What will I be talking about? There is another live action game at AFO this year called Skies of Orlandia that I am a big part of developing and managing. Not only that, I have a couple panels to announce for the convention! Since my panels as of late have been nothing but EXCELLENT you should be excited to hear of what I have cooking!

The show is going to live on the internet so who knows what might happen! The Wheldon Smiley Show can be found here so tune in at 9pm tonight and be captivated!

Sometimes, I wonder why people have negative year end reflections every year that I have known them. It really makes me wonder what they are really trying to do with their lives. I’ve come to believe that you have to make the most of every moment in your life or else you are not living.

This has been a weird decade for the world overall. I can’t even describe it without writing an essay where I will most likely contradict myself often. However, I really hope the world changes in the next decade- and for the better. But it is going to be our responsibility to make that happen. I really think in this decade, too many people gave up on personal responsibility and depended far too much on people with authority to do things for them that they should have done themselves. And really, because of the lack of personal responsibility, we let our whole country fall apart.

Our economy would not be the way it is now if Americans didn’t become so lazy and health care wouldn’t be such a critical issue if everyone took better care of themselves. That is the basic truth that no politician will ever have the balls to tell the people. We are the only people who can make our lives good; nobody else can do that for us.

Enough of the negative; this has been a year for me that I will never forget. I’m going to now list every significant thing that happened that defined Kent Ward in 2009.

1. I started off the year right with the now legendary Down Right Fierce New Year’s Day Party. The main highlight was that I got so wasted that I Falcon Punched a friend in the chest because I thought he was raping a girl I liked at the time. He was actually trying to hug her goodbye and was on the ground hacking for six minutes for no good reason whatsoever. He helped me clean my house the next morning.
2. Four years ago, I had graduated Full Sail University with a Bachelor’s of Game Design and Development. There has been a lot of uncertainty – that I refused to show – about where it would take me. Sometime after I graduated, I was offered a chance to be a lab specialist at the school. I took it and over time, I became one of the best. I constantly challenged myself and it was a great opportunity to get better and meet lots of great people. I’m really glad for the experience because it did so much for me as a person as it did for my career.
3. I was also proud of myself for being able to take charge as head lab specialist for courses such as OpenGL and Real Time Animation this year. It was a lot of responsibility in addition to already being in charge of Engine Development I. It wore on me a lot and I still wonder how I was able to keep my sanity. Richard and Shawn provided me with many opportunities to advance myself and I am truly grateful for that.
4. The last one about my time at Full Sail: I created new lecture and lab material for RTA that would help students with getting animations working in their games sooner in their final Game Project course. It seemed like it took most groups two or three months to get that sort of thing working, but now they have a system in place that they can adapt right from the get-go.
5. I participated in the Global Game Jam in January, which is a 48-hour game making event. I really am proud I did that because it really lit a fire in my belly that I kept going for the rest of the year. I also got to work with badasses such as David Brown and Jay Baird.
6. Over the years, being exposed to epics such as Fist of the North Star, Berserk, The Alphabet of Manliness, 24, The Epic of Gilgamesh and every single Bruce Lee movie, I had started to develop ideas of what a man should be. My personal experiences were also a big factor in all of this. I noticed over the years that the manly spirit has died amongst many of my fellow brethren and that there was confusion on what makes a man manly. So I co-wrote the Twelve Laws of True Man, which I think does a good job for providing laws for true men to live by. When I first presented it, my audience was the local anime community, but I will write a revised version in the future where my audience will be all of humanity.
7. This year has been an awesome year for the Propeller Anime Club! We kicked ass at several conventions, organized a couple of fun game tournaments, did a lot of outings, got drunk together once or twice(the truth comes out!), and of course we watched lots of great anime – both old and new. I plan to write a reflection on the club blog, but I truly appreciate the amount of time I spent on the club. Hell, I’ll even go so far as to say that the Propeller Anime Club is what people should look towards as an example when one would want to describe an excellent anime club.
8. Speaking of anime conventions – ANIME FESTIVAL ORLANDO 10! Oh man, that was such a good life victory for me. AFO, every year, is the best damn anime convention in Florida and if you think otherwise then you must be retarded. Myself, and many others, worked our damn hardest to put on Swords of Orlandia III this year. The live action game has now become the premiere anime convention experience in the entire state, if not the country. I am really proud of how the game turned out and that many people enjoyed it. The icing on the cake was being made one AFO’s newest staff members because of my efforts(and those of the people who supported me helped with that too!).
9. I went to Disney World for the first time since I was twelve a little while ago. I went with one of my best friends, Fuzzy, and a couple of deceitful women. It was a double date that epically failed for both of us but the trip was still fun regardless of that. I loved Epcot the most out of the trip and I can’t wait to go back and drink around the world!
10. I played Beyond Good & Evil this year and I am really glad I did. What a fantastic game!
11. I really don’t think that this was the “Year of the Fighting Game” that I was hoping for, but I did get Street Fighter IV, BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger, The King of Fighters XII, and Tekken 6. I really feel like there was far more hype than delivery with the return of fighting games in mainstream gaming, but the games were still better than most of everything else that came out this year(which really isn’t saying much). I plan to write about Tekken 6, which I have determined to be this year’s best fighting game. Don’t worry; I am about as surprised as you are.
12. Since I was ten, I’ve always wanted to take martial arts. This past month, I finally did. I am still a beginner when it comes to Muay Thai and I have some interesting bruises on my body because of it. However! It was about damn time that I finally got to follow this path I dreamed of for so long. I look forward to getting better at it and becoming more of a complete person as a result.
13. My brother, my parents, and I had Thanksgiving together in Alabama this year. We haven’t had Thanksgiving together in six years so this was definitely an accomplishment! I also discovered Grey Goose vodka during this trip and I love it so~
14. I saw Dethklok and Mastodon with excellent friends Jacob and Jess last month. I wouldn’t exactly call the experience “Metal.” The show was at the Hardly Rock, where moshing and crowd surfing is forbidden. People tried to mosh anyways but it was pathetic. I really feel like half the people who showed up were just posers that were there because they watch Adult Swim. We showed up to the concert after the opening acts played and I somehow made it to the front. Actually, it was easy; just about everyone else there was a pussy so knocking them out of my way as I made it front and center at the concert wasn’t much of a challenge. I had my horns closer to Dethklok front man Brendon Small than anyone else, which automatically makes me the most metal person that went to the concert.
15. I left Full Sail to become a game developer simulation scientist.
16. I really think I became a legitimate adult this year. I am more proud of this than anything. I’ve accomplished a lot this year, but I also had to deal with some supreme bullshit along the way. Despite that, all the experiences I’ve had up to this point have made me who I am today and will help make me into a better person in the future. I have learned so much about life this year and I think from this point on, if I truly make the effort, then life will continue to be good.

