-+@ Loyal Sacrifice @+-

The things I do for CCG Workshop...



Three "Art of" cards for AE with the symbols. Nothing special here. AE meanwhile seems to be on hiatus as nobody is really placing down ideas for their cards much... yet... hopefully they'll get things running soon. I also need to get the other cards out soon as well - Orothe and Paradwyn and Arderial are all in my stable this time around. Hopefully, I'll be able to get intresting mileage out of the cards... one of these days.

It's just a couple more weeks until the new Magi-nation cartoon starts airing in the US (and probably Canada...). The younger old schoolers have already mostly declared their hatred for the animation and design, while the older old schoolers are adopting a wait and see attitude. References to the cartoon is popping up everywhere but there isn't much to mention other than a few spoilers here and there.

Avatar is also getting a 3rd season soon. I'm awaiting that keenly. I hope it will revitalise the card game, but somehow, I am doubtful that this will be so. I guess Avatar is probably going to be the opposite of Magi-Nation - good cartoon, bad CCG. I'll happily settle for a good cartoon though because that's hard to produce. A bad CCG can always be "fixed" with unofficial fan versions!

And talking about fan versions, the B5 players seem rather keen on revamping the custom cards into their image, to leave a mark or a stamp on it. The discussion has been going on, on the CCGW forums without the input of Bruce. I know the Vorlons seem pretty much "out there" but some of the suggestions are even more "out there"... My position has always been to keep to the spirit of the overall rules, and to use the cards to override the rules if necessary. I guess there'll come a time when I have to test that out, although I'm generally keeping silent on the discussion.

Another SciFi TV show with a cardgame is StarGate and while searching for today's topic, I discovered that there's not only a 2nd expansion planned (or out), but there are also online exclusive cards (presumably on the pay client). One of these days I've got to go back and check those out. I wasn't too impressed by the card design generally, although I do have to admit the icons and the constallation symbols are nice.

And since I'm on new stuff, I just got an email today about the latest Ticket to Ride expansion - the Swiss expansion. Days of Wonders is now accepting pre-orders. It's one that I'd like to get, but I don't think I want to pay for the postage. I'll probably get it the next time I see it in a big board game shop or something. The other big news about TtR has been that DoW is producing a "Nordic" version with a Nordic map to be sold only in Scandinavia and Finland. Players in the US seems rather supportive of the version and upset that they might not be able to get it locally - they are probably as exasperated as how I feel... anyways, I know I can always count on Tomi to mail me a copy or two... and provide the translations as well!

Ed yesterday mentioned that he's busy translating VteS into a PBW format. Wow, I'm going to guess he's gonna be busy for the next 3 or 4 years or so... maybe more. Then again, he might prove me wrong and finish all 20 expansions (OK, I know it's less than that, but it seems that much to me) or so in less than a year, which will probably be my wish! Hopefully, he'll take time out to do other simple games in the interim...

Like Titan, which is the most played game on Ludoholic, both the PBW version, the fast PBW version and the real-time version. I think that game itself is a hit, if only because it's so addictive. Capitol and Urland and Monkeys are fun, but sadly they take time to complete. I'm not going to go into the real-time vs pbw scenario again, but I do feel that people should not be forced to play a version that they do not enjoy, so it's good that both versions of Titan are up on Ludoholic.

Mark has also been rather excited about working on his Ludoholic game. He's making some great progress as well, and although he's not as fast as Ed, I think he's still going more steadily than the other PBW developer (or is it developers?) on Ludoholic. I have no idea, I'm trying my best not to get involved with another format when I barely have enough time to do the things I want to do on the main engine.

And one of the things I did recently on the main engine was to add the missing Fast Break cards into the game. There's a few things that I really wanted to do like sealed deck and to correct the score dice, but I decided it was way too much work for a game that isn't normally played (nobody played it the last 30 days) so I left it as it is to concentrate on other things.

Things like working on Armageddon, which was supposed to be my top secret game but since I've started it and announced it elsewhere, I might as well announce it here as well. It's a game by Blue Leviathan games with some nice artwork, a series of novels planned and other stuff. I know close to nothing, but probably more than the general public I guess. I don't think I have all the images for the cards so that will have to wait. I just glanced at the spoiler though - it's definately going to give me a headache creating the card list! Ouch!

And the parting image for today is from... Orothe. This is an image done not for my custom card sets but for Joe Araiza. He's the penciller (although I modified the pencil some with the inking) and owner of the character. I only did the colours and the background. Don't ask me why there's more beam of lights, I guess I'm just drawn to it. This piece was to test the school of fish in the background - I think the perspective makes it work rather well...

-+@ Greenpeace Assault Team @+-

Team of course for the first superpowered hero team in comics.



We are Legion. That's what Superman recently said in Justice League of America (#9 IIRC). It's powerful especially for old fuddy-duddies like, well, not me. There'll be lots of Legion exposure leading up to its 50th anniversary next year and the VS cards are only one of the few media outlets where the Legion of Superheroes will, well, make an appearance.

