GrandCon 2018

Greetings Warriors and Scholars!

GrandCon 2018 was a success. Over the 3 days I connected with several faces I don't see very often who have been following Nerd Chapel for some time. I also met new people and some people I see a bit more often. This show has a special place in my heart. I consider it to be the flagship show for Nerd Chapel. For the first time I had buttons for sale and stickers to hand out.

All the games I hosted went over very well (Pandemic, Unauthorized, Commissioned). I also played 2 rounds of Coup and got to play Scream of Die, a new game just about to come out where you play as monsters that have become little kids and are trying to get candy.

Photo Credit: Katelyn Campbell

Photo Credit: Katelyn Campbell

For the Sunday morning service we had about 40 people, which is even more than last year. Definitely our highest attended event yet. Portal Dragon team members Jon and Liz Meitling led worship. They did a fantastic job. My buddy Darrin Ball led us in communion and brought us a devotional based on LotR. I spoke about Truth by using "Legend of the Seeker" and jumping around the book of John quite a bit to find different pieces of our discussion.

GrandCon is a different experience for Nerd Chapel than other cons as a community has built up. Most cons I have a table as a visible connection point but here we have a combination of the table, games where people interact and the service on Sunday morning. This is happening naturally so nobody has to push it.

I also had the pleasure of  help from a new ally. One of the team members for A'Campbell Consultants joined me just for one day of the con. Katelyn Campbell was a great help and company. Glad to be able to serve with her.

This was a successful weekend indeed. Next I will be at Fantasticon in Fort Wayne, IN. This show will just be a table but it is always a good time. This is one of the shows I know Nathan Marchand will be able to hang out with me at.

Gen Con 2018

Greetings Warriors and Scholars!

I just got back from Gen Con a few days ago. What did I see? I saw a lot, and that is putting it mildly. Over the four days of the con I played 13 games I had not played before. I also was privileged to be on the Christianity and Gaming Panel and still had some time to help author Nathan Marchand with his table in Author's Avenue.

Photo courtesy of A'Campbell Consultants

The panel was a great opportunity to join others in a discussion on how gaming interacts with the Christian life. This is held by the Christian Gamers Guild each year and I have been to the panel before but this was my first time on the panel. People asked questions about going deeper to share Christ with other gamers, about worldview issues and concerns over fictional deities in some games. Also on the panel was a cosplayer and literature expert named John Stanifer as well as Abigail A'Kessler and Katelyn Campbell from A'Campbell Consultants, a couple of ladies that love to help people, churches and other organizations use games for building community. You can see their website: https://www.acampbellconsultants.com/

Now to some games! I won't go over all of the games I played, but here are a few I wanted to tell you about.

Doctor Who: Time of the Daleks.

I did not even get a full demo of this coop, but I was still so intrigued and excited for a Doctor Who game that I bought it. Definitely excited to get it to the table! You must get all of the Tardis pieces to Galifrey before the Dalek ship gets there. Along the way you will fight various monsters from the show and gather companions from throughout the history of the show.

5 Minute Marvel

This was a very fun, cooperative game. If you have played 5 Minute Dungeon you know the basic idea of this game as it is a re-theme. That being said, I really enjoyed myself playing this at their demo booth. It was a very fun experience and I plan on purchasing it at some point.

Ghost Fighting Treasure Hunters

I loved the giant, light up board they had for demoing this game!

This was a neat surprise and also cooperative. The game itself has been out for a couple years but they showed a new expansion with this demo. I had not expected Mattel to put out a game I would enjoy so much or that could be so fun for gamers. The game is about kids fighting ghosts and collecting treasure but the new expansion adds a basement and some story for what is causing the ghosts to haunt the place.

The Kings Guild

This is a fun game still taking pre-orders. I like worker placement games but I don't own very many and this was a very fun time. You are building a guild by collecting resources, adding rooms to your guilds hall, and providing items and weapons for heroes in their quests all to get the attention of a council so your guild can the official guild of the kingdom. You win by having the most points.

Agents of Mayhem

Based on the video game of the same name, this is a light miniature based game that does feel like a lot to learn your first time playing. There are quite a few symbols to learn but it is doable and you get to make significant tactical decisions. I did lose, but my team did destroy a building and I kind of destroyed my own Golem trying to destroy another one. In my defense that building only had one hit point left. I think after another time or two playing I could get used to the symbols and enjoy it quite a bit.




