Big Update - Famous Games + Kickstarting the Apparatus

Hi everyone! Rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated. =o) It's been eons since I updated the blog but it certainly hasn't been for lack of news. If anything, it's because so much has been going on at once that I've had to let Canadian Gamer take a back seat for a while.

So what's been going on, you say? Well here's a quick rundown:

• 
  After 14 years of developing HD games at BioWare/Electronic Arts, I've decided to leave the company and strike out on my own. Needless to say, it was a tough decision and I'm glad I took the time to wrap up pre-production on some special projects before I left.
• 
  Following my departure, I've been hanging around with the guys at StartupEdmonton and pouring my passion and energy into Famous Games Co., my game-related sports marketing startup that I quietly launched last year. That's involved a lot of effort on the website and, now that I have my card game samples from the manufacturer, I've been reaching out to the various related sports leagues and their major sponsors to build up some initial clientele. It's been a neat design challenge for me as it's involved building an entire line of card games capturing familiar subject matter (sport) yet using no more than 9 cards. It's been exciting to see it all finally coming together and taking shape as an actual business. In the meantime, the general gaming public will be able to order copies from the BoardGameGeek webstore starting in early August (special thanks to Derk, Aldie, Chad and the gang!) so keep your eyes peeled there.
• 
  Not to be outdone, the Toy Vault team has been hard at work on their Kickstarter program for my upcoming steampunk board game, "Apparatus". They've put together a great promo video and art assets and everything went live yesterday. Check it out and, while you're there, stop by some other Canadian gaming campaigns currently being Kickstarted and wish them luck on their journeys.

Boardgames in Bloom

Happy Easter long weekend, everyone. In case anyone's keeping track, March pretty much slipped away from me. This was largely thanks to the fact that, in my new Operations role at BioWare, I've been overseeing the finalization, launch and patching process for our latest video game, Dragon Age II. The game has faced mixed reviews and its share of both fair and unfair criticisms but sales remain strong overall. The first major patch is out and improving the experience for a large number of users and we're hard at work on another, as well as a variety of other initiatives across the franchise. I try not to talk too much about work on this blog as I have to be pretty careful about what I say. Nevertheless, that should give you a pretty accurate high-level view of what's been keeping me busy lately.

A Little Help From My Friends

Two By Two is expected to make landfall somewhere along the Pacific coast this Sunday. From there it will go to the warehouse of central wholesaler Publisher Services and then out to various distributors such as Lion Rampant here in Canada, ACD in the US, and Alliance for the US and worldwide. Online and brick & mortar retailers will include Two by Two in their regular orders from these distributors and the game should ultimately start appearing on store shelves sometime around the end of the month. The publisher had a few advance copies flown over from the actual print run (rather than preliminary proofs). Many of those will be going out to different reviewers and industry press but one should be arriving on my doorstep sometime tomorrow.

So, with the game almost in the hands of the general public, I thought now would be a great time to offer my thanks to all of the people who've helped along the way.

Welcome aboard!

Welcome to my official site where I'll be showcasing my games as they are published.