Some updates about Zen Garden. The building of the materials carry on as you can see here. These are the dices. Every set has got 2 white dices and 1 red dice. On the sides there is the Japan sign for “stop”. All is handmade, so it is not perfect as an industrial product. It is better, it is made with passion!

We are making 30 sets so we have got 240 soldiers, 120 white and 120 red, 8 soldiers every set. My father painted them. Now we are thinking about sashimonos with Japanese numerals. And there are still other things to do. Next time.

Beautiful girl plays Zen Garden! I discovered that my game attracts girls as honey for bees. Maybe it is its elegance, the use of three colours (red, black, white), the small space used, the zen garden theme. My game is small, missing in the large fair, but people noted it.

I tested the new measurement stick and changed a foot soldier with naginata with a samurai only armed with a katana, but with a stronger value. I think that I tested it enough, now I must to write the rules on paper in a verbal form.

After some turns people could play alone. She is very smart and know Japanese language, but he won. Thanks to Roberto Bagna of Parte Ghibellina for his photos.

Narciso went to the fair the last day and brought to me some resin micro pagodas for the game. Now I have almost all the material to produce the copies of Zen Garden.

A view of Historical Island. The Clan Conan space is at the end. Ganesha Games area is very large. Lava erupts from the volcano at the Andrea’s desk.

My Zen Garden in the fair. You can see the new materials at the work.

A playing preview of Swatters, the new game with 15mm aliens vs humans. Almost completed, it will see the light in a few months.

Flashing Steel on the table! Look at the wonderful sea, waves seems real. Some games were setted with this new ruleset. Pity, it was available only in English, so none could buy it, because Italian version is waited in the following weeks.

Sergio was very very tired due to work, but he could show his new Large Battle Drums and Shakos. A real success. His terrain was awesome, there was even a perfect vineyard.

He could explain the basic mechanics of the game with the throw of some dices to put spice in this. Some people wanted to buy it but you have to wait some weeks again. The book is in the editing phase.

Mighty Monsters, here presented in the Italian version and called Mega Mostri, results as a big hit in the heart of audience who reminds the lost sagas of Godzilla and its enemies.

Andrea presented the game with a volcano scenario and a lot of gashapon to show what we are speaking about. Children were attracted by these little figurines, adults were amazed finding their monster hero from younger time at work. And some child know the videogame of Godzilla and could name the monsters.

Scarred for life with Godzilla name!!! He is a hardcore Godzilla collector. However some people buy the ruleset ONLY because it is about kaiju, they don’t play wargames, they wanted Godzilla! I sign even an autograph on a copy, because I participated in the creation of the game!

Some happy customers playing with Mighty Monsters. Have fun with kaiju! And in the future you will have fights with giant robots from Japan too!!! Mazingaaa!!!!! And I have got a Patlabor large gashapon set to play a scenario with robots against a monster, as in Patlabor 3!

Lucca Comics and Games (October 28th to November 1st, Lucca, Italy) is one of the major geek-cons in the world, covering anything from comics, manga, action figures, anime, undressed girls (cosplay), RPGs, miniature wargaming, gothic lolitas, modelling, junk food, medieval arts, videogames, cardgames, aikido, boardgames, and so on.

I will be with the Ganesha Games crew (Andrea Sfiligoi and Sergio Laliscia) in the Historical Island wargaming area. There will be demo tables of Flashing Steel (pirates and privateers fighting over treasure on a beach), Mighty Monsters (monsters fighting on Monster Island as a volcano erupts), and Drums and Shakos – Large Battles (an army-level Napoleonic scenario played in 15mm scale). I will demo Zen Garden, the world’s smallest wargame (a small, handmade, play-right-out-of the box, super-condensed version of Ganesha’s core rules, played with 10mm samurai which I will sell only at conventions).

If I find a wi-fi point there will be some twit. See you here after the show with a full report and ton of photos!!! I hope I survive!!!!!

Zen Garden production is running fast. In the past days, as those who speak Italian can read on the new twitter box on the right, me and dad made some pieces for the game, as the measurer for the weapons at range and that one for the troops movement, in the form of a rake. I’m thinking about two versions of the game, one with glued sand the other one with sand that you can put by yourself, with the rake to design grooves. So the black rakes have got spikes.

In the meantime some dices arrived by post. Now I must only to custom them. And from Narciso I’m waiting for the first pagodas made in resin. I saw the prototypes in green stuff form. For Lucca I will have got the old game but with some new materials.

