FUTURE GAMES
After Solar Hunters, here are my next projects and their stages of development:
1 — CLOAK & DRAGON
This is a two-player, hidden movement game involving a Hero wearing a cloak of invisibility and a Dragon guarding his stolen treasures. The game was birthed in December of 2020, when I was sick with Covid and re-reading The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. Although originally designed to be a licensed product, that dream fell-through and I was resigned to keep it as my own personal home game, until one day I realized, I love this game too much not to share it!
I went back to designing and came up with an original story and reworked some major elements of the game while keeping the object of the game alive, which is what makes the game so much fun. I feel that the game works even better now with its own story, so I am very happy about that.
Cloak & Dragon uses an action card deck for each player. The cards they draw represent the actions avaiable to them. Players simultaneously choose a card and the player with the highest revealed initiative completes their action first.
The hero enters the dragon’s chamber invisible, keeping track of their movements on a secret log. Their job is to search the chamber, which is filled with treasure tiles. They are looking for the treasures that have been requested by the King’s Court. These are determined before the game begins, by randomly drawing request cards from the request deck.
The object of the game is for the hero player to search and find their specific requests and escape with them before the Dragon player can destroy them by flame, smoke, claw, or bite. Or, by moving the Dragon’s Fury marker to its highest level.
Victory in Cloak & Dragon requires a combination of wits and luck. Each card includes a piece of the backstory for the game. When put together, all 60 cards tell the complete backstory.
CURRENT DEVELOPMENT: After countless playtests over 6 years, I have decided to redesign the game board to shrink it down. I am also working on the rulebook and components. Don’t expect to see this game until Summer or Fall 2027.
Considering this, I decided to think about how I could make my ideas even more distinct from a Span game, similar to the way Prospero Hall did for Managerie, a game published by Moose Games, which focuses on collecting insects.
Here are some major differences when compared to the Span games:
First, each player has their own deck of dino cards that only they can use, rather than drawing cards from a common deck.
Second, dino cards are played onto a shared set of jumbo habitat cards (land and sea) in the center of the table rather than onto habitat spaces on individual player mats. This allows for player interactions that do not exist in a Span game.
Third, cards do not have a cost to play. Every turn you will play one dino card from your hand, but you must play it strategically to ensure that your dinos dominate the most habitats by the end of the game and that you create herds and packs. A card that cannot be played onto a habitat card must be played onto your fossil pile and is worth only 1 point.
Fourth, even though there are dinosaur eggs in the game, they are gained and used differently than eggs in a Span game. Egg tokens aren’t placed on dino cards, but in front of you. An egg token may be discarded using a Hatch action to draw and play an additional card on your turn. Eggs can also be kept for 3 points each at the end of the game.
Fifth, at the end of every round, meteors randomly hit habitat cards by rolling a d12. All dinos on those cards go extinct and are added to your Fossil pile, unless they can scatter to a remaining valid habitat. The habitat card is flipped over to its meteor side and no more cards can be played there. This narrows your choices for future card plays and increases strategic thinking.
Sixth, carnivores and herbivores try to defeat each other by following specific rules for consuming and trampling.
CURRENT DEVELOPMENT: I am still playtesting and creating all the files for The Game Crafter, including the rulebook. It’s getting very close though! You can expect to see this available by spring of 2027.
2 — DINO EXTINCTION
You are a time-traveling Dino Commander sent by PaleoTech to play Dino Extinction across the colliding timelines of the Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods! Your job is to direct a faction of chipped dinosaurs to dominate an opposing faction and rack up the best score before total extinction. You make a few bucks and PaleoTech continues to dominate time-travel entertainment.
Out of the box, this is a two-player game, but I am working on solo rules and expansion rules for up to 5 players by using additional player decks. My inspiration for this game came from the Span series of games by Stonemaier Games, which my wife and I absolutely love. I seriously dreamt about pitching this game to them. However, after watching videos from the owner, Jamie, I realized they already made a choice between dinosaurs and dragons, and they decided to go with dragons. He has also mentioned several times that he thinks the trilogy of Spans is complete.
3 — GUARDIAN ANGELS STORY GAME
This is a unique, faith-based, 1-2 player game that is a combination roleplaying game and card game. Before playing, you first create a Guardian character, assigned to protect the life of a teenager named Jamey Black. Your goal is to gain Rank and Renown by defeating demons and completing divine interventions in your Client’s life.
The game is 5 chapters long, with each chapter composed of random jumbo scene cards so that each game is different. Try to earn the highest Renown possible each game. If you are playing with a partner, try to earn more renown than they do.
If you’ve ever wanted to battle and defeat demons, you might want to check this out when it’s complete. Even though the game is faith-based, I am really hoping that anyone can enjoy playing through.
My plan is for the game to come in a box that includes 55 jumbo Story Cards, 48 standard Blessing Cards, 3 twelve-sided dice, 2 Player Aid mats, and more.
CURRENT DEVELOPMENT: I expect the game to be finished with all assets created by spring of 2027. That is my goal. I have finished about 60% of the game so far.