~ Novelty's October... and plans for November ~
I'm doing this one day early, because tomorrow I've got a whole ton of other stuff to do, being the end of the month and all. Last month's report can be seen here.
Shepherds
Six new shepherds signed up this month. Two of them didn't even last a week, the other 4 are still going strong shepherding Kult and DoomTrooper. I wonder how successful they'll be when both those games go pay to play. Well, we'll have to see.
gNet BOT
Doug has been asking all sorts of questions of the BOT, which has been filled so far. He's promised not to ask stupid questions which is a relief because I don't want to BOT to answer anything that's not CCGW related. Some of the answers might need to be redone again though... things are so fluid in the world of CCGW.
Forums
Three new forums were added this month - VS System, WS Legends and Checkers. Nothing much new there due to the server move, but hopefully a few cool things will be done on there. Shepherds are showing up as purple now in the forums. That's one way of differentiating them from the rest of the populace. I hope they appreciate the set apartness.
Games
This was a moderately busy month for me and quite a number of games had updates. As usual, I'll only be reporting on the games that actually had upgrades.
AVPVT Aliens vs Predator
There were some minor wording inconsistencies which got fixed. Also some of the dice were working properly and those had a quick fix as well. The interesting thing is that this game *is* getting played, although I've not had any comments about it yet.
BORD Borders
The Reverse Card has now been added to Borders for multiplayer mode. This finally completes the game I guess and after a few plays, I think it should be ready to move to "Now Playing" status. The handling of a few other things were also upgraded to be a little more efficient.
BOWL Bowling
The images of the game is still being developed and the file is halfway coded. Expect a November release.
CHECK Checkers
This was the distraction for the month. The game is now fully playable and is waiting for Ed to make space on the server to load it up. Possibly an October release, but more likely than not it's going to be a November release.
GOFSH Go Fish
Five new cardbacks added to the game, but otherwise, there's nothing new here.
MND Magi-Nation Duel
The usual background change to Paradwyn was done at the beginning of the month and it seemed to be rather well received. Sqwik and the Hyren were interesting eye candy. The Shadowsfall Promo custom cards had a minor upgrade to make them more playable, and a new SP card was added - a Nar Shadow Magi.
PAD Portable Adventures
This was the major update for this month and quite a few interesting things happened. Linda got automated to count the number of males in the group, with a manual reset if and when required. The interactions of Billy and Females as well as Dwarphs and Urks were upgraded and automated so that most of them will trigger automatically when played, even during the adventure phase. The long awaited Next and Pass buttons have been added and one of them doubles as the Current Player icon in the game. The game now determines the first player randomly (if allowed to) and sets the remaining player in the order of which they joined the lobby. This concludes the possible beta work on Portable adventures. There is the possibility of automating Encounter cards during adventures, but that would be left until a future date.
RVRSI Reversi
This game got played quite a bit and someone discovered an end of game bug which got fixed. It still does throw up all sorts of errors when ones computer or internet connection is too slow though. Can't make any workarounds there though.
URLND Urland
Martin posted a tip on how to make circular cards and this was incorporated into Urland so that the chips in hand now show as circular.
WS Wildstorms
Wildstorms now has fully automated mulligan and together with autoplay battlesite, the setup phase is almost completely automated. All a player needs to do is to determines who goes first, change the orders and reveals the battlesite.
November 2004 Plans
Now that I don't have to worry too much about PAD, let's move on to the other things that needs attention.
I think I have too many undeveloped games on my plate, so Bowling and possibly Hyborean Gates should get more attention this month. Bowling should be ready for beta at the end of the month, while Hyborean Gates as a "no frills" should be close to that also by the end of the month.
Babylon 5 needs, as a minimum the update to the Vorlon cards to finalise it, and the colour should be changed from olive to blue. All the cards need tweaks in the display to make the cards displayed on the engine to be closer to real life cards, including repositioning the pips and upgrading the influence cost football icon. Another thing to look out for would be bold text on the cards. I have an idea of how that could be done, but it'll need some work. That would take a major amount of time.
