-+@ Union @+-

No, no marriages here!



Art Credits:
Oracle J'Lith by Mike Angel
War Kiradan by Beth Zyglowicz
Sea Fird by Jeffry Ransom with backgrounds by Holmberg/Werner

Another 3 from Exodus Flight which I've not done too much work on since the last time I blogged. However since this would probably be the last chance I have to blog this year before the Grinch season sets in or something. Anyways, the art on these cards are OK, but I've been told a couple of times that the art on the TW cards that is still in the process of being designed are awesome. Then again, it's supposed to be, after all the lessons learnt from the last few sets.

I tweaked the forums today - moved two forums to a semi-hidden status. They are still there, but are hidden by default. It hides the clutter some. Also tweaked some settings on the VTES forum, but that shouldn't be too visible hopefully.

Talking about VTES, it went public today! Yay! Busy time at both the forums and both the chatrooms directing newbies new to the system. I know I said I'll stay away, but I guess I just can't help it. However, the turnout wasn't as huge as the turnout the first time the game went public on the engine. I guess the delays probably hurt the game a bit.

Oh, and a Happy to everyone. Happy New Year (if you observe that calendar) to y'all too!

-+@ Winter @+-

Walking in a winter wonderland...



Art Credits:
Ice Zyavu by Jen Reed, backgrounds by Rich Werner and Chana Goodman
Arctic Wind by Justin Gallaher
Icicle Hyren by Jen Reed, backgrounds by Matt Holmberg

Three more cards from Exodus Flight, which is the next set after TW. There's 3 Nar cards to fit the wintery theme of today's post. I did 2 of Just Gallaher's cards today for the RP sets eXodus and Dreamstorm respectively and the one from Dreamstorm wasn't too shabby so that got accepted into Exodus Flight, which is based on the names and the artwork from the first 2 RP expansions. I also spent a large amount of time going through the images again from those 2 sets and accepted 4 more cards into Exodus Flight. All the Exodus Flight images can be seen on the Custom Card site, of course - I just finished a quick update on the site with the new cards.

Today I felt inspired to start the first of the first 3 cards for Chimefall, the 3rd RP expansion. I've done 3 spells, all of which can be seen on Insiider. The art was by Alison Strom and all 3 were for Arderial. The cards aren't too bad and I like the idea behind the cards. It's a pity that none of the 3 will be going into Fallen Hour - that's the set based on Chimefall and Soul Conflict, and will be worked on after Ancient Enemy.

After the blog yesterday though, I was just too psyched up about the Universal cards, so I went ahead and posted the text up on the Twilight War forum. Nobody has commented on the cards yet, but I am going to say some of those cards can be extremely broken as they stand. They will need to be toned down a little bit before they enter playtesting. That brings it to 5 and a half regions completed. One more region and we'd be half way through the expansion.

There's only a couple of days left to the Double Jeopardy contest and it only has 5 entries. I'm not surprised. It's December and people are extremely busy. Likewise the tournament hasn't even had a single game reported, which is also expected. With the other free games though on the engine, there's a lot more to do than to play MND which costs tokens...

The MND at CCGWorkshop blog has also been quiet... I should put something up one of these day there for the end of the year thing or something. The other thing I would like to do is to add the MND customs infomation to the CCGW wiki. One of these days...

I've been playing some LotR, mainly with the revised non-solo Smeagol with Gollum as the shadow. I'm enjoying Gollum extremely at the moment, due to the ability to massively wound the opponents... and the fact that nobody is playing with Clever Hobbits. The game doesn't seem as healthy as it used to a year ago online, which is a sad state of affairs. However, they are still doing rather well, and have even picked up the tricks I've been using for MND - custom cards (only they call these online cards), design contests and the like!

Tournament wise though, I think the Final Twilight Tournament actually had some games played this week, although I have no idea how many were played. Things seems to be quieting down again though on that front. That game seriously needs someone to really push it and support it and I don't think I can do that. The best I can do is to make sure everything is as up to date on the engine as possible.

I had a look at the staff page on CCGW and was surprised to see that Ed has taken up Co-Lead for Frank's Zoo. I guess that deserves a Plates Post update. I'm still listed there as being the Co-Lead for Sailor Moon as well, eventhough I have never had that post throughout the history of the game. I think Ed just wants to make my list look a whole lot longer. The other person who has an "orphaned" Co-Lead is Kev with Galactic Empires. With Gray out of the picture, he's gone back to being a full lead on that game.

Talking about Kev, I wonder if he'll use the holidays to finish up Monkeys. I hope he doesn't get stressed too much over monkeys though. It is best if one is really enthused about coding before beginning, but that's a luxury more than anything else. Hopefully, he'll get everything ready before the end of the year as a surprise to everyone.

