-+@ Look What You've Done @+-

What have I done indeed...



Art Credits:
All 3 images by Justin Zastrow. Background on Macah (originally Machlady) by myself.

Those were the 3 magi I did for EF a few days, or was that almost a week ago, and they are all based on Just's art. I think those magi aren't too bad really and EF does need a slew of magi to complete the images. I also photoshopped a spell but it didn't turn out too well. Added it anyways just for the fun of it. Just for my record again.

Exodus Flight: Still collecting images, the status of each region are as follows:
Arderial: 1 spell, 2 magi, 6 creatures, 3 relics. COMPLETE
Bograth: 1 spell, 2 magi, 6 creatures, 3 relics. COMPLETE
Cald: 1 spell, 2 magi, 7 creatures, 2 relics. COMPLETE
Core: 1 spell, 2 magi, 7 creatures, 2 relics. COMPLETE
d'Resh: s spell, 1 magi, 7 creatures, 2 relics. NEED 1 magi
KT: 1 spell, 2 magi, 8 creatures, 1 relic. COMPLETE
Nar: 1 spell, 7 creatures, 1 relic. NEED 2 magi, 1 creature/relic
Naroom: 1 spell, 2 magi, 6 creatures, 3 relics COMPLETE
Orothe: 1 spell, 1 magi, 7 creatures, 1 relic NEED 1 magi, 1 cretures/relic
Paradwyn: 6 creatures, 2 relics NEED 2 magi
Underneath: 1 magi, 2 creatures NEED 1 spell, 1 magi, 7 creatures/relic
Weave: 1 magi, 6 creatures, 2 relics Need 1 spell, 1 magi, 1 creature/relic
Universal: 1 spell, 1 creature, 2 relics Need 2 creatures/relics

Someone asked me if they could help out with Core and/or Weave for TW. While all help is welcome, I think for the time being, I'd like to keep those regions open because of the following reasons:

1. some of the artwork of those regions has string attached to the text of the card - i.e. I can only use the image provided that certain conditions are met. I will have to fulfil those conditions, most of which revolves around the text of the cards.
2. the cards being submitted by most people (Naroom by yourself and Orothe by malovis being prime examples) are very much devoid of an explicit war theme. This will have to be made up for in the other regions, particularly Core and Weave.
3. I want to have some regions that are available for someone else who may be interested in card design who may have unique ideas for the game. Although they won't be able to have free go at most of the cards due to the first region, there's at least half of the region generally available - of course, they'll have to be even more strongly supervised to enforce the War theme.
4. There's also a bunch of left over suggestions from Tainted Glimpses that I have yet to browse through and see if any will fit for Core or Weave.

Instead though, I pointed him to EF. The cards there needs a once over and suggestions for updating or revamping some of them are always welcome. Some of those cards are broken, others are a bit too bland, and still others aren't compatible with the CCG. Quite a bit of work text-wise is needed there as well.

Mark has started on Attack I think. He's gotten to the scripts so that means all the other stuff - board, cards, etc. is already coded. That's way in advance for a licensed game. He blogged about it too... I think. I wish I can work as fast as him or Martin who seem to put in insane hours everyday on their games.

I'm talking with Tomi online about his trooper group which is still playing so many years after the demise of the game... well, the demise of the publishing of the game. It was started by a train of thought about "legacy" games which there are still players playing... and making custom cards for those games. The Helsinki troopers have done a lot for Doomtrooper, and some of their customs are even on the game creator's official website. Others that I've had the pleasure of knowing and working with include Jason Roosevelt (Wildstorms), Bruce Mason (Babylon 5) and HC O'Neill (Rage). Other games to have notable custom sets after the game has been discontinued (publishing) include Star Wars with its player committee, Dune, Spellfire, Mythos, Doomtown and recently I've seen someone has been adding Wheel of Time customs to gEngine.

-+@ The Well @+-

Wishful thinking? Perhaps not...



Art Credits:
Forest Primeval by Rich Werner
Briny Deep by Rich Werner / Chana Goodman / Matt Holmberg
Evergreen by Matt Holmberg

These were the 3 cards I did the other day for EF, with the text versions for Chimefall. The latter can be seen on Insiider. I did 3 more cards (templating) for EF today, 3 magi, and I'll show those here some other day. I did update the website though, so they can be seen there for now. With those 3 it means that 127 cards out of 150 and 6 regions out of 13 are now complete for the expansion that's only scheduled to be (re)designed late this year.

