Word Jam, Dragon Slayer, Acquire, Vye Card Game, Bra Room Brawl, Moderne Zeiten, TriBond, Boss Battle, Shadowrun Crossfire, Penny Press, Ladies & Gentlemen, Abyss, Pandemic: The Cure, Cyclades, Crusoe’s Planet, Set Cubed, Chez Geek, Lords of Waterdeep, Stuff and Nonsense, A Study in Emerald, Karma, DUNE, Smash Up, Ticket to Ride, Tokaido, Munchkin, Warhammer 40,000, Zombiecide, Sentinels of the Multiverse, The Resistance, Game of Thrones, Hoity Toity, Dixit, Aguirre, Summoner Wars, Quarriors!, Kolejka, Firefly RPG, Zombie ’15, Paranoia, Zombies!!!, We Created a Game, Eclipse, Five Tribes, Snake Oil, Cube of Death, Bang!, Cards Against Humanity, Werewolf Night, Munchkin Booty, Fellowship, Power Grid, Belfort, Nations, Guillotine, Maginor!!!, SdJ’athon, Citadels, Talisman, Lowenherz, Elevenses, Spartacus, Dino Race, Pay Dirt, XCOM: The Board Game, Cutthroat Caverns, Karnickel and Avalon. Phew! That was exhausting… aaaaand attendees can also bring their own games or borrow games from the extensive games library. It’s like the games never end and neither will the fun all weekend at PretzCon. PretzCon is a non-profit, family-run gaming convention offering a fun, safe environment for gamers of all ages to play. At PretzCon, you’ll find board, card, dice, and role-playing games. Play your favourite games or take the opportunity to try out new games.
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93 Made Games reviews the year that was and looks ahead to the big events and milestones that will be taking place in 2015. 2014 in review.
Preview of 2015.
This is just a snapshot of what we've got planned for the year ahead so stay tuned to the 93 Made Games website for more fun and shenanigans in 2015. 93 Made Games is an independent Australian tabletop game design and publishing company. We're also helping independent game designers and publishers in Australia to promote and distribute their games.
93 Made Games will be running demos of Monster Town, The Winking Dead and its other games throughout the 3-day Mother Of All Battles gaming convention being held at Sylvania Heights Community and Youth Club from 4-6 October 2014. Visit the MOAB website for more information and be sure to drop into this free event and say hi if you're in the area.  This year's MOAB includes a well-appointed canteen with plenty of sumptuous options, huge bring and buy activities, a board games library and free participation games for all ages. Competitions to be held over the weekend include Flames of War, Warhammer Fantasy, Bolt Action, X-Wing, 40K and more! MOAB, short for Mother Of All Battles, is a three day gaming event held each year over the October long weekend at the Sylvania Heights Community and Youth Club.
It was another successful Toy and Game Expo for 93 Made Games in the year two thousand and fourteen. We'd missed the previous year's expo due to a variety of reasons and were very happy to return to an expo that brings gamers, game designers and the general public together under one very high roof. The expo started off with the indoctrination of the newest member of the company when we subjected Simon to bump in on a freezing winter's night. Whilst the expo hall was warm enough, having to circumnavigate half of Olympic Park to return to our cars froze our proverbials off.  Both days of the expo gave us plenty of chance to catch up with old friends and make new ones. We received visits from Barry and Jason from UOW Guild Gaming Society as well as Simon, Sam and Will who have been big supporters of Viewpoint in Australia and abroad. Christine and Manuel from Mega Games also dropped by to say g'day and pick up their freshly-minted copies of Monster Town. We made a lot of new contacts with up and coming designers such as Kim from Secret Base Games, Jason from End Game Games and Anna from Draw Cards Game. We saw and played many great games from Australian designers and can easily envisage a time in the near future where Australian games are going to be a well sort after commodity. Watch out world! It's not a Toy and Game Expo without a Viewpoint Championships and it seems it's not a Viewpoint Championships without the reigning World Champion Lindsay Heming from The Games Cube winning again! 22 other competitors placed Lindsay firmly in their sights but he managed to stave off a concerted effort in the typical style of a champion (winning by the smallest of margins) by claiming his first double crown - Viewpoint Champion 2014 and Viewpoint Reflections Champion 2014. Well done Lindsay!
