-+@ Telling Secrets @+-

Won't you like to know what I know?



Art Credits:
Skywalker's Tunic by Beth Zyglowizc
Crystal Chisel: Pencils by Jeffry Ransom, Colours by Nov, background by Alison Strom/Whyrl
Draught of Life by Nov, background by Holmberg

Draught of Life's was today's image. I'm really enjoying these one image a day things. I couldn't believe how much the image reminded me of a Keeper's Quest card, the colour scheme, the grass thing, the red blob, the universal card template. It's giving me a good feeling overall drawing that red liquid in a corked bottle. Fun too. The first time I tried to colour glass and it didn't end up too shabby.

And because it's a slow day, I'll use this paragraph to talk about the other card I drew this week that's shown above. Crystal Chisel was originally drawn by Jeffry, but like all his images, they were coloured with crayons and pencils. So I took his image and recoloured it and that was the end result. There's a blog entry about it too.

The custom cards took a huge step today - Project Second Chance just got into its second phase for some cards. What is Project Second Chance? Project Second Chance is an MRP project that attempts to upgrade underpowered cards by grafting onto them additional text to make them more potent. Will everyone playing online be forced to use them? No, the PSC cards will be clearly marked as such and players can have a choice to either use them or ignore them. Some CCGW tournaments though, will mandate that PSC cards be used instead of the official versions. When will we get to see PSC cards on the engine? Each individual PSC card will be added as soon as it is completed - the process is list (get listed on the forums), vote (majority voted to be in the project), design (new text), add (to gEngine).

Well, today is the last day of the March tournament and it seems that there is a clear winner. I've seen some rather good decks from Bobby and GoC as well. I have no idea who to award the extra tokens though. And next month's tournament already has 2 signed up participants. There's also been a huge amount of games played this month, despite (or because of) it being the first tournament with the unfinalised TG cards. It's been interesting though.

I've been talking about hotpoints (not hotpants!) with Mark and Logan for the past 24 hours on and off. It seems I'm some sort of hotpoints expert at this point in time - I'm not! The one game that I rewrote for it is in such a huge shambles that I don't even dare release it to the public. However, I did point both Mark and Logan to the pitfalls and suggested alternatives that they either didn't think of or didn't know existed before. Hopefully that will help them on CA and LMS respectively.

One more day to Final Nights. Will it be released a day early today? or later than the April 1st date? After all, the announcement did mention "around" which introduces some element of vagueness (Ed is learning how to be vague after all the times unexpected delays have come to bite him in the tush). Nevertheless, it's still interesting to speculate and to see what will happen.

I didn't manage to catch a game of Auto Assault today due to the lack of players, but that CCG is shaping up to be really really interesting. They are still working on things - changing cards, tweaking text, small minor stuff that doesn't detract from the overall experience of playing the game. Can you tell I'm hooked? I'm looking forward to their adaptation of Anarchronism now! Curses (or Praises) to the great and mighty Eddie for suggesting that I try out the game.

Did I mention that we have one fewer PL these days? Time to update my records now. It's also the end of March and Ed did force me to write a whole slew of reports every quarter. OK, I exaggerate again, it's only 1 report. So time's a-wasting blogging...

-+@ Six Pack! @+-

which sounds like a lot... sometimes finishing it is a chore, just like the other stuff I do...



Art Credits:
Dirt Levitation by Nov
Duplicate by Holmberg/Werner/Shreve/Nov
Weave Wall by Werner/Nov/Holmberg

Well, three cards I created this week, and each one of them had their fair share of difficulties. I like how Dirt Levitation turned out, and it's simple because it was done by me. I don't claim to be an artist as such, but I'm happy with the end result. Duplicate was hard to get the final result as I had planned it in my head. Getting the creature was the easiest of the hard parts. Then there were that moving effect and a whole load of other issues. The end result isn't too shabby taking everything into consideration. The weave wall above, is a version 2 of the art. I originally did something, but I really didn't like what I had drawn, so I had to scrap it and restart again. I like this result better, more than 50% of that was drawn by me so I'm happy with it.