I have no idea if I have mentioned this before, but I actually got 2 packs of these cards - the last 2 packs in a shop that's not here. Didn't get the above cards, but did get some rather good ones - good image-wise that is. I was just looking through them today which is why they are up here on this blog. I wonder if there's anyway to play this game online... hmm...

Even as I'm writing this, I'm scanning the Fastbreak cards and packaging in preparation to getting them added to the game online. I'm rather excited about the fact that I'll be doing a sealed draft in one of my games and I hope I don't blow it by messing up. It's not that difficult to do, since I kept all my old Fastbreak working file, and with the new improvements in the engine, it should be easy to check a few things... well, easier anyways, as compared to the good (bad?) old days where everything has to be done manually.

Talking about sealed deck, my brain is already moving on to the next project - Babylon 5. I just realised that I cannot have random B5 sealed deck because of the way the game is structured. It'll probably have to be something along the lines of LotR draughting where the Ambassador and the starting hand and probably the crusade and ISA decks would have to be preconstructed. Still it seems cool to get the ideas down on... screen and to hopefully progress it sometime this year.

And while I'm on progress, it seems the Ludo games are progressing rather well, eventhough I can no longer see them because I'm not a developer there. Ah well. There are 4 games in development for PBW, and Ed was talking about having one of them ready really soon. Maybe 2 by the end of next month if things keep going at this rate. It seems good for Ludoholic.

Ed also said he might start moving RT games over to Ludoholic 2 at a time to speed things up. That sounds good. The boardgames are just lost in the clutter at the main engine and aren't really being played. The first few games on the Ludo engine clearly stands out, but haven't yet been massively played though. Oh well.

One thing that might be massively played is GTO, who it seems has got a deal with Wizards of the Coast. No, it's not a certain massively popular game - the one that starts with M and has The Gathering in its name - that already has an online version. No this one is for a small lesser known game. It'll be interesting to see where that goes.

Origins start next week or something like that, and that's what Logan and Mark seems to be talking about. I think they are excited about their Treasure Hunt trails that I've set for them this year. Who knows? Maybe they might strike gold. I hope it's not madvogon's gold though.

I did a bit of MND work over the weekend, templatign more cards for Final Night. Heh, for those who still hasn't made a connection yet, Final Night is one of the more famous Legion stories from a while back which dealt with the SunEater, and also features the death of Hal Jordan aka Green Lantern. Anyways, there's something like 50 more cards to go - less actually, I'm down to 48. That's out of 130 so there are a good 82 cards with images for the set that has been templated. I've done all the Universal cards and I think Arderial, Core and Naroom are next.

AoD design is still going on slowly - Daniel is stuck in Naroom and Frosty with Core. I think Cald is more or less there and I should probably move to Arderial soon. Hopefully the other designers will start chipping in with their designs. I think this set might be the best custom set that has been designed - best in terms of art, and best in terms of cards.

-+@ Future Coin @+-

No coins, but definately the currency to the future of coding.



Continuing the series of fan made customs, this is Babylon 5. There have been 2 fan-made customs with a third somewhere in development. Anla'shok (as represented by Lenonn above) features heavily on the Minbari and their Rangers. The Vorlons (as represented by Kosh) basically makes a Vorlon deck almost playable, but the rules weren't made to add him as a Starting Ambassador so someone else has to be the starting ambassador. The Dying Races (as represented by G'Kar) have been 2 years in the making (it takes time to create perfection?) and will hopefully get playtested next year. It features the Centauri and the Narn and in development is one of my favourite card, Arranged Marriage.

So that makes it the 5th? Or is it the 6th? custom set I've shown this month. Doomtrooper, Mythos, Rage, MND, Wildstorms and Babylon 5. Yup 6. 7 if Call to Arms is included. All of those 6 are available to be played on gEngine of course. There's also the Doomtown and Shadowrun custom expansions, but I couldn't find cards for those, which is a pity. Unless someone wants to point me at the site with the Doomtown custom cards...

As expected, Tomi has started work on draughting and I have the proof below. (Side Note: this blog is written in standard my version of British English as opposed to American, thus I have decided to be consistant in my choice of spellings. Draught is the proper word for the American word "Draft", at least according to my dictionary.)



Makes me wanna play Apocalypse or even Paradise Lost draught eventhough I would have no idea what I'd be doing. heh. It also makes me wanna start coding draught into my games. Perhaps B5 draught might be in the works? Hmm...

Ed is busy fixing bugs... not only on Ludoholic where he's been hanging out lately but also for the VTES engine (and by extension, the main engine). He's been more vocal in the forums which is also another good thing. Makes me feel like I'm not alone to face the wolves in there. Hopefully he won't burn himself out this time but will enjoy the ride pushing the engine to the best it can possibly be.

I just checked out the VTES Online forums and it seems that Martin does have all the cards (or at least the scans) to those expansions that he will be adapting next year. Yay for that. Also apparently those are small expansions as well which is why he chose them. Speed is the key. 3 expansions a year was about what I did on adapting B5 as well, and while that was going on, there was a few games played every day. It only started to die when all the cards were added. I wonder why that was so...