Martin still seems to be busy on VTES, and there's just a couple of days to go (or less). I wonder if there's a large group of people hanging around the chatroom there. Probably not, since the initial playtesters seems to have lost interest in the whole thing. Oh well. Hopefully the server will be able to take the influx of the expected large numbers of players later on Monday!

-+@ Voodoo @+-

I assure you, black magic this is not.



Art Credits:
Twilight War by Werner/Gillette/Goodman
Harp of Time by Vido/Nov
Keeper's Quest by UIEvolution

All 3 cards produced today for the upcoming Twilight War. One of them is the Univeral card for the 100 card set. The other 2 are promos that's going along into the set as well. With these cards, the only 2 images left for TW are the 2 d'Resh ones and that's 98% of all the card images done so far for Twilight War. Things are moving along... and moving along faster than I had expected.

The harp took way too long to colour and looking at it now, it doesn't hold a candle to what an image for a card should be. Ah well, it will have to do. The pencils is by a new fan artist who draws excellent with pencil on paper, but who haven't coloured anything yet. Based on that image, I'm not sure I want to colour the rest of his pencils though - I doubt I'm doing his images justice. The nightvision image for Twilight War by contrast too about 5 minutes to do and I really do like the effect there. Of course, it's an existing image so things were much easier there. And for the first time, an image from a computer game actually made it on a card. That's the Keeper's Quest opening screen from the game of the same name. I had to edit it slightly to remove the "Press Start" notice, but it doesn't look too shabby overall. I'm happy with the images though and they should be going up onto the engine next year.

I'll also have to go back and fill in the promo for Shadowsfall, since that is the only expansion without a promo at the moment. I wasn't going to do a promo for the promo expansions, but DJ sorta scampered that and now that I've done KQ, I might as well go back and do SP. Haven't found any images for that yet, but there's no rush... if anything the promo for that will be going together with Ancient Enemy, which is 2 big expansions away (after TW and EF).

The Custom Card site also had an update, if only to add on the above 3 cards. Moved the old news to the Old News section as well, and next year, I'll probably have to move the old news to the 2005 news archive. The other thing on the website is a notice for the Springfield MND tournaments - that's still going on with a moderate group of people which is good.

Things are beginning to pick up for MND though and people have asked me if I'm printing the custom cards - the answer is no, and even if I were, I can't make money off them because that's just wrong. There's nothing stopping someone from printing the cards out, sticking them onto some spare commons and using those in games though.

The two big things on the engine is the release of VTES in a couple of days time... that's going to be fun watching a huge number of people play the game finally - and it's all for free as well during the first month. That's just so awesome. Hopefully the WW people are satisfied with all the work that Ed and Martin has done.

The other thing that's been going on at the engine is that the Experience Points system have finally taken off. People are being drawn to games like Wheel of Time just for the free tokens. That's especially good for exposure for the game. Mark has added XP to some of his games as well and that's another good thing IMO. The current list of games with XP according to the WGO are Aquarius, Endeavor, Grave Robbers, Fluxx, Summer Camp and Wheel of Time.

On a quick note, are CCGs dying? WotR laid off 15 middle management personnel - probably some restructuring fo sorts, but that's not going to inspire confidence in an investor. AEG has had trouble releasing L5R and Decipher has cut down to a core product of two games. When some of the biggest names are shedding excess baggage, one has to wonder what's happening in the industry.

Nevertheless, there's a number of new games being announced for next year. Battlestar Galactica by Wizkids, World of Warcraft by Upper Deck and Godzilla and Stargate, both by Comic Images. I'm looking forward to Stargate out of those 4 mostly because I wonder how Comic Images is going to pull the game off. BG though might prove interesting as well.

And my top picks for this year's games would be Anachronism by Tri-King games and Full Metal Alchemist by Joyride. Neither are doing rather well though, but both have a hardcore group of players to keep the game going. Hopefully, one or both of them will get onto the engine soon.

-+@ Backlash @+-

Ouch!



Art Credits:
Melt by Holmberg/Gillette/Werner/Nov
Tundra Weggit by Werner/Gillette/Goodman/Ellenberger/Nov
Frost Burn by Nov/Holmberg

These are, for a change, the TW cards. Nar was the region posted today for review today and I know at least one person is going over them already. That brings it up to 5 and a half regions that has had cards designed for them. Not too shabby, I guess, on that score.

All the above was possible only because I did the Tundra Weggit a few days back and Frost Burn today. I know the Frost Burn has much to be desired and is probably the card with the worse art of the set. Oh well, not much I can do there since it takes an existing TG suggestion. With those 2, that finally means that Nar has all card art. 3 more cards left to do for TW - 2 d'Resh ones and a Universal relic.