Meanwhile for TW, the expansion that's going up for playtesting in just under 3 months time, the remainder of the Naroom cards have been posted bringing the complted regions to 8. I'm still waiting for BobbyDoc for the remaining half of KT, and I've got to do Paradwyn and d'Resh. Weave and Core are still up for grabs at this point, but unless I can find someone better, I'm going to do those as well.

Otherwise, I haven't been doing too much CCG stuff due to real life stuff intruding. But hey, real life stuff takes precedence over CCG stuff. I did however edit the Alphabet Game post today to update it for the latest round. That game is still trying to survive after the loss of the forum, but there are people who are enthusiastically posting there and playing with it.

Ed added Function buttons to the engine a while ago (along with a whole host of other things) and Martin has since incorporated them into VTES. I had a look at them yesterday. They were slick. It does give me inspiration to tweak a few of my games to do the same thing as well. We'll see what I can come up with.

HC O'Neill posted the January Rage tournament on the forums today. I echoed that announcement on the front page of CCGW. Instead of the new Rage ad, I used the other new Rage ad that's on the server. This one is a bit more complicated, but it does say "When will you Rage?" or something like that. I wonder if anyone gets drawn into the game with those ads.

Talked with a CCG-fanatic about Anachornism today. Apparently it's supposed to be available online, provided by World's Apart according to a quote in the TriKing games forum. It's January but there's no online version... yet. It's still early though, there's 18 more days left in January.

I also tried looking for spoilers for LotR's next expansion, Rise of Saruman. Nothing released so far, and I wonder if the design team has even started designing the cards yet. There's a contest on LotRO to design cards for it and 10 suggestions from LotRO will be used in the expansion. I guess the 10 that's been selected looks pretty bland so far, mostly Timmy cards as can be expected.

I did see the fact that Stargate SG1 might be getting a TCG released this year by Comic Images. That's interesting news. I wonder which season they will base the cards on and if they will use the Atlantis stuff as well. One can only speculate so much of course. I think Comic Images must have reached some sort of agreement with Genio, the (Brazillian?) publisher of Myths and Legends as well, because both that game and SG1 (Genio formerly has the rights to produce the TCG of SG1) will be under Comic Images, at least in the US. Who could have figured that Wrestling could make enough money to subsidise another 2 games...

-+@ It's Time You Begun @+-

but begun what ... that is the question...



Art Credits:
Woven Cloak by Scott Montgomery, background by msyelf
Coal Mask and Toxic Mushroom by Beth Zyglowicz

Another 3 cards for EF, this time though, relics. And I just realised that I have only 4 days worth of images left before I run out. Ah well, back to the good old days when I have to worry about images after that. I either have to make more... or use non-MND cards. So I decide to template a few more cards for EF today, and the corresponding cards for eXodus and Chimefall. Whee!

It's been a busy day for MND for me today. First off Mitch sent me the Orothe card suggestions for TW and they were good. So that had to go up on the Custom Card forum as a first draft for people to comment. Not many Orothe players though it seems, but that's another reason done at least, which leaves 4 more - Paradwyn, which is mine, Core, Weave and d'Resh - and two half regions - Naroom and KT which are only partially done. Hopefully those can be done in time for a March playtest start.

The exception though would be the winner of this month's MND tournament who will get to pick a region to be added to the engine in February for a preview playtest. I hope that will get things going... but it might not. We shall have to see what happens there.

The Custom Card website has also got an update today. The conclusion of the Double Jeopardy contests means that all the Double Jeopardy cards can now be added to the website. While I was there, I added the scan of the Ancestral Flute "controversy" with a note. That would help people make up their minds.

Patrick Miteff sent me the full scan of Book of Ages issue 1 today. I didn't even ask him to do it, he just submitted it knowing fully well that I intend to add it to the Custom Card site. I guess that's the good thing about him - he's so eager to push the site as well, but he did have a huge part in creating it as well. Consequently, he's using the images from there on ebay, but that's something I really don't mind too much... I think.

I clipped the Hyborian Gates scans that I scanned in yesterday - they look good. No coding done on those yet, but I hope to get them in sometime this week. I hope to finish Hyborian Gates this month as well if I get to work fast on it.

Haven't worked on anything else otherwise, and there's no more games that I would feel comfortable adding the experience points system to. But that doesn't mean that the announcements on the front page of gEngine will stop. Today I bumped up 2 of them and reinstalled a third. Of of those which got bumped is the B5 league weekend announcement.