Did I mentioned I played a Mega game of Ticket to Ride yesterday? It was my first Mega game and it is good. You can still depend on LA to NY or TransCanada from YVR to Montreal, but since there's a bonus of 15 points for the most tickets made, you really, really want to get that in addition to the longest route. Hence the wish to connect such short haul cities as Washington - Boston. In addition to the unfamiliarity of the game, it was difficult predicting where people were building towards in order to block them, so the game was basically a free for all build as much as you want where you want to. For a change, there wasn't any blocking, which is good.

Talking about boardgames, BGG gave out a free microbadge this year. I used it to get my Ludoholic microbadge so that I now have the 3 badges I was hoping to get. The other 2 are TtR and CCGW of course. Talking about boardgames, a plea to Carcassonne players out there. I need to get one of those as a Christmas (aka end-of-year) gift for someone. Does anyone have any suggestions which one to get?

-+@ The Tree House @+-

sorta like a haunted mansion, no?



Well... not MND cards for a change, but the spoilt cards from the first expansion of the Nightmare Before Christmas TCG that will be released next month or so. Yeah, I'm a few months late for Christmas, but the cards are so cool and I really do like the template.

Ed has been busy with trying to get the engine to work the way he wants it to work... the update patches are coming in droves lately, which is a good sign in my book. Bugs are getting fixed up pretty quickly and it doesn't even have to wait for a major update. I think the players appreciate it too.

Coding wise though... not much is happening there, or so it seems. Tomi seems to be busy in the Doomtrooper tournament and Mark seems quiet on Attack. I haven't heard from Kev about Monkeys and Martin is probably busy getting ready for the next Vampire expansion, Final Nights.

I've been busy fixing up the errors in Final Twilight that Lee Valentine, the president of Veritas Games (and a longtime supporter and critic of the game), has found in the online adaptation. All's good now hopefully.



That's the other thing I did last night for Final Twilight - it's an image for Trinity 2. I'm not too pleased with the shading, but Nate likes it and it will be added to Trinity 2 though. The background was interesting - grain, then texturise then craculature on a dark yellow shade. A final lighting effect to make the top bit darker completes it. Not too shabby there.

The MND tournament is still going on, of course, and the Terrible Twos seems to be going rather well, but then again, it's the beginning of the month and people are flushed with tokens. Dartax has been blogging at MND @ CCGW about his games, which is always a good read. Christoph (Freigabe) asked today in the forums though if they could have competitions for the EF cards. I turned him down though. Well, when they can come up with the images, they can make their own custom cards, I suppose. Mitch offered to take over a month running MND tournaments which was a nice offer, I might take him up on it too.

The reason I am writing today though is that I want to put down my thoughts about "Signature Games" on CCGW. What is a "Signature Game"? Well, I can't clearly define it, but it has elements of the following:

• Game coded (or re-coded) by one person and showcases that person's coding ability
• Game that is the first updated when new stuff becomes available
• Game that owner would advice people to look at when they need examples

Most of the time though, the signature is that person's first game for the engine. However, that's simplifying things a bit though... sometimes, some of the coders will have a "Second Signature Game" which is only slightly below their signature game. Often times though the Second Signature would be in a different category.

Let's consider a few examples:

Tomi's signature game is naturally Doomtrooper. Not only has Doom the most automation for any CCG, it's one of the most developed game on the engine. Although it was originally coded by Ed, I know Tomi (almost) completely recoded the game to include all the bell and whistles that it has now. Drag and discard, card attachments, deck legality checking are some of the things that started off life in Doom.

With almost a score of games under his belt though, he definately has a Second Signature. That game though is Mythos. Although driven by Alex, his subservient minion (or is that demon?), to ever greater heights, a large number of the automations in Mythos are the mastermind of Tomi himself. Playing the investigator automatically from the deck for example... to the floating tool bar, all of these are elements from Mythos.

What about Logan? Well, naturally, Logan's signature is Shadowrun, his first game that he adapted and one that he's most adept in. The hand sorting scripts were developed for Shadowrun, and Shadowrun also has the make change scripts which automatically calculates how many Yen needs to remain after spending some, and will create the necessary tokens.

Picking Logan's secondary is a bit more tricky though - it could either be his board game, Last Man Standing, or his tile game, Crypt: The Pharaoh's Curse. LMS had that amazing movement automation, which Crypt was the first tile game. Based on just that though, I'll call LMS as Logan's secondary, although only time (and Logan) will tell if that's the case or not.

It's easy picking Martin's Signature - Doomtown. The fact that he immediately announced an update to it after finishing VTES shows how much the game means to him. And there are huge elements of Doomtown that are found in many of Martin's games - autopositioning, turn order determination and multiple hands functionality to just name a few. Martin's secondary though is the game that has been taking up much of his coding time for the past year - VTES itself. Due to the nature of the license, it's much more advanced than Doomtown. The reason I didn't pick VTES as Martin's signature is simply that much of what's in it is either from other games, or specifically requested for it.

