-+@ Left for Dead @+-

Well, I'm not dead yet. Really. And I'm going to be a bit more "chatty" in today's blog because, I'm tired of technical writing.



3 cardbacks? Yup, I got a pack each of X-Men, Raw Deal (Base Set) and Star Wars (Decipher) - Death Star II expansion two weekends ago. Got them for cheap from the markdown bin as well. I have no idea how to play any of these games, and the only one that is on the engine is Star Wars, although I wonder how long will it last on there since even Decipher it seems have stopped supporting it. Hopefully for a long time more to go.

I haven't really been doing anything interesting for CCGW - sure, there's the usual forum maintenance, the BOT question clearing, some FPN and WGO updates, but otherwise life is quiet.

Unlike Tomi, who's been busily updating his games - almost half of his games got an update over the last weekend alone - both the Doomtroopers, Kult and Yahtzee. Even Reversi got a quick update over the weekend to move it forward to the new engine. As always I am grateful for the work he does, particularly that on Reversi.

Martin has also been a busy ghost as well, updating VTES within 24 hours of the complaints. It seems to be a full time job there, and I'm glad that I'm not doing it, because I simply don't have the time or the patience for that sort of thing. Still, Martin is the best person for the job and he's doing a great job supporting the game. I think Ed should just plop down some money and hire Martin on a semi-permanent basis just to handle VTES.

Mark has also been busy. There was Sideshow, then Summer Camp and now Endeavor has been made public on the engine all in time for Origins. Not only is the engine the main draw, but there's also a demo event of Endeavor at Origins too. Whew. Talk about dedication. That's the type of busyness that I can symphatise with.

Kev is still trying his hardest to get Monkeys out before Origins. I hope he meets his deadline. I know the frustration he's probably facing as he tries to hurries up, yet with all the "improvements" in the engine, it seems that for every step one gets closer to the goal, the engine takes 2 steps - eep! Well, the black queen said it best in Through the looking Glass, the sequel to Alice in Wonderland - if you want to get anywhere you'll have to run twice as fast.

Well, running fast isn't something JC has to worry about ever since he got his Mille Bornes public on the engine. I've yet to play that game - too many things to do, too little time, but from what I can see, he's got a custom expansion up there in record time as well. To quote Inspector Gadget - "Yowzers!"

Even Nate is gearing up for the big summer Con season. There's this new Community Service for Final Twilight and an entire rules update due (which has my name in the opening credits, so thank you Nate). He buzzed me a few days ago to warn (if that's the right word) me that the new expansion will be ready in July. Eep! The details are already available on the website. Time for me to get busy too.

So what have I been doing? Well, I've been like the hare in the parable of The tortoise and the hare, I've been napping while the tortoises are going slow and steady. But blegh, if they wanna win the race, I'll cheer them on, I'm not trying to win races, I'm just here to adapt games.

I've got a YNDT playtest up in about half an hour - I actually fixed most of the defects from the last playtest 2 weeks ago today and I hope it holds water with all the extra oomph that I've put into it. Give me another 6 hours or so and I'll probably close the noose and fully automate the entire game. Yes, the engine has gone that far. When I first started working on YNDT, nothing was possible except the very basics. Now I find that everything is possible, if I can only imagine the code for it. It's too bad nobody is playing it much though, I even updated the rules today to fix all the typos and stuff in there.

And there's always a MND section. No, I haven't done anything yet. Today is the last day for the signup of the tournament and I doubt I'm going to get the "quorum" required for the tournament, so I'm going to let it pass. It's a pity though. I've yet to find the time to actually get Twilight War into shape, let alone work on Double Jeopardy, and there have been people (OK, one person, and his name is Doug) asking about DJ already. Oh well, like everything, they'll just have to wait until I have more time. It's nice though to know that there are people actually waiting for my custom cards.

The end of the month is coming up soon and the madness for that time period will certainly consume me. Let me be the first to predict that even with the 100 players, VTES, being completely free at this closed beta phase will take the top spot of being the most played game. Not only that, I'm sure it'll also be the game with the most defects reported this month, since the players are going crazy there. That might be a good thing for Origins too.

As for my own goals... well... I'll doubt I'll meet any of them, which means I'll have to push everything back to July and delay everything for a month. Whee, that should be fun... not.