MND needs its usual monthly upgrade, and I might throw in another SP card - there's only one more that I have anyways.
I do have an idea for a distraction for this month, but really, Bowling should be done and ready before I get myself distracted. The game I'm thinking of is something from my childhood though and the rules are a bit fuzzy now, but I think I still have the gist of it.
The regular optionals - Go Fish cardback updates and scanning Triple Triad will still be retained for the month.
So, prioritised for the month:
1. Bowling - get playable 15th November, public by 30th November
2. Hyborean Gates - Scans by 10th November, alpha by 30th November
3. Babylon 5 - Vorlons text updates and display upgrades by 7th November.
4. MND update - Background by 4th November, custom cards ongoing.
O. Add Go Fish cardbacks when available.
O. Complete Triple Triad scans.
O. Babylon 5 automation for replacement and initiative
Remainder of 2004 Plans
Aliens vs Predators (AVPVT) - It's "low tech" and "no frills" and it's out there. There are no plans to develop it any further unless the player pool can demonstrate that it can have about 100 games played a month consistantly for 3 months. It's also the first of my "no frills" games up for offer to any AvP fan who'd like to become a Project Lead (or a Co-Lead).
Babylon 5 (B5) - The rest of the year would be to figure out automations for Babylon 5. Still on the list of things to do is the automation for replacement and the automated influence tracking and automated initiative determination. Those would take quite a lot of time that I'll have to schedule to be set aside.
Borders (BORD) - Nothing more to be done in Borders. Ed has asked for icons on the special cards, so maybe those will get an update, but probably not this year.
Bowling (BOWL) - There shouldnt' be much work on this once it goes public, but I won't know until then what has to be done on it.
Checkers (CHECK) - This is another "no frills" "low-tech" game at the moment. It would probably get upgraded once I have the time, motivation and ideas, but for now it's playable and that would have to do.
Elemental (ELEM) - The tidal wave automation has long been outstanding. I think it's possible to do this now, but the script is going to be rather complicated. No schedule for this. Not a high priority since the game works well without the automation and I don't want to introduce something that would introduce errors. It will be done when I can find the time and the motivation.
FastBreak (FB) - The game is beginning to feel a bit "low tech" now, eventhough it did have a few innovations (when it was first made). Could do with more playtesting and more inprovements, but until I find the time and the motivation, this isn't going to be done anytime soon.
Go Fish (GOFSH) - What do you do when the game plays well and is bug free? Nothing I suppose. However, it'd be getting a minor facelift soon - a tiny crab will be added which will allow an 5 more players to play the game simultaneously. I doubt we'll ever get 13 players into a Go Fish game, but who knows? The schedule is undetermined at the moment, and it's not high priority. It could be this year, it could be the next. As usual, cardbacks will continually be added to this game.
Hamlet (HAMLT) - There really isn't much to do on this simple game except more playtesting... and perhaps a tournament or two. Hamlet is one of the few of my licensed games I'll consider ready for Now Playing status.
HumAliens (HALN) - The game is dead, but there's still work to be done. Hopefully, the New Order would be an Online only expansion and the schedule has been moved back to December, due to low gameplays of the game.
Hyborean Gates (GATES) - Hopefully this will go public in December now and after that who knows what is to be done. It's going to be another "no frills" "low-tech" game though so it might lie fallow until someone with more enthusiasm and ideas comes along to take it over.
Magi-Nation Duel (MND) - Custom cards are still ongoing and I think people are rather used to the gameplay. The only other thing that can be done is to track how energy is gained and used up. However that is a monumental task since every card does it differently and there are many modifiers... which means it's not going to get done. I think I might also add in something to shuffle all creatures back into the deck for Dream Rift. That's as much automation as I'd be doing...but not this year.
Portable Adventures (PAD) - After the adventure automating, the other major area would be Encounter cards. I have a rough idea of how to automate these, but they seem rather inconsequential to the whole game, so they might not get done until I get the time and the motivation. In addition, there are two card sets that will be added near the end of the year so those will get priority when they are available.
