When making a board game, how do you turn meaningless objects into things that inspire laughter, cooperation, backstabbing, or even table flips? That's the subject of my talk at last night's International Game Developers Association Twin Cities meeting. I also talked about what I learned in designing and art directing my game Four Humours.
I just launched a Kickstarter for my new album of original songs.
They're some of my most personal songs yet, about lost relationships, anxiety, and the search for meaning in life.
I used to think cooperative games were boring; where's the challenge in working together against a deck of cards, instead of competing against your friends? But over the years, I've realized some of my favorite game memories come from cooperative games.
Catalyst Story Institute asked me to host a 3-part series on music in film and TV, aimed at directors and producers. I talked with several talented Minnesotan guests, including Rick and Morty composer Ryan Elder and master orchestrator Robert Elhai, who has orchestrated around 200 films (Marvel movies, Batman movies, Alien movies, etc.).
I recently scored the feature documentary Stories I Didn't Know. It's a heartfelt journey of Irish-American woman Rita Davern coming to terms with her ancestors buying land that was sacred to the Dakota people of Minnesota.
My board game Dragon Insurance made it to the finals of the Cardboard Edison Award! It's one of 16 finalist games out of 195 submissions. The judges will be playing these games in April, and I'll know the results soon after.
Karen Sunderman and Steve Ash at WDSE WRPT / Duluth PBS made a really nice segment about my film scoring process, and it's airing on TV tonight!
Button Shy Games hosts monthly challenges to design 18-card games. This month's challenge was to use 18 cards from a standard playing deck.
Playing cards don't offer much of a story to base a game on, but I latched on to the idea of the face card royalty. My game is Marry Up, a quick drafting game for 3 players where you're a matchmaker trying to form marriages and marry off your aces to the royal family.
I was asked to lead a workshop on film composing at Catalyst Content Festival in Duluth. We were able to bring musicians from the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra to perform the scores, giving the audience an idea of what a live orchestral scoring session is like.
Star Tribune journalist Richard Chin wrote an excellent article about indie board games in Minnesota, and he included my game Four Humours. He also interviewed some other creative Twin Cities game designers/publishers, including Adam Rehberg of Adam's Apple Games (who's publishing Four Humours), Seppy Yoon of Fight in a Box, and Patrick Leder of Leder Games.