-+@ Invaders @+-

I'm surprised that one of the most popular page was the one I posted with the rest of the unreleased cards. I know some of these cards have been seen before, but if not, well, here are the 4 invader cards that I made way back when.




Holmberg actually has a few nice Invader pictures on his site as well (link is on my blog to the right). Here's a nice group shot of 4 Invaders:

Invaders Group shot


That's a nice image. Here's some more of his scratch pad:

Critters 1

Critters 2
Perhaps if there are people making custom cards out there that's not me, some of these would probably make good card images! Please do make sure you ask Holmberg for his permission firsth though!

-+@ Kill @+-

A new year, means something has died...



First up, new games for the year. This one isn't really new, but I just saw these cards. It's the Kingdom Hearts TCG by FFG. It seems interesting that there's a Donald Duck in the set as well. Yeah, Disney must be really pushing that game. I don't have the cards, I haven't played it yet, I'm not even gonna get it. I do like the concept though... or at least the characters.

There's a lot of new things going on with Magi-Nation (no longer Duel). The cartoon series has gone halfway with nary a soul watching it thanks to its really early Saturday morning timeslot. Then there's what was supposedly a MMO going into beta (feh - they lied - in reality it's just a souped up java applet with limited player vs player interactions).

What has also been interesting is that Insiider, the forums that kept the torch burning through the darkest night for the franchise is dead. I wonder why. I know for a fact that the URL and server was recently renewed for a year. So it couldn't be financial. I seriously doubt it's technical because it seems that the URL has been wiped from the face of the net. So I wonder what happened there.

On a maybe related note, CCG Workshop has announced that they are closing down the online card game because the publisher have retracted permission for the site to host the game. Thus closes a chapter for the online gaming site as one of its more popular games goes into the graveyard. There has already been one negative post on the CCGW forums, in addition to a number of condolences as well. A number of players are going to be disappointed that the game is not available there anymore.

So, that's not one, but two of the three sites that has carried on the flame of the Magi-Nation franchise throughout the long winter that has now ended their MND connection. Will the third and final site be similarly targetted as well? Only time will tell.

-+@ 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...

-+@ Red Sky @+-

Martin got it right, but I'm continuing anyways, probably until the end of the year if my blogging record keeps up...



These three cards are from the Avatar TCG. Logan tried getting some promo cards for me from Origins, but did not manage to succeed. I guess that's my loss. Somehow I don't think it's doing very well. The card design actually looks a bit dull - they could have done so much with the card, but instead it's just lines and colours. Way too simple for a cartoon that has such a complex plot. The cartoon is going into it's third season next month and there are quite a number of crazies waiting for it.

Another new cartoon that's coming out next month is the Magi Nation cartoon. I'm tired of all the speculation and assumptions dressed up as facts being posted almost every forum I go to. I have started a FAQ just to try to combat those false interpretation, but I have no idea if I'm doing any good there. Oh well, I won't even get to watch the cartoon next month, unless...

Not a lot of things going on with the custom cards as well. I got the Paradwyn EF cards up for playtesting yesterday, and fixed a few things, but things are slow since it's the "height" of summer and not many people are around. No new custom cards are being designed, and I haven't had the time to hunt for images, or to colour any as well. Hopefully things will pick up by the end of September. I should really put some time into it as well.

General CCG Workshop news - Monkeys and Titan have both had a bump up in status on ludoholic.com, but I really haven't been keeping track there. I updated B5 again today though, after correcting a whole bucketfull of defects a couple of days ago. It's embarassing that the game hasn't been updated since 2005. It's a good thing that it's getting popular now. Nipa also did a small Doomtrooper update and I think Aiden has got a Rage update in as well since I last blogged. It's not much, but it's something?

I haven't have had the time to get Fastbreak up as well, and I think that's a good thing. At the end of the day, I think it would have been too much effort for too little gain. So there'll be no more sealed deck in Fastbreak unless I feel really inspired or something. Nevertheless I still have to add in the missing cards - but I have to do the graphics first. I was supposed to do it today, but I decided I'll take a break to write out this blog before the end of the month.