 It’s been real good, 2009! I couldn’t have asked for a better year or a better way to end the decade! Here’s to the future!

Introduction:

Swords of Orlandia III is a live-action game that took place exclusively at Anime Festival Orlando 10 this past summer. Over the course of the weekend, Hundreds of people played for either the evil Shadowfowl or the less evil Anarchs to see who would control Orlandia once and for all. Players would participate in quests(both solo and as a party), compete against each other in carnival-inspired games, and solve secret runic messages that gave away information about the war going on between evil Emperor Corvax Corvidious and the fallen Prince Horus. There were real messages and fake ones and the side with the most real ones solved would win the final battle.

For those wondering, it was the Anarchs.

While this was going on, players earned experience points in the form of dice that they could use to PVP Battle, buy anime-inspired items to give them extra help in battles, and increase their level and rank. Not only that, we also experimented with letting some of the more trusted and experienced players achieve the special rank of lieutenant and giving out quests themselves. There were a lot of gameplay mechanics that were added to the third iteration of the game. It kept things fresh, but at the same time it made the game a little more complicated than it needed to be.

The original Swords of Orlandia game was created by Peter Stolmeier, who has been doing his own interactive game shows at Anime Festival Orlando for many years as the loveable Wheldon Smiley. He asked me and others in the now-dead Consortium to help out with the second game which debuted quests, competitive challenge games, and having costumed game characters for players to interact with. Late last year, Peter became more focused on finishing up his final year of college and asked me to take over the game design for Swords of Orlandia III.

I wrote a “Game Masters’ Guide” for those involved with the game’s design, story writing, and managing the game that weekend. During the many months leading up to that weekend I met with people from the Anime Festival Orlando staff, my students in the Propeller Anime Club, and whatever was left of the Consortium to get as many good ideas for the game as possible and bring it all together for a final design. It was a fun, yet challenging process and many lessons were learned.

What went right:

1.) Dedicated Game Staff
Here, I am referring to those who worked in running the Swords of Orlandia III game in and around the Raven’s Roost Tavern, the central hub at AFO for those who were playing the game. I assembled those I trusted in the local anime community to do a good job along with my Propeller Anime Club students(who never fail me) to help me with keeping things running smoothly. A lot of us were in medieval-inspired costume and entertained players throughout the weekend.