Tony's signature game though is his only game done from scratch - Fluxx. It's probably the first game to have experience points, and attempts to do a whole lot more than what on the surface. WoT, although it has grown leaps and bounds since he took it over, isn't as greatly developed though as Fluxx seems to be.

And as for my signature? I still think it's B5, which was revolutionary for its time. It was the first game to use dice and markers as buttons, and the first game to attempt to fully automate setup on the engine. Its original scope was modest, but as it and the engine has grown, it's attempting to do a bit more than everyone else. It's probably a bit low tech these days, but the basics of almost anything a CCG could need is in there.

And my secondary? No, not MND. I haven't actually changed much of Ed's code in that game. MND was so excellently coded by Ed originally that the tweaks I added later - creature dice, automated magi energize, etc. all pales by comparison to his genius. For once I'm stumped though. Nothing else stands heads and shoulders above anything else with the exception of B5 though. Suggestions are welcomed though.

One game that isn't really my secondary though is Reversi, complete with its AI and all. That was a collaborative effort between Tomi and myself and the result is a bit inspiring considering the technology (i.e. mainly built for card games) of the engine isn't really geared towards it (at that time). Likewise, I won't consider Portable Adventures my secondary due to the fact that at least 2 other people have worked on it from its inception. I'd like to nominate AvP as my secondary, except that there is nothing special about it... oh well.

-+@ 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...

-+@ 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...

-+@ 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.

-+@ 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...

-+@ Move to Partial Cover @+-

Or covering your arse?



Art Credits:
Sand Fratt by Jeffry Ransom
Agrilla Hunter and Bagala Outcast by Jen Reed
All backgrounds by Matt Holmberg.

Another 3 cards for Exodus Flight, although I haven't done much MND custom cards lately. I did manage to announce the winner of the 5th DJ contest and get ready the 6th (and final?) DJ contest today so that was half of my MND achievement for today. The other half was to fix up bugs in the game on the engine, thanks to the defects submitted by one of the most loyal MND player that is out there. It's good to have a solid bunch of dependable MND players on the engine.

The other CCG thing I did today was CCGW related as well. Final Twilight's Trinity series 2 is now available on the engine. I was more interested in showing off the artwork (not done by me) than anything else, especially the cool ads I created yesterday. Those still haven't been added to the engine yet, but I guess it'll be done s**n.

I wanted to get a B5 update going as well, but didn't quite have the time. Hopefully there'll be another B5 update before the year is out. I find that I'm happier coding for games that actually get played than those that just sit there. I guess that's why FastBreak is languishing and Hyborian Gates barely register on my radar. I really have to get that going ASAP though... I want to get it over with before the end of the year. It shouldn't be that difficult to create a no-frills game. I just need the time.

And then in the queue after that? Quartet needs a screenshot and various minor bugfixes. YNDT needs to ensure that it's playable. Then it's Urland and the big revamp. I know I'm no longer competing with Ursuppe, but I think I owe it to Urland to see how awesome a game it can be. Or something like that.

Which makes me wonder if Capitol is getting an update soon... Ed was supposed to be working on it... or was he? I have no idea. He seems to be tweaking every semi-abandoned game... Frank's Zoo got some tweaks, although it's far from complete, then there's Sailor Moon... and of course Rock, Scissors, Paper is still in the works. It sounds interesting though to flirt from game to game. I know I do that on a regular basis!

Otherwise things are quiet... but then again, that is to be expected. Major things only happen about once a week or so. I've got (still) a number of end of the month things to handle as well, despite the destruction of the old CCGW forums. Somethings are just too interesting not to do.

-+@ Fast Deployment @+-

Martin guessed the titles I think. They are indeed from BattleTech.



Art Credits:
Hanging Bungaloo by Beth Zyglowicz.
The other 2 hyrens by Jen Reed with backgrounds by Holmberg.

Three more images from Exodus Flight. I really should be working on them as well, but I haven't had the time. Twilight War should be the next set that would be going into playtesting on the engine and I haven't had the time to work on those as well. I guess they can wait. Here's the status of the next few custom MND sets:

Twilight War: 5 more images to be found, 2 Nar, 2 d'REsh and 1 Universal. After that the text needs to be completed for all 100 cards and as a departure from the previous sets, I'm going to post them up for comments before adding them to the engine.

Double Jeopardy (Promo): December should see the last of the contest for DJ and after that they'll need to have the final text posted up for comments as well before being added to the engine. That is, unless someone sends me an image before the end of the year. This month's contest has finished, but I haven't judged the winners yet. Oh well.

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

If all goes well, Tainted Glimpses and Keeper's Quest will end their playtesting status in March 2006.


I've also been updating the site with the new calendars and the non game cards. Most of the calendars are coutesy of Frosthyren Shaw. Patrick magimutt Miteff has been great in providing some of the hard to find cards. They will probably be added there as soon as possible. I've also added two new calendars for this year based on the art from the custom cards. These are 1152 by 864 pixels and the full image can be downloaded from the Calendar section of the Custom Card site.

