Ladies and Gentlebeings, today
is the day!!!! Welcome to the Arenas and happy birthday Ophidian Fans!
Fifteen years Gregg, Raffi and
Shaun, three high school friends from Queens, New York, had a dream to bring
change to the game industry they loved. At the time I sat down to write this
letter, I thought retelling their story to the world, but that was already made
five years ago, and you can check that if you already haven’t here, and then you also should read the words of the current Lead Designer
from Hack and Slash Games’ Ophidian 2360 Jason here as they are a short of complement to each other.
But that leaves a huge gap in
the Ophidian history, and today I will tell you what happen to our Game in the
years between…
The year was 2003, more
precisely August, and as I was reading my favorite magazine at the time… Scrye Magazine... yes,
the 24 years me grabbed all card games magazines that I could find here in
Portugal. You see at that time, without internet and all the things that we
have today, those things were complicated to access here where I live, and the
magazines would come with the delay of a month, not that I cared, as I devoured
them with ease…
But that number, the one from
July had an article from an upcoming game that left me with the WOW feeling…
almost as that game was something that I’ve waited my hole life for!!! As it
featured Aliens, Robots, Demons posing as Gladiators in an intergalactic
Arena!!! I was hooked even before having the game in my hands, but I will come
to that later on… for now you can read the full article here (and sorry for not being able to upgrade that to the blog but I will do
it soon).
Moving on… After reading that,
I run to call my Gaming Stores here in Lisbon to see if they would get the
game, and guess what, not even one, and at the time we had at least 10 in the
neighborhood) knew about it, nor they weren’t interested as their main focus
was Magic, Warlords and Pokemon, everything else was a risk to order.
I didn’t give up, I continued
pressuring them almost every week, until a new article came in Scry now with a
review for the game, and one wich gave it 5 Stars on gameplay. Yes, Ophidian
was the only 5 Stars gameplay that Scry gave to a game during its curse of
life! You can read it here. But even that Wasn’t enough to get their attention, So I did what a 24
four years old teen do, as soon as I access to internet I contacted Ophidian
Inc. to see if they would ship to Portugal.
I don’t remember how that
ended, but probably the shipping was way to expensive and made me give up, to a
point… As I continued going to the Ophidian website every time I get to an
internet access point and in December Raffi made a writing contest… I entered,
and I won!!! The prize was having my story published on the site… But for me
was much more, I might not have access to the cards, but I surly would have
access to the Universe, as I started making some fictions on their forums, and
one that was so acclaimed that they integrated it into the Official Lore (you
can read it in the Fictions section of our Blog).
And that was the beginning of
my volunteer work for Ophidian Inc., at a point on 2004 I started managing all
the fan material that were submitted to them, from Fictions to Sets, and I
managed to put together 5 new Expansions Sets to the Base Set card pool.
Currently I am reviewing those Print and Play Sets, in order to correct some
grammar errors, sorry for that and make some errata as some cards are really bad… But more on that in the future…
Moving on.
One day,
I received a thank you packed from Ophidian Inc… with a thank you note from
Raffi… and two player introductory deck plus a deck and a booster boxes inside,
I almost cried… (well, I actually did cry tears of joy, but moving on) as
finally I had the game on my hands… From those I managed to collect a full set
and make some decks that I still have today.
Unfortunately,
in middle 2005, life interfered and I placed my games aside… And that was the
second death of Ophidian, as at that time I was the sole one that still cared
enough to make it go… And it stayed that way until I discovered Facebook, back
in 2009, when I created the Ophidian Games Facebook Page in August, and then in December 20, I officially created the
second Ophidian Brand with the release of Ophidian 2355 RPG Facebook Game was
released! The first (and only) Facebook Game Application that expanded the
Ophidian 2350 Universe to another level!
After
that a lot happened, as Carl, one of the originals playtesters and designers
created with my help a new Brand Ophidian Wars back in 2014 and in 2016 the game was licensed to Hack and Slash Games
that created the Ophidian 2360 Brand and are producing the upcoming Galactic
Warriors Board Game!
As for me, I am still consulting Hack and Slash Games
with the lore from time to time, and I am proudly involved in this universe
that I am part for almost 15 years. So, from me, you can expect to discover
or rediscover the Ophidian Multiverse with rerelease of our Fictions (every
Wednesdays) and the release new and old Gladiators Bios (every Fridays), with more content
being released as soon as I get the time to edit it and update it to the new
revised blog. By the way you can access some of those now by going to https://ophidiangamesrevised.blogspot.com.
And that’s all for today, at least from me, if any of
the guys want to give it a shout they are more than welcome, as this is already
a long post!!! If you are reading this till the end you have my thanks and the
promise that I will continue making this universe out into the world no matter
what the Brand we are talking!
Hugo Ferreira
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