Azul

I played this with some guys at the Love Thy Nerd meetup. It is a tile laying game based on laying decorative tiles for a building. You take turns pulling tiles from a supply and putting them on your board. At the end of each round if you have a full row of the same color you then place one of those tiles on your board, gaining points for that tile and tiles in the same row and/or column. Fun puzzle game and worth noting that it won the Spiel Des Jarhes this year. If you have not hung out with Love Thy Nerd yet, check them out.


Star Trek Fluxx

This one I played at another gathering; this time for the Tavern, the FB group for Innroads Ministries. I am in the group but had not met very many members face to face yet. So this was a great opportunity to connect. There were at least 3 tables with games going but I found myself playing a lot of Fluxx, most of it being Star Trek. There are actually 2 different Star Trek Fluxx games: one for the original series and one for TNG. There is also an expansion that lets you put the two together. We played one round with the original series and one round with both decks put together. I had a lot of fun with it, even as the rules changed continuously as we played different rules cards. If you are not familiar with them, visit the Innroads website here or the FB group here.

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.

CGDC 2017

Greetings Scholars and Warriors.

This last weekend I attended the Christian Game Developers Conference in Portland, Oregon. While there I provided 2 chapel service opportunities, hosted one of the morning prayer times, and offered and offered opportunities for prayer appointments. If you payed attention to the FB page, you might have seen me "go Live" with Patrick Lysaght from Chara Games.

The services went well although they had small attendance. There was a lot going on and there was no good timing for them. We focused on finding God's definition of success. We focused on Micah 6:8 as our directive of how to define success and and we also considered, from Paul's admittance in Philippians 3:12-14 that he is still running the race, that this race is not a finish line race like the game Formula D, but an experiential race like the game Tokaido. One where we are collecting experiences with God rather than pushing for a finish line. We also looked considered how Jesus set an example with all three of the commands from Micah 6:8.

Nobody signed up for any prayer appointments, but this was a new idea for the conference and most attendees were focused on both networking and training for their fields.

This was a good experience. I got to meet some people I had not seen face to face before and start to understand more of the experience of Christians working in the video game field. Some are creating video games for the Christian market but most are simply using video games to share a story, such as the Greenes who created "That Dragon, Cancer." Their session on Immersive Narrative was amazing as they described the experience of putting their real live story of cancer into a video game. Another great session was by Justin Fox, from Kingdom Arts/Justin Fox Media, led a session on, well, artwork for the Kingdom of God. He shared how all art done with God, instead of for yourself, will be better than your own musings.

There were only a few boardgame developers demoing at the conference. Chara Games was running demos on both Commissioned and Unauthorized.

I encourage all game developers, tabletop or video game, to consider attending this conference next year. This would also be a good opportunity for writers and voice actors.

GrandCon 2016

Greetings Warriors and Scholars!

This weekend was amazing. GrandCon is always a lot of fun and I think this year was stellar. I ran 9 events. 1 of which had no attendees but all the others went well. In our chapel service we had 10 of us gathered for worship. After we sang a couple songs, Darrin Ball did a great job leading us in communion and presented some great thoughts inspired by the Lord of the Rings. We then considered Jesus as the Super Lamb of God; specifically how he chose the Lamb card when others would have chosen the Lion card and how we sometimes need to lose to win.

I ran a few rounds of Commissioned, a cooperative board game where players take the roles of the apostles building up the early church. Unfortunately we kept losing. It was very well received and is worth your time. I hosted 2 games of Pandemic which always goes over well. Both times we lost. I think the most fun I had in terms of games I hosted was Monsterpocalypse. I got to teach someone who had demoed it years ago and a college buddy of mine came and was playing in another game. This is one of those games that is just plain fun. I also led a round of Mow Money. This was also a fun time.

One of my highlights was getting to play Star Wars Epic Duels with author Timothy Zahn. Most events at GrandCon are no extra charge after your badge cost but this was one of a few charity events to help raise money for Helen Devos Children's Hospital. I love this game and getting to play it with a talented author of some of the best Star Wars novels was excellent. Our group as a whole was a great group and it was an amazing time.

I did play a few games I had not played before:

Zephyr:Winds of Change: This game I had demoed at another con last year but this time I got to play a full game. Well, I did have to leave early to run a game of Commissioned, but I really enjoyed it. I actually had won a FB contest to get a copy of the game and play it with a designer of it. This is a cooperative game where each player has his own skyship and you get sent on missions. They successfully kickstarted last Spring and it is currently in the production phase. I am quite excited to get my copy when it comes.