And while I'm on MND, the tournament seems dead this close to the end of the month. I don't think people are purchasing passes and tokens to play anymore. Hmm...

The B5 league meanwhile also seems dead and not many games are being played. I wonder who will get this month's end of the month tokens. Probably farquardon again I'm sure. Well, that's one thing to look forward to. I've also finally asked Ed to link in the league ad to the engine to be rotated with the rest of it and while I was at it...


Two new ads for Final Twilight based on images from Trinity. I like the reflective effect on the police car for one and the other image just has rather warm shades which makes it feel comfortable. Definately better than anything I can ever draw for the game and I think Nate is really moving ahead with the game. I've got to add the cards to the engine soon as well... maybe tomorrow.


The other ad I created today was for Hyborian Gates. Utter Distraction by name and I guess by nature. It's pretty much a sample of the images in the game with almost nude and erotic images of both males and females. Hopefully this ad will attract attention to the game, eighties hairstyles or not!

I also finally finished typing the spoiler for Hyborian Gates and have exported it into xml. Now I just have to do some quick search and replace to get it into a gML format and I'm done. When will get game get beta? It's probably a while off yet. After the cards have been added and the images checked, I've got to add the markers and then expand the common area and add in the dimension cards somehow. It'll be messy.

Josh messaged me yesterday asking for some clarification on the gML. I guess that means he's working on CWNB... although he's going to find it hard going in the first few months of doing that. I know I did when I first started and at that time, things were a lot more simpler. Now though things are way too complicated that someone new probably would have to take ages to get used to all the nuances of gML.

And one can't mention Josh without mentioning Tony. He's been quiet after the release of the WoT cards but I have a feeling he's still tweaking with Fluxx and getting more cool stuff into it. I guess Fluxx is going to be his definative game, the same way that Logan is known for ShadowRun and Tomi for DoomTrooper.

Christoph has also been quiet lately, but I wonder if he's finally succeeded in getting the player committee to organise a tournament on the engine. He's been going flat out on the game for a while now, including updating the wiki to include a rather comprehensive article on how to play SWD on the engine a while back.

Robert has almost practically dropped off the face of CCGW, so much so that Ultra-Doug Brown has got Ed to look into updates for Sailor Moon. That would be interesting to see what happens in that game. Doug desperately wants to be a pacman for the game there though.

Another person that seems to have dropped off is Julien, who still hasn't signed up to the new forums yet. I'm waiting for him to do so, so that I can give him moderation rights to Shadowfist. I do wonder what he's busy with though... hopefully it's not rioting every night in the suburbs of Paris! HA!

Kev also has been rather quiet lately, and I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that Monkeys still isn't done. I have no idea. He's passed on some of his games - Galactic Empires to Gray and CWNB to Josh... although Gray hasn't even been seen or heard from for ages now - he hasn't signed up to the new forums for one. And since I seem to be making lists of people who haven't signed up to the new forums, add in Eric and Craig too.

On the other end of the specturm, Martin is busy working on VTES for its December release less than 2 weeks away. He has a new submenu with the Function shortcuts that I think looks really cool - in engine colours and all. Perhaps I should steal that for my games.

The other person that has been extremely busy is Mark. He's getting Aquarius ready for beta and that game seems to have gone from scratch to beta in less than a month. I have no idea what sort of game that is though. I'm still waiting for a cardback there to update Go Fish. Mark has also picked up a licensed boardgame to work on. It'll be his first board game and he has reservations about it, but I'm very sure he'll be able to cope with the challenges.

That meant I had to update the plates post which is getting a bit complicated now. Since it's on the wiki though I was wondering if I was adept enough to make a template for it... I have no idea. That's one thing I'll have to start learning one of these days - how to make a template for the wiki.

Logan has been busy on the wiki adding quite a few things here and there. He saw that I put up my language capabilities and added it to his page as well. It's nice to see he speaks German and Japanese to a certain degree.

Tomi hasn't been free enough to work on anything much, but there was a DoomTrooper update today. I haven't looked at it yet, but I'm going to guess it's only minor bugfixes. The DoomTrooper players have been slow signing up to the forums too. I wonder where they are hiding these days.

Ed apparently decided to change the code for each game. So now DoomTrooper is DOM which seems funny to me. I would have preferred the old code of DOOM. That means I've to update the geek code as well... but I think I'll leave it at the old 5 letter codes ... it'll take too much work for everyone else to update their geek code to the TLA. Well, at least MND is still MND...

-+@ Yellow Jacket @+-

Eh? What a title...



Art Credits:
Chyter by Jeffry Ransom, background by Holmberg
Evergreen Hyren by Jen Reed, background by Holmberg
Spiky Beeb by Austin Gardner, colours redone by Nov, background by Nov

Just a quick short (Ha! probably not!) blog today to keep all the people who read this (yes, all 2 of you) happy.

