A Nice Surprise!

This past weekend, I was sitting at the kitchen table eating lunch when the doorbell rang. I first figured that it must be some solicitor, but then Bethany said it might be UPS. So I walked to the door and opened it and sure enough there was a package sitting there. I had no idea what it was as I had not ordered anything recently. I looked at the address and it was from Wisconsin. I then remembered that my Knucklebones subscription comes from Wisconsin, but why are they sending me a package??

I then realized it MUST be some kind of game, but I still couldn't figure out why. I tore the box open and revealed a game called "Wallamoppi" along with my latest issue of the magazine (July 2006). Inside the front cover of the magazine was a note saying that I was a runner-up in the March 2006 contest and I won the game and a free 1-year subscription to Knucklebones! Sweet!! Also, in the middle of the magazine, I even got my name printed!

So, thank you Knucklebones. You are doing great things for the boardgaming hobby. I can't recommend this magazine highly enough - check it out at www.kbones.com. If you call their number, they will even send you the latest issue for free.

Life-Changing Events

Having a child is a life-changing event. I don't think that anyone can argue against that statement. But what does a life-changing event really mean to me?

Thinking back to when I was a child, it seemed like every day was a life-changing event. And it is... because during your first years of life, every day is new to you (you have no memory bank to draw upon to compare and contrast things to). As we get older, we start to establish routines and patterns, learn our likes and dislikes, and gain experience. Once you get to adulthood, life seems to move at a faster clip. This is because we start to do the same things over and over again, to the point where they become commonplace and familar.

However, there are a few big events that come along in adulthood such as the purchase of a house, getting married, getting a job, going on vacation, and especially having a child. It's funny, but anytime before a major event occurred in my life, I just couldn't fathom what it would be like. I would run it through my mind and I just couldn't picture it. Especially with being a dad. But, the day came and went and it became reality.

So I would think that I would feel completely different. However, it just isn't the case. I think that God has hotwired us to be able to accept changes very well especially if they are done according to his will. Instead of feeling different, I just feel..... deeper. Like I have notched yet another life-changing event on my belt. I feel another layer of love, joy, responsibility, sense of purpose, humility, and comfort all rolled into one. I am different, but I am the same. It's like walking through a one-way portal. Before you walk through, you are afraid of what might be on the other side. After you walk through, you realize that there was nothing to be afraid of, but you are now on the next level.

Now I get to see my son grow up, explore the world, and hopefully someday he will experience these same life-changing events. And when my journey on this planet is over someday, I believe that it will just be another life-changing event: like walking through a one-way portal. And I will feel different, because I will not be here. But I will also feel the same because God has shown us through other life-changing events that we always retain who we are. I will just be at the next level.

Tale of the Tape

Weighing in at 7 lbs, 6 oz...... 21 inches long...... it's Gabriel Marlie Mistretta!

On 3-28-06, at 8:03 p.m., Bethany gave birth to a beautiful, healthy, baby boy - Gabriel Marlie Mistretta. All in the all, the labor went beautifully, Bethany labored at home until about 3:15 p.m. when her contractions started to come 3-4 minutes apart. At that point, we packed up the van and headed to the birthing center. After some walking around the building, Bethany reached 6 cm dilated at about 4:30 p.m. Not long after that her water broke and we were ready to get in the tub. Bethany reached the pushing stage at about 7 p.m. The pushing turned out to be the hardest part. When he came out, it was the most amazing thing and one moment that I will remember and cherish for the rest of my life.

As you can see from the picture, Gabe already has an agenda - World Peace.

Crunch Time

I haven't posted anything in a while for good reason. So much to do, so little time left... I am frantically trying to polish my game designs and playtest as much as I can before Gabe gets here. I can't imagine I will have much time or will to devote to those things the first several weeks after he is born.

Bethany has now gained over 40 lbs! Gabe is going to be a good size - easily 7 lbs and maybe even 8. I guess it depends on how much longer he feels like staying in his mommy's tummy. If Bethany had any say, he would be here sooner rather than later.