I updated the website with everything and a whole load of other things there as well. Tournament announcements, custom card projects, the whole enchilada. April is shaping up to be a busy MND month as well. Ah, there goes my hiatus! As promised though, the April MND Calendar is shown below. The large version is available from the Custom Card website, and can be used as a desktop image.


I managed to create a new HumAliens ad for the Promos yesterday. I like the new ad, but only because it's a ripoff directly from the official site with text added to it. I've got to make a few more ads these days once I get the time.

There aren't too many other things to take note of today... then engine is experiencing a weird logout bug for a while now. It seems to be elusive so far. Hopefully it'll be fixed soon. 2 more days to April 1st, will Final Nights make it on that date? And will there be a game made public before the end of this month? Well, only time will tell...

So, I was playing Auto Assault again today. It's fun. The game mechanics is new, but it'll get old fast though, unless the cards keep it lively. They still have a lot of material to make cards from there so that shouldn't be a problem. It's a bit dead at the moment though due to low publicity since it's still in beta. But it's playable, it's fun, the graphics are cool, the background music is great and most of all it's not buggy, but there are a number of Bugs to choose from, including a few modified VW Bugs.

April will also be the release date for the Christmastown expansion for Nightmare Before Christmas. I'm looking forward to that. I wonder how that game is doing. It's NECA's first CCG and I do want it to succeed. I'm still looking forward to the Stargate CCG as well. Two things to look forward to this year. I've got to ask people to pick up freebies for me...

-+@ Grounded! @+-

but only to race!



3 different CCGs there... the last one is Star Chamber's card.

The middle one though is one of the three St. Patrick's Promo given out in LotR Online during the St. Patrick's Day tournament. I didn't join that one, but I won't mind testing out this card... if I can somehow get 4 copies of it. It's a pity that won't be soon. Threatening Merry with Rangers is a fun little deck, but it dies too soon, particularly in the beginning when neither the rangers nor Merry can take out the big minions. The problem with that deck initially is that it's a big spender, adding way too much pool to the game in the beginning, which is a pity.

Someone said I should support WA more by trying out their new game, Auto Assault, which is in beta, so I did. That first card is from this game. I really did enjoy the game though even though I've only been playing for less than 24 hours. The card design can be better I guess, but the online implementation is a feast to look at. The graphics and sounds and background music just create the ambience which makes playing fun, eventhough I barely won half the games I played. I look forward to playing more of it.

Meanwhile though, the hubbub on the HumAliens Yahoo Group finally translated into something tangible for me - Rick sent me all 10 Promos that were missing from the engine. Well no longer. I have added all of them just today so all printed cards are now on the engine. The scan quality isn't great, but I'm going to guess that players would be happy to be able to see the subpar image and use it in games.

The rest of the day has been spent working on another card for EF. I redid the image for Duplicate today, but decided not to post it yet until some other day. Then there were a whole load of other stuff for MND - tournaments, general posts, stuff like that which will bore the pants off everyone else. Eventhough I'm supposedly in "hiatus" mode, I'm still doing as much as I was before the "hiatus". Oh well. I still have to update the website soonish for the April Calendar. Work to do, more work to do.

A couple of days until the end of the month as well, which means I've got to do a whole lot more maintenance stuff. Also, it's getting closer to the day that Final Nights will be released. I wonder if Martin is in a frenzy. Ed and Logan are getting into the LMS act and they are both getting the support for the game up to scratch. Yay for them. And I'm getting ready to see Mark's first game of the year go public... and probably a surprise announcement from Kev...

-+@Homework! @+-

well, it's work at home...



