Finally, it’s here!

I received the sample unit of House of Whack today. I could hardly stand the anticipation all day long. It’s like my first child was being delivered to me via FedEx.

On the whole, the game looks fantastic. The cards are on that nice stock you get in quality Euro games or Fantasy Flight games. There are a few color issues, but I believe they can be easily resolved.

One rather large mistake was the printer misunderstood the instructions to score the tri-fold cards and instead PERFORATED them.  You know, for easy TEARING. So they need to clear that up.

Also, they actually randomly collated the sample just like a final game. There was one small error, but they otherwise deciphered my intricate collating instructions. This is a huge weight off my mind.

I played a game tonight with stavros and Jaqui (she creamed us). I couldn’t get over the quality of the cards. I just kept looking at them, you know, and touching them. I also discovered that the little wooden houses from Rio Grande Games’ Power Grid make excellent player tokens. I think I will recommend that people buy a copy of Power Grid or Caylus so they can use the tokens for House of Whack.

To sum up: I am very happy and excited and much closer to having HoW on the market!

You can right click and choose “View Image” for a slightly larger version.

I have launched 1000 stars.

500 to break atmo

490 just to get your attention

8 to call the others

1 to wish on

and 1 for you.

8586 2252 0850

I just heard back from the publisher and the printer is going to need another two weeks to print the sample unit of House of Whack. This is really disheartening. At best, I’d have it by the 19th.

On Christmas Eve I drove down to the airport post office because I had received a package notification. What could this be? A Christmas present, perhaps? When the clerk pushed a large box from the board game printer over to me, my heart just about exploded. I grabbed it, forced myself not to tear it open in the car, and drove quickly home. I thought that I had just received the best Christmas present ever. My game was finally here! I thundered into my driveway, leapt from the car and went inside. I opened the large, heavy package to discover…

…a big thing of jelly beans. What crushing disappointment. Even though there were 49 different flavors, it was not enough to counter the blow. It was like a cruel trick. They had suggested the game would be ready around the same time, but instead sent a bunch of multi-colored sugar. It was then I realized just how much I cared about the game and how I had been longing for it for quite some time.

While waiting for the game, I sort of put it on the back burner to simmer. But now House of Whack stirs and dances to the forefront. I still have a staggering amount of work to do on the online content. Like if people could actually see what needed to be done, they would think I was insane. Sometimes I think, “What have I done? What was I thinking?” But then I just laugh a wild laugh that lasts for what I guess would be an uncomfortable amount of time if someone else were there to hear it.

I had to step away from the game for a bit because I was trying to cater to potential players and that was harming it. Every time I try to make it more palatable and logical and thematically cohesive, it starts to kill Whack’s soul. For instance, I was working on the rules for Whack Ball, one of the game variants. I had come up with a very workable set of rules involving a soccer-like game with teams within the House of Whack. They were nice rules, very detailed and straightforward. But they were wrong. In Whack Ball, this should be a common occurrence: Wendy plays the flute to lure the ball back to her, but Cirrus spills a glass of wine and steals the ball’s reflection and then does a layup into the chandelier which got turned into the new goal because Bob discarded a Wild Arcana. That’s where things are heading now.

In my recent musings I realized something: While I made a game that could possibly amuse certain gamers, I really designed the game to summon certain people to me. This is all just a ritual to bring them forward out of the ether. I need to know if someone else sees what I see. I need to know if someone else can see the game within the game. I’ve left the clues to the other game, but I’m certainly not going to show it to anyone. They will either see it or they won’t. They will either go through the door or they will play a board game.

It’s quite possible that I’ve made something just for me and I’ll be able to build a little fort out of 1000 game boxes.