We are almost done with all of our classes - the 2nd to last Bradley class is tonight. Last night, we started packing our bags with supplies we will need to take with us to the birth center. Labor really could begin any day at this point. I will keep you all posted.

Marching Onward...

I looked at my desk calendar today and noticed that it had a different month listed on it... March. Normally this would not have much significance, but this year it could be the month that my son is born. Granted, Bethany is not due until April 10th. However, we were told that this is an approximate date only and that the window of Gabe's potential birth day is 2 weeks before and after the date. So we are looking at somewhere between Mar 27 and Apr 24. Does anyone care to guess on the date. Maybe we can get a little pool going?

March 1st also marks the beginning of Lent as today is Ash Wednesday. Instead of giving up a specific item this year (i.e. desserts), I am instead trying to take a more holistic approach to Lent in an attempt to become more disciplined. My biggest problem comes with staying up too late on week nights. Also, when I have an appointment or certain time I am supposed to be somewhere, I will often delay leaving until the last possible moment or even sometimes after that, causing me to have to rush and/or be late. I figure that I should try to improve in this area before Gabe gets here, because I will really need to be more disciplined then.

Game Design

Following up on an earlier post about "euro" boardgames, I wanted to talk about how I ever got the idea to design my own games. Going back a ways... I have always enjoyed creating things. As a kid, I would draw mazes in which you had to visit different rooms in a certain order to solve them. I played Dungeons & Dragons and created characters and dungeons for other players. I created stories on cassette tapes. I even designed an outdoor game where one person has to face different creatures in increasing difficulty. This would involve fighting with sticks and frisbees and losing limbs. If you lost an arm, you had to put it behind your back. If you lost a leg, you had to hop on one. I think I still have the rules to that game somewhere, I am not kidding!!!

Since I have started playing board and card games recently, I first started creating variations on existing games. I came up with a few Poker variants that I called Viva Bush and Die Kerry. I helped Mike with his redesigned Chess game by playing it and brainstorming about new piece types and how they would move.

My first attempt at my own original design was a Rock-Paper-Scissors card game. I found various clip art on the web, designed the cards with computer software, and printed them out on card stock. I even laminated them. This first attempt was a very simplistic game and after playing it a few times, I knew that I wanted to create something more engaging.

Thus, began my journey with creating my game Castle Raiders which I have spent countless hours on for the last year and 1/2. The idea for this game sprung from the idea of stealing items from castles. The more items you tried to raid, the more risk you would take that you would be found by the guards, so there is a press your luck feel to it. However, the more items you raided the better off you were. Players would then be able to trade these items and it would benefit them to create sets of items as that made the individual items worth more. Players would then be able to purchase weapons and other abilities that would help them in their castle raids. Each phase fed off each other.

In the early days, the game was fun but had flaws. First of all, one game could not even be finished in one sitting. The game was more of a race game in which the player who got through all of the castles first would win. This made the end of the game very anti-climatic and not exciting. Mike, Elizabeth, Bethany, and I played it a lot and each time I would make changes to the design. Over time, the design got better and better as I took some things out, and added other ideas. I thought up, tested, and discarded a countless number of ideas, always looking for the "Best" way to approach the design. I spent countless hours printed, cutting, and corner rounding cards. I have used countless a lot, but if I had to estimate I would say that I have maybe spent about 500 hours working on this game!!

Since the early days, I have exposed the game to some of my other friends and most recently at the Florida Suncoast Gamers gamesday. The feedback that I have gotten has generally been good and has always helped me to improve the game in some way. Sometimes I would take a step back before taking two steps forward, but that is just how it works when you are testing many different ideas.

As of today, I have the latest version of the game ready to go for another playtest. My latest changes were big - I created an actual track in which all players track their progress in the castle each raid. With Bethany's great idea, I completely redesigned the player boards. I am really looking forward to showing off the latest version.