Art Credits:
Vine Etiki by Reed, background by Nov
Phrup colony by Vega/Goodman, background by Nov
Abominable Mombay by Shreve/Werner, background by Holmberg

Three more cards for EF (yes, it's still on hiatus) and I've been doing them one every other day or so. The count is 130 out of 150 cards, so it's the last 20, and that would probably take the net 6 months or more. It can wait though. All cards are on the Custom Cards site... somewhere. There's one that I drew yesterday, but haven't placed on the blog yet. One of these days.

Besides updating the site for the new EF cards though, there's the new stuff on the site as well... new BoA for starters and uh mostly announcements. I've got to add the remaining BoA soon and the April Calendar, which I did today, but won't be posting it up until nearer to the end of the month.

Talking about the announcements there though, it seems pretty certain that 2i has given/licensed their rights to MND to Cookie Jar Entertainment. The links there proof from different avenues that the property is with CJE, although there hasn't been any announcement yet from them. The only announcement that has been official is the Nova thing about the online game. Ah well.

And as for the online game, the March tournament haven't been too shabby with almost a score of games played. The top is still pretty bunched up though, so unless someone plays a few more games, the prize will probably get split at the beginning of next month. That's cool though.

There's also quite a bit of playtesting being done for the custom cards... all 3 of the expansions that are still in playtesting - TG, KQ and TW. I've given out some tokens... which reminds me, I've got to get the contest going for next month. More forum posts...

An aside though, there's been some activity on the HumAliens Yahoo group, and I've been monitoring what's going on there. Perhaps there is increased collector's frenzy in anticipation of the new animated series?

Mark has been busy on his games, the amount of updates he's been doing is, well, crazy from my point of view, but fabulous from Ed's point of view. Logan has been tinkering with LMS like it's the only thing left in the world, expect lots of good things there. Tomi got a Mythos update, and a Tomb Raider bugfix over the weekend! Wow, that's busy. Martin is has a few more days left on his next VTES expansion. I think it's probably ready and all. Ed had to give everyone a free month on VTES though, because of server issues. Hmm... I didn't realise it was that bad, but I haven't been playing recently as well.

Two other things non-CCGW-wise. The first is that I've been perfecting Merry (he's in Lost as well!) with threats and So Fair so Desperate. Coupled him with Madril and IB and skirmish card discarding Targon (in place of Smeagol) and they seem to be rather good... if the draws are favourable, and I don't get stuck with shadow cards near the beginning.

The other thing is that today I found out I have been made a moderator for the Urban Dead wiki. Wow and ouch. Time to get really really busy.

-+@ Huzzah! @+-

Whazzah?



Art Credits:
Tomes of theForgotten by Beth Zyglowicz
Climbing Boots by Walter Reagan, colours by Novelty, background by Matt Holmberg
Relic Key by Beth Zyglowicz

Three more cards from Exodus flight, which has been put on hiatus while I get on with life, and these are the next to last batch of cards that I haven't yet showcased on the blog. Oh well. I have to start hunting for images soonish for Exodus Flight if only to have them ready for this blog.

It was rare not to mention MND in the last blog, although that does occassionally happen. It also happened because I wrote that after writing for MND at CCGW blog, so I guess I was all MND'ed out. Still things are moving there, although not as fast as some people would like. As I mentioned there, I still have ideas for things there... it's just going to get a bit slow moving along...

So I spent quite a bit of time templating A Cure for All Seasons Promo... and I have a very good idea what the cards will do and how they will go, but they will take time to develop. I am running with it since the motivation is there... which is sorta funny as the Promo expansion before this, Double Jeopardy, is still not finalised yet. Oh well, it'll get done after the whole list of things... like designing Weave cards for TW and templating more cards and updating the website. Eeks! The website... so much to do...

Then there's my WSS2 plans, which I'm rearing to go, but I can't seem to find the time to get on to it. I think this is going to be the next thing after Hyborian Gates... I know it's like 2 years later than I originally planned it, but better late than never I guess. Still I want to get it over and done with if only to say - there it is, look at my achievement? Aren't you proud of it? Gimme a gold star... or a cookie!