Game staff winding down at closing ceremonies. It was an epic weekend!

Including myself, there were twelve hardcore badasses that kept the game running all weekend and we did our absolute best to make sure those who wanted to play the game could and had something to do.

There were times where we were overwhelmed with many players at the same time and we could have used some more help. Fortunately, the game staff was up to the challenge of giving players quests and guiding them on their adventure.

2.) How to Play Panels
On the Friday and Saturday of the convention, Peter, decked out in his game show host attire, had a couple of the characters of Swords of Orlandia III come in and explain the rules of the game as well as the story in his game show theater. This was the best approach to helping players understand how to play the game. We taught the game by having players try out quests, PVP, and challenges while giving out items that they could use in the game.

An Anarch general and a Shadowfowl general from the game staff were the characters that came in to explain the rules of the game and would take time to go back into character and rally their players for battle with chants and yelling. There was a lot of energy from the crowd in the Friday game, which was great because that kept the momentum of the game going throughout the weekend.

We had many methods of trying to get players to learn the game; demonstrating it was the most effective. This is usually how I learn many table top games.

3.) Players got used to new game mechanics… eventually
If players went to the “How to Play” panels then they knew the story of Orlandia and how to play the game. They could also refer to the convention guide for the game’s rules. Funny thing is, most players of the game and convention goers in general didn’t read the convention guide let alone the separate 70+ page mini-novel that contained the game’s story. Har har.

For most of the weekend, I was wondering if the game information even got published in the guide and when I finally got the time to read one(which was after the convention’s closing ceremonies), I saw the rules I wrote for the guide right in there. They weren’t even hard too find!

So for the first day, we had to pretty much spend a lot of time teaching people how to play the game personally. By Saturday, nobody had problems playing the game and everyone was beginning to progress nicely in the game. Many even maxed out to level three of their rank and we started to award lieutenant scrolls to the more hardcore and trustworthy players.

4.) Game Characters with Personality
Almost every member of the game staff created their own game character with their own back-story, personality, and goals for Swords of Orlandia III. We were a lively bunch that kept players entertained. We formed mobs, led marches, and got many people to join the game. We would get on stage and rally troops and we would send players on quests and challenges to represent our respective armies.

Not only that, there were established storyline characters with strong personalities that would perform a cut scene in main events each evening to remind the players what they were fighting for in the war. This part was handled by a story team separate from the design team. I met with them occasionally to make sure our game worked with their story.

Shadowfowl and Anarachs square off on stage in AFO’s main events ballroom.

Most notable was the charisma exhibited by the actors of Prince Hesperus and Corvax Corvidous. They not had rehearsed lines and actions, but they even did some improve during their performances and worked the audience of these events well. Hell, there were big giant crowds of Shadowfowl players who would march through the halls yelling “Hail the Emperor” to let the convention goers know who was running Orlandia with an iron fist.

The best part had to have definitely been when one of the convention guests, Rueben Langdon(voice and motion capture actor of Dante from Devil May Cry) took over the role for King Horus for the final cut scene when the original actor couldn’t and electrified the crowd. He was able to fit into the costume and his presence was supremely amazing. It was extremely cool of him to do that on such short notice.

5.) Emergent Gameplay: The Bob Mob
Despite the game having many rules and elements, it is still flexible enough for players to make their own fun. The best example of this was the boss battles. Members of the volunteer staff approached me and asked if they could be game bosses for players to battle to get big rewards and prestige. I thought the idea was pretty cool and let them do it.

The concept grew to a much grander scope as boss battles became live action raids like similar to an MMO. Rules were even devised based on how many people were in the raid and what their class was. Participating generals and lieutenants added bonuses to their side in these battles. The side with the highest score one the battle.

The stakes for these raids were high and after many battles, tales of ”The Bob Mob” and their leader Bob grew. Bob was called the strongest boss in all of Orlandia so before the game ended my character, Gamelon Umfraville, challenged him to PVP and destroyed his sorry ass in a game of Twister on the tavern’s stage and I made him hail the emperor three times! Strongest boss in the game? I think not. I only lost once in PVP the whole weekend and it was to a young boy who was a lieutenant in my Shadowfowl army anyways, making it totally not count as a loss in the first place.

Uh… what were we talking about again?