I have been playing quite a bit of Ticket to Ride over the past week or so and have been losing. I think I'm getting worse... or other people are getting better. I also managed to play a game on the Swiss map, which was fun, and there were a type of card in the Swiss game that isn't in the normal game. That was also interesting.

-+@ 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!

-+@ Spotlight @+-

I wanna turn my attention on a few things, but first:



Art credits:
Twee Twunk - pencils by Joe Araiza, colours by myself, background by Matt Holmberg
Falling Weebo - image by Epoch, background by Rich Werner
Dust Primat - image by Justin Zastrow, background by Rich Werner

Three more cards for AoD, with the first AoD non-promo expansion promo. Twee Twunk was included just to finish off the starting card for a particular magi just in case that this expansion ends up to be the penultimate expansion. (I'm not saying that it will be, I'm saying that it might be, but nothing is certain these days.)

Design hasn't started on these cards though, mainly because I'm still waiting for 2 more images for the expansion before the green light for design to start can be given. I have just finished colouring one of the images for this expansion today and have written another blog about it. The image is posted further down. It was a good image to colour and I did learn quite a few things by colouring it as mentioned in the other blog. I guess I had fun colouring it, but I'm sure the response to it by Joe would be ... well, gushing is the word that comes to mind.

I have actually been templating cards for what was formerly known as Fallen Hour. Formerly doesn't mean it's cancelled. It means that I've renamed it to something a little more . It's now known as Final Night. Tada! Yeah, I know that's a rip-off from something that Batman was associated with and now it seems more onimous. Does that mean that this will be the final MND custom expansion? Who knows? I'm not saying either way because I don't really know.

Anyways, the expansion will be 130 cards, down from the 150 in EF. I've shaved 2 cards from each region and added 4 cards to Universal to give it the final count, although not all 130 cards have been templated. I think as of yesterday, the count was about 70-odd cards done, which is above the 50% threshhold I set for meself to start a custom expansion, so the expansion will be going ahead, if only very slowly (because we are still focusing on playtesting EF and designing TW).

Yesterday I added A Cure for All Seasons for playtesting and decided to do another KMW trick by delaying the announcement until I had the time to do the announcement properly ala Ed. I think Martin actually misunderstood what I was saying in this blog and seemed to have made a rather nasty (especially by his usual French standards) remark there. Oh well, there's a response there that I hope will clear things up.


I managed to squeeze in a game of LotR yesterday and had fun with my Smeagol sneaking to site 8 against the huge besiegers. I think it was a bad match-up there. I didn't win it with my fellowship side though. Gollum didn't even appear until site 4 and was quickly dispatched by the Dwarves who were also busily discarding my deck. Shelob only showed up on 7 and with some bad plays by my opponent with the assignment, I finally overburdened the ring bearer with Gollum and Heavy Burden. I had fun. I hope I didn't drive my opponent away, instead I hope it inspires him to build a pure Gollum culture deck like mine.

I've also been busy updating my MND site. It's weird to be able to pick up the pieces and just go on like that even after such a long break. I had to tweak a few things of course, to bring everything up to date, especially on the custom cards, but I also added a few scans and stuff to keep the non-custom card people happy. I'll need to go advertising it soon again, just to get my counter to go happy again.

And I can't believe I have a super-secret project. OK, not so secret project now. Coming to a gatlingEngine near you soon!

-+@ Elder Stone @+-

Coz this is a post about Kybar's Teeth...



Art credits:
Zastrow by Zastrow - I couldn't resist naming a creature after an artist. He's probably gonna tell me to rename it or something.
Tuft Yajo by Werner/Gillette/Goodman
Flint Cragnoc by CyberIsland/Holmberg

You can see the last image at Cyber Island Studio. No, this isn't the studio producing the animated cartoon which will be 26 episodes long and will be done by Cookie Jar and Daiwon in South Korea - see this press release from them. The cartoon will be shown in September presumably on CBC in Canada and Kids WB south of the border. For those outside anglophone continental North America, well, start writing to your local stations if you wanna see the cartoon.