And since I'm talking about cookies, Tomi actually has a nice ad of James Bond up on the frontpage of CCGW (and no, don't ask me how those 2 items are related... I just needed a connecting sentence!) I wonder if it has been added to the engine yet though.

Talking about engine ads, it was a nice surprise to see quite a few of the recent ones I made - ranging from the "levitating leaves" Hyborian Gates ad to the image of Tattered Tomes drawn by - ahem - one of CCGW's own for Final Twilight - among the rotation (or as I like to think of as - parade) of images within the engine. I have no idea if anyone even notices those images, but they are fun.

I had a brief chat with Mark today... and he's got ambitious plans for the rest of the year. I know I've already mentioned the 5 target games this year. There's more though besides that, and I'm sure I have just barely scratched the surface. I'm not going to mention too much until the right time though... but check out his blog - there might be some tidbits there... as a French footballer once said... "When the seagulls follow the trawler, it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea."

-+@ Pop Quiz @+-

only because it seemed as if I was given one yesterday... more below...



All art by Boris Vellajo and Julie Bell.

More Hyborian Gates cards, only because I wanted to show that the game is not all with almost porn pictures. In fact the majority of the pictures are less risqué (a word just for Martin) than the selection posted in the last blog. I won't say that this selection is a representitive sample as well... most of the cards seems to be scenery and beastiary which makes it boring to be shown on a blog.

So, I finally found the gusto and finished adding in the 9 Hyborian Gates cards which I have images for, but do not actually own the physical cards. Some of the cards are less than optimal, but they are the best available images that I have so well, that's life. I thought it would take longer to code them in, but when I actually sat down and started coding, they were done in no time at all. I guess it's just a mindset thing.

There was a problem when I tried uploading it to the server though... a permissions problem of some sort. I need to check out with Ed what's the issue there, whether the "recent annoyances" of the engine has anything to do with it. Ah well, something to do.

I spent almost two hours yesterday chatting with some guy who goes by the online name of Sparke. No, nothing personnal, he was just full of questions about the engine in general and the adaptation of AvP and Terminator on the engine in particular. I had to answer question after question for about two hours... not fun at all. Hopefully, at the end of all this (of which the 2 hours last night was only the beginning), I'll get the clipped cards and templates for both games which will allow me to both games and the unreleased Atmosphere expansion online.

And others on the game coding front, Logan has been enthusiastically coding LMS in and out of season adding in things gleaned from Monster Mash. It seems LMS will be highly automated (and it is already pretty much automated). I guess this is a case where metal sharpens metal as Martin got his inspiration for coding Monster Mash probably originally from LMS in part coupled with his own uniqueness (after all, his name is half of the nipa-Martin Index)

I wonder if the next VTES expansion is ready though. The date makes me wonder if it's an April's Fool joke, so I'm sure there are other people out there trying not to be gullible who have a look at the date and wonder if they've been had. Well, it's all academic at this point in time though, but all indications points to the fact that it will probably be on schedule. Ah well, we'll have to see.

Tomi made minor tweaks to Mythos and James Bond over the weekend. He was also rather excited about obtaining the cardlist (and more) for the unreleased Q expansion for James Bond. I think he's probably set in motion the required stuff necessary for adding the said expansion into James Bond. I wonder what he'll do image wise. Perhaps he'll grab them from some fan made comic strip. Who knows.

Mark has been rather quiet though... I hope that's a good sign. I also hope that the releases of James Bond and Hyborian Gates has spurred him to complete his two games in development that are, I'm told, "close" to being public. I'm cheering for him though... he's the only developer to have a set goal (5 games) this year. (OK, I also do have a goal - 1 game, and I've fulfilled that goal!!! - but I don't think many would count that as a goal. My other goal though is to update B5, WS, WSS1, Urland and YNDT this year with the major changes Ed has just implemented. Notice my signature game, my favourite CCG and 2 licenses in that list.)