A brief note to say that we (me and Andrea “Ganesha Games” Sfiligoi) are thinking about the realisation of a limited edition of my game Zen Garden with some revised rules and better materials. It will be handmade but with professional elements. In the following weeks we will start the production. A demo will be present at Lucca Games at the end of October. You could see the real game ready for Christmas, I suppose. Now I’m a game producer too…

At last, my report on GiocaRoma 2011, the boardgame convention of Rome. I repeat myself: I like these events build by gamers for gamers. There were tournaments, boardgames presentations, wargames, vendors, free toy library with people who explain rules and follow you during the first turn. All inside a sporting centre near the underground, with pool and tennis camps. We don’t use the pool, usual clients did. There is a restaurant inside with low prices (water + potatoes + pizza = 6€) and a bar. The sad thing is that there was a misunderstood and the restaurant owners don’t know about the event so ice creams and other food disappeared too soon. And GiocaRoma is always very hot, so ice creams were a necessary resource!!!

This is the free toy library before the assault, early in the morning…

Over 1000 registered visitors, but hardcore gamers were less. Among boardgame players there are even women, a factor unknown by wargamers. And a lot of women are brides of other gamers. So here we aren’t only among bald and fat men as usual.

An interview for tv to Bao (an African game) promoter. He runs an international tournament and the diffusion of the game for beneficence purposes.
The orange dress of the interviewer was very pretty, indeed. Look at the shoes, she is moving like a child…

These are the cups for tournaments played in GiocaRoma.

During the first day I presented Zen Garden. Read the other post to know more about it. When I will find the time I show more on it.

Here you can see a Miles Glorious‘ delegation playing with Zen Garden.

And here other players. On the right Sinclair from Ratio Ludica, on the left Lorenzo from Zerloon Place. Their comments were enthusiasts!

And now some words about games we tried on Sunday. Carson City is an interesting game. Someone say that it is a sort of Caylus without too many mental calculations, with a far west flavour and some dices to add fun. Well, if you don’t know Caylus, I can say that this Carson City is about a placement mechanism of meeples with added a terrain where you can buy land and put buildings to have revenues. And if you want the same resource, placing your meeple (who resemble a cowboy) on it where just where another gamer placed his, then there is a duel! More fun than Pillars of the Earth! So, a great far west game!

It was a long time that I wanted to try Letters from Whitechapel because of the setting in actual Banglatown. The map is gorgeous. The game is a more complicated version of the old Scotland Yard. Fun, but not so intriguing as the box and the map. For a night with friends and a smart guy as the fugitive. I was not so smart so the play ended before than I expected.

Ventura is an Italian game distributed by Fantasy Flight Games. It is a classic game with a map, some armies around and your zone of control where you take your money to built armies. But this time all is packed in the age of mercenary armies in Italy, the age of condottieri. The new thing is that you can built the map adding terrain hexagons with specific values. So, it is a great-grandchildren beautiful variant of Risiko in a great setting. Some material are of the highest quality, others are not. However some rules are weak, so he urges some tweaks, as hidden composition of armies. I think I play again with this game because Paolo bought it.

We give another try to 7 Wonders. I like it, but Paolo tell us it is only a card game with a high price. I hope Francesca buy it.

While I was involved with Zen Garden, Paolo run an exhibition game of MEKA, still in beta form. This time in a desert setting instead of the urban one. Zakus are always the best mechas around…

Our friend Di Bartolo showed his Napoleonic game, almost ready to be published. The best terrain and painted miniatures of the event.

Subbuteo football club. For football fans only. I’m not in this category, but I like stubbornness of Subbuteo fans from ’70s!

There was Miniature Mania, a painting service from Perugia. I take some pictures. I like the weird effect of miniatures at twilight!!!

I didn’t buy anything, but there were gracious games and related stuff. Another time. The hard true is that I buy things but I haven’t the time to play with them! Sad, sad, very sad. At the end I remained only with these tickets. They were for the lottery. 1000 tickets for 10 prizes (a holiday during Modenacon 2012 + 9 boardgames), so I bought 11 tickets for 11€, 1 to 100 to have something. I only had the pleasure to give away little money for 2 days of fun. Thank you GiocaRoma!

I’m just returned from the first day of GiocaRoma, the convention of boardgames here in Rome. Well, there is even a large section of wargames, very large indeed, but the people who organise all are from boardgames clubs. All the work is voluntary, so it is a great d.i.y. convention made by real gamers for other gamers. I want to do my part in this, so today I presented my game, Zen Garden.

Here you can see my space. A small place on a large row of tables but they hadn’t a 30×30 table…

All went fine, very fine. I was available all the day. Positive feedbacks. The greatest comment was: “a poetic game”!

And now a fast look to the finished game with all his components: dices for activations, dices for combat, measurements sticks (made from “samurai” labelled toothpicks!!!), counters for lack of fire and wounds, cards for stats.

Now is late night, and tomorrow I am going to have another full day in GiocaRoma, this time to play with games made by other people, so I close here. In the future I will spent more time on how my game works. And there will be a report on this edition of GiocaRoma.