4FxGames.com - Background Information

Vision

4FxGames is a game production and selling business that uses common game elements. “4Fx” is a short form where the Fx, in other industries, stands for “special effects”. Therefore, “4Fx” is a short form for “4 special effects”.

The launch of this production house comes with a www.Kickstarter.com family friendly game called “The Great Turkey Escape” (TGTE). Timed to launch with the Canadian and American Thanksgiving, this themed game is based on each player being a “turkey” that is trying to escape from a grocery store. This light theme gives it a light hearted feeling that has some significant “euro style” mechanics that makes this a game that can be quickly learned, but quite a while to master. Ultimately you are playing card games to earn points to move your turkey through a maze. The first one to exit the board has escaped successfully.

TGTE uses several of the 4Fx mechanics: (1) custom card deck for the card bidding game, (2) custom dice and (3) a modular map system. In the future other 4Fx components will be launched with other games throughout the year which will take the core mechanics up to four in 2014.

Why?

As an inventor, marketer and salesman I’ve learned that at both work and play, you need to evolve to live and thrive. When considering games, I have always found myself wondering “that mechanic is not much fun, why didn’t they do it this way?”. Thus, after many years I started to develop a game system that was unique and addressed the many “gripes” I had with other game systems.

First gripe: flexibility. When playing games that are very structured sometimes the rules make it impossible to get more out of the situations. The card game “War” is a good example, in that you are forced to only do “one thing” (draw a card, then see who has a higher value). Why not provide more flexibility?

Second gripe: linear-alities. Ok, work with me on this. Many games have a linear process, where one player has a turn, then the other person. Many war games and card games follow this process, and I find it to be very boring. Worse still, what if you get stuck playing ahead or behind someone who is … challenging? Too often I have played with some real card sharks. So how do you deal with that? Well, at the end of the game you move. But for the several hours you are stuck in the game, you are trapped to endure that person’s playing style. Why not change the direction of play. Better still, why not steal their seat or move?