Nothing much is going on with MND. The tournament is still going on and a game was just played over the last 24 hours. I wonder how many people are excited about that... I think all that's left are just the good players since everyone who seems to be a beginner seems to have dropped off the face of the tournament. Oh well.

The 5th DJ contest ended today. I haven't posted up the winner yet, but the entries look interesting. This will be the penultimate contest though. Next month's DJ contest will probably be the last one... unless someone gets more artwork for it.

I actually updated the unofficial site with the 2002 calendars today. It's a small little section, but as the site moves on from the cards and the card game to the entire mythos of the world that is the moonlands, every little thing is going to start building up. About a score of people, or at least hits from a score of unique sites are being registered at least on a daily basis from across 5 continents... so...

I updated the plates post yesterday for a whole lot of things. Mark got 2 more games on his plate and one is already in closed testing on the engine. He's being going like a maniac with his games lately, which is a good thing IMO. He's also picked up his first board game - perhaps he's looking for a challenge?

Ed was busy with a new version of the engine, and this time there was a White Wolf version as well, so Martin got happy and decided to do major work on VTES. He figured out a few cool tricks for the game too that one of these days I'll have to add to my games. Hopefully this game will be made public soon.

Tony released a few hundred fan cards for WoT a few days ago... that must have taken ages to code by hand. He's even added a burb to B5 in his release too. It's funny though how B5 has got massive play while WoT doesn't really. Perhaps it's the quality of the WoT player, or maybe it's just the subject matter?

Talking about B5, the league is turning up quite a number of bugs and shortfall in the B5 programming... and I'm happily explaining to everyone how to use the defects report page on the website (not the forum). Well, I guess I'll start seeing an upswing in B5 defects over the next few days.

There was only 1 league game over the league weekend... and d1ngo won that game, so I suppose he'll be taking away the 5 copper tokens and stuff. Things seem to be going slower for league though as people begin to see how difficult it is to actually play a B5 game mega-competitively and to win on time. I've yet to play a game though... hmm... one of these days.

Bruce/deleriad has started templating cards for the next fan-made B5 expansion... and his first 2 cards got shot at rather constructively... hopefully those won't be the final versions... but it's always interesting to get new cards. I wonder if we'll get a new card template this time around. Probably not.

Mark Smith of Radical Racers fame from Lo'Jac Entertainment buzzed me about the new forums. I had to explain to him that the forums were destroyed and that the new forums is a bit more simple than the old ones. He's happy with the forums though, although I haven't seen him posting anything about Radical Racers on the forums yet. Maybe he's getting up to something.

Mike/Grover also asked me about the possibility of a DoomTown FAQ thread/post. I directed him to the CCG forum, because that's where all the "low post volume" CCGs should go. I haven't seen anything from him either on the forums, but there are better DoomTown mailing lists and bulletin boards out there.

I still have about 4 more Final Twilight images to colour for the next next next (or something) expansion. I wonder where I'll find the time to do that. I also have to finish up Hyborian Gates which has taken ages to do. Oh well, such is one with little to no motivation to adapt a complicated game... let's hope that motivation hits soon.

I bought the 40th anniversary version of Dune and read it. Made me understand more of the CCG now. Might even say I'm inspired to play the CCG again. Then again, thinking of the complex rules and the limited large number of cards... hmm... I guess I'll stick with the novel.

-+@ Pouncer A @+-

Time to pounce on things to get them started again.



Art credits:
Alpha Balamant by Jen Reed, backgrounds by Holmberg/Nov
Sandsifter by Jeffry Ransom, backgrounds by Werner/Shreve
Frigid Weebo by Jeffry Ransom, backgrounds by Holmberg

Another 3 more cards for Exodus Flight. That's the set that's going nowhere fast, but it's still going. I wish I have a bit more time to look into MND custom sets, but time is a commodity in short supply for myself right now. People are still doing artwork and stuff for the Insiider cards, so I am going to guess that there will be some cards, although I have no idea how much.

The Official MND site going down for much of the time is a blow for the remaining players and where possible, I have tried to recreate the parts of the site useful to players at Novelty's Custom Cards. The hit rates for that site has gone through the roof since I started that and there are people advertising the site all online, including on Gaia Online and the various Yahoo Groups. It is still missing about a score of d'Resh VotS cards, but in place of that, I've put up the alternate art cards and all the promos. It's turning out to be a good site content wise, but as usual, my web design skills suck so the site looks barely mediocre.

The CCGW forum blew up last month which put a halt to the first Shadowsfall tournament. CapAp/John was leading when everything fell down so I gave him some tokens and he seems to be happy. There has been a lot of games starting up again this month for the tournament this month, but there aren't too many new players and the game seems to be on a decline. I guess as long as the existing players are happy, the game will survive. It has survived for so long now.

Double Jeopardy has another contest this month of course. I was so busy last month that I retroactively named Mitch as the contest judge. He didn't choose himself, but chose Daniel/Dartax instead so that worked out well. There's only been 2 entries for this month's competition... well, it's still early days yet.