Quartet (QUART) - More playtesting is needed on this game. Not much improvements will be made until further playtesting is carried out.
Reversi (RVRSI) - nipa needs to add a left click to place piece ability, but that's of extremely low priority. nipa is also extremely busy with a whole host of other things.
Triple Triad (TRIAD) - Scanning has started, but I have no idea when I'll have the time to do this. Hopefully it'll all be scanned by November. I only have 1 - 90, so if anyone wants to scan in the rest of the 18 cards, for me, they are most welcome. Please PM me for more details.
Urland (URLND) - It could use some scoring automation at some point in the future, but not this year.
Wildstorms (WS) - Nothing much can be done to fully automate setup until after Bug has got the next build out the door. Also, next year I add my custom StormWatch expansion.
Wildstorms Legends (WSLS) - This is a next year sort of game. Nothing will be done this year.
Wildstorm: Set 1 (WSS1) - The WSS2 update is still planned, although it hasn't gone ahead. The game also needs and auto-score if the defender wins. This will be done with the WSS2 update. ETA: Next year.
You Need Drew's Truck (YNDT) - I'd like to automate moving the truck, and automate the initial placements of the donuts. Not this year though, unless I get the time.
Yukk (YUKK) - This game feels rather low tech. After working on Portable Adventures, I think it's possible to put everything in one view... but again not this year.
So a monthly summary:
November - B5, BOWL, GATES
December - GATES, HALN, TRIAD.
No more new licensed games for me this year - I've got the New Orders expansion for HumAliens and the 2 new sets - Iron Maiden and Firestorm - for Portable Adventures, so that will definately take ages.
I have actually decided on which of the licensed game I'll do next year, and have got approval from BugLaden. Watch this space next year.
Quarter 1 2005 Plans
Just pencilling in for next 3 months of 2005 for planning purposes:
January - PAD, WSLS, URLND
February - B5, WS, YNDT
March - WSS1, FS
Shepherds
Six new shepherds signed up this month. Two of them didn't even last a week, the other 4 are still going strong shepherding Kult and DoomTrooper. I wonder how successful they'll be when both those games go pay to play. Well, we'll have to see.
gNet BOT
Doug has been asking all sorts of questions of the BOT, which has been filled so far. He's promised not to ask stupid questions which is a relief because I don't want to BOT to answer anything that's not CCGW related. Some of the answers might need to be redone again though... things are so fluid in the world of CCGW.
Forums
Three new forums were added this month - VS System, WS Legends and Checkers. Nothing much new there due to the server move, but hopefully a few cool things will be done on there. Shepherds are showing up as purple now in the forums. That's one way of differentiating them from the rest of the populace. I hope they appreciate the set apartness.
Games
This was a moderately busy month for me and quite a number of games had updates. As usual, I'll only be reporting on the games that actually had upgrades.
AVPVT Aliens vs Predator
There were some minor wording inconsistencies which got fixed. Also some of the dice were working properly and those had a quick fix as well. The interesting thing is that this game *is* getting played, although I've not had any comments about it yet.
BORD Borders
The Reverse Card has now been added to Borders for multiplayer mode. This finally completes the game I guess and after a few plays, I think it should be ready to move to "Now Playing" status. The handling of a few other things were also upgraded to be a little more efficient.
BOWL Bowling
The images of the game is still being developed and the file is halfway coded. Expect a November release.
CHECK Checkers
This was the distraction for the month. The game is now fully playable and is waiting for Ed to make space on the server to load it up. Possibly an October release, but more likely than not it's going to be a November release.
GOFSH Go Fish
Five new cardbacks added to the game, but otherwise, there's nothing new here.
MND Magi-Nation Duel
The usual background change to Paradwyn was done at the beginning of the month and it seemed to be rather well received. Sqwik and the Hyren were interesting eye candy. The Shadowsfall Promo custom cards had a minor upgrade to make them more playable, and a new SP card was added - a Nar Shadow Magi.
