-+@ Offworld Research @+-

Which is what I seem to be doing, hence the lack of updates. New CCG titles starting this month, last couple of months was from Rage.



Art Credits:
Bazel and Auroc by Alison Strom/Whyrl
Kleysa by Annette Burke

3 more images from AoD, which is currently in design and design is progressing. We lost the forums a while back and I had to create a new one at a new location which has been taking up time. The designers have been asked to provide stuff from memory and all - sorta like a what have been done before - since most of the resources that were on the forums is all now gone. Well, as good as gone anyways. It's still progressing, but slower than what it would have been with the old forums I guess.

Origins has come and gone a long while back and there isn't much to report, since I wasn't there and all. Logan didn't get any news about a new Carc expansion, which I have been hoping for, so I doubt there'll be one this year. Maybe next year. Mark got me the free online code for TTR, as well as news about the Swiss Expansion. I'm excited about the latter and grateful for the former. I've been spending a bit of time playing TtR online ever since and it's funny, but I'm still enjoying the game, eventhough it's so juvenile at the first pass. I've been playing quite a bit of the Mega Game though, and maybe I'll start some Europe games one of these days.

I'm also finishing the games I have on Ludoholic.com. Won an Urland game, lost a Monkeys game, and am on my way to losing the other Monkeys game and a Capitol game. I think I found a bug in the Capitol game, which accounts for why I lost (yeah, right! or not!) but I really don't enjoy those games as much as I do with TtR. It's not so much the pbw format, it's more the games themselves. I wanted to say they are less challenging, but I don't think that's the case. I have no idea why I'm so turned off by the 3 Ludoholic games though. Oh well.

I can't believe I haven't got Fastbreak up yet. I guess I've gotta stop procrastinating and finally get around to it. Maybe this weekend. Then it's off to Barathaum and then Armageddon, hopefully both before the end of the year. I doubt I'll get that B5 update in this year... or maybe I will. Who knows?

The MND.com site has been regularly updated over the past 3 weeks now, and it's created quite a stir/storm among the older communities. People are confusing the "Trading Card" for a revamp of the card game and other people are throwing names at those people. It's almost like a circus. The funny thing is how people can jump to conclusions so easily when such little infomation is given. The sad thing is when they take their own (and often wrong) conclusions as fact and present them as facts. I've been trying to correct those who post, but I'm sure that for every one who posts, there are 10 more who doesn't. Sad doesn't even begin to cover it.

I'll end the post with this image by Annette Burke. Note the Torsk in the background which is so full of detail. The character is very nicely shaded as well!

-+@ Dark Angel @+-

which describes the 3 images shown below of course.



Art by Whyrl/Strom. That's 75% of the cards for A Cure for all Seasons Promo expansion. Yup, it's a small expansion of 4 cards. The text is up for comments at the custom card forum - links on the left unless you are downloading this with the feeds. This is the Promo expansion for Exodus Flight and like Exodus Flight, it highlights the RP element even more than the usual card. Poor Daniel made a comment which got partially shot down on the forum, but what he said was partially good. I guess he just needs to learn about the story-telling aspect of these cards in addition to the gaming part of it. After all, the story, the artwork as well as the card-game is integral to the mythos of the game.

Talking about Mythos if you wanna support the science blog with Cthulhu as a mascot (pictured left below), you can go and vote for uh... Pharyngula or however that is spelt for the best Science blog.



His closest competitor is the Bad Astronomer though (banner shown upper right). Their blogs have been funny reads over the last few days as the war of words heat up and it's gotten a bit partisan. And that's my cyberspace community service for this blog.

I don't think I'll touch Barathaum this year after all. Sucks and all I know, but since I'm not being the grinch this year, my time is spent sniping ebay auctions, hand-crafting gifts and teaching newly-weds how to bast a turkey for thier new husbands (or something). Yeah, so Barathaum is gonna take a back-seat after all. Bummer. I really wanted to get it up this year as well, but oh well, there's always next year (unless Ed doesn't die of a paper cut while playing with his brand new board games... then the engine goes down a few months after that, I'd guess).