Someone called me Mr. MND earlier this month because I seemed to be involved in everything. Oh well. I guess maybe it's about time I took a step back and just let the game die or something... or just wait until the animated series airs, if it does airs. It is definately taking up way too much time though, but it is fun.

The 4th anniversary for gEngine passed by quietly, since I lost all my articles and lists that were stored on the forum for that. I guess I'll start a new tradition where I don't bother too much with the anniversary. No new games were made public over the anniversary, but Mark did make Monster Rancher public a day before so I guess that works.

The only other games that went public after Radical Racers was Fluxx which Tony had been working on for a while - it's his first full fledge game too. Otherwise things are quiet on the CCGW front in public. There's always things going on behind the scenes but I'll leave the respective PLs to announce that.

The engine itself also had an upgrade and a few things were moved around. Ghosts have all lost their gears and ranking has been replaced by something called "level". What good is the level, I have no idea, but it's not fully implemented yet. Perhaps in future when it gets added it'll be of better use. The other major change is that the game wall is now in place. I have no idea if the players are using it though... perhaps they need to get used to that idea as well.

MND wasn't the only tournament that got affected by the loss of the forums... the Rage Tricks and Treats tournament originally scheduled over Halloween was hit as well, so they had to extend it. The other thing that the loss of the forum dealt with was the B5 league, but since all the records are being kept by Alwyn off the forums, it wasn't affected too badly. The league is still ongoing and there's even a league weekend next weekend with real cards as prizes. It is shaping up to be an interesting league after all.


I won't call myself the regular artist for Final Twilight, but I was given a series of 5 more cards to colour in. The image above is for Street Thug - pencils by Antonio Rojo with colours by myself. It's a bit cartoony and I don't think it's indicative of the art found in Twilight, but Nate seems to like it so it'll be in a future expansion of the game.

Talking about the game, there's going to be bucketloads of expansions to Final Twilight starting in December and I've already have the first expansion to add into the engine. I was told to hold off until December though, so that will only go in then, but at least things are starting to move for the game, and I'm happy about that.

One thing that isn't moving too much is Hyborian Gates. I still have yet to type out the Vortex Tactics into the spoiler - that's the last thing left in the spoiler. One of these days, I'll just have to get on to do it. After that, it's basically just importing that onto the gML and adding the scripts and the other pieces required to play the game. Perhaps I'll release it early next year.

I still have to finish up fixing a few other games - YNDT for starters, then Urland needs a huge overhaul. I think Quartet needs some tweaks as well to get it up to scratch and Bowling is still waiting for the AI to be coded in. Lots of work on too many of my games. A quick summary:

AvP - No-frills, images needs to be clipped.
vT - Spoiler to be created, images to be clipped, scenarios to be added.
B5 - Where do I start on this? Bold text, replacement handling, full starting hand automation, initiative determination, lots more to do.
BORD - The reverse card can finally be coded now that the engine has support for it.
BOWL - AI automation and some minor reported defects
CHECK - It's would need time for me to get everything going on this game, up to the point of automation and AI.
ELEM - This is still waiting for the engine fix to enable hotspots for pieces on a card. It's going to take Ed to ensure that the engine is capable of handling that before things can move.
FB - Lots of playtesting needed. It's playable, but things like score automation would probably needs to be done.
FTWIL - An upcoming expansion might be time for me to add in attachments as well.
FIRE - Nothing going on here... I have all the images, but no time to work on anything.
GOFSH - I'll call this finish and done with.
HAMLT - It's public, but there is nothing to check for victory conditions.
HALN - There is no support for the new cards, which would need a massive amount of playtesting to catch.
HGATE - still in the coding stage... it's going to be no-frills
KINGS - Let's call this finish and done with as well!
MND - The players are happy with the setup as it is and minor changes to enhance and speed up gameplay would probably not be too appreciated.
PAD - Ed wants everything to be automated, and now that the engine is finally capable of doing it, it should get done at some point.
QUART - There still some bugs and suggestions on this game that needs to be close out at some point.
RDRCR - It's No-Frills and the engine version is going to be slightly different than the print version.
RVRSI - Minor defects exist on the game, perhaps due to the complications of making sure things work with the AI in 1-player mode and to allow 2 human players as well.
TRIAD - Heh, this is so not going to be done for a while now.
URLND - Scores automation, numbering the oceans, automating a few other common tasks... lots to do here and this would be the second one of the licensed games to get attention... after YNDT.
WS - Some automation would be nice for one of the oldest games on the engine... wish I had the time for it.
WSLS - Heh, well, let's shelf this under the table for now.
WSS1 - An AI would be nice... I think I will be ripping out the preconstucted deck and replace that with a randomly generated deck.
YNDT - some more minor bugfixes required for the game. It's pretty slick now.
YUKK - I'll call this one done as well.

And the title today is from the same CCG as last month since nobody guessed what it was last month. I guess there hasn't been enough entries to guess it as well.

-+@ Charge! @+-

and that in more than one way describes Radical Racers...



Art Credits:
Hinko and Wasperine by Beth Zyglowicz
Greedy Kilm by Jen Reed with background by Holmberg/Nov.