PAD Portable Adventures
This was the major update for this month and quite a few interesting things happened. Linda got automated to count the number of males in the group, with a manual reset if and when required. The interactions of Billy and Females as well as Dwarphs and Urks were upgraded and automated so that most of them will trigger automatically when played, even during the adventure phase. The long awaited Next and Pass buttons have been added and one of them doubles as the Current Player icon in the game. The game now determines the first player randomly (if allowed to) and sets the remaining player in the order of which they joined the lobby. This concludes the possible beta work on Portable adventures. There is the possibility of automating Encounter cards during adventures, but that would be left until a future date.
RVRSI Reversi
This game got played quite a bit and someone discovered an end of game bug which got fixed. It still does throw up all sorts of errors when ones computer or internet connection is too slow though. Can't make any workarounds there though.
URLND Urland
Martin posted a tip on how to make circular cards and this was incorporated into Urland so that the chips in hand now show as circular.
WS Wildstorms
Wildstorms now has fully automated mulligan and together with autoplay battlesite, the setup phase is almost completely automated. All a player needs to do is to determines who goes first, change the orders and reveals the battlesite.
November 2004 Plans
Now that I don't have to worry too much about PAD, let's move on to the other things that needs attention.
I think I have too many undeveloped games on my plate, so Bowling and possibly Hyborean Gates should get more attention this month. Bowling should be ready for beta at the end of the month, while Hyborean Gates as a "no frills" should be close to that also by the end of the month.
Babylon 5 needs, as a minimum the update to the Vorlon cards to finalise it, and the colour should be changed from olive to blue. All the cards need tweaks in the display to make the cards displayed on the engine to be closer to real life cards, including repositioning the pips and upgrading the influence cost football icon. Another thing to look out for would be bold text on the cards. I have an idea of how that could be done, but it'll need some work. That would take a major amount of time.
MND needs its usual monthly upgrade, and I might throw in another SP card - there's only one more that I have anyways.
I do have an idea for a distraction for this month, but really, Bowling should be done and ready before I get myself distracted. The game I'm thinking of is something from my childhood though and the rules are a bit fuzzy now, but I think I still have the gist of it.
The regular optionals - Go Fish cardback updates and scanning Triple Triad will still be retained for the month.
So, prioritised for the month:
1. Bowling - get playable 15th November, public by 30th November
2. Hyborean Gates - Scans by 10th November, alpha by 30th November
3. Babylon 5 - Vorlons text updates and display upgrades by 7th November.
4. MND update - Background by 4th November, custom cards ongoing.
O. Add Go Fish cardbacks when available.
O. Complete Triple Triad scans.
O. Babylon 5 automation for replacement and initiative
Remainder of 2004 Plans
Aliens vs Predators (AVPVT) - It's "low tech" and "no frills" and it's out there. There are no plans to develop it any further unless the player pool can demonstrate that it can have about 100 games played a month consistantly for 3 months. It's also the first of my "no frills" games up for offer to any AvP fan who'd like to become a Project Lead (or a Co-Lead).
Babylon 5 (B5) - The rest of the year would be to figure out automations for Babylon 5. Still on the list of things to do is the automation for replacement and the automated influence tracking and automated initiative determination. Those would take quite a lot of time that I'll have to schedule to be set aside.
Borders (BORD) - Nothing more to be done in Borders. Ed has asked for icons on the special cards, so maybe those will get an update, but probably not this year.
Bowling (BOWL) - There shouldnt' be much work on this once it goes public, but I won't know until then what has to be done on it.
Checkers (CHECK) - This is another "no frills" "low-tech" game at the moment. It would probably get upgraded once I have the time, motivation and ideas, but for now it's playable and that would have to do.
Elemental (ELEM) - The tidal wave automation has long been outstanding. I think it's possible to do this now, but the script is going to be rather complicated. No schedule for this. Not a high priority since the game works well without the automation and I don't want to introduce something that would introduce errors. It will be done when I can find the time and the motivation.
