Schedule for 2019

Greetings Scholars and Warriors.

Ruth Pike did the artwork for both books.

I am so excited for this new book! The New 42:Got Terraforms All Things. My co-author Nathan Marchand and I take readers on a journey from Genesis to Revelation to see how God is always doing new things and how we can experience His work and participate in it. Many stories from anime, gaming, science fiction, super heroes and fantasy will help us with our exploration. You will be challenged with daily side quests to help pursue the larger quest of knowing Christ more fully. We will be premiering this book at MuskeCon at the Holiday Inn in Muskegon, MI on March 23. It will be on Amazon soon after that and eventually will be on the Kindall.

Have you been to Nathan's website and looked at his fiction writing? You should do so by going here.

Here are my current con plans for 2019. NOTE:there might be changes to this list so check back every now and then or "Like" the Facebook page. You can also follow me on Instagram (nerd_chapel).

If you want to find even more nerdy events in Michigan check out www.migeekscene.com.

March 23:           MuskeCon in Muskegon, MI.
March 30-31:     Fantasticon in Port Huron, MI
April 14:             Attend Star Wars Celebration in Chicago, IL. Not tabling just enjoying the con for                               one day. Say hi if you see me.
April 19-21:       Heroes and Villains Fanfest in Chicago, IL. as part of the Costumers for Christ crew.
May 4:                Heroes Expo in Kentwood, MI
June 7-9:             JAFAX in Grand Rapids, MI. First time with a booth here. Cooperating with author                             Paul Nowak and the Redeemed Otaku Podcast.
July 20:               KoganCon in Grand Haven, MI. Hosting games in the TableTop area.
July 27-28:          Get Geek'd in Lansing, MI.
August 1-4:         GenCon in Indianapolis, IN. Helping Nathan with his table in Author's Ave.
Aug. 30-Sept. 1: GrandCon Gaming Convention in Grand Rapids, MI.
                           We will have a Chapel event and a table. I will also run some games.
Sept. 21-22:        Fantasticon in Fort Wayne, IN.
October 19-20:   Fantasticon in Mount Pleasant, MI.

GenCon 50

Greetings Warriors and Scribes.

I just got back from the best 4 days of gaming on a significant year. GenCon 50 was amazing. As seen above, the gamers took over Colts stadium for the week. This was in addition to the entire Indiana Convention Center and rooms at adjoining hotels.  I did spend some time helping Nathan Marchand with his table but I also played games and cosplayed. I had many great experiences but here are some of the cream of the crop for you.

Sagrada:

This game is lots of fun. I played 2 rounds of it. Rolling and assigning dice to build stained glass windows with limited options that must be chosen carefully to manipulate the dice. This was a lot of fun and it is not a long game.

Warehouse 13:

This was the biggest excitement for me in terms of gaming this weekend. I loved the SYFY show and this game is a faithful exploration of the world. It has a traitor element that is engineered with a similar feel to Battlestar Galactica, which is very fitting to the show. Sitting and talking with the designers was very fun and they are definitely fans of the show. One guy playing with us has not seen the show but he loved the game. This was a major high point of the convention.

This is a semi cooperative game. Each play through is a season and each round is an episode. Through the game you will find clues to figure out what item is causing issues and work to gather the needed tech, intuition,  etc. to stop the situation. However, someone else is also seeking the items to use against your team and one member is secretly working for them. There is a cooperative version for 2 players.

Watch for this to hit Kickstarter!

Buy the Rights:

This is a fun party game where the players are all pitching the movie ideas for the money to make them. Each round a different person will be the "producer" with 20 million dollars to shell out to the other players. Winner is the person with the most money at the end. You will lay out four cards: Genre, Hero, Descriptor of the hero, and the plot. You can elaborate as much as you want to get the attention of the producer and have some fun.

Christian Gamers Guild Events:

The Christianity and Gaming Panel went well. This was a question driven panel that discussed things like planning game nights for churches, how to handle magic and other "dark" things found in gaming, etc.

The Church Service was great. Tom Vasel preached about slowing down for resting and for time with God. We had a full worship band with drums, electric and acoustic guitar and some a great list of songs. This is always a highlight of GenCon for me and this year did not disappoint.

Cosplay

I cosplayed as a Blue Lantern on Friday and Martian Manhunter for half of Saturday (before I went to a Heroscape tournament). Unfortunately the only Lantern related cosplayers I saw were on different days than when I was a blue lantern.

2015 in Review

Greetings Warriors and Scholars.

2015 has been a great year for Nerd Chapel and for me personally. Here are my thoughts from this year:

Cons:

Grand Con went amazingly well this year. It was exciting to have Dice Tower founder Tom Vassel. We also had our own booth for the first time at a con. Lots of people stopped by to say "hi" and purchase a copy of 42:Discovering Faith Through Fandom. Our presence definitely grew this year.

Nerd Chapel also went to the Grand Rapids Toy and Comics Expo which was not as successful as I had hoped. I will be at the next one but further attendance will depend on how it goes.

Gen Con was amazing! Although Nerd Chapel had no "official" presence there I volunteered with the Christian Gamers Guild at their booth. Between the CGG booth and Nathan Marchand's booth 42 sold extremely well. The church service was great and this year I actually got to participate in leading the service by helping with communion.

42:Discovering Faith Through Fandom

It was exciting to see this book come out into a reality from an idea in my head. It has been exciting seeing it come out into the world. It sold well at 2 of the conventions I took it to this year. One gentleman who bought it at GenCon was so excited about it he read the first two entries in one sitting instead of waiting for the next day.

Game Nights:

The Pandemic Party we hosted was a success. It was much larger than the monthly game nights are moving along steadily. This is an area that needs some growth but is certainly not falling apart.

Future:

I am hoping to be at a lot more cons and events with Nerd Chapel in 2016. The monthly game nights will be continuing and I am looking into more cons to attend. Very little is set in stone so far, aside for a few game nights at All Shores Wesleyan Church.