In the meantime, I also have been designing a dice game involving the use of the common types of dice used in Role-playing games (D4, D6, D8, D10, and D12). I will be entering this game, which I am calling Dice Invaders into the About.com 2006 Game Design Competition. I played the game with Bethany for the 1st time 2 nights ago, and she liked it. An earlier version was played with Mike, Elizabeth, and Sean and everyone had a good time making up names for the bad guys (the Norts!).

I have a few other ideas kicking around my head, but generally I like to work on one thing and finish it before going on to the next. One thing that I have really had to learn is that you must have a tremendous amount of patience if you want to see a game design improve to the point where it is good enough to potentially be published.

In that regard, I wrote an article that I posted over at BGDF on the "7 Traits of a Highly Effective Game Designer", in which patience is 1 of those traits. Only time will tell if I have what it takes to be successful in game design, but for now I am happy with how I am progressing.

I have to send out a big THANKS to everyone that has playtested my games so far as well as thank BGDF for their suggestions and discussion as well as just absorbing as much information as I can about game design as possible.

So, in sum, I think that designing has always been in my blood since I was young and game design is my current outlet for that creativity. I guess blogging is another form of creativity and probably the reason I wanted to start my own.

Thanks for reading!

Baby Stuff Everywhere!

The day of Bethany's baby shower finally arrived (Sunday, Feb. 19th), and we received a massive amount of gifts! Thank you everyone! (you will still be receiving your formal thank you letter in the mail, so don't worry).

For those of you who don't know, we recently added on a sunroom to the house for the very purpose of having more space when the baby came. It turns out we need every inch of it! Every room I walk in there is some baby-related item to walk around. I don't know how one little person could possibly need so much stuff, but I will find out first hand soon enough.

Bethany is now at 33 weeks and is definitely ready to not be pregnant anymore. But there is still more preparation time required. We have 6 more Bradley classes to attend, Gabe's room needs to be set-up, and I need to do some late night cramming of any birth or parenting related information I can get my hands on!

Pat, Bethany's Mom, was here visiting us this weekend and we were both thrilled she could be here for the shower and spend time with us. She is planning to come back for the birth so hopefully that will work out.

In the midst of all of the baby stuff going on, I was able to attend Sean's 27th birthday party on Saturday night and had a great time smashing ping pong balls, thrashing guitars, and crying havoc! If anyone hasn't tried the PS2 game, Guitar Hero, you have to try it!!! If I owned a PS2, I would buy it in a instant, but I heard it is so popular it is sold out in stores (although you can find it on eBay). It is a game in which you watch the screen and try to play a toy guitar to the beat of the songs. Why did no one think of this concept before? I hope that Nintendo can come up with something similar as I am not about to buy a PS2. Crying Havoc refers to a new card game that we played until 3:00 a.m. in the morning. It involves building poker hands and then winning battles with them. It is a very clever and inventive game and everyone had a good time. Congrats to Mike on his 6-card straight flush (highest hand in the game), although James pulled out the win in the end.

My View on Reality TV

Taking a break from the usual content, I wanted to share my views on Reality TV shows.

Ever since "Survivor" debuted on TV (back in 2000?) - I have been intrigued with reality TV shows. It was the birth of a brand new and exciting format that had not been accomplished on TV before. Well, Real World on MTV existed before that, but there was something new and novel about the Survivor concept. Survivor was the first show to take the unscripted concept and make it into a contest. Sort of a cross between a gameshow and a drama.

Survivor's success in the ratings led to a deluge of copycat shows as the networks tried to capitalize on this new hot trend. At first there were only a few followers - Big Brother, Amazing Race, and Boot Camp were some of the early adopters. But soon, the spigot was turned on and shows were piled on top of shows until all you saw on TV was yet another new reality show. In fact, there have been over 300 reality shows released since then - if you don't believe me, visit this website - Reality TV Links

As with anything, a majority of these shows were just plain crap and disappeared after only 1 season (if they weren't cancelled before that). Subject matter has ranged from date/hook-up shows (Blind Date, The Bachelor), talent shows (American Idol, Dancing with the Stars), game-type shows (Who Wants to be a millionaire?, Weakest Link), makeover shows (Extreme Makeover, Trading Spaces), contest shows (Survivor, Apprentice), and shows that really don't have a point but to show people in real life situations (Real World, A Simple Life).