I wonder if Ed has had time to work on Grave Robbers these few days. I get the impression that the silence means he's busy at work on it and we might get a surprise beta before the end of the year. Then again, he could be busy with all the festivities and stuff, so I have no idea. It's not as if he has a blog or he posts updates regularly... or does he?

The server acted up over the weekend and it got so bad that it had to be rebooted by Monday. I got a number of PM asking me to fix it for them, but I didn't want to disturb anything in case there was something there Ed wants to see. It was a memory error after all and it got rebooted. Wow, the number of games over the weekend must have been a mighty amount to have caused a memory error.

JC dropped by the forum over the weekend to make some announcements. I have no idea if anything is done, but at least he's back. Hopefully, he'd be updating the Rage stuff soon. Talking about Frenchmen, I had a nice chat with Martin over the weekend too regarding ... nothing in particular. Sad but true. It was just good to catch-up. The other French PL was last seen updating Shadowfist. I don't think he's in the tournament though.

I think the Shadowfist tournament is going rather well, but I think it's dying down some. I know the Rage tournament is dying down quite a bit because people are getting busy for the holidays. Sad, but true, but winter seems to be the season for fur lovers.

The forum game that Aidan has been trying to organise isn't going ahead after all. That's a pity. I was looking forward to sate my bloodlust by lynching fellow players. Oh well, it's not to be so. Maybe next year. Who know what next year might bring?

-+@ Vampire Illusionist @+-

or more accurately Werewolf Illustrationist...



Art Credit as stated on cards, but I'll explain why I chose these 3 cards out of 50 or so cards. Gremlins in the filing cabinet was funny and that piece is one of Fenris' (HC O'Neil's) best work in the set. Why is it filed under P though? I have no idea. The veil is by MND-fan artist Beth Zyglowicz - you see her images since they form the bulk of the RPG converted to CCG MND cards in EF, and in the future FH. I recognised the image when browsing through the card because her pencils are so unique.

Ira Martin goes under the name of Todd Traf on the engine and I have talked about him before. This image is my favourite yet. Notice the texture on each individual brick on the background. That must have taken ages to draw. Obviously this is done in the real world and not on a computer. If it was done on a computer though, the window would probably have a reflective sheen on it and stuff. I'm too lazy to provide a link, but there's a link in the Rage CCGW forums to view all the cards.

So that's the 3rd custom CCG that I'm showcasing in my blog this month. The next entry would probably be the images from the A Cure for all Seasons Promo expansion for MND to make it a 4th. Or maybe Barathaum. But that's not a fan-made custom expansion, that's an original indie game. Hmm...

Nothing much to say on Barathaum. No work done on it yet other than cleaning up the wiki and making sure everything is there. The server is setup for the game, but I haven't asked for the database to link to it, because I don't have a file to link to. Maybe I'll start to work on it this weekend since I think I have the time for it then.

I have been busy with MND today though, working with 3 different expansions. We are still commenting on the Exodus Flight cards and I'm still incorporating the comments into the cards. I wish that was more tedious, but there aren't that many people commenting anyways. Well, I guess they will only "comment" (aka complain) when it get online and it gets used against them. Oh well. I finished draughting out the Universal cards for EF today too. That wasn't easy. Universal cards are becomming more and more difficult to design these days thanks to the huge cardlist and the potential interaction of cards. I hope they aren't too powerful. It's still private though, the region will only be made public next month with the yet-to-be-draughted Weave cards.

Two other things I finished today are the Project Second Chance Base Set cards of which there are only 8, and the 4 cards from the A Cure for all Seasons Promo expansion. I expected more cards for P2C Base, but only 8 were selected. That might even be reduced by 1 to 7 cards. It's scheduled to be added to the engine this month though. In lieu of the 3rd region for EF this month, I have made public the cards from Cure instead. It's a bit late, but I guess it's better late than never. Daniel has had a once-over look at the cards and have provided some comments, and I have tweaked the cards some more after that, but there are points which I'm still not very happy with on the cards. I might continue to tweak them over time. Cure goes online in March for playtesting.

