Real-life Monster Investigator Ben Radford To Release A Board Game Based On His Research

SEATTLE - May 21, 2013 - PRLog -- Scientific paranormal investigator, author, and deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer magazine Benjamin Radford spends his days debunking mysterious creatures including lake monsters, the Hispanic vampire el chupacabra, and Bigfoot. But for the past year he’s been spending his nights combing through monster folklore and bringing zombies, vampires, and werewolves to life in a new board game called “Undead Apocalypse: War of the Damned” which will launch on the popular crowdfunding site Kickstarter in early June.

Radford is no stranger to game design; he created the satirical cult classic “Playing Gods: The Board Game of Divine Domination” in 2008 which featured historical deities battling for world supremacy.

“Folks kept asking me about a follow-up to my first game,” Radford explains. “I wasn’t sure whether or not I was going to design another game, but then I came up with the idea for Undead Apocalypse and it sucked me right back in to game design. I got really excited about bringing a new mashup twist to monster-themed games, using the rich history and lore of these creatures to enrich the game.”

In Undead Apocalypse, each player controls one of four groups of the undead (and nearly dead): zombies, werewolves, vampires, and humans. Each faction has its own abilities, strengths, and weaknesses—based on the real-life folklore that Radford researched. Players lead their troops to scavenge food, weapons, and other resources left behind in the post-apocalyptic wasteland and battle each other for world domination.

Although this is Radford’s first Kickstarter campaign, he’s recruited veteran game designers and crowdfunding experts from Trouble Brothers, LLC to help him design the campaign. “We’ve got some very fun aspects to this fundraising effort,” says Radford. “Anyone who pledges any amount—even one dollar—will get a print-and-play PDF version of the game within the first week so they can see the rules and even playtest the game. We also will reveal extras and stretch goals as more people support Undead Apocalypse, so contributors play a role in the development of the game and campaign.”

The team has commissioned original art and highly detailed sculpted miniatures to enhance the exciting game play. Radford and his team plan to unleash Undead Apocalypse on the world this Halloween if their crowdsourcing efforts are successful.

About Ben Radford (www.undeadboardgame.com)

Benjamin Radford is one of the world’s few science-based paranormal investigators, and has done first-hand research into mysterious phenomena in sixteen countries on four continents including psychics, ghosts and haunted houses; exorcisms, miracles, Bigfoot, stigmata, lake monsters, UFOs, crop circles, and many other topics. He is perhaps best known for solving the mysteries of the Santa Fe Courthouse Ghost in 2007, and the chupacabra in 2010. Currently, Radford is deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer science magazine and a Research Fellow with the non-profit educational organization the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.

He is author, co-author, or contributor to 21 books including Lake Monster Mysteries: Investigating the World’s Most Elusive Creatures and Tracking the Chupacabra: The Vampire Beast in Fact, Fiction, and Folklore. He is also co-host of the award-winning MonsterTalk podcast and a regular columnist for LiveScience.com, Discovery News, and Skeptical Inquirer magazine. Radford has appeared on Good Morning America, the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, the National Geographic Channel, the Learning Channel, CBC, BBC, CNN, among others. His work has been featured in many publications including the Wall Street Journal, Wired, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, Outside, and Time.