Viewpoint aside, we also had great fun demoing Monster Town and NinjitZoo. The guys from Blue Room Games definitely have a popular game and we're proud to help them get it out to the gaming public. We also can't wait to see what game they have in store next. So if you were unfortunate enough to miss out on this year's Toy and Game Expo, make sure you check out their website and get in early for next year's expo. We'll see you there! The Toy and Game Expo is Australia's only public expo with the latest in toys and board games. Experience the fun in this family interactive heaven for ages from 4 through to adults based on a principle of See, Play, Own. Come along and SEE passionate high end users demonstrating their projects. PLAY with it yourself, and if it tickles your fancy take the opportunity to OWN it by visiting a retail booth.
Gamers will have their first chance to get their hands on the premiere edition Monster Town at this year's Toy and Game Expo in Sydney, Australia on 5-6 July. 93 Made Games will also be showcasing its other games - Viewpoint and Viewpoint Reflections - as well as NinjitZoo, which is the first game from Indie designers Blue Room Games. These games will be exclusively available to the Toy and Game Expo attendees for special expo-only discount prices. Along with Mega Games and Natural 20 Games and Hobbies, the expo will also be the only locations where gamers will be able to purchase Monster Town prior to its official release in September 2014.  Free Stuff! As per usual, 93 Made Games will be giving away plenty of merchandise to people who show up at our booth and purchase our games. And back by popular demand, 93 Made Games chocolates will be available - while stocks last - to anyone who comes by our booth to say hello. Demo Games We will be demonstrating all of our released games as would be expected but will also be demonstrating the latest prototype of Superstars Rugby League to those diehard league enthusiasts. Attendees will also get to throw rotten tomatoes at us during our 30 minute stint on the Spotlight Stage so please feel free to raid the vegie bin and hurl some produce our way or at least come by to say hello and play our games. Indie Distro Last but by no means least, we want to meet with as many other independent Australian game designers and publishers as possible. The expo is a great place for doing this so if you have a game that you have designed and/or released then we want to know your story. Come by our booth or drop us an email so we can see how we can help build the Australian games industry together. 93 Made Games might even be able to assist in distributing your games throughout Australia and beyond. The Toy and Game Expo is Australia's only public expo with the latest in toys and board games. Experience the fun in this family interactive heaven for ages from 4 through to adults based on a principle of See, Play, Own. Come along and SEE passionate high end users demonstrating their projects. PLAY with it yourself, and if it tickles your fancy take the opportunity to OWN it by visiting a retail booth.
After successfully reaching our funding goal, we are now able to give gamers a sneak peek at the production samples of Monster Town. Due to feedback received during the Kickstarter campaign, the game was changed from being split across four deck boxes (one for each gang) to one box containing the full game. A lot of the artwork has also been redone and looks wonderful when compared with the washed out images of the prototypes. Production will be completed by 5 June and the game will be in select stores and in the possession of our Kickstarter backers by mid-July. As well as receiving copies of the game, certain Monster Town backers will receive limited edition merchandise, such as Monster Town playmats, the Art of Monster Town book, artprints and so on. All backers have been listed in the credits in the Monster Town Comprehensive Rules but we'd like to give special mention to the following backers and supporters of Monster Town:
Monster Town - Bite off more than you can chew. Ever dreamt that you were fighting monsters in a B-grade horror film? Maybe you had just encountered Monster Town.
93 Made Games are showing up in all types of media these days. During the Monster Town demo tour, Sean and Anthony were interviewed by Mark Rickards on Hobart's Edge 99.3FM radio The Dice Men Cometh program. Monster Town was also discussed on an End Game Games' Tablepop episode. You can listen to The Dice Men Cometh interview and End Game Games episode by clicking on the respective logos below.