Now all I have to finish are the Weave cards for EF, and then I can start hunting for images for AoD. With only 30-odd cards and not that many images left to be found, I wonder if the expansion is even going ahead. I need 50 before allowing card text design to start. Maybe I would have to resort to actually paying for commissioned images. Urgh, I'm going to burn a hole in my pocket I think.

Note to self: remember to do a write up on P2C. I need to blog about it on the MND @ CCGW blog to get people to think twice about the cards. I mean, if I created a custom card called "A Brub" that has the text "alternate Brub" and a recoloured image of a Brub with a very similar power, people will have no qualms playing with it. Yet when I do the same thing with P2C people aren't too comfortable with that idea. Oh well. I guess I just have to spell it out for people.

I actually wrote as "Novelty Nostalgia, CCG Workshop Project Lead" to CCP and FFG today, requesting permission to adapt Eve and Call of Cthulhu CCGs on the engine. I wonder if I'll get any replies from either of them. I would be surprise if I hear from them today. Still, miracles have happened, and I hope both of them will say it's OK to adapt their games.

OK, I just confirmed that Titan: the Arena isn't coming back to the main gEngine. Whether it'll appear elsewhere in a real-time format I have no idea as of yet, but I guess I'll announce it here after I announce it on the main site and stuff. Or maybe not. It's confusing even to me what's happening there.

Before I forget and my apologies in advance for being uncouth: but if you have been reading my blog this year and you wish to give me something for Christmas (or whatever end of year holiday you celebrate... although Sinterklaas and Deepavali is over...), drop me a line between now and the end of the year on the blog in the comments section - that's all I'm asking for. Thanks.

-+@ Rally Squad @+-

Is that what the Scoobies are?



Nope, not the Scooby Doo ECG cards, but these are from the fan made expansion for Mythos. I like these cards, they are well made and they are funny too. Hopefully they'll get on gEngine with a release event like a tournament? Nyaah... according to Alex, all he wants to do is to get on and play and not much else.

Not much going on the engine at the moment - the Rage and Shadowfist tournaments are still running but both are going up to the end of the month. I'm not involved in either though so I have no idea how things are going, but there's quite a bit of traffic on the Rage forums and I'm sure the Fist mailing list is probably busy as well. Only goes to show that someone organising a tournament or two can spice things up.

I went to the Ludoholic forums today and was surprised to find that Capitol has gone Now Playing. Wow. I think Ed is really really really excited about it. He's taken 6 years of experience (and abuse?) working on the engine and translated that into a really great job on Ludoholic. There's a steady stream of gamers there and I think it's about time I said adieu to the site for a while (at least until he starts adapting something interesting like YNDT or something). I added an announcement to the main page of CCGW stating that Capitol has gone Now Playing, but I wonder if that will excite anyone there.

What has been exciting is that Barathaum is getting all its info up and running on the wiki even before the game starts adaptation. Wow. Between the creator and myself, we have gotten the page up and the rules up, and since that is open source, hopefully people will drop in to correct spelling mistakes and grammar and what not. It's the first game that I'm using the wiki as my source material as well... well, in as far as the rules and general infomation is concerned. That reminds me, I need to ensure that the board is mentioned in the rules somewhere as well. The example of play that I read is not there too... hmm...

I finally moved over the Paradwyn and Underneath cards to the public viewing forum for player comments - forgot to do that earlier in the month. Worked a bit on the Universal cards, but wasn't too keen on them for the time being so rather than script subpar cards, I decided to leave them for another day. I helped Mr. Burke out on his cards as well. The solutions aren't perfect and playtesting is definately needed for the new versions of the two TW cards. That's getting there... slowly.

I created a rather nasty Evil Men archery deck today with a pure Hobbit flipside. It is doing rather well against the poor casual player as I'm taking out their fellowship with my archers while my hobbits cancel the skirmishes, discards the minions and just run and run and run. I didn't think it was such a good deck, but I haven't faced top level decks - Smeagollum and Castamir for example - yet. At least I'm enjoying the games. Can't say the same for my opponents though... poor them.