B5 League weekend starts tomorrow engine time, so that's something to look forward to. To make up for not having one last month, this month's weekend is double time - it lasts for 4 days instead of two. It's a pity I won't have time to play though. Oh well, maybe next month. I still haven't played a league game.

And Bruce has been adding cards for the next B5 expansion. Minbari came out early this week which, although didn't exactly wow everyone, seems to be very well received. There are some gems there mixed in with everything else though so it's a bit hard separating the chaff from the curds (see "how to mix idioms"). I haven't had time to go through them yet though, but I should given that I'm an OK-ish Minbari player... self-declared and all...

-+@ Tub of Terror @+-

Go Fish?



Art Credits:
Blade Eebit by Beth Zyglowizc
Conscript Vemment by Holmberg/Vega/Nov
Canopy Flist by Beth Zyglowizc

Yes, two of those cards are dated 2006. They were the ones I did a few days ago and so I thought I should show them here before the week is through. It's amazing how changing the colour and the background and adding multiple copies of the same creature can change a creature so much - compare the Conscript Vemment with the normal Vemment and it'll be obvious what I did to get that card. The other 2 are Beth's images and she's getting even better as she gets older - the eebit was one of the earlier images, the flist is a very recent one. Constrast the difference there.

Having said that, I haven't done anything MND-wise since the last blog so there isn't much to say. OK, I fib. Patrick Miteff messaged me to tell me that my MND demo cardlist was missing a card, so I added it into the site. That's about the only MND thing that I have done recently besides a minor correction to the website and talking to Mitch about his share of the TW cards. Well, that's not a big thing that I did with mal, I just reminded him gently that I was waiting for his card suggestions.

Secret game is now on the engine, but it's all hush hush and all so I can't say anything. I had a whole lot of problem uploading all the images last night to the server since the connection was intent on disconnecting. In the end I just gave up and waited until today to load up the images. Ed asked for the rules, so that got uploaded as well. I haven't done any coding wise there, but it needs a bit of graphic work for counters and markers before I can code them in.

The other game I worked on (finally!) is Go Fish. Added in all the cardbacks that I have and updated the plates. I wanted to add in Hecatombe as well, but I'm not sure if the engine will be able to display a pentagonal card. There's always a tile I suppose, but all that effort just for one card... I don't think it's worth it. Since I don't have an image of Hecatomb anyways, it was just an intellectual debate, and I didn't head over to search for a cardback.

One of the things that got added to Go Fish was the XP system. This was a lot harder to do in Go Fish because it is such a mature game compared to all the others. Mature as in coding wise, not target age wise. I had to compromise a bit on the code, but the players will be happy - they get more XP in certain conditions, all because I took shortcuts with the code.

And of course the spamfest continues. Today's was the announcement about Go Fish getting its tournament system. Not a big deal there. There are two ads already available for the game so there wasn't the need to create one. I chose the safer ad, but with a catchy title. Hopefully it'll entice people to play.

Of all the games I've added XP to these last few days though, only Bowling has seen some play. The rest has been rather lethargic due to the fact that they cost tokens, which is a pity. For anyone who can scrounge up 10 silver tokens, they could get all 10 silver tokens back if they play 10 games of Yukk and are lucky. Hmm... maybe the XP system needs a revamp? But wait, if they used the 10 they've just earned to play another 10 and win all 10, they get 15... and if they use that 15 to play 15 games and win just 10 of those, then they get 20... so the system rewards someone who plays a whole lot more of one game. That's not too bad. No revamp needed for the time being.

(OK, I fib again. I just checked the results and Reversi also had an increase just today. I guess those announcements do work!)

I updated the plates post today - after all, that's what the Go Fish update is used for. I can't believe I haven't updated some of the images on the plates post in 2 months. That's a long time and... well, only 1 game have been released in that time... it doesn't sound like a lot but it definately is a lot. The main thing that happened during that period was VTES going live (again).

With the success of the VTES engine, Ed's got ideas for other separate engines. That sounds intriguing... I wonder what will he come up with. Well, the best way to make money would be to combine it with something that makes money on the web - eeewww... porn engine just came to mind. I hope that's not in the works.

Mark just told me he's gathering materials for Attack! and he's working out in his head how he wants it to be coded. That's a smart way of doing it - it's his first boardgame after all. I'm sure it'll end up to be this singing and dancing (literally, with sounds and automations) adaptation of the game at the end of the day. I am looking forward to that one. That would be his 11th game - it's hard to imagine that he's almost touching a dozen games.