Ah, Origins rush. What would be nice though would be to be surprised in a nice way just before Origins. Monkeys going public for one would be interesting. Ditto for Cold War Naval Battles. And I would like to see a surprise new PL finishing a game in time for Origins too. And Lewis Carroll will probably tell me through poetry recited by the mouth of an Alice in Wonderland character "and pigs have wings!"

-+@ Lipstick @+-

and porn? Well, check out the images below...



Images by Boris Vellajo and Julie Bell, taken from Hyborian Gates.

That's right, Hyborian Gates is finally out for public testing, but I doubt it will get played much. It is after all "no frills" at the moment, and I don't forsee it getting any more advanced than that. There are still a number of cards missing in the game, but hopefully they will get added on as soon as possible, or when I get the time and the inclination to code in the cards, whichever comes first.

Hyborian Gates isn't the first game to go public this year though. The honours there were taken by James Bond. Grats to Tomi for getting that honours (yeah, take note of this, it'll probably appear in a future quiz by myself). It's out public testing, and is slightly above "no frills" since it has attachment and stuff. I haven't had a look at it yet though... I should at some point. That means though that all Target games are now on the engine.

Someone has also contacted me to offer to update Aliens vs Predator. With 5 games played over the last 30 days though, somehow I don't see how it would go beyond "no frills" as well. Nevertheless, any work on the game is always welcomed and said guy has taken it upon himself to update the images. Well, we'll see how much of that there is before his interest runs out - somehow I get the feeling I'm going to be stuck with something half done although I hope that feeling is false.

I was looking at the WSS2 stuff a few nights ago as well. I really have got to get the motivation to start taking photographs of these cards. Really. A scanner won't work since the cards can't be scanned, well, not the front anyways. I have already started somewhat, but it does need quite a bit of work to get everything finished up. I guess I can use Origins as my deadline to finish up WSS2.

Talking about Origins, quite a few things are happening in anticipation of it. Mark is getting his games ready - Attack and Crystal Authority - for public release before Origins and I know Logan is revamping LMS with all sorts of goodies. Next up on his list would be MoA, and I did offer to help out with the images there - not drawing them (ha!) but segue-ing (is that a word?) them together from multipart scans.

Ed was working on Milles Bornes over the past few weeks, and has been enjoying his work there. The game has gotten hugely popular though, although I wonder if it's because he's working on it. Frank's Zoo numbers are close to negligable, but Ed has plans to complete the game there. We'll have to see what happens. His work on 7th Seas seems to be done though and the game seems to be getting some volume, although not a tremendous amount.

Martin has been busy, first with a Doomtown update that was a few days late, but nevertheless was released. It seemed to have drawn more players to the game. Monster Mash I is now on the server as well, and I have no idea how much work has been done there, but obviously more than at the beginning of the year. And with April a scant 2 weeks away, I'm sure Martin is busy adding the next expansion to VTES ASAP.

Is that it? 6 people working on games for the engine? Sounds sad, it's true. People and people's interests change I suppose. Hence the fallen away of some. I guess that's how the cookie crumbles... or whatnot. That does give me an idea for a future blog...

And to end, lemme give a quick MND rundown - not much work on anything, but the tournament is progressing rather well and the new TG cards in a tournament setting is grabbing some interest. How long, how many, who knows? There's news of a MMO being developed for MND as well, so does that spell the end for the CCG? Only time will tell...

-+@ Better Pay! @+-

Heh, right, as if I get paid for working on CCGs.



Three more Christmastown cards... and what do you know... there's less than 300 days to Christmas... and even less to the release of the expansion. Pity thought that we don't have permission to adapt this to the engine.

Talking about adaptaing though, I finally managed to do more work on Hyborian Gates and it's just a small step, but nevertheless it's a step for getting it completed soon. I doubt it'll be the first public game of the year, but hopefully it won't the the last of the year.

Spent quite some time today scripting the drafts for the Core TW cards as well. I have no idea if it's drawing any interest. Also added the Arderial TW cards to the engine and a few other things. The tournament games seems to have quieten down now, but that's probably because the weekend is over.