FastBreak (FB) - The game is beginning to feel a bit "low tech" now, eventhough it did have a few innovations (when it was first made). Could do with more playtesting and more inprovements, but until I find the time and the motivation, this isn't going to be done anytime soon.
Go Fish (GOFSH) - What do you do when the game plays well and is bug free? Nothing I suppose. However, it'd be getting a minor facelift soon - a tiny crab will be added which will allow an 5 more players to play the game simultaneously. I doubt we'll ever get 13 players into a Go Fish game, but who knows? The schedule is undetermined at the moment, and it's not high priority. It could be this year, it could be the next. As usual, cardbacks will continually be added to this game.
Hamlet (HAMLT) - There really isn't much to do on this simple game except more playtesting... and perhaps a tournament or two. Hamlet is one of the few of my licensed games I'll consider ready for Now Playing status.
HumAliens (HALN) - The game is dead, but there's still work to be done. Hopefully, the New Order would be an Online only expansion and the schedule has been moved back to December, due to low gameplays of the game.
Hyborean Gates (GATES) - Hopefully this will go public in December now and after that who knows what is to be done. It's going to be another "no frills" "low-tech" game though so it might lie fallow until someone with more enthusiasm and ideas comes along to take it over.
Magi-Nation Duel (MND) - Custom cards are still ongoing and I think people are rather used to the gameplay. The only other thing that can be done is to track how energy is gained and used up. However that is a monumental task since every card does it differently and there are many modifiers... which means it's not going to get done. I think I might also add in something to shuffle all creatures back into the deck for Dream Rift. That's as much automation as I'd be doing...but not this year.
Portable Adventures (PAD) - After the adventure automating, the other major area would be Encounter cards. I have a rough idea of how to automate these, but they seem rather inconsequential to the whole game, so they might not get done until I get the time and the motivation. In addition, there are two card sets that will be added near the end of the year so those will get priority when they are available.
Quartet (QUART) - More playtesting is needed on this game. Not much improvements will be made until further playtesting is carried out.
Reversi (RVRSI) - nipa needs to add a left click to place piece ability, but that's of extremely low priority. nipa is also extremely busy with a whole host of other things.
Triple Triad (TRIAD) - Scanning has started, but I have no idea when I'll have the time to do this. Hopefully it'll all be scanned by November. I only have 1 - 90, so if anyone wants to scan in the rest of the 18 cards, for me, they are most welcome. Please PM me for more details.
Urland (URLND) - It could use some scoring automation at some point in the future, but not this year.
Wildstorms (WS) - Nothing much can be done to fully automate setup until after Bug has got the next build out the door. Also, next year I add my custom StormWatch expansion.
Wildstorms Legends (WSLS) - This is a next year sort of game. Nothing will be done this year.
Wildstorm: Set 1 (WSS1) - The WSS2 update is still planned, although it hasn't gone ahead. The game also needs and auto-score if the defender wins. This will be done with the WSS2 update. ETA: Next year.
You Need Drew's Truck (YNDT) - I'd like to automate moving the truck, and automate the initial placements of the donuts. Not this year though, unless I get the time.
Yukk (YUKK) - This game feels rather low tech. After working on Portable Adventures, I think it's possible to put everything in one view... but again not this year.
So a monthly summary:
November - B5, BOWL, GATES
December - GATES, HALN, TRIAD.
No more new licensed games for me this year - I've got the New Orders expansion for HumAliens and the 2 new sets - Iron Maiden and Firestorm - for Portable Adventures, so that will definately take ages.
I have actually decided on which of the licensed game I'll do next year, and have got approval from BugLaden. Watch this space next year.
Quarter 1 2005 Plans
Just pencilling in for next 3 months of 2005 for planning purposes:
January - PAD, WSLS, URLND
February - B5, WS, YNDT
March - WSS1, FS
posted by Novelty @ 1:12 pm
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