What went wrong

1.) The AFO dice was cool… maybe a little too cool
Instead of using coins like we did in the first two Swords games, we instead used dice as our experience and PVP element. In the story, the Emperor melted all the coins of Orlandia into dice and made that the only currency in Orlandia. It was Peter’s idea and I loved it and wanted to keep it as I took over the game design. He proposed that players would roll dice and one side would have the AFO logo(the winning side, obviously) and that the players would love them. And they did; perhaps, a little too much.

From Peter’s blog. Lot’s of freakin’ pretty dice!

The dice were custom-made and turned out way cooler than we had imagined. We knew a case would come up where people wanted to collect dice for themselves. I had tried to devise many methods to encourage players to turn in dice regularly. Things like buying items to use in battle, paying to partake in quests needed to level up, and wagering dice in challenges with players. I would be lying if I said those elements solved the problem; it only slowed down the inevitable. 3,000 dice were ordered for the game – less than 100 remained by the time the game was over.

Luckily, it was AFO 10 and we could just say they were collectables and a “thank you” to the fans for supporting the convention this past decade.

In all seriousness, the main aspect of your game’s economy should not be the most desired aspect of the game. Even when players horde gold in MMOs, they plan to use it for something eventually and not keep it. In the feedback panel for the game, some players admitted that they would rather keep the AFO dice than spend it to level up or risk losing it in PVP. We decided afterwards to scale down to desirability of the next game’s currency so that players will use it to play the game more.

2.) Trying to be too different leads to over complication
We added many new concepts to Swords of Orlandia III. Dice rolling was the new PVP mechanic and the form of currency and experience. Players could buy epic weapons and epic mounts to buff their dice score in PVP. We had quests that involved game characters helping out. There was a lieutenant class for trustworthy level three players that we liked that allowed them to show leadership and give out quests. There were even Orlandia special events we held in the Raven’s Roost Tavern. Most of all, we tried to tie into the game’s story by having players help their side win by translating runic messages.

All of these new features were an attempt to make the game more interesting than last year’s. Last year, the more hardcore players complained that there was not enough content in the game which no longer became an issue with these new features. I also wanted to differentiate the third game from the others. Swords of Orlandia II was successful but I didn’t want to simply rehash it. However, there were so many new features that it could overwhelm someone who has never played the Orlandia games before and even veteran players had to adapt to new features and rules.

In an attempt to make the game bigger and unique than the previous iterations, the game became more complicated than it needed to be. I tried to hard to appeal to the hardcore players with many of these features but didn’t take new and casual players into consideration.

3.) Overuse of sending players to AFO events as quests
So the original point of this game was to get players to feel like they are playing a game by enjoying all aspects of the convention. Going to main events, meeting guests, and attending panels were the generic quests we gave out to players. In the better conditions of these quests, we could have time to find out what players liked and send them on “spy missions” to these events and report to us their findings for dice and other items. However, we ended up using this quest as a crutch when we would get overwhelmed by many players at the same time.

During the feedback panel, I wanted to defend the idea that the real point of Swords of Orlandia is to get people to enjoy the convention like it was a game. Before I could do that, a player of the game had something to say that made me think from their perspective better. He told us that he didn’t want to go to events for quests because he came in to the tavern because he didn’t want to go to the convention events in the first place. This feedback certainly noted as we craft next year’s game.

4.) New system for leveling up was confusing
Sometimes you should not mess with a good thing that works. Leveling up was one of those things. In the first two games, players earned experience through various means and then spent a specified amount at the town census to reach their next level. It was nice and easy and should have remained unchanged for the third game.

I got worried about dice shortages preventing players from leveling up. I tried to counter this method by with leveling up being handled through a special quest. Once players visited their generals enough times and completed some tasks, we would offer to send them on a quest to prove their worth to their army and increase their level by succeeding. They would be charged dice to do this quest either way. This risk of losing dice(that would become rare) with a possibility of no payoff(due to failure of the quest) made some players hesitant to want to level up.

Lesson learned, moving back to the old ways.

5.) Communicating with game and AFO staff
As far as staff communication goes, I only let a small group of AFO staff know all the information about the game prior to the convention’s weekend. Anyone involved in running the game, working on the storyline, or running the convention would be updated on the game’s plans.

I thought they would be the only ones who needed to know what was going on with the game but others(like the head of volunteers) should have been well-informed as well. There were also conflicts in the schedule that caused certain people and equipment to not be available for the game when I had hoped.

Anime Festival Orlando is a big convention and there is a lot more going on besides the game. This makes it hard for the head staff to keep track of everything. I am glad that they offer us who work on the game a tremendous amount of support. Luckily, next year’s game team will have the Director of Events on board so that communication will become more solid.