I dont' think I have mentioned that Eric posted in the forums that Judge Dredd seems to be malfunctional. I couldn't repeat that and neither could Tomi. I wonder if it's something else... nevertheless, it is good to see him working on something on the engine again, even if it's only Dredd.

That's not the major thing on the forums though. There was a SWD player who claimed harassment from another player and the other player claimed it was a concoted fake. I have no idea who to believe so I asked them to sort it out in private and locked the thread. Really though, airing their dirty underwear in public like that... I had expected better from SWD players.

And to end on a high note, I just finished scanning in a few things for Hyborian Gates. Now that the XP games are out of the way (the only other game where it's feasible for me to add XP is Quartet, but that is currently in a big mess, so it'll have to wait until the weekend when I can "clean house"), hopefully I can finish up Hyborian Gates (if mystery game doesn't get in the way). I also have a hankering to finish photographing (yes, with a camera - the chrome cards can't be scanned) WSS2 cards to create the WSS1 expansion. Ah good times ahead! Busy ones too, at least for me.

-+@ Barrel @+-

of Monkeys?



Art Credits:
Retrefer by Alison Storm
Alia by Beth Zyglowicz
Greev by Alison Storm

Three magi for EF on display above. I'm particularly fond of the Greev image by Whyrl. I was busy a few days back so I decided to photoshop a card for EF. Conscript Vemment was the result and that will be shown in the trio above some other day. While there, I templated a few more cards for eXodus and Chimefall and consequently some more cards got added to EF. Since that was the case, the website got updated to showcase the new cards for EF (so you can view the Conscript Vemment there). So that means EF Arderial has all the images now and Paradwyn is one creature less.

I've been playing a whole lot of LotR recently since I seemed to have gotten into the groove of testing out Gollum with my non-solo Smeagol. It is still work in progress, but one newbie got really frustrated by it since I wiped out all his hobbits on site 6. It's bad news when one doesn't have condition discard.

Tomi has also been getting into the groove as well - Doomtrooper got updated on the same day and there was quite some buzz regarding the new tournament and the new tournament system for the tournament. It is good to see the troopers outnumbering the jedi for a change.

Meanwhile, I've been spamming up the main page of CCGW with all sort of news, but hey, those things are newsworthy IMO... well, except for the MND one that was put up today. There has been at least one item since the 3rd of the month and hopefully it'll be that way until about the middle of the month.

First it was Yukk!, then Reversi and now Borders. Borders got the XP treatment as well over the weekend and it gets easier and easier to code it once you've done it a couple of times. Yes, it got an announcement too, but prior to that I had to create an ad for it. I think it could be better, but I'm not going to complain about the ad that's currently placed with it.

Today I started coding on a top secret game? Heh, well, not that top secret, but I'm not going to say anything here until it gets released... which might be a long time in the future. It's different though doing a recent game, one that is still in print (although I have no idea how well it's doing in play). Hopefully it'll get me psyched up to finish off Hyborian Gates after it.

Talking about Hyborian Gates, I've got some kid to send me the scans of the cards I'm still missing in return for real cards. I think he has the better end of the deal, but these are cards I have excess of anyways and I'm not particularly fond of the cards so he can have them. I'm sure I also have probably a pound of Hyborian Gates commons and uncommons somewhere...

-+@ Say it Twice @+-

or three times or four times...



Art Credits:
Craw Helm by Holmberg
Sizzling Sareb by Werner/Gillette/Shreve/Holmberg/Nov
Pipe Dreaming by Holmberg/Nov

And the final two cards (image wise) for TW has finally been done. Those are the 2 above together with the Sareb that I did sometime ago. These are also the first 2 cards that I've templated this year, so they are the first to carry the (c) 2006 logo. Now that the images are done though, the next step would be to design the cards. Hopefully that can be done before the first half of the year so that all the cards can go up on the engine by April latest.

I also templated a few cards, not for EF, which would be the next full expansion but for Ancient Enemy. That's right, Ancient Enemy with the Invaders. The 14th region. There's some great Werner and Whyrl art out there for the invaders and I'm trying to see if I can get at least 60 cards for the expansion to start the expansion. So far there's only 10 or so cards, mostly magi, but I'm not too worried at this point in time about AE yet. As I said, there's still EF to go...