Onitama: This is a 2 player in the vein of chess but very different. Each team has a martial arts Master and students. Your goal is to get your master in the opposing temple or to take out the opposing master. The game features move cards with each player having 2 but a fifth one is also pulled out so that when you use a move you exchange it for a different move. Very thoughtful game but also short and sweet. Normal games take 10 to 15 minutes. Great game.

Abyss: This game has you collecting color cards by spending pearls and then using the cards to get certain lords on your side. You can also collect keys, some of which come with lords, to get certain buildings. This game takes 45 minutes and the gameplay was fairly interesting but I don't know if I would buy it.

Castles of Mad King Ludwig: I need to play this game again. It was very interesting. You are building a castle and the mad King Ludwig has given specific parameters. It seemed very replayable and I think this is a winner. I think games take around an hour but I don't remember how long we played it for.

Temporum: This game was designed by the creator of Dominion. You are trying to control the timeline for your own ends and are gaining opportunities to move your crowns from one end of the time-stream to the other. Quick to learn and fun. It lasted around 40 minutes.

Events are a foot!

Greetings Warriors and Scholars.

Well, a lot is going on with Nerd Chapel. Next weekend we'll be hanging out at Grand Con in the vendor hall. We will once again have a chapel service but this time Tom Vasel of The Dice Tower will be preaching. Tom is a youth pastor who has also served overseas.

As you can see, we have a new logo. I hope that Nerd Chapel can be a safe "inn" for you in the middle of life's' quests. Yes, I have played Red Dragon Inn so I know the dangers that can happen at an in, but at least you will have friends to back you up.

Over the next two months along with Grand Con we have 2 game nights. I am trying to keep them to the 2nd Saturday of the month. So October 10 and Nov. 14 are our next two game nights. Feel free to come and hang out. I'll let you know if we are tying these in with any mercy/justice organizations as we have before with the Pandemic Party. Click on the dates above for the FB pages for these events.

Wednesday night I got to play Smash Up with a friend of mine. I had demoed it at Gen Con a couple years ago but this was my first time playing a full game. I loved it. I had Dinosaurs and Ninjas for my army and then for game two I used Bear Cavalry and Pirates. It was an interesting evening. The game is pretty simple when it comes to rules and well worth the money.

I hope you can join us for one or all of these events!

Research is limited.

Have you read the story about the centurion? It is found in Matthew 8. This centurion comes to Jesus because his servant is sick. Jesus says "Shall I come and heal him?" The commander says: "No, don't come to my house. All you need to do is speak the word and it will be done, just like I order my soldiers and servants and they comply." Jesus was "amazed" at this. He immediately spoke the healing word and the man's servant was healed that same hour.

Reading this just now, I noticed something: this centurion didn't have to go to Jesus on behalf of his servant. He could find new servants. I doubt he was required by any Roman law to seek healing from the Son of God for his servant. But he did anyway.

Jesus than says that many will come from far away to sit at a dinner with God, but those in the kingdom would be thrown out to darkness.

You can research Jesus all you want. The Jews had done this. They had studied the Old Testament and all its prophecies of Christ over and over...but most still missed Jesus. They still did not understand who He is and what He is about.

This man, who had come from beyond their boarders and was not raised with the Old Testament, trusted Jesus. I don't know how many times he had watched Jesus heal someone. I'm guessing he might have seen it before, especially if he had been stationed in Capernaum for a while (Jesus did much in this city). He went beyond research to trust.

Some have said that research does not support the idea of the Bible being the Word of God. That research says that many "holy books" can lead someone to an enlightenment of some sort. Here is the thing: God is a being, not a system. You can't learn His ways merely through research. You have to talk with Him, spend time with Him.

I can tell you a lot about board games...but some, such as Star Wars Miniatures or Settlers of Catan or Heroscape, I can tell you more than others. Because I have played them again and again. Others I can tell you a little bit because I have researched them...but I have not experienced them.

I can tell you God is a God of love and grace. Not just because I have read about Him, but because I have experienced Him. My challenge to you is to seek to experience Jesus. Start by asking Him for it. Ask Him to reveal Himself to you and be open to it. Don't do it as a test...just do it to find Him.