Communication could have been improved with more clear, quicker, and concise documentation. While all of the collected Swords of Orlandia III were printed into a 70+ mini-novel, the “Game Masters’ Guide” I wrote was even bigger. It contained everything about the game. EVERYHING! It was supposed to be used as a reference and cover everything from gameplay to storyline to tavern events.

More of this would have helped get the game rules across.

In more recent research on how to improve this, I discovered that some game companies keep their documentation of game rules separate from documentation covering all other aspects of the game. This will be in effect for future designs. Not only that, instead of explaining things in paragraphs, I plan to be more concise with bullet points, flow charts, and visuals. This may get many points of the game across better.

I could probably write more about this; however, that would make things seem more severe than they already were. The game was successful, but better communication amongst all parties would have improved the game’s quality and management.

Conclusion:

Working on Sword of Orlandia III and running the game at AFO was a blast! There were definitely some lessons learned that we can use for next year. We need to work on better delivery method of the game and story to the players and even the non-game staff of AFO. We also need to simplify the game rules so that the game is easier to jump into for new and casual players. By simplifying the game, documentation of the game should also become easier to read and understand.

In addition, the storyline during the convention needs to be more flexible so that the game’s progress can affect it like the storyline affects the game. This will connect the two better and improve the experience for the players. Most importantly, the currency can’t be the coolest thing about the game!

I am really happy with how Swords of Orlandia III turned out. The live-action game has become of a staple of AFO and has helped get the convention a stronger identity in a state where there is at least one anime convention occurring every month. Together, we succeeded in creating an interactive experience that no other anime convention in the area – no, the country – has.

Making a live action game and running it is a lot of hard work. Many people were involved with the design, story, production, and management of the game and it turned out very well, despite some problems. We now know what those problems are and many of them have already been addressed for next year’s game. I can’t tell you what will happen next year, but rest assured the lessons learned from this year will result in a better game at AFO 11.

Until then, look up to the skies!

Myself as Gamelon Umfraville and Waldo as Correns Lissossa

On Saturday morning at Anime Festival Orlando 1o, some guy came into the Raven’s Roost Tavern to interview myself and my student Waldo about the gameplay mechanics of Swords of Orlandia III. The discussion we recorded with him was used in one of his recent podcasts. I wish my picture for the article was better, but it’s cool to see some more coverage of the game. Thanks for interviewing us, Felix!

You can read the article at Primetime Geek here: http://primetimegeek.com/ptg-episode-40-anime-festival-orlando-x-edition

There were a lot of amazing moments from the weekend, especially within the game. We had a nice quest dynamic and did well with interacting with others. However, I wanted to share my favorite story with you all before I put up a postmortem.

Throughout the weekend, we had an adorable young girl, about 10, playing our game throughout the weekend. She was covered in fake blood and walked around with a miniature scythe on Friday and Saturday. She played our game quite a bit and was pretty recognizable to us because of that. Saturday afternoon, she had lost her scythe and was really worried about where it could have gone. She was playing on the team I helped lead, the Shadowfowl, and had asked me to help her find it. The Raven’s Roost Tavern at AFO was the obvious place to look but we could not find it. So we tried lost and found and asked some staff members there. After a few minutes, I knew that wasn’t going to work. So I told her to wait by lost and found while I ventured back to the Tavern, for I had an idea.

Many of my players were loyal and willing to follow my orders as the Shadowfowl’s commanding general. So I had assembled a task force with one of my appointed lieutenants to help find the scythe as their new quest. They searched the convention and eventually found the scythe and reunited it with her. I do not know where, but she had thanked me for what I had done. Not too bad for playing evil, if I do say so myself.

Swords of Orlandia III: The Khaz'Radan Prophecy

Anime Festival Orlando, the best anime convention in Florida, will be celebrating it’s tenth year in just two weeks! The convention takes place from July 30th to August 2nd in the Wyndham Orlando Resort on International Drive in Orlando, Florida. There will be lots of fun events, guests, karaoke, panels, and cosplay in addition to a big dance, a dealer’s room and a bunch of other cool stuff. AFO is the most action-packed of anime conventions in Florida in terms of fun. It is great for social anime fans to mingle and celebrate their fandom… and the even the social outcast posers that need somewhere to fit in.

Okay, now that I have sold you on the convention, I want to tell you my role with AFO 10. I am the head of the game staff and lead game designer on Swords of Orlandia III: The Khaz’radan Prophecy. It is the third and final entry into the annual medieval-themed live action game that takes place exclusively at Anime Festival Orlando. Registered convention attendees are welcome to play the game for free and we will have a lot of fun things for you to do.