I played my first Mega game of Ticket to Ride today... online that is. I can't start the 1910 games because I don't have the software for it, but some other player did and it took me ages getting on. It was new, exciting and difficult as people were blocking each other trying to get to where they though they needed to go. I didn't win the game, but it was fun building from Washington to Atlanta, for example, to claim the 4 points.

-+@ Grand Library @+-

Or at least I seem to be showcasing a different CCG everyday...



Nope, not Chaotic cards as I thought I'd do today. Instead these are Doomtrooper cards from the latest just finished (roughly 2 months ago) expansion Armageddon. V Tribe and this expansion are the only 2 not to be present on gEngine and probably won't be there for a while, at least not until Tomi fixes his technical problems at home. Ah well, it'll be a good break for him.

And what's the deal about those Chaotic cards? Well, I only found a jpg of one of them online, the rest are hidden in a flash thingie and I was lazy to do a screencapture, yadda yadda, so it isn't there because I don't have the images. That's the short story. However, while looking for the cards, I came across the official site which promises that physical cards can be translated into the online realm as well because each card will have a unique code. That's a new gimmick I guess... and it's stated to start in January next year.

While searching for Chaotic cards though, I came across a fan made CCG for Britney Spears. Urgh. I can just imagine the cards "Oops, I did it again", "K-fed" and perhaps the latest version, "Fed-Ex". I had a look at the images and thought for a split second that I should used them instead of chaotic, but I don't think I wanna inflict that on the readers of this blog. Anyways, the site is at chaotic but be warned, you might go blind or something.

Ed came to me in a huff and a puff and told me that my last blog was erraneous. Well, not in such big words, but more or less there. I never did realised that he added a notepad feature into ludoholic over time and I apologize to any readers who may have been mislead by my last blog. There is a notepad feature that I never realised and never used, although I should have... it would have been easier for me than to remember all the sequence of things that I wanted to do. Oh well.

Apparently there's a new Rage expansion that's coming up and people are wondering if JC will be up to getting it onto gEngine on time. I have no idea what JC has been doing recently, but he was rather crestfallen when Ed sorta stopped the development of VS. I wonder if he's giving the Rage players any troubles? I have no idea, but he doesn't seem as fervent now though, for some weird reason. Mayhaps he's tired of the whole thing? Who knows?

I just had a look at the new art. There's 4 by Ira Martin who goes by the name of Todd Traff (or something like that) on the engine. I've been watching his artwork and I wonder if he'd do a piece or two for some of the other CCGs out there. Yes I'm still looking for art for the next MND expansion! I like what HC O'Neill did for the latest Rage expansion. I think I might copy that when I get the time.

I pointed the creator of Barathaum to the wiki and tried to get him to do stuff there, like copy the rules onto the wiki for one. I'm a bit tired of the PDF that's posted online though and there seems to be so many different version of the rules that I lost track of what was what. Well, he said he'll get on to it today his time, which will probably be tomorrow my time. I hope he makes an attempt at it... and he does a good job.

-+@ Chameleon Fairy @+-

New Month, same old CCG though for the title... and that card is just so gay...



Lord of the Rings cards and these are from the next set Rise of Saruman. It got approved late last week so 2 cards have been spoilt - Saruman and the Ring. Of course I have to find a third for this blog so I picked up a fan made card with the spoilt text of another card - a throne, which will be one of the "featured" possession in the set. Saruman is the featured minion with not just one or two or three, but 4 different versions of him in the expansion, which makes sense; after all the expansion is named after him. The cards will be spoilt one a week every Friday. Sadly, it won't be printed in time for Christmas which is a pity, but hopefully it'd be printed early next year.

I have no idea if this expansion will even go online. We are still waiting for the last expansion, eventhough that was only a 6 card expansion. Sony's taking over of WA has really messed up WA and if anyone wants to start and make up ground by taking over WA's share of the pie, this would probably be a good time to start. I have been playing a bit more often though and made an Elf deck yesterday with the twins. It's mid level, but it's interesting playing elves... for the first time. I think I've played out the decktype though.

