Archive for the ‘Crass Commercialism’ Category

181% funded.  Woo!

Captain’s Log
Space Date 20120210

The GSC Incautious left the Alpha Centauri system to transport Admiral Taylor to a diplomatic conference of Arachne IV. There were some minor incidents between the diplomats, prostate but my skilled and capable crew were able to smooth them over. Naturally there were casualties.

Casualty Report

CPO Fowler: As it turns out “Nibbled to death by ducks” is not just an idiom.
CPO Buckmaster: Disappeared on a planet of filthy simian humanoids.
Petty Officer Harvey: Found a strange alien puzzle box. Then he opened it.
CPO Maelic001: Radiation suits. They’re not for show people.
CPO James: Attempted to reconfigure the engines for more power. It worked significantly better than anticipated.
CPO: Thomas: Witnesses claim he was eaten by an invisible dinosaur.
CPO Tretter: Arachnid diplomat laid eggs in his brain and frankly, ailment he’s being a bit of a baby about it.
CPO Simpson: Death by Snu-Snu.
CPO Spurlin: Last seen yelling “Hey y’all. Watch this!”
CPO Amelia: Attempted to solve a non-euclidian geometry problem.
CPO Hall: Was found flat, inside of a giant footprint.
CPO Flemming: Was measuring the angular vector of a black hole and, well, he fell in.
CPO Page: Debated ethics with an omnipotent space being, with predictable results.
CPO Trnavsky: You know how there’s that latch to stop your helmet from coming off your hostile environment suit? Well neither did Trnavsky.
CPO Bruce: Contracted an exploding tumor.
CPO Mills: “It’s standing right behind me, isn’t it?”
CPO Furman: It turns out there was something in his closet after all.
CPO JohnB: From now on crewmen will only be allowed into alien lavatories in buddy teams.
CPO Akin: After the 319th vers of “Henry the 8th I am” he committed suicide.
Ensign Pascoe: Tested the new experimental Teleporter Array. Died upon being teleported inside another object.
CPO Allard: Died upon having Ensign Pascoe teleported inside of him.
CPO Hahn: Attempted to repair the exhaust port. Died when some redneck dropped a torpedo down it.
Ensign Zahniser: Poked some slime with a stick.
CPO Foley: Turns out that space station was abandoned for a reason
CPO Downing: Space Cooties
CPO Maghouin: Murdered and eaten by space grammar nazis. In the maintenance room.
CPO Surface: We’re not really sure, but boy was it hard to clean up.
CPO Kidd: Taunted a happy fun ball.
CPO Van Horn: Accidentally damaged the duplicator, and drowned in cream of mushroom soup.
Space Merchant Hendrickson: Brought small furry and perfectly harmless creatures aboard the ship with predictable results.
CPO Payawal: Was sent to see what happened to the last six teams to investigate the alien device. Has not yet reported back.
CPO Strack: Attempted to perform science on an energy being. The energy being was not enthusiastic about this development.
CPO Cruz: Was hoisted on his own Pikkard.
Ensign Wilson: It turns out Remulan doomsday devices are not as easy to defuse as you might think.
CPO Gulick: Visited the planet of beautiful, utopian and totally not suspicious women.
CPO: Carpenter: Crushed by a plummeting whale.
CPO Viar: It turns out the air on that planet wasn’t breathable after all.
CPO Odean: Sold to a crime lord to cover a gambling debt. My bad.
CPO Expendable: Really? Do I even have to explain what happened to this guy?
Commander Berezansky: Died at the hands of a previously unknown alien species. More details will be available as soon as his records tell us what they are.
CPO Ferry: Disintegrated by what appeared to be a salt shaker with a toilet plunger glued on.
CPO Shelky: Fell into a chocolate river, and then fell into the filter.
CPO Collard: The ship’s computer turned evil. Again.
Space Merchant Grimzag: Sometimes the shiny jewels are eggs. Just saying.
CPO Lovejoy: Was two days from retirement, with predictable results.
CPO Hanna: Went up against a Sicilian when death was on the line.
CPO Brown: Tragic goldfish incident. We don’t like to talk about it.
CPO Lynch: Some rocks can explode. You know because of science and stuff.
CPO Markosky: Murdered by some guy with a machete and a hockey mask, and who had no reason to be in space.
Space Merchant Twitchell: Was yanked screaming into an air duct in an incident that we are almost positive as not related to the previous two air duct deaths.
CPO Biernesser: The enertia dampener didn’t.
CPO Fabbi: Was accidentally sent to the dark mirror universe. It’s okay we like evil Fabbi better.
Petty Officer Kelbaugh: Some aliens trapped him in a crystal for no suitable explained reason.
Crewman Plunkett: The mission to deactivate the smash-bot 3000 did not go as anticipated.
Assume all subsequent crew died from falling rocks. I’m tired.