That reminds me, I've got to add promo for Twilight War - actual cards with those names - at some point. Double Jeopardy already has the card in-built to the set, so that's one thing done. Elder's Legacy has its card and TG has Taint and Glimpses. SP and KQ didn't have promos for the set name, but they were promos themselves anyways and not a full expansion. It is nice though getting back into the thick of designing MND cards.

However, I think the tournament is dead though. There's hardly anyone around. That's to be expected. There are also a lot of new players and I've seen Tim and Christoph guiding them on. That's a good sign - dead games needs advanced players who can guide the new players into the game.

Minor update on the custom card site with the 2 new cards, but that's also to be expected. Nothing new there, nor any news on the MND front. I think the players are making more of the news than the actual company is... what with fan cards and tournaments an stuff. Then again, the company is dead (or something close to it) until the cartoon airs anyways.

B5 also has the second set of preview cards out for the next expansion. Times are busy I guess... or people (except me) have way too much free time as the holidays get nearer. I have no idea if the cards will even be good or not since they are for the Narns, a faction I don't really know how to play. I left my comments and it will probably be taken though. 2 other people leaving comments on the cards. Not too shabby.

Aquarius went public today. So that's 5 games for Mark this year. He's getting good at coding games and is getting quite a bit on his plate. He seems upbeat about it too. He's gone on to adding stuff for GRfoS and then it's on to his first board game. Heh, it'd be funny if he finishes that this year too.

Tony added XP to WoT today. I guess it's easier to determine victory in WoT than in B5. It's good that his games are getting noticed. He's even got the wiki pages, rules and logos and all, up and ready for both his games. I wonder what game he'll work on next. Probably something with the images already scanned in or something.

I worked on the wiki today too, adding in a bit about how to keep Norton Internet Security fully functional while running the engine. It was a lot harder than it looks. I guess I don't have the knack for techie technical writing. Oh well, we can't be good at everything.

Martin is still busy getting VTES public in... oh, about a week. I think people's adrenaline is going up as the date gets closer. Lots of new people checking out the existing engine to find out how things work and stuff. It will be a crazy day for Martin and Ed. Ah well, I should be away by then hopefully. I'll have to remember to stock up on garlic though.

-+@ Threshold @+-

Threshold of what? Heh heh!



Art Credits:
Clay Hyren by Jen Reed, background by Alison Strom/Whyrl
Himsmr by Cody Shipman
Circling Hyren by Jen Reed, background by Matt Holmberg

Another 3 cards for Exodus Flight. I've got people asking me when I'm starting work on that already. Well, I'm not going to even think about that until TW is in playtesting. Talking about TW though, there has been lots of activity centred around the 3 regions that have been reviewed so far, and I know people are working away busily on the other regions. This is going to be fun.

Hyborian Gates finally has the cardlist added, and even as I type this, the images are being uploaded to the server. All that's left are the dice and markers, the special stuff for the game and it'll be ready for release. Maybe a 1st Jan 2006 thing? Heh right... who knows?

I added the Yukk! rules onto the CCGW wiki today. While there, I noticed that people were posting the rules directly onto the main game pages, so I setup guidelines on how the game pages on the wiki should be structured. I have no idea if anyone will even follow those rules with the exception of myself. Anyways, when I do get the time, YNDT, Hamlet and Elemental will be getting their pages setup as well at some point in the future.

Oh and I just noticed that Mark has added the Aquarius rules to the wiki recently, so I wonder if that means the game is ready for release soon. I think he still has the final few bits of things to tweak before he's ready to make it go public. Well, if he does that would make it his fifth game this year, a record for him. Only myself, Tomi and Martin has done more games a year.

Ed posted that he made some changes to 7Sea and it seems good that the game is getting changes in more than just card images. I'm going to guess it's finally catching up with B5 and WoT. All it needs now is custom cards and something unique to it. Whee.

I only noticed that Alex has been made a shepherd instead of a PL, so I have to update the plates post. Bah! More work. And while I'm at it, I need to update Go Fish at some point as well. Maybe today... maybe later? well, that's the defination of s**n anyways.

Martin must be busy tweaking VTES in preparation for its big day in the sun. 8 more days to go give or take half a day due to the engine being on Central US time. Hopefully Ed will post up a time as to when the whole thing will launch as well. I'm going to have to hate telling the Australians and Europeans that it's not the 19th yet in the US...

-+@ Spartan @+-

Which will describe this update...



