Category Archives: Working From Scratch

This year started off quite interesting for myself personally as it was the year that my wife and I decided to take our hobby project called “Mana Punk” and see what the masses thought about it. Late January saw a rousing debut at Houston’s ConJour 2012, a convention that was welcoming and friendly to us. We met great people, made plenty of business connections and generally had a blast. The attention we garnered at ConJour only seemed to grow as the year rolled along and we managed released our revised 2nd printing of or Game Guide. We now have three major Houston area conventions under our belts along with countless public appearances and almost one hundred demo games.

Here we sit, at the end of the year being able to look back and take stock of the many great things that have befallen us:

• We see the release of our first adventure module, The Bones of Daragom. This was even more of a learning experience for us than it is a gaming adventure for our players, giving us the chance to find our footing as we journeyed through the writing and formatting process.
• Our Online Character Generator launched into public Beta status and is still grabbing the attention of our new players.
• We released our second adventure module Aria of Sorrow, an adventure with an very unique setting that presents heroes with an entire set of moral choices and social dilemmas that they must address while trying to retain their sanity in the process. Aria of Sorrow has helped us find our footing while setting a new benchmark for content for which we can strive.

After looking back, it is time to then start looking to the road ahead. January should see the final testing and release of The Elementals of Vond, our first adventure module from writer Patrick Tully. This will be followed quickly with the release of our much anticipated Story Guide as a compliment to the Game Guide, giving Game Masters who are new to Mana Punk the proper resources to kick start their games (and hopefully their imaginations as well). We have two conventions on the calendar already, one in Houston and one in Austin, with even more planning to be done and finalized.

Thank you all for your wonderful support during 2012. We hope to make even more friends during the next year, as our business and community grows. Happy New Year!

As many of you out there may already know, we here at Mana Punk HQ work with a fairly small staff and crew. Small enough in fact to merit being categorized as a team of two. While I predominantly play the role of Barker for our website and public demo games, my wife Jenn also plays several critical roles in this small endeavor of ours. We get to work side by side, developing something that both of us care about and in which we see great creative potential. We are working together on more than just something we are personally invested in; we are working on our own future as well. All of this brings with it the great rewards of “Self Employment”.

With all of that being said however, starting your own business is far from easy. Continue reading→