A little bit about me: 39, married with a toddler, software developer.
Created and ran my first D&D adventure when I was 7. It was awful. I hid a required quest item in a secret compartment of a chest. This frustrated my older brothers when they couldn't find it, and I kept trying to drop hints they should look in the chest over and over.
Made my first board game in 6th grade as extra credit. It was about the European nations creating colonies in America. Mostly luck of the dice if you landed in the right spots as your boat looped around the ocean.
In high school, college, and the years after I got into video games as a hobby, but always dabbling in the creative too: reskinned Doom to use a staff and shoot fireballs and lightning bolts; created two areas for a pk MUD called Carrion Fields; as an Alpha Tester for Guild Wars a few skills I designed and pitched were released in the expansion; tried starting an MMORPG of my own using an engine but bit off far too much.
It was in the process of playtesting the combat for an RPG video game I was trying to make when I decided it might be easier to make it as a boardgame. Not easy, but it may actually be possible to make a top notch product without a huge budget. So for the past five years I have been tinkering with this boardgame.
I'm older. I can't get a regular D&D group in person. It seems like every fantasy board game is either a full campaign with 50+ pages of rules, or has been designed for children in its simplicity. My game combines a hex grid board for freedom of movement (as you might find in later releases of Civilization and some war games), modular random dungeon creation, stats that also double as your health, and special attacks with a hefty depth to them. You can set it up in about 3 minutes (I have video proof), and takes 2.5-4 hours to play to completion.
Lastly, to combat Alpha Player Syndrome, each player has two unique objectives centered around themes like looting, killing, healing, exploring, etc. This determines the winner if they fail to defeat the Final Boss, which happens a majority of the time in playtests. Each player's second unique objective is a big one-time point bonus for bad things happening to the party. There is no set traitor, but rather everyone could be a traitor if they so choose (and usually do when people start dying). This creates a lot of tension, which some people find off putting. It's not a game for everyone.
I'm still playtesting and tweaking, and feel like I could do this forever. Recently at a convention I was told by a young man (maybe 13 years old) that it was the best game he'd ever played. Loved hearing it, but I figure he has not played many games. I'm looking forward to publishing it and taking my lessons learned into the next game.
Aside from final gameplay tweaks, I'm in the process of setting up a convention schedule, pricing manufacturers, and giving consideration as to how market and sell it. If I don't find a publisher I am tentatively considering a Kickstarter in the Fall. Will be at Proto ATL in May if anyone is coming.
