Highmoon's Ponderings

My name is Daniel M. Perez, owner of Highmoon Media Productions, and producer/host of The Gamer Traveler and The Digital Front podcasts. I have been a freelance author since 2001 and an e-publisher since 2004, and I am offering all the various skills I have gained during this time on a freelance basis to fellow gamers, authors and publishers.

Services I can provide include:

• Proofreading and Copyediting – I have a BA in English and previous editorial work during my academic years, as well as being the editor for all material published through HMP.
• Translating – I am fully bilingual English/Spanish and have college-level writing training in both languages.
• Development – I have experience developing gaming products and/or lines, taking them from concept to final form, handling freelance contracting and art direction, helping authors get the most out of their work.
• Graphic Design – I can do graphic design for web and print, including logos, banners, business cards, postcards, electronic and print layout, image correction and other graphic solutions. I will always tell you if a particular job is within or beyond my skill.
• Web Design – I can create basic websites that highlight elegant simplicity over flash, whether in HTML or via a CMS. I can also manage existing sites as well as social network sites and/or help you make the most of your current web presence.
• Podcasting – I have two years of experience producing podcasts and I can help you with information or with the creation of a show suited to your needs.
• Consulting: Judaism for the Game Designer – I can provide assistance in getting the details right whenever you include Judaism (in any facet) in your project. I specialize in Orthodox Practices and in Jewish History, but I can help out with other areas of Jewish knowledge as well.

With any of these services, please feel free to ask for references and/or samples. You may view my recommendations at LinkedIn, and you may see some of my work online already at www.highmoonmedia.com, www.thegamertraveler.com, www.thedigitalfront.com, or www.chabadnorthbayvillage.org.

Rates are negotiable on a client-by-client basis and decrease when combining multiple services.

Please feel free to email me at daniel@highmoonmedia.com for more information. I’m looking forward to helping you make the product you want.

We got this product for review on The Digital Front some time back, but unfortunately Mark’s time has been taken up by real life stuff, so it ended up lingering in the electronic closet of gaming books. I had taken a look at it a couple of times since getting the download, and when Richard Leon (of Dark Skull Studios, the publisher) emailed me if I had had a chance to look it over, I took the opportunity to give it one more look and write up some feedback for him, which I now share with you.

Overall I think they have a very intriguing game in New Gods of Mankind. The premise is that you play a new deity as it begins to make its mark on the world and gather followers to create a cult, and thus power. At first I thought that this was along the lines of Godsend Agenda or Scion, but the fact that you actually get to play an actual deity at a period of time when such a paradigm makes sense (the game is set in this world’s early bronze age, when the elder races are still strong, but humanity is starting to become a major force in the world’s dynamics – in short, the perfect time for the titutlar new gods of manking to be making their power plays in order to raise their protected race, and themselves, up in influence and power) is a lot more compeling. I have a soft spot for ancient/bronze age settings, so they hooked me here, and the world they have described seems very appealing, very Hyborea-like, with all the cool pulp fantasy elements that entails. I think, actually, it’s one of the books strongest points.

Playing a deity is not something that calls too me as a gamer, I do have to admit, but I must say that the character creation chapter could very well stand alone as the centerpiece of a great supplement on the creation of deities for a homebrewed campaign. It covers all the right elements to leave you with a well-rounded, complex deity to drop into your world; no cookie-cutter gods here, I assure you. Dark Skull would do well to grab this chapter out and make the supplement I suggest, because it would be of great use to a wide variety of gamers, and would help expose others to their game.

To up the cool factor once more, the book includes a chapter on playing New Gods of Mankind as a board game, effectively giving you two games in one. At $9.95 for the PDF, I think this is a great buy, even if only for the setting and deity creation material in case you’re not looking for another game.

Fans of Scion and Godsend Agenda would do well to take a look at New Gods of Mankind. You’re already familiar with playing a character at this level of power, and hey, why not play an actual deity instead of an avatar?

This came up on my local news feed:

Mayors Want To Turn Florida Into Two States

NORTH LAUDERDALE (CBS4) ? The City of North Lauderdale is taking a tough stance on home rule, and because of this they are spearheading an effort to split Florida into two states. They have passed a resolution, asking that a boundary line to split South Florida from the rest of the state be drawn at the Palm Beach County line. They’re taking it so seriously that they want counties in South Florida, such as Miami-Dade, Broward, and Monroe to join in supporting them.

Read more.

I’ll be very succinct: YES, PLEASE!

South Florida is a very different place than the rest of the state, yet we get lumped in with the rest. I say cut us loose and let’s get our own state going!