When reality shows were just getting started, I tried to make a point of watching at least the 1st episode of each one to see if I liked it. Pretty soon this became an impossible endeavor. After seeing some truly awful shows (Married by America anyone?), I gave up that idea and just watched the shows I liked. This narrowed it down quite a bit.

A few of these shows I continued to watch even though they weren't very good, but eventually I gave up on them. I used to watch Big Brother for a few seasons, but just couldn't stomach it after a while. I watched the first season of Biggest Loser, but haven't watched it since. I watched the Benefactor until it was cancelled. My biggest achievement is actually sitting through the whole season of Apprentice: Martha Stewart. Man was that awful! I did not watch the final episode however; someone told me it was not worth it and saved me the time.

Where has that left my reality TV show viewing? There are currently three reality shows on TV right now that I make a point to watch every week, three that I would watch if they came back, and one that I will watch on occasion, but don't care if I miss an episode.

Watch on Occasion:

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition - This is a great show and I watched most every episode last season. It is a feel good show and often a tear-jerker. However, the plot is always the same (find a family, build a house, show them the house), that I don't feel compelled to watch it every week.

Waiting for a Return:

30 Days - I was a big fan of the movie "Super Size Me" by Morgan Spurlock, so I made it a point to watch this series and I wasn't disappointed. The premise of the show was that he got someone to agree to take on a certain lifestyle for 30 days and tracked their progress. On one show, him and his wife tried to live off of minimum wage for a month. On another show, a Christian man was forced to live with a Muslim Family and partake in their faith. The show mixed humor and educational value (like his movie), and I would gladly tune in to a new season.

Rock Star: Inxs - In some ways I enjoyed this show better than "American Idol". Only 12 singers were selected from the beginning, so there were no really bad performances. The music was rock and not pop which was a refreshing change. The personalities of the contestants really shown through and made it memorable. I definitely think that this format should be repeated - the producers just have to find another well known band that is looking for a lead singer.

Apprentice: Trump - Although Trump is an arrogant SOB, he still provides for some entertaining moments of TV. The production values of the Apprentice rival that of Survivor. The personalities really get a chance to shine through in this show making for great drama. I am wondering how long Trump can continue to hire apprentices though... pretty soon he will have a whole staff of nothing but them. I can't imagine he won't be back with a new season this fall though.

What I am Watching Now:

Survivor - Survivor is in its 12th! Season and still going strong. The format is a proven winner and they mix it up just enough each season to keep my interest. I have seen every minute of every season. After 11 seasons, the surprises have gotten fewer and fewer as the show plays out basically the same each time, so I don't see the show lasting forever. However, it is a testament to a really good show to be on the air this long and I will continue to watch as long as they keep churning them out. A few suggestions - how about a medieval-themed survivor?, an Egyptian theme?, or survivor in a cold climate? - all ideas that they haven't been tried yet.

Amazing Race - I am a late comer to the Amazing Race having watched only the last two seasons. I can see why it is one of the top reality shows and continues to garner high ratings. I'm looking forward to the new season when it begins this month.

American Idol - Every year I say this will be the last time I watch this show and every year I get hooked on it again. This year is no exception. While watching the judges has grown tiresome and boring, the rest of the show is anything but as it is the contestants that really make the show. Seacreast does an ample job without going over the top. More than any other reality show, this one has the best build-up. You get to see hopefuls at their first audition and wonder if they will make it all the way to the end. This is probably the toughest show to win (except maybe for The Apprentice). This year I have an early favorite and he is my pick to win.

Three words:

Gray

Haired

Man

Is he the newest member of the Soggy Bottom Boys? Bring back that old-timey music!!