The big project that I have been working on lately for Fight in a Box is End of the Line. It’s a game about Post-Apocalyptic Family Survival. Basically, you are playing as a family who is trying to survive life after the apocalypse. In this world, people are trying to create some sort of order amidst the chaos. So they have created lines that you wait in for water, ammo, food, fuel, and a black market. (Yes. In a post-apocalyptic world, you would be friendly and wait your turn in line for the black market!) You line your family up, create laws, collect goods, fend yourself against attacks and do what you need to do to survive. The winner is the last family standing. Hopefully you will be an entire family standing, but more often than not, it ends up being a family member or two who survive. It’s a great game, and I highly recommend it. Of course I am a bit biased…

Lately I have been working on the instruction manual. It’s gotten quite an overhaul from my original idea, which was just a simplistic black and white design. But I think it’s a change for the better. The minimalist in me is sad to see the old design go away, but this design is much grittier and captures the concept much better.

I thought I would share a few pages today. Please note that this is not the final design. We are still in progress, and although I think we are close, the final design will probably be at least a little bit different.

A few weeks ago, I shared with you that I am working on a design for the board game, End of the Line. Here is what the cards and boards look like so far. Seppy quick threw together a set to use for play testing, and I was excited to see them printed. The feedback from the play-testers was really positive, and now Fight in a Box plans to Kickstart this game next. Hooray! (I would like to say that my design is what made everyone vote for this to be the next one printed, but it’s a really good game, so I can’t take all the credit!)

Next week, Seppy and I will get together to go over the first expansion (The Inevitable Machine Revolt) and work on more of the components of the game. Things are really starting to come together, and it’s so fun to see everything getting closer to a final product!

So why no posts lately? Well, I’ve been incredibly busy at work. For about the past five or six weeks, we’ve been rebranding and redecorating our entire building, getting ready for our 35th Anniversary party that took place last Thursday. It required quite a bit of overtime and some weekend work. After getting home late, I really didn’t do much other than eat and go to bed. So I didn’t have much to share.

In addition to all the painting, my boss, Sean, and I had our own project that we had to come up with as a giveaway for the party. We decided to make a movie poster. We wanted to showcase variable data and all the cool things you can do with it. While waiting for their tour, guests filled out a quick questionnaire-type form in Access. As they went on their tour, we collected the data that they entered and printed their variable posters for them to pick up when they came into our department anywhere from 15-25 minutes later.

The inspiration for the posters came from one of the posters created for Burlesque. I took pictures of employees and had them make 10 different faces related to a specific emotion. We then chose the best of each female and male photo to use. (The picture taking part was so much fun! My cheeks hurt so much from laughing!)

When guests filled out their questionnaire, they got to choose either a male or a female, an emotion, and a color. Those choices put the characters into their spots on the poster and colored their eyes. Then they also got to choose a title (or make their own) and a movie plot that our talented co-worker, Jason Sandberg, wrote (or make their own). The final choices were for the font and color of the text. We added the line, “Based on a true story by xxxxx,” where we put in their name so that we could tell who created which poster.

It was so much fun, and people loved it! The owners of the company thanked me and Sean multiple times, which was really nice. Sadly, I did not get to partake much in the party, because I was helping search for posters and filling in on the tour duties, but it was still a nice time! But I am glad it’s over!!