Art credits:
Forest Xamf by Reed, background by Holmberg
Flame Sarazen by Reed, background by Allen
Winter Narth by Zyglowicz

Another 3 images from Exodus Flight... it's looking at a late 2006 script, early 2007 playtest, mid 2007 release. That would be a good thing. The flavour of the moment though is Twilight War which has finally moved off the back benchers/burners and onto the afterburners for the extra boost. As of today, Underneath, Arderial and Cald all have text suggested and is out for peer-review (or vexing) to make sure that people are happy with the text and (to a lesser degree) the cards. It's perking up excitement among the regulars though, which is always a good thing. It's looking at a 2005 script, early 2006 playtest, mid 2006 release. I best finish the last 5 images before then.

The MND at CCGW blog has also been updated to publicize the new set that's being designed. I wonder how many people actually read that site these days... probably not a lot besides Dartax (grats on being a father BTW!)

The other MND thing that's been going on is that I have finally got the missing VotS images from Rules Team member Brad Vereb. They've been uploaded to the site and everything is all peachy now... well, at least for VotS. That finishes out the official card section. I still have to update a EL card to correct the artist though. One of these days... or maybe later.

Next up on the site though would be either the fiction or the calendars. Those 2 will probably go in tandem. I actually did the January 2006 a few days ago... although that's not going up until the end of the month or the beginning of next month. I wonder if anyone is getting excited about the fan-made calendars the same way that they used to get excited about the calendars. Probably not a lot.

Someone asked me if they'll be able to get experience points for MND. Well, I gave a cheeky answer instead. They were after the tokens more than anything else and as I pointed out on the engine's chatroom, there are 3 ways every month (go figure them out) to get tokens... we don't really need a fourth unless the number of players increases.

Talked with Nate earlier today about the Twilight tournament. Nobody has signed up yet according to him, although, again according to him, online sales are good. I wonder what that means though. I still have a few more images to colour there as well... one of these days...

VTES is still feverishly gearing up for its release... well, not in the next couple of days but a week before brussel sprouts and light the pudding on fire day. Ed and Martin are probably working flat out there.

B5 is gaining steam as Bruce finally finds his B5 legs in designing cards after a number of us gave his first draft of Centauri cards moderately bad reviews. The revised versions are better though and if it's indicative of the things to come, then Dying Races will live up to the standards of the previous two fan made expansions, if not exceed them.

Otherwise things are quiet... on the surface it seems. I had to update the plates post the other day because a number of PLs were "retired" due to inactivity. That left one game "orphaned" and a few other games in development being scrapped. Oh well, such is life. That brings CCGW down to something like 17 PLs as opposed to a high of 31 a couple of years back, almost halved the all time high. I wonder are the current PLs doing more work either quality or quantity wise (or both) more than the 31. Probably so...

-+@ Diva @+-

New Month, new surprise!



Art Credits:
Grass Chogo by Jen Reed, backgrounds by Matt Holmberg
Onyx Ithapher by Beth Zyglowicz
Mystic Uban by Austin Gardner

My how time flies. The three cards above are from my store of Exodus Flight images... I barely have time to do any MND custom cards at the moment so I'll have to rely on the store of cards.

Some quick MND news - Freigabe won the November MND tournament with a Core deck. He also played the most games and is one of the strongest supporter of MND on the engine. Hopefully he'll continue in form this month for the wacky December tournament. This month's tournament though is the 2 vs 2 format. It has been decried that it would be little played and I hope that is not the case. Still, the die-hards will probably have a go at it hopefully so I'll see how things turn out there.

Freigabe has also sent in a TG playtest report with a few recommendations which I agree, so they'll get added in next MND update. I wish more people were posting playtesting reports. Well, there is only about a couple of months before TG playtesting ends anyways.

The last of the DJ custom card contest has kicked off and things are going rather fast for a change. I have no idea if it's the last card that's spurning everyone or the card topic that is doing the trick, but all in all, people seem to be rather excited about this last card. Hopefully some good suggestions will come out of this.

Ed has got a really cool tournament system in place and hopfully Nate will use it for the Final Twilight tournament. I have no idea when that is running yet, or if anyone is even playing Final Twilight as of late. The 6 new cards doesn't expand the game too much, but it does add a large percentage of cards to the game... I think in the region of about 20%. The game needs more cards to grab attention though - it feels a bit like a boxed game at the moment as opposed to a CCG.

I'm still waiting for Aquarius to go public - I know Mark has been hard at work and I know he has got a few roadblocks, but they seem minor and hopefully he'll be able to work around those soon. Will that be the final game of the year on the engine? I hope so.

Tony meanwhile was busy incorporating the ranking system into Fluxx. It just got announced on the WGO so I guess the new build finally supports it. I wonder if Tomi will incorporate it into Yahtzee next. Hmm...

Martin is way too busy with VTES in anticipation for the release...tomorrow! Eep! Big day tomorrow on the engine. Lots of last minute bugfixes from the playtesters too. Hopefully things will go smoothly tomorrow.