Industry Guest: Kevin G. Nunn

Kevin G. Nunn

Kevin G. Nunn has spent most of his life slowly migrating westward along I-10.  This trend began at the age of two, when his parents settled in New Orleans, LA, continued at the age of six, when his parents resettled in Lafayette, LA, and carried on to the age of 30, when he and his bride Debra resettled in Houston, TX.

Exposure to board games began at as a toddler, when his mother began teaching him the principles of chess.  Sadly, exposure to European-style games didn’t happen until much later.  He’s been trying to make up for lost time ever since.

Kevin’s interest in game design appeared in the winter of 1980 with the design of his first roleplaying game.  Several more roleplaying games and board games would follow.

Kevin’s published design credits to date include Rolling Freight, duck! duck! Go!, Schlock Mercenary: Capitol Offensive, Nobody But Us Chickens, and Velo City.  Kevin was also a contributing author to the anthology book Family Games: the 100 Best.

Kevin’s latest game is Sentinel Tactics: The Flame of Freeedom, which is running on KickStarter (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gtgames/sentinel-tactics-the-flame-of-freedom?ref=live) right now!

Kevin will be a panelist for the industry Q and A event.  We also hope schedule an encore of his presentation from Protospiel Houston "The 10 Best Game Mechanisms You Aren't Using."

Industry Guest: Aldo Ghiozzi of Impressions Game Distribution

Aldo Ghiozzi

Aldo Ghiozzi of Impressions Game Distribution is attending Protospiel San Jose as both an industry guest and a sponsor.   Aldo co-hosts the Impressions Vidcast with Richard Bliss.  If you want to understand the workings of the board game industry in terms of distribution and retail sales, Aldo is one the best resources you will find.  

Aldo will be supporting Protospiel by participating in the industry Q and A sessions.  

Impressions is sponsoring Protospiel San Jose by providing a large array of raffle prizes. Each time you play a different prototype game, you get an entry into the raffle.  We thank Impressions for their generosity and support of the board game community.

Check out the vidcast below.

https://www.youtube.com/user/ImpressionsGDS

Find out more about Impressions here:
http://impressionsadv.net
 

Uploaded by Aldo Ghiozzi on 2014-03-04.

Industry Guest: Matt Leacock

Matt also has a nicer photo than most industry guests.

Matt Leacock will be joining us for Protospiel San Jose.  Matt is arguably the most successful designer of cooperative board games of all time.   His games include Pandemic, Forbidden Dessert, Forbidden Island, and others.  He is also one of the nicest game designers I have ever met in real life.

Matt has generously agreed to support Protospiel in two ways.  

First, for players he will be signing copies of his games.  Bring your copy of your favorite Matt Leacock game to get signed, or pick up an expansion at Game Kastle and have Matt sign it.

Second, to support the board game design community Matt will be participating in a Q and A session at Protospiel.  This is your chance to ask him about his mechanics and process.

Check out Matt's BGG profile here:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/378/matt-leacock

A list of Matt's games can be found here.

Visit Matt's website:

http://leacock.com

Official Unpub Status achieved!

Today we went up on Unpub.net!  We are now an official Unpub event!

See the listing here:

http://unpub.net/events/boardgame-builders/

I would like to encourage all designers to make an Unpub account and post a description of one or more of your prototype games.  This gets you three key benefits.  First, you will stay in touch with Unpub and future Unpub events.  I missed Unpub Sacramento because I didn't find out about it in time. Second, it is a very helpful exercise to fill out a description of your design.  Unpub asks you a half dozen questions about your design.  The same questions a publisher or kickstarter backer would ask you.   If you can't answer those questions, that is the first thing you should work on.  The final benefit is that you can choose to have your prototype game be listed in Unpub's public database (you can also keep it private).  This can be useful if you are trying to find a publisher for your game.

Industry Guest: Richard Bliss

Richard Bliss, host of Funding the Dream

There are several exciting Industry guests attending Protospiel San Jose.  I wanted to start with a great resource to the prototype board game and Kickstarter community, Richard Bliss.

Richard is the host of the Funding the Dream podcast for Kickstarters.  He is nationally recognized marketing expert.  Richard has graciously agreed to participate in a Q and A session at Protospiel San Jose.  This is your chance to pick his brain in person.

Find his website here:

http://www.thegamewhisperer.com

If you have not caught the Funding the Dream podcast before, you are missing a fantastic resource full of great information from a variety of designers and publishers.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/funding-dream-on-kickstarter/id478958956?mt=2