ShenbotMakesLabs

July 2024 Newsletter

Added 2024-08-02 02:10:59 +0000 UTC

Quests Over Coffee is 2 years old!

I released Quests Over Coffee two years ago roughly around my birthday. It was quite something at the time to see folks interested in the game because of the artwork I shared on Martin's Print and Play Hideaway (https://www.facebook.com/groups/pnphideaway). I didn't even share any of the rules yet at the time, but folks were drawn in by the art. Having always wanted to have a career in artwork, and failing professionally, it was very validating to folks gravitate toward it.

I recently had someone comment "I love their art style." and that still brings me joy to this day.

Thank you for a great two years! I hope to continue to expand the universe as I can, while adding to the existing one month by month.

THWAK! Continues to be a thing.

I know how a lot of folks gravitate toward tabletop games to get away from screens. I find myself gravitating toward video game development to shake up the landscape of tabletop game design. Something about coding and getting silly things to move around on the screen can be very relaxing and rewarding (when it works).

A game just came out today called Thank Goodness You're Here (https://thankgoodness.game/). They do an amazing job taking the "thwak" mechanic with incredible humor, animation, and sound. My kids were like, "Oh no! What you going to do about your game now?" I replied, "keep workin' on it, I guess."

Numerica Fantastica in August

In my 7th grade pre-algebra class, my teacher had these cards (24 Game) by the projector and would engage us with them every day. I really thought these puzzles were fun. The goal is to make the number 24 with the numbers listed on the card. You use different mathematical operations to do it. You can and must only use each number once. For this example, I'd probably do 5 x 5 = 25. Then 4 - 3 = 1. Then 25 - 1 = 24.

Numerica Fantastica will be a card a game with heroes and monsters where you have do similar feats of mathematics to equate to a specific number on the monster to defeat it. Each hero will have different combinations of dice you must roll, so each game becomes a little different as the numbers available to you may or may not be favorable.

Will it play well? Only time will tell! If it's anything like my other designs, it will likely be absolutely terrible the first, second, and third time out the gate.