Three more for Exodus Flight, most of which can be viewed on the EF page. Work on the RP customs have slowed down quite a bit, but that's to be expected what with the end of summer and all. Still the customs are getting a bit of attention in other quarters, with TG getting some errata on the engine.

Of course, the SP tournament is still ongoing although the number of games have slowed down dramatically now that people have used up all their tokens. It's good to know that there are still people playing in the tournament that is almost running itself. There's been calls for more tournaments too, although I have to wonder how viable it will be come December.

The fourth Double Jeopardy contest ends in about half a day and there's been disappointing responses. Oh well, guess that's from the disappointing winners that have been chosen or something. I haven't yet picked a winner, although I do think that there are very strong entries in this month's competition.

The website is still going on... I'm still putting up the card scans on my site after the demise of everything on the official site. It's still getting crazy hits every day, and today, someone sent me a broken link report. I guess it must be getting bigger and stronger everyday. Quite a bit to do there - put up the alt art and the preview decks, then the Japanese cards before I can move to fiction. I think I've decided to post the fiction in reverse order - i.e. latest first - don't ask me why...

The B5 league started last weekend and up till today, only 3 games have been played. That might not seem a lot but bear in mind that each game lasts at least 3 hours (and can take up to 7 hours) and has at least 3 players, that probably means more manhours have been spent playing those 3 games than have been spent on the Doomtrooper league this month (that's a trick statement, there's no Doom league this month so no hours have been spent there). Alwyn is doing a good job running the league and my commendations goes out to Rune.

While I'm on the subject of B5, the next expansion seems to be going slower. Sure, there are some young turks who are so keen to get their ideas into the set that they are almost spamming the forums. The SWD players will probably tell them that they need "patience, my young padawan". Still, Bruce is probably mulling the cards over in his head and we'll hopefully get a list of about 180 cards by the end of the month or early November.

Both the two games mentioned above had updates in the past few days, although I still have been busily trying to finish up Hyborian Gates. The images are all clipped now and the spoiler is more than halfway done. I just have to push myself to get the spoiler done soonish and then to import the cardlist into the gML. Lots of work there... would probably take me 30 minutes to import everything and to get it working.... if I remember how to do it correctly.



The distraction of the week though is Radical Racers which went public beta today. That's after 2 days of not so hard work... but the game is one of the lowest standard adaptation I've ever done for the engine. It needs to be spruced up with bells and whistles (literally and figuratively) to get it running up to scratch (pun intended). Still the owner of the game has been rather pleased with what has been done so far. I know I can do better, but well, I need lots more time to do that.

Having said that though, it was a bit hairy at some points since rather than copy from an existing game, I actually wrote the scripts from scratch for this one. It's a lot more difficult than I remember it to be and I can just pity new PLs who are trying to get everything up to scratch. And what I am doing here is really, really basic... for me that is. No wonder people get hang-ups about automations and game design. It's not that easy after all.

So that's the second original game that has gone live in under a week. I've even updated the links on the right to include the game as well. These games are all good though since they have:
1) Finished cards, complete with art
2) Rules
3) A webpage where everything is hosted
4) Some support from the creators of the game.
Final Twilight shares all that of course which was why it was adapted so quickly. I pity those people who want to design a CCG to make money, but don't know how and need experience from the inside. There seems to be lots of those flying around, but they come up lacking somehow. Mostly. I haven't been blown away by the Original games so far though. Not even by some of the really high powered ones - Allegiance, for one... and the MTG clone Mystical Empires...

I was digging through my weekend bag and dug up a starter deck of Naruto cards and a booster pack of Spiderman cards. Whoa, I forgot I bought those almost a month ago. What do I think about the cards? I think one is a kiddie game and the other is unappealing at least to me. I'm just going to keep copies of them in my cardback collection file.

With all the cards lying around, I searched for the good part of the week for a good online store that will ship cardbox boxes for cards to me cheaply. Well, tough, there isn't any that I can find. Bear in mind that most online stores charge $70 for shipping. Urgh. Ebay proved no better either... nobody wanted to sell those boxes outside the US. So what did I do? Today, I cut up a huge FedEx box and made two 1200 card count boxes. I think they can take 1200 cards... I didn't count, but the boxes are long. They don't look too professional, but since they are just storage boxes anyways, I think they are better than having cards lying in piles all over the place.

It's almost the end of the month and things are going to go crazy... particularly with the anniversary the week after that. Mark has been busy on Monster Rancher and Tony is still plugging away at Fluxx so hopefully both those games will go public then. I hope Hyborian Gates will join them on that day too.

I still haven't got everything done for my top 10 list for the anniversary... I guess that needs work... and there's the usual stuff - plates posts, statistics and all the internals that nobody else sees.

One thing everyone will see, but hopefully not notice is that the forums are getting shorter. I've been merging some forums and getting rid of others in a quest to make the forums shorter. I don't think I've been too successful so far, but I guess I'll get there eventually. There's only so much that can be eliminated anyways.