Sarah Como and Breeze Grigas from A.E.G.I.S.
Today we are featuring Sarah Como and Breeze Grigas from Zephyr Workshop and part of the A.E.G.I.S. design crew. A.E.G.I.S. is a fast-paced, team-building strategy game centered around "combining robot combat", where your squad of five robots fight as one united front. Sharing energy with each other, they are also able to combine into bigger, more powerful forms to change the tide of battle. A.E.G.I.S. is currently on Kickstarter and will be demoed at #G2SFall.
THREE RANDOM FACTS ABOUT SARAH:
Sarah has taken traditional viking combat classes. Her favorite weapon to use is the shield. It's actually very complex!
She loves campy horror movies/games. These include Resident Evil 1 to 4 and all of Evil Dead.
Sarah jams on the ukulele. It's a fun, portable little instrument that makes everyone who plays it sound great! (she does have some skill at it, though!)
THREE RANDOM FACTS ABOUT BREEZE:
Breeze is an artist who likes doing character design and designing games
He like cartoons and animation and his favorite show is Oban Star Racers
Breeze just wants to inspire other people to create things
Questions by Kimberly Bullock (KB), answers by Sarah Como (S) and Breeze Grigas (B).
THREE BOARD GAME RELATED QUESTIONS:
KB: What have some of the highlights/lowlights been of creating a Kickstarter campaign?
S: We'll start with a lowlight so I can end on a happy note!
The hard part is launching the campaign and waiting for it to fund. You've put in all this work to get the game to Kickstarter, you finally get there, and now you have a HUGE social media push. Some days it can be hard to see the numbers not rise the way you want.
The highlight is the huge outpouring of support from family, friends, and fans when the campaign goes live. It's a humbling and awesome experience.
B: The most daunting part was preparation. You have a million examples of campaigns but still don't really know what to expect or what to put on a page, or when and exactly how to do it. The highlight has been seeing the support of a lot of nice people. Friends and family and some I've barely talked to in years. I also like the ongoing pressure a little bit. It drives you to accomplish a lot on a short period of time.
KB: What are some of the best parts about showing off A.E.G.I.S. at conventions?
S: The best part about showing A.E.G.I.S. at cons is getting to play the game with the fans. Some of them have played before, so it's really cool to see people return. If they've never seen the game, you get to explain and teach them the game and watch them figure out the tactics.
B: Seeing people have fun and get excited, for sure. We've had an outpouring of great feedback from many people. It means a lot, and I'm sure the game we've made has hit the people I wanted it to hit.
KB: Are there any other game designs currently in the works, or are you holding off until this one is complete?
S: Right now our Kickstarter is the biggest priority, but we do have other games on the back burner. We have a combat card game we're working on, and I'm thinking about making a survival horror card game! That's an idea for now.
B: We've been working on AEGIS for a long time, but during that time, we have made a few other games in parallel. A lot of the lessons from making AEGIS are being applied to them. I think people will like them a lot.
THREE QUESTIONS JUST FOR FUN:
KB: If you could have any one super power, what would it be?
S: My super power would be.....the ability to jump off of anything and never be hurt! I'd jump off of EVERYTHING!
B: I'm low-key. It'd be nice to be invisible sometimes.
KB: What board game (excluding A.E.G.I.S.) have you played the most?
S: I'm a big fan of Betrayal at House on the Hill. It fills that survival horror itch AND every game is different.
B: I really like Pixel Tactics, and a lot of Level99's stuff in general.
KB: When A.E.G.I.S. funds, how do you plan to celebrate?
S: Throw a party, a sweet Power Rangers party and eat tons of food and cake. Then, take a nap. I need to recover sleep. Finally, go on vacation somewhere warm and relaxing.
B: Take the longest nap of my life, and probably go on vacation for a long while.
Note: The full team includes a Jesse Clark, Ryan Richford and Zach Kettell. You can see more info on zephyrworkshop.com 's team page.