Follow

So the day has finally arrived. WeaselPants Productions is launching it’s first Kickstarter campaign.  We are looking to print an updated version of Redshirts, and better quality cards.  Even a small expansion set right in the box.

Now some of you might ask why we are doing that so quickly on the heels of the initial release of Redshirts.  Well I’ll tell you.

It started of with “We need to reprint we are running out.”

And then we added, “And we need to update the rules a little, iron out the kinks and get a real tech writer so it’s less confusing.  And maybe cram a few more house rules in that people liked”

And then “I wonder if we could add more cards?  More cards would be good. No not more cards…and expansion!”

And thus things spiraled out of control.  As sometimes happens here.

The short version is that we just need a small boost the get over the last hump to get this puppy out of the door, and we have some awesome rewards like copies of the game, exclusive Kickstarter cards, and custom cards.  That is real, printed, you can use them in the game cards.  And that’s only partway up the reward chart.

So go ahead, and have a look, and share it with your friends.

Follow

I know I’ve been gone a long time.  But between running a business and caring for children, something had to give.  This site was one of those things.  So for those of you on subscription, or occasionally popping back in, hello again, I am now going to be making an effort to keep up on here.

I arrived at Vegas for the Star Trek Creation con on Tuesday.  Nichelle Nichols was present as a guest of the con.

Over the weekend, she had moved on to Space City Houston, where there was another booth set up by the WeaselPants team.  Suspicious.

At GenCon Ms. Nicholls was a guest of Honor yet again.  I think that she is stalking us.

Vegas was hot and expensive.  We sold some product (although not as much as I would have liked) and made a ton of good contacts in the Star Trek community.  I got to finally meet my artist David Reddick, in person.

Lessons learned from the Star Trek con:

1. If you get the theme from the Gary Shandling show stuck in your head, it ain’t coming out any time soon.
2. If you take a booth assistant to a Star Trek convention, make sure she knows something about Star Trek.  So she doesn’t accidently try to sell your game to LeVar Burton.
3. This is the theme to Gary’s Show…
4. Be nice to people.  You never know when that woman you helped in booth set up might turn out to be the personal assistant of a famous Trek Actor.
5. Australians in Star Fleet uniforms are crazy.
6. …the theme to Gary’s show…
7. Most famous actors are very pleasant well-adjusted people.  But a few will go off like a human land mine.  They don’t have anything personal against you, but if you happen to be there when they detonate, it will end badly.
8. For some reason, people will approach your booth, tell you that they bought your game online, and hated it.  And then they will buy the promo cards.
9. …Gary called me up and asked me if I would write his theme song…
10. There is such a thing as a Tribble crane machine.

More details on GenCon soon.

Follow

This weekend I get to try out my first convention since Redshirts has arrived.  And so off I go spend the weekend selling as many copies as I possibly can.  I’ve never actually worked at a con where I was selling directly to the public before, so this should be interesting, to say the least.

So if you are in the DFW area, be sure to check out Dallas Comic Con.  And buy several copies of the game.

Follow

The day has come.  My first title as a game publisher is now out.  If you would like a copy, cure just head on over to WeaselPants Productions.

Follow

This Friday 1.5 tons of boardgame will be leaving India, and sailing it’s way to my new warehouse facility.  And by that I mean my garage.

The site for WeaselPants Productions will be live soon, and in about a month sales will begin.

School is done.  Most of the work for the game is out of the way.  I suppose I really should start writing more now that I finally can.

Follow

Guess what’s going to the printer soon?
Here’s a hint.
(more…)

Follow

“Why Skippy?” Some may have asked lately. “Why haven’t you been updating your site very much lately?”

Here’s why:
(more…)

Follow

Drop everything you are doing, and pay attention to this. Do I have your undivided attention?

Good.

(more…)

Follow