New Features:

• A new cast of characters to interact with that will guide you on your adventure!
• Dice rolling PVP mechanic that you can use to win other players’ dice to use as experience!
• Epic Weapons that can increase the score of your dice roll.
• Epic Mounts that you can use to re-roll once in PVP battle.
• Translate runic messages that provide information key to your side winning the war
• New quests designed for a group of players to work together
• New Tavern games such as Bolo and Pin the Crown on the Monarch!
• New challenges that can be intense but always fun!
• Earn the rare position as lieutenant so that you can give out quests and represent your army in full pride and glory!
• An achievement system consisting of twenty different achievements that you can unlock throughout the weekend!
• Many fun Orlandia events such as Orlandia’s Got Talent!, Epic Poetry Jam, Battle of Orlandia, the Grand Raven’s Tournament and other opportunities to win experience dice and other items for your adventure.
• New player’s badge to help you keep track of your progress in the game!
• And much more!

So, what is it about?
Swords of Orlandia once told a tale of two royal brothers, Horus and Hesperus, who battled for both the crown of Orlandia and the love of the beautiful and fair Lady Raine. The first game pitted players against each other to help their chosen prince. Prince Horus won the final battle, with Hesperus believed to have been dead. Horus was crowned as king and took Raine’s hand in marriage. Seventeen years later, Hesperus returned to warn Horus’s son Validus to stay away from an insidious man that he had come in contact with and appointed as his sage.

In the events that followed, Horus was killed and Hesperus and Validus battled to get the most sword shards in order to reform the sacred swords Van and Nifl. These sacred swords were believed to bring the king back to life, according to a prophecy spoken by the sage. Validus thought that these swords would bring his father back to life; however, the sage was merely using Validus as a puppet and when he had acquired the sword shards and remade Van and Nifl into a single, ultimate sword, he revealed himself to be the true king of the prophecy! He immediately banished Hesperus to a void realm, killed Queen Raine, and taken both Prince Validus and the kingdom of Orlandia under his control.

A year later, warriors new and old will come back to fight for the new Emperor in his Shadowfowl regime, or against him by joining the Anarch resistance. The Shadowfowl are known to fight dirty, use propaganda, and abuse the weak in order to achieve their goals. The Anarchs, while underpowered in comparison, fight bravely to the bitter end, until Orlandia is free. While glory and honor await the Anarchs if they succeed, the Emperor has promised great wealth and power to those who help crush their rebellion.

How do you play?
When playing Swords of Orlandia III, you will get a game card that will be used to display your game progress. This will include your level, faction joined, your item inventory, and unlocked achievements. The main goal of the game, or rather its purpose, is to get you to enjoy as much of Anime Festival Orlando as possible. As you do this, you will gain experience dice that you can use to do standard PVP battles in the form of dice rolling, or cash in to buy items or level up.

You will meet characters in the game with ranks of general for their respective side, and as one of their soldiers, they will send you on quests around the Raven’s Roost Tavern(the game’s center of activity and bigger than ever!) and throughout the convention. Completing quests, whether solo or as a party with other players, will win you experience dice and other important items. These can be delivery quests, escort quests, ambushing enemy players in the hall and engaging in PVP, getting guest autographs and pictures, or going to various events around the convention. Remember, it’s not just about gaining levels and buying items; we want you all to enjoy AFO as part of your adventure!

There are a lot more quests than the aforementioned, but I don’t have the space to detail them all. In addition to player vs player battles and quests, you can take on challenges of cunning, bravery, or physical ability. These can be trivia contests, pushup contests, padded sword fights(if you’re over 18 and sign a legal waiver), chess, jalapeno eating, and even contests in the Village Arcade(a super awesome videogame room at AFO). There are also on-stage tavern games that deal with archery and tossing objects and other skill-based games. We will also have new contests like our new talent show, Orlandia’s Got Talent! and telling your tales of the weekend in the Epic Poetry Jam.

How do you win?
Good question! In the grand scheme of interacting in the game – by going on quests, doing challenges, playing tavern games and making new friends and rivals – it is all working to something. You will represent either the Anarchs or the Shadowfowl as you play the game. Therefpre, at times – especially as you reach level 3 – you will be given more  important quests and in accomplishing those, you will be rewarded with items like runic messages and glyphs to translate them.