Monster Town - Bite off more than you can chew. Ever dreamt that you were fighting monsters in a B-grade horror film? Maybe you had just encountered Monster Town.
Monster Town is around the corner… literally. After 5 long years of development, 93 Made Games are only a couple of days away from launching the Kickstarter campaign to crowd-fund the full production and distribution of the Monster Town card game. The team has organised in-store and in-club events around Australia and have plenty of rewards on offer for those brave enough to take a journey to Monster Town. Monster Town is an expandable card game set in a fictional city whose denizens include all manner of supernatural beings, such as Vampires, Werewolves and Zombies. Players command their gang and wage brutal combat against each other as they journey through Monster Town. The backstory of Monster Town is told in reverse narrative, where the first game is actually the last chapter in an intriguing chronicle. Each expansion adds to the story and unravels the mystery behind the appearance of the Dark Spire - an ethereal power source that has warped the citizens of Monster Town. We have carefully chosen Kickstarter rewards that will appeal to gamers, game designers and those who appreciate of original pieces of art. Backers of the Monster Town Kickstarter campaign can pledge for lots of exciting loot, including copies of the four gang decks and the Kickstarter-exclusive Reinforcement Packs (additional cards with which to expand your gang deck), limited edition artwork and autographed prints, and even a reward where you and your friends can create your own gang… and we’ll produce it for you! Seeking crowd-funding for Monster Town via Kickstarter has allowed us to offer an immersive experience for all types of gamers, from dedicated gamers to casual gamers, and even non-gamers. Whilst playing Monster Town is the main game, we are encouraging anyone who is interested in the supernatural, horror or fantasy to get into the spirit of Monster Town by dressing up as their favourite supernatural being and attending one of the Monster Town tour events. Heck, even if you just want to hold your own Monster Town party without us (we may shed a tear), send in your photos and we’ll post them on our website. The best-dressed at each of the tour events will get a booby prize. The Monster Town tour will kick off with LIVE LAUNCH PARTY at Mega Games in Penrith. Be there for your first look at Monster Town in all of its frightening glory. Be sure to stay tuned to the Kickstarter page (when it goes live) for a list of official Monster Town tour events. Anyone who attends an official tour event, and pledges for a reward containing Reinforcement Packs, will receive an extra Reinforcement Pack for each and every one of these events they attend. Just be sure to let us know who you are at the event so we can be sure to get you your extra packs once the campaign is over. There is so much more to tell you about but, for now, check out our Monster Town Kickstarter Theatrical Promo and then pledge until your heart is content once the Monster Town Kickstarter page goes live (from 8 p.m. on Friday, 11 April 2014 (AEST)). Kickstarter is a funding platform for creative projects. Everything from films, games, and music to art, design, and technology. Kickstarter is full of ambitious, innovative, and imaginative projects that are brought to life through the direct support of others. Since Kickstarter's launch on April 28, 2009, over $1 billion has been pledged by more than 5 million people, funding more than 50,000 creative projects.