The sad thing about LotR is that there are only 7 fellowship cultures (and 5 shadow ones). Each culture seems to have 2 strategies at the most making 14 possible playable fellowship decks.
That seems a small number though. The numbers are a little bit higher due to "rainbow" fellowships and dual-race decks, but only Hunters, Eowyn-Elves get to see some play although I saw a rather interesting Gondor/Gandalf fp today.

I've had quite a bit of time recently because the 4-player Urland game finally finished with Ed as the winner. I made a mistake early in the game with a misclick and picked the wrong gene. Oh well, blame it on human error. I'm glad Ed won though not because he coded the game but because he really played well. Everyone else made mistakes. One thing I desperately wished was present on the game interface was a notepad where I could jot down which were the chips that I passed on and what my next few moves are going to be. Relying on memory, sometimes for a few days isn't the nicest thing to be doing.

The only other thing of significance today was that a playtest report was posted for the latest MND expansion that have been added to gEngine for playtest. The DJ cards are, as feared, vastly overpowered, but with comments and playtesting, they are being knocked down a few pegs. I think I have the best playtesting team at this point in time on the engine for the cards... and thanks to the effort started last year, a good team of card developers as well.

There's apparently a new expansion of Doomtrooper to be added... probably in the beginning of the year... and Scooby Doo for Mythos as well. Doo and Doom as I call them. As for Barathaum though, this week is shaping up to be another busy week so I doubt any progress will be made. Perhaps over the weekend, if I can squeeze in the time, the excitement, enthusiasm and effort, I might get it done. Or perhaps not - I have no idea how the rest of this week will go much less of the weekend.

I was looking through a new CCG for next year based on the Fox programme Chaotic. I'm not sure I like it. Is it me or are CCGs getting more and more gimmicky these days? I've posted about Dino Duel where you get cards from an arcade machine... now apparently there's cards that give you codes to enter at a website to do things. Granted, that's not new - Digimon probably had something similar, and perhaps Bionicle as well, but still. Why cut out the game stores and stuff? I have no idea. I'll probably grab the images for the next blog update unless I actually do some work on Barathaum, in which case, it'd be that instead.

-+@ Temporal Warp @+-

See images below?



Just posting 3 images from dino duel with an ultra-rare on the left, the one and only card that I possess in the middle and a battle card on the right. The card back has a magnetic strip which you can swipe on the arcade machine though so the cardback is a bit weird, but not every cardback has a magnetic strip. The logo is also on the cardback. And that's part of my community service for this blog to educate the public about the future in CCGs. Not.

I'm still waiting to finish my last Urland game. It's been 2 days and I haven't even got a chance to make a move. Kev has been slow to act these last few days probably due to effects of too much turkey (yes, there's a protein* or something in turkey which makes one slothful apparently).

And slothful of course is part of the seven deadly sins... not that thing by some English poet or writer, but the new subtitle in the next two MND expansions. I had to check yesterday to determine if Paradwyn is ready for preview next week/month together with Underneath (it is). Universal might join the ranks there if I can finish that by the end of the month as well.

Wait up, then what will Weave go along with? Well, hopefully over the next month or so, I can flesh out my ideas for Cure and let Daniel have a once over at the design just to see what his gut feeling about the design would entail. Hopefully that would appease him, or alternatively it might upset him that he won't be able to sit back and relax. Oh well.

I had a look at Forest Well today after one player singled it out as being overpowered. I think it is as well, particularly now that it starts with Warrada. Urgh. Compared with Overgrowth though, it gives more bang for buck with Warrada in play, but it's a costly investment. It needs to be pared down a bit, but I have no idea how without making it lose its effectiveness.

While I'm on that topic, a few days ago, people were singling out Glowing Sword (OK, one person who doesn't play with relic discard was singling it out) as being too overpowered, until I pointed out that Finishing move can't be used the turn it is played and relic discards should be common in one's deck. Perhaps that should be the solution for Forest well as well? I have no idea.