Mark seemed to have gone crazy, with Crystal Authority and Attack going public over the weekend. I guess the weekend must have been really productive for him. Tomi likewise has got James Bond to some semblance of "started" although I have no idea if it's even playable yet. Still, 3 expansions is quite a bit of cards to add.

My main priorities at the moment with regards to game adapting are Hyborian Gates and WSS2 for WSS1. Hopefully, I can get those two out of the way before the middle of the year. MND will continue to demand time though and I guess I'll just have to take that in stride. There's also the B5 and Firestorm stuff that I'm a bit hesitant to touch at this point, not to mention, licensed games like YNDT and Urland that needs huge fixes. Oh well. One thing at a time... or better pay!!!

-+@ Copper Pennies @+-

Whee, new month. Last two month's titles were from Nightmare Before Christmas TCG... betcha didn't know that. New month, new game...



Art Credits:
All 3 by Beth Zyglowicz.

Where to start? It's been a busy month... so busy that time for blogging was virtually zero. Here's the catch-up.

TW had a huge boost in between with Bobby finishing the remainder of the KT cards and myself getting Paradwyn finished. Work has started drafting out cards for Core, which along with Weave, is the only other region that has yet to be finished.

All 6 Underneath TW cards have been added to the engine for playtest, which has got quite a few people interested. The set icon is horrible there, but I wasn't in the mood to update it so it remains such until I get the time to tweak with it. I also added a whole lot of other cards that's at this point in time Engine only. I hope the players like them.

Meanwhile the TG playtest tournament has started and there are those who are looking forward to devasting others with the more than powerful TG cards. Some of those cards seems ordinary though, but throughout playtesting, the regular playtesters have discovered deadly and unexpected combos with them so I'm setting them loose in a tournament format to see if it will give rise to any complaints. Nothing so far, which is a good thing.

Last month's tournament was very well received with a large number of games played. Tim won the tournament though and got quite a bit of tokens in the process. The successful tournament pushed up the number of games played as well. That's an interesting correlation. Tim requested for Arderial TW to be added next for playtesting, so I guess I'll have to do it sometime as well. Oh and Remember Ring...

The official MND website is dead. Well, I guess that means I'm going to get more traffic to my website. I've just loaded the March calendar, but I really need to do a bit more than that - for starters, I need to put in the BoA #1 that Patrick sent me a while back, but there's only so many hours in a day...

Tomi and myself have been busy with the wiki though, getting the game pages stubbed if not fully populated. It looks good so far and there's more than 100 games listed, most of them with rules. Hopefully, if nothing else, it'll serve as a game archive for all things gaming.

A new month means I had to updated the FPN on the website, and there isn't much to announce. I was told that we didn't have the rights to use some of the Rage images as ads, so I had to remove them. Oh well. There's a new batch of Rage ads that I've yet to add. Yeah, when I get the time.

I did the numbers for last month - huge losses for Doomtrooper, which is surprising considering that they had a tournament, and for VTES as the free passes has run out. Gains for MND, which is a good surprise to me since I never expected that it would recover after the slum over the new year, and a smaller increase for Star Wars. I wonder how much server instability has reduced the numbers of games played though.

Tomi has also been busy on Mythos and Doomtrooper in addition to the wiki and it's interesting to see those two games get really advanced. Mark is still working on Attack, and has started work on Crystal Authority. I guess he's well on his way to adapting 5 games for the engine this year. Martin didn't deliver Doomtown at the end of february as he promised, but he did give me a bit of something for my next game and I know he's busy on Final Nights for VTES as well. Ed's still busy trying to sort out why the engine is crashing. Probably a hacker trying to get tokens and passes, I think. Eric was asking a few questions earlier in the month - I think he's designing a CCG of some sort. He's also been looking at other games and was fixing up Dredd last I heard. JC has also been busy, but he's still keeping an eye on his games, and the same goes for Julien I guess as he's been asking for coding tips. Good times for all.