And just for my record, since the last of this has been bumped off the first page of my blog:

Exodus Flight: Still collecting images, the status of each region are as follows:
Arderial: 1 spell, 2 magi, 5 creatures, 3 relics. NEED 1 creature
Bograth: 1 spell, 1 magi, 4 creatures, 3 relics. NEED 1 magi, 2 creature/relic
Cald: 1 spell, 2 magi, 7 creatures, 2 relics. COMPLETE
Core: 1 spell, 2 magi, 7 creatures, 2 relics. COMPLETE
d'Resh: 7 creatures, 2 relics. NEED 1 spell, 2 magi
KT: 1 magi, 8 creatures, 1 relic. NEED 1 spell, 1 magi
Nar: 6 creatures, 1 relic. NEED 1 spell, 2 magi, 2 creature/relic
Naroom: 1 spell, 2 magi, 6 creatures, 3 relics COMPLETE
Orothe: 1 magi, 6 creatures, 1 relic NEED 1 spell, 1 magi, 2 cretures/relic
Paradwyn: 6 creatures, 2 relics NEED 1 spell, 2 magi, 1 creatures/relic
Underneath: 2 creatures NEED 1 spell, 2 magi, 7 creatures/relic
Weave: 1 magi, 6 creatures, 2 relics Need 1 spell, 1 magi, 1 creature/relic
Universal: 1 spell, 1 creature, 2 relics Need 2 creatures/relics

or 37 more images out of 150 to go.

All those new images mean that the website got updated, well only for the TW cards up above, the AE page haven't been created yet (and I'm not even sure if the expansion will even be made). Also update the info there that the Insiider expansion Soul Conflict has been released. Nothing major otherwise. And just because I think it'll be nice to have an image mid blog, here's the January calendar from the site (image by Whyrl).


I actually played another MND game yesterday, this time with Bobby Doc. I conceded though since it was late and the game was slow. He had an interesting paradwyn deck - the type that only Bobby can come up with. I played the transformers deck that does absolutely nothing. Seriously though, it needs a bit more draw in that deck.

I also played a few games of LotR yesterday just for the fun of it. Won as many games as I lost, but I enjoyed recurring Gollum and watching Smeagol take out the Witch King. It's not a tournament deck or anything, but it runs fast and unless stopped by a top notch shadow side, it wins most of the time.

Spent a bit of time today adding the XP system to Reversi, and while I was at it, I fixed a bug and added a message for 2-player play. I doubt people will play it even with the new XP system, but at least it's another thing off my list. I created a new ad for it and plastered that on the front page of CCGW's site along with the announcement that it now has XP. Here's the ad since I'm in the mood for mid blog graphics.


Since I'm doing mid blog images, Aiden (picks) made 3 ads for Rage the other day (well, last year really) because I got tired of that one Rage ad that was repeated again and again. I changed out the Rage ad on the front page as well, but here are the two images since I'm doing mid blog images:


Yes, those are nice. Thomas has decided to start the Doomtrooper Tournament again this year in February and I think that's a good thing. It will definately increase the number of people playing Doomtrooper which is a good thing. Hopefully he will be able to find someone to help him with the records and such.

And since we are on tournaments, the B5 League weekend is next weekend and will last for 4 days instead of the usual two. This is to make up for the fact that over December last year, the craziness of things meant that B5 was largely ignored. The league though, together with all the various other publicity stunts are still drawing players from the nether - some new guy (but not new to the game) showed up just this week and said he'll be along for the ride. And of course, there's also the fan made cards...

And I hear rumours about a Star Wars tournament thing on gEngine...

-+@ Wheel of Torture @+-

The titles of this CCG makes great titles.



Art Credits:
Sloth Hyren by Jen Reed, Background by Rich Werner
Sandstone Hyren by Austin Gardner
Tornado Hyren by Jen Reed, Background by Matt Holmberg/Rich Werner

What a day, and it hasn't finished yet. Another 3 cards from EF of MND. The good news is that all the MND stuff I did in the past 24 hours was just to play a game with Freigabe/Christoph. He won, barely. I played with a Transformers deck that really didn't do anything spectacular, but it did help me get familiar again with the game after not playing for so long.

I spent quite a bit of today working on Yukk! It is the first of my games to get the Experience points system. Hopefully, people would play it more, but somehow I doubt it since it's only silvers/gold tokens. I also fixed a major error that made the game unplayable since the last update and updated the code a bit to make it a little more modern. Hopefully it would be played more.

Talking about play statistics, I finally did the December numbers. Surprisingly Star Wars still leads the pack, even with VTES on the scene - both are free. Shadowfist is not far behind. The game that was most played AND cost tokens was Doomtrooper, which was a surprise. MND lagged far behind games such as Doomtown and B5. Oh well. How the mighty have fallen.