The runic messages you receive may or may not contain information relevant to your side winning the war, but you and your comrades can work on them together to find the truth help lead your side to victory! The side with the most useful messages translated will be able to have the information they need to defeat the other in each key battle and win Orlandia. You can win these by reaching the max level of 3, and by completing important quests or by winning challenges and other tavern events.

Wow, that’s a lot of fun stuff!
Why, thank you! Both the game team and story team for Swords of Orlandia III have worked hard to bring you an excellent live action gaming experience at Anime Festival Orlando. Even if you never played a previous Swords of Orlandia installment or any other live action game, you will be able to jump in and play at your own pace and manage to have a wonderful time. You can either play this in-between your favorite AFO events and stops to the dealers’ room, or you can grind all weekend and get as much of you can out of the game as possible. Swords of Orlandia III is all about how YOU want to have fun at AFO.

So with that, the battle for Orlandia’s future begins on July 31st! Which side will you be on?

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Read all of the story chapters that lead up to Swords of Orlandia III!

The concept of the original Swords of Orlandia would motivate players to participate in various aspects of the convention that included going to panels and events. If they did this, they would be rewarded with plastic coins that they could use to level up and help their chosen side, whether it was the good Prince Horus or the dark Prince Hesperus, to determine who would rule the fictional kingdom of Orlandia and the heart of Princess Raine. Players earned the coins by attending events and panels or by solving riddles posted throughout the convention. They also had ribbons to show off their current level that they gained by trading in coins they have earned. The final aspect of the game had story events held at a few big events of the convention to get players interested in the characters they were supporting. Whichever side had the most players with maxed out levels won the battle of the weekend. Overall, the game was thin in terms of scope; however, the foundation was there for future incarnations of the game.

With Swords of Orlandia II, we(and by “we”, I mean some group called The Consortium which is really just four people and whatever friends they can get to help us out at the time) were tasked to develop the existing game mechanics to have more content. The main goal of the game has been to reward players with an increasing progression through a game by actually participating in the convention events instead of hanging around the hallways and doing nothing but paid loitering throughout the weekend. We assumed that it would be something that players would play for short periods of time in-between their favorite events and trips to the dealers room. We would soon learn that the game would be far more popular than that.

We created characters that represented the good of Orlandia, led by it’s new ruler Prince Validus, or they could be rebellious and side with the fiendish Prince Hesperus, whose true intentions were not revealed until the end of the show. These characters gave players quests and challenges to players in exchange for experience coins and we even had hourly tavern games and other competitions in a room dedicated to the game all weekend – the Raven’s Roost Tavern. A lot of quests and other content for players to earn experience were already pre-determined before AFO IX, but much more activities for players to participate in were made up on the fly.

For example, after the convention closed on Saturday night, there was a pool party at the hotel that was brutally epic(as it is every year at AFO) and I had quite a bit too much to drink. So when I had my hangover on Sunday morning, I came into the tavern telling a tale of how an evil wizard had cast a poisoning spell that clouded my mind and gave me a severe headache and that I needed to be cured. Several of the players went to get things for my like water and a couple even left the convention to get Tylenol from across the street. I exhanged the products for a nice amount of experience coins as opposed to real money. It was from there that we saw players took the game so seriously to the point that the fake money we were giving out at the convention started to form an economy where players bartered and traded money for services amongst themselves and even with us(I got a whole garlic chicken pizza this way). The experience coins were just as good as real money at AFO!

There were a lot of fun times; we sent players to fun events that they would not have gone to otherwise, and we held fun competitions over things such as push-up contests, thumb wrestling, arm wrestling, jalepeno pepper eating, anime trivia, and player vs player combat in the form of rock-paper-scissors. Instead of players maxing out to determine which side wins, players had to win shards from two legendary swords that were previously destroyed. The side with the most shards would win(or so we thought; the storyline team had other ideas) and these could be earned through special contests and contests held within the tavern. To keep leveling up relevant, maxing out earned a shard for a player’s side. Game characters such as the one I portrayed could also participate in these contests and try to win shards too.

Another popular aspect of the game that was popular was being able to purchase epic mounts after players maxed out to level three. They were simply printed stickers that they could put on their badge. Some were original designs and others where based on popular culture. We had players that showed great passion to cover their whole badges with epic mounts. They actually didn’t do anything besides let players skip through the halls of the convention. I suppose it could also be viewed as a way for players to prove their mastery of the game. We definitely are bringing epic mounts back along with epic weapons and both will serve a big purpose in player vs player battles.