I guess I can finally say that the new game I'm looking to adapt this year is known as Barathaum. It's published by Sage's Workshop or something like that and is actually being sold (apparently) online. I made (I would say badly) a cardback for it which is shown on the wiki. I wonder if it'll get accepted by the creator of the game, but the cardback is like the first thing I code in any new game. Well, if all is in order, then it should hopefully take about a week for it to be adapted.

* Turkeys are rather high in the protein tryptophan, which can be a relaxant for the body. That's why one feels doubly sleepy after a turkey meal (although some say it's an urban myth) - due to the tryptophan and the rush of blood to the digestive track to soak up all the goodies.. including the tryptophan.

-+@ Deity Status @+-

Who me?



Art credits:
Night Awebaw and Firdhen by Strom/Whyrl
Leaping Osatch by Zastrow

I templated some more images a few days ago and three are shown above. These are for Ancient of Days... but it's still early. I've already removed a Cald template for a later expansion and might have to do the same to a Naroom one. The problem is that with just 6 cards for the first 5 regions, things are pretty much cramped there. Add in a relic cross-region theme for AoD and that's effectively only 5 cards per region. Why a relic theme? Well, we've already have crushing spells and spirit spells and tainted spells so a spell theme has already been done. I could do a creature theme thing, but that's gonna be tricky art-wise. Relics though are easy and I have the perfect image for this theme. I just have to template them one of these days.

Double Jeopardy is already getting it's share of reviews and it's nice to know that the comments that are directed my way are mature and thought-provoking instead of destructive and demeaning. The Wanderers have been hightlighted as a potential issue this early in playtesting, eventhough I wonder why nobody pointed it out during the comments stage. Oh well, I guess people just wanna have broken cards added to the engine or something. I'll have to change that soon I guess.

I've been itching to start working on something that's a bit under wraps at the moment, although I've been bursting to say it here. I can't. It's got nothing to do with licensing though, but it is a game that I want to adapt to the engine, hopefully before the year is out. I need to contact the creator first though to clarify a few things. It's probably gonna be no-fries (aka "no frills") initially, and I have no idea if it'll get automation at this stage. It's all up in the air as the saying goes.

Otherwise, things are quiet. The Mythos tournament has finally ended with Jer(e)(my) (I like spelling it that way) being declared the winner. The other two tournaments will run until the end of the month. Aidan tried to start a game on the forums, but that seems to die horribly and he's giving people an extra week to sign up. I do hope more people sign up.

I haven't put in much time on Ticket to Ride. My ISP is having problems which is causing massive lag on TtR. That's a pity. It is a good distraction when I have 10 minutes spare and nothing to do. Yes, 10 mintues can usually finish a game. That's the huge plus when compared with PBW site (like ludoholic). It has its downside though. Sometimes I have to wait to get a 4-player game, but that's not very often.

I've been playing more LotR instead. It's just for fun, or card-flopping at best. I have a middle of the road deck that will probably beat up newbies bad, and get beaten up by really good decks bad, but I don't mind getting beaten. It's more for the fun of playing the cards and making funny comments like "There should have been an Adam Sandler in Lord of the Rings to pants Sean Austin" and stuff like that.

I've been downloading images to a new computer and I just realised that bowling has a missing image, so it back to the old computer to upload the image before coming back here to work on everything else. Things are difficult when one is migrating over to a new machine I guess... but there's always some good in the tedious process, like finding out that bowling is missing an image for example, which I doubt will be reported at all.

I finally dug up the card I got from the arcade game, and it's called Dino Duel. Apparently it's Indonesian, or at least the website is in English and the Indonesian version of Malay (think American version of English). I'm sure Martin will look through the site and tell me the gameplay depends too much on luck or something (or not now that I've said it). He'll probably be true. It has a good concept and it dispenses cards, but the gameplay is bad, at least in my book. I suppose someone will be coming out with a better machine at some point in the future. You probably won't hear about it here.