I updated the plates post today, in preparation to update Go Fish. Sadly I ran out of time. Reversi also would probably get an update soon-ish and both of those games will get Experience points added to them. It's not too difficult to add expeerience points I have discovered with Yukk.

I saw someone (Kinam) offering a one-shot tour for Wyvern. Sorta interesting I think, but Wyvern is hardly played (and is still free). It's a pity that there are no takers though. There seems to be a dearth of players online these days, with the exception of probably the Star Wars players who keep pretty much to themselves.

VTES Online has its new URL these days - http://www.vtesonline.com. It was slow going when I checked there earlier, but there was a 3-player game going on. I wonder about the future of the game online. Yes, the game definately needs more sets, but Ed and Martin needs to get the permission for White Wolf to add those, and then there needs to be time to actually scan the images and code them. Hmm...

-+@ What Have I Done @+-

Indeed, what have I started? Last month's titles were all from Wildstorms or WSS1.



Art Credits:
Machine Hyren by Beth Zyglowicz
Mud Muggum by Jeffry Ransom, background by Matt Holmberg
Elder Stagadan by Beth Zyglowicz

First off Happy New Year 2006 to all those who follow the western calendar. If you don't observe that calendar, well, I wish you a good CCG gaming experience for the next 12 months.

Cards above are from Exodus Flight - yes I still have a whole backlog of those from a few months back, so I'll be getting them out once in a while. Not much has been going on with EF though, but TW has been busy. 5 and two half regions have been posted for comments, the latest of which was 4 out of the 6 Naroom cards submitted by Daniel. There has been quite a few comments on what has been published so far. This is going to be a good expansion.

Talking about Daniel, he posted a blog at the MND at CCGW group blog that detailed his new deck. It was rather interesting for me to read about people playing Bograth, a region that I don't play well and it just goes to show that there's still many things to learn about the game.

I finally judged the final DJ contest The Rangers today. There weren't too many entries to choose from so it wasn't too difficult to pick a winner. Flip had a great entry with some really great names that didn't seem too powerful so I picked that one, but there are good entries out there as well.

And for the last 2 days, the Custom Card site has had quite a bit of updates, with the new calendar for 2006 and the animated series page getting added. The traffic to that site is still rather crazy, but at least the page views are down. There seem to be a dedicated group of people from such faraway places as Brazil and London who seem to be visiting the site on a regular basis. It's rather comforting to know actually that people are enjoying the site.

The last MND item for this blog is that I've started the January tournament online and so far 4 people have signed up. I have no idea though if there wll actually be games from this tournament, but hopefully there will be some that are played. The sad thing is that there won't be a create a card tournament for this tournament to give them a free win so this will solely be just a plain gaming tournament.

Non-MND news wise, I've actually updated the Alphabet Game on the CCGW Forums today since Crisy and Grover have been busy posting one thing after another. I do wish they'd check the X entries though before continuing because they seem to post things again and again. I've also moved the closed VTES forum to the locked forum place on the forum and the resulting 6 forums with "high traffic" is back to where it was a few months ago. The sad thing is that Star Wars and Doomtrooper aren't generating too much traffic so I wonder if those will get axed soon enough.

VTES seems to be going on strong with over 10 people on that engine every time that I check. With the release of Anarchs late last year, the large pool of new cards (online) has probably attracted a fair bit of players, that and the fact that it's still free to play at this point. The forums there have also been busy and there seems to be quite a bit of buzz there, but this is nothing compared to the initial beta release Martin had 2 years ago when upwards of 40 players were online and most of them were playing. Oh well, perhaps it's the death of the CCG industry after all.

I haven't heard from Josh for a while and I suppose that could be a good thing or a bad thing. His other fellow muppets have been busy. Christoph has just released v11 of the virtual cards online a few days ago and is still championing Star Wars ont he engine. He's doing a good job of it at the moment. Tony released a whole load of custom WoT cards a few days before that and is working on the custom fonts for Shadowfist at the moment. They seem to be getting things going there.

Kev seems to have started on Monkeys again, but I have no idea how far he got along since I wasn't around when he was working on stuff. Talking about Monkeys, I really should get Go Fish updated and Hyborian Gates finished ASAP this month at the very least and then maybe add the XP system to Yukk, Reversi and Borders. Sounds like a lot of work too, especially since I'm busy with real life stuff. We'll have to see.