The Tavern games we held had mixed results. We wanted to do a spoof on Pin the Tail on the Donkey by having something called Pin the Crown on the Prince. The idea was to blindfold players and give them a cardboard cutout crown with Velcro attachments and then spin them around. Then they would try to pin the crown on their sides prince, but they might actually pin the crown on the wrong prince! It was a fun idea but we could not get the portraits for the either Hesperus or Validus. We’re trying again this year. A lot of our equipment go damaged as well, due to improper care and the fact that most of our stuff was cheaply made. We had both a Nerf crossbow and a toy boy that we used to fire suction cup arrows at targets and both of those were broken before the weekend. We substituted with a Nerf gun but that took away some of the Medival feel. We also tried wind-up bike racers for a “chariot race” event but all six of those toys broke before Saturday night. I guess the big lesson from these misfortunes were that toys made in China aren’t meant to be played with. We had a much simpler time with games we made with random objects like tossing balls into marked cups or throw darts at a magnetic board.

Overall the game was pretty awesome. We had a bigger turnout than we had imagined and we expected people to play this game lightly only to see a noticeable amoung of players spend much of the weekend grinding through the game like it was their favorite MMO. This actually made it harder for us to think of things for obsessive players to do when all they wanted to do was play our game instead of enjoying the convention, which was the main goal of the game in the first place. We ran low on challenges and quest ideas for such players because they did practically everything. That’s very cool that they liked our game that much, but at the same time you can learn Karate from the Green Ranger at the convention! Come on people! I actually sent people on that quest and only half of them returned. What a monster training session! This is actually one of the biggest challenges we will have to overcome this time and I can confidently say that we got something good going on this year.

There’s a lot to be revealed for the upcoming Swords of Orlandia III. The game is going to be bigger and better than ever and we are going to reach a thrilling climax together! We have seen what people like about the game last year and what didn’t work. Therefore, we have been focused on what people liked more and there are a lot of new gameplay elements added into the mix. Not only that, much of our talented game staff from last year are returning to be a part of the action again! If any of you who played last year are reading this, then I hope that you are excited to play our game at the end of this month. The final chapter of Swords of Orlandia has only just begun!

AFO9 has some pretty cool guests this year too, like the American Green Power Ranger, Jason David Frank, and the voice and motion capture actor of Devil May Cry’s Dante, Rueben Langdon. A bunch of One Piece and Full Metal Alchemist voice actors will be there too.

Now I am going to plug what I am doing there. I have a couple panels and a manly anime trivia contest going on the late nights. During the daylight hours, I will be a Game Master for AFO’s Swords of Orlandia II live action game. It’s a fairly interactive game taking place throughout the weekend in which registered attendees of AFO can choose a good or evil alignment and then go on simple quests and compete in contests of skill to gain experience points and level up. Once a player has maxed out their level, they contribute a shard of last year’s broken swords to their alignment and the side with the most will win the day. Also, maxed out players will be entered in a raffle for some cool prize. I think the game will go well with the younger crowd and you will most likely find me at the Raven’s Roost Tavern, interacting with players.

Below the jump will be a listing of non-Orlandia events that I am hosting.

Manly Anime Trivia Contest

Friday, Midnight – Oleander B – Kent Ward, Mike Burgess

Shed those manly tears because there’s going to an anime trivia contest of truly epic proportions! No kids in orange jumpsuits pretending to be ninjas here! If you think stuff like Berserk and Fist of the North Star is the best stuff ever, then this is YOUR trivia contest!

Fist of the North Star Will make your head explode!

Saturday, 10pm – Marathon/Cedar – Kent Ward, Mike Burgess, Jacob Luke

WATATATATATATA! Fist of the North Star is the manliest thing that has ever come out of Japan, and will celebrating its 25th anniversary this year! Celebrate the glory and heroics of the End of the Century Savior, Kenshiro, along with the other legendary Hokuto brothers. We will share grand tales of true manliness of one of the most legendary and influential anime and manga franchises ever.

Demons and Schoolgirls: A Hentai Panel (18+)

Saturday, 11:30pm – Palm Salon H – Daniel Fandino, Kent Ward, Kristal Jones

While extremely popular in Japan, as evidenced by the copious amounts of hentai games, manga and anime that are produced yearly, due to its adult nature hentai does not have the same exposure or level of acceptance in the United States. Demons and Schoolgirls is a lively look at hentai incorporating discussion, clips, prizes and a few surprises.

Due to the nature of the material being discussed, this panel will be 18+ only.

That’s right! All my stuff is about violence and sex, the way it should be. See you guys at AFO!