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Max Holliday
United States
Ogden
UT
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Instead of re-posting an edited version of this blog entry, I'm just going to edit this entry. In the original blog I made an off color joke about my dislike for Tolkienesque fantasy, this was not received well by some so I felt I should remove it from this blog out of respect. I've also removed All comments about this as well, I'm sure this will not make everyone happy but I feel this is the best solution.
So Zombinion… Dominion with Zombies… no I MEAN Zombies with Dominion… A clever idea but without a lot of soul… or should I say flesh! The game was little more than; take the Dominion cards slap on Zombies, it was great! I played it a few time before I saw that the only reason I even wanted to play it was because it had pictures of zombies instead of pictures of… ummm… what are the pictures of in Dominion? I also found that there were a lot of people how wouldn’t even play Zombinion because it had Zombies…
So on one hand the only reason I wanted to play the game was because of the Zombies…
On the other hand lots of people wouldn’t even give it a chance because it had Zombies…
What did this mean for my game?
I went back to scratch on the game started working from the stand point of; why wouldn’t someone want to play?
I felt that at the games core I had something. I didn’t know what but something was there. Something that was fun even if someone didn’t like Zombie game or Zombies but if they hated Zombies than there was nothing I could do… Maybe I should do a version of the game with dragons, I’ll call it ‘The game you wouldn’t play before, but I’m sure you’ll buy it now because it looks like a rip off of Tolkien!’ Did I mention my biggest turn off when it comes to games is dragons… not that I hate Dragons I just hate Tolkien (edit ranting bad joke)
So I re-addressed some of the ideas of theme from the point of view of making a game not about zombies but about the things I love with zombies…
What makes a zombie film? You’re afraid because you don’t know what’s going to happen next. You don’t know who’s going to die next and no one even knows what the hell is going on!
What is a zombie? To answer this one I’m going to have to get all philosophical on you for bit… sorry I’ll try not to get too much on your new shirt!
To the survivor zombies are simple people you once knew, who are now unstoppable and trying to kill you… or is that change you? The old debate over if zombies eat your brains or if they just eat your flesh, is great to illustrate my thoughts… Zombie who just want to come inside and eat your brains… I mean we’re not unreasonable it’s not like we’re going to eat your eyes… sorry I’ll stop singing to myself now…
But Brain eating zombies are just trying to change your mind to think like them. Take… well any group/hoard of people who want to teach that the why think is the right way of thinking, every Sunday at 9am sharp… ‘I’m still drunk Mom, go away!’
Where the zombies who what to eat your flesh what everything in your life! You have to give them your money you have to dress just like everyone else and live nearby so they can see you but they always bring the best cool-aid you must just have to a taste… (later this ties into the 1940&50's theme but not yet...)
Or simply take any revolution at the end it always comes down to ‘are you with us or are we going to have to kill you!’ So this is where the game really changed directions toward becoming what it is today. You don’t have to love zombies; you don’t have to play endless amounts of board/cards games to get it. You just need to what to play a game where you can feel the anxiety of the fear of losing everything you have to the Hoard!
The played well and seemed to work when I played by myself… This is where I pitched the idea to John Huerta…
Next time...
We need to make to art memorable… even if the play-testing isn’t going to well…
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Max Holliday
United States
Ogden
UT
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Okay I’m not a blogger, so this is all new to me. But I’ll give the old college try! Unfortunately I pledged Delta Tau Chi and got in…
‘Eaten by Zombies!’ is my first game. I’m a Scorpio, I teach Graphic Design & 3d Animation, I also like long walks in back alleys in the middle of the night. Some say I have twisted or sick sense of humor, others know this to be true… ummm… this isn’t going right…
Haya kids! My name’s Max Holliday and some say I’m a game designer, do you want to be my friend?!... ummm… no…
Okay let’s just talk about ‘Eaten By Zombies!’ or ‘I hope you get Eaten by zombies!’. As you may have guessed I’m not normal and nether is anything I design… I hope that’s a good think! The game started as a simple idea with no real plans for most of you to ever see it (although that changed very quickly!) I wanted to design a game mostly because I wanted to get into Graphic Design/Art direction for board games. I thought what better way to do this than to just design a game and do all the GD myself, that would surely get me a job!… okay did I mention I may not be right in the head ether…
I had started working on a worker placement game with a card drafting mechanic for making a hero. In the game you would place a worker each turn on a different location of the city for influence. The idea being that each player is a hero trying to prove their selves and boasting about their great deeds while trying to align themselves with which ever god the ‘people’ chose to be there patron god to end the game… I got feed up and quit after about 4 months!
So I started thinking about making something else... it needed to be simple to play… Something I could do lots of design work on… and it needed to be something I get people to play! (this becomes funny later in the story…) Seeing I walk home from work twice a day and walk to work twice a day I get a lot of time to talk to myself… wait! I mean ‘think to myself’ I asked myself three things:
-What game do you love the play the most right now? Dominion- I hadn’t gotten Sea side yet, but love how the game played.
-What kind of theme would I like to design for? The answer to this really any came when I could answer the next question.
-And finely What do I love and what would love to make a game about?
This really wasn’t as strait forward as it now seems… I’ve always loved zombies but not so much because I love ‘zombies’ (although I do) but because I love George Romero films! There is something about his style that I dig… what can I say.
As I was walking through the cemetery I cut though on my way home from work, partly because my little sister, little brother (although no one ever called Zack little he was 6’ 3” 30 stone!) and both my grandparents rest there and because it shaves 20min on my back and forth commute each day. I thought why not just make a deck builder with zombies! But not just deck builder with zombies crammed in (like the hoards of zombie re-themes everyone seems to be doing right now) but a game that felt like a zombie flick.
The dread, the anxiety of knowing you're F'ed from the get go! I went back to all my movies and re-watched every Zombie flick I had... I'm not even going to tell you how many that is because you'd just call me a lire! Went back to old screen-plays I had started but decided there were already to many zombie flicks out there so I never finished any of them. I started the game design from the stand point of lets write a zombie script but as a game that never played out the same twice!
So after moiling over the idea for a month or so, I made up a proto-type on lined paper and slipped it into a deck of magic cards. I sat done on the living room floor and played the first game… it worked sort of it needed work but it worked. I was so proud of myself, I’m such a genius, I’m so clever and unique! And then someone posted Zombinion… and I stopped working on my game for a few weeks… not that my game was anything like Zombinion in any way but the fact that someone else was working from the same place crushed me...
next time...
'How Stella got shamble back!'
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