93 Made Games opens their master design file and looks back over the last five years of the development of Monster Town. There are many differences to the original concept; however, a few key themes and gameplay elements have survived half a decade of play-testing. Just three months shy of 93 Made Games' first birthday, Monster Town Lead Designer Anthony Condos, conceptualised an adventure card game where players would reveal locations (to be captured) and encounters (to be dealt with) from a central deck. Whilst this doesn't sound too different from the final game, it was the players rather than their gang members who were directly affected by the locations and encounters. Also, because there were no gangs, there was also no combat. Thus, the first change was to add gangs and combat cards through which gang members could 'attack' each other, suffer wounds and be killed off or turned. This also introduced the idea of different races - Humans, Vampires, Werewolves and Zombies. Combat was further expanded to include combat abilities on the gang members and a mechanism to limit the exploitation of powerful abilities through the consumption of 'power'. So this is the origin of the blue Power Dice. Through further play-testing, the design team found that the basic win condition of, what was then, capturing a set number of locations would not always be achieved prior to the location/encounter deck running out of cards. This lead to the creation of the 'end game' phase where a free-for-all final combat would ensue, with the winner being the player who had the last gang standing. The victory conditions were further tweaked over the five-year development and included timed games, combat-only games and varying the number of locations required to win. Eventually, the design team settled on a 'conquest points' system where players needed to reach 10 conquest points to win with locations being worth 1 each and gang members being worth varying amounts but only if killed during the end game. At around the same time the end game phase was devised, Anthony started work on the artwork. Preliminary designs were rudimentary in order to get across the basic themes but were soon improved by using models for each of the gang members and non-playing characters used in the game. You may notice that all of the gang leaders look an awful lot like someone who is very closely involved with the creation of the game.      Whilst Anthony was compiling the artwork, he also added special items (weapons, armour and augmentations (which were at the time simply known as special abilities)) as a card type. Originally, each gang deck was going to include 10 special items; however, this number had to be reduced so that all of the flavourful combat cards could be retained. Fortunately, many of these special items will be included in the Reinforcement Packs that will be available to Kickstarter backers. With the addition of special items and the artwork coming along nicely, the design team's next big job was to streamline the game by removing superfluous cards and rules. The first to go were the double-sided follower/attacker cards. Whilst having an image of a follower on one side and an image of an attacker on the other was visual appealing, it took away from the suspense and surprise of revealing cards from the location/encounter deck. Therefore, only one image was used and both effects were moved to the same side of the card. Another significant change was the introduction of uncapturable locations, which played similarly to encounters but kept the theme of travelling through Monster Town. The game was eventually trimmed down from 200+ different cards to a much more manageable number across four gangs. Even though the flavour of the game had been built up from an early stage, the specific themes and history of Monster Town and each gang was thin on content. This is where Design Manager Sean Carroll came up with the idea of 'power' representing the emanations from 'The Dark Spire', a mysterious monolith that has corrupted the denizens of Monster Town. The backstories of the gangs were fleshed out from this basis and thus Humans became the Renegade Militia, Vampires would be known as the Brotherhood of the Fang, Werewolves would don the name Wölfenpack and Zombies were all too obviously titled The Living Undead. The last few months of design and development included some radical but necessary changes, such as the adjustment to scouting where players originally were able to reveal all of the scouting cards at once instead of one card at a time. This further increased the suspense and the “edge-of-your-seat” action that the game provides. After five hectic years of development, Monster Town is now ready to claim. Successful beta play-testing has been conducted with no holes found whatsoever. We used some of our most cunning play-testers, who have repeatedly broken our alpha prototypes, to ensure the fidelity of the game. And also to make sure Monster Town is still as enthralling to play as ever. We will be launching the Monster Town Kickstarter campaign in the very near future so stay tuned to 93 Made Games for comprehensive details on all of the amazing rewards that are on offer. Monster Town is an expandable card game set in a fictional city whose denizens include all manner of supernatural beings, such as Vampires, Werewolves and Zombies. Players command their gang and wage brutal combat against each other as they journey through Monster Town. The backstory of Monster Town is told in reverse narrative, where the first game is actually the last chapter in an intriguing chronicle. Each expansion adds to the story and unravels the mystery behind the appearance of the Dark Spire - an ethereal power source that has warped the citizens of Monster Town.
Gamers will get their first look at the Monster Town beta prototypes during International Tabletop Day activities hosted by Mega Games in Penrith, NSW on Saturday, 5 April 2014. Viewpoint, Viewpoint Reflections and NinjitZoo will also be on show as part of the International Tabletop Day festivities at the PretzCON games convention in Omaha, Nebraska and g33k3 (pronounced “geeky”) pop culture convention in McKinney, Texas.  International Tabletop Day is a celebration for all the fans of tabletop gaming. A single day where the whole world is brought together in a common purpose of spending time together and having fun.
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