
Game Designer Inspired By Lunch Time Conversation At Convention
UNDATED (WJON News) -- A Minnesota author and game designer was inspired to create her first game by a lunchtime conversation. Nicole Fende was taking a lunch break at the Protospiel Convention in Madison Wisconsin when a designer described their apartment.
Fende says everyone thought the apartment sounded like a place a serial killer would live in and one thing led to another:
"Which then led to the hardest part about being a serial killer is getting rid of the body so we talked about how hard it would be to get rid of the bodies and that would make a great game and that's how it got started."
How long did it take her to get the game ready and published?
Fende says another designer and her wrote out the game right at that convention and play-tested the first draft right there. It still took almost 5 years to get the game ready and published. Fende Joined Table Talk, WJON"s show about board gaming on Saturday to discuss "Body Be Gone" as well as her books "Prosperity Dimension," a resource book for small business owners disguised as a Sci-Fi story, and "
"Body Be Gone" is a light-hearted family card game where people take on the role of "cleaners" trying to dispose of bodies in the most creative and funny way possible. The game features 20 stories by different authors covering a wide range of cities and scenarios. Fende says she reached out to her different writers' groups to get authors who were willing to contribute a story to the game.
How did she market Body Be Gone?
She says once the game was ready she took a different road to help get the word out about "Body Be Gone"
"I wanted to make it something where people would want to go to a launch because otherwise you hear oh their launching whatever, okay I'm bored so I rented the historic Mounds Theatre in St. Paul, which is from the 1920s and is an art deco theatre that's been restored so it fit perfectly with that, it was in October, so I did costumes, I dressed up as a flapper, we had a costume contest during it, there was prohibiation era inspired cocktail, there was horderves, it was a party."
Fende says she got sponsors and people could try the game, there was a hide-the-body photo booth and people had so much fun. Fende also discussed her "Creatopia" company and her background in finance. Fende and Table Talk co-host William Pankratz are hoping to get her up to the St. Cloud Games By James store to demo her game soon.

When can I listen to Table Talk?
You can catch "Table Talk" every other Saturday opposite the "Woods Garden Show" at 8:10 a.m. We hope to have Fende join "Table Talk" again on January 25th live from "Protospiel Minnesota" in St. Paul.
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