The above art, by the way, is for Ancients of Days as usual as I attempt to finish off the last quarter of the images for the 100 card expansion. And guess what? This month alone, I've gone from 79 to 98. Eek! That's fast. 2 more left and then all the images will be done. Wow. That's rather fast. I still remember when I was finishing the last few expansions that the last 10 cards or so seem to take forever getting the images. This time though, they were just going bang bang bang bang and out the door. Heh, I prefer it this way. The last batch I did were 5 d'Resh cards and one of them is shown above. I think I did the Tuft Yajo a week before and the Cragnoc a few days before that. The last 2 is going to be a pain. I need to locate 2 magi images for Nar and d'Resh. I've already sent messages to a few people, but haven't yet had any response from any of them. Well, I guess there's still time. I wonder if the designers are still rearing to go...

The other less impressive thing I did over the weekend was to get EF KT up and online for playtesting. It's still a bit painful typing in and adapting cards and then checking to see if everything works. I remember the days when I was fervent enough that doing it for an entire expansion of triple the size was no problem. These days though, what with a Sword of Damocles hanging over everything, things seem to be rather... uncertain. Anyways, hopefully the playtesters will come up with their thumbs up and there's nothing more than minor text mistakes. I saw Bobby doing some testing earlier today - I don't think he had a good matchup though.

Of course I also had to do the announcements on the News section, just to make it seem as if things are happening on the site. Well, it is, but not everything gets announced which is a pity. And while I was there though, I decided that I needed to finish up the ad images for EF, so I made a whole bunch of ads and since I enjoyed the process so much, I created a bunch of ads for AoD as well. Some of them are cool, some, not so, and some are funny, as Tomi commented on the Flying Carpet d'Resh ad on the front page.

The other ad I had to add to the front page a few days late was the KMW expansion for VTES. No need to create a new ad for it this time thanks to me grabbing the logo off from the site a few months back. The story is this: it was added on time (or a day later for me), but was not announced because Ed wanted to be the first to announce it. It must be some alpha male thing or something. So I just let him have his day in the sun and only updated the News page after he's done his spiel about it being added and a free pass being given out, yadda yadda. Yes, I mentioned a free pass. Now head over to the Online site to get started.

My ad hoc game group decided to call me for dinner and a gaming session over the weekend, so I went armed with... no games! Wow, it used to be I had to force the games down their throats. Now they are the ones who are not only purchasing the games but is trying to force it down my throat. Whee. Ed's job is done? We played 2 games of TtR, of which I won the first and then got ganged up on in the 2nd which I lost. But that was the second game of the evening. I was first introduced to the game of Saboteur, which is a card game, but a "pathfinding" game. It was OK ... there isn't too much strategy to it and like most other card games, sometimes it plays itself. However, having said that, it'd be a good game for pbw though... Anyways, I think next time I'll bring along A Game of Thrones...

-+@ Power of the Ways @+-

The power is in you as a 80s cartoon used to have as a subtitle...



Cards from LotR again? Only because I've been reading about them today. Apparently Decipher's contract runs out soon and there might not be a next set. So Decipher has decided to go out with a bang... a huge bang, by making cards in the next set, which is expected to be their last set, very very broken. There's already been a large ruckus raised about it on several forums, which makes for interesting reading. Apparently the only way to beat a broken card is another broken card, so that's why the set is riddled with them. That also explains why the main card designer for the set has resigned from Decipher as well. Fruit Loops!

Well, I'm glad I'm only collecting the cards. I finally finished my collection for set 6 - Ents of Fangorn to make it 4 out of urm... 13 complete. Oh well, if anyone wants to send me rare cards, feel free to check the list of LotR cards that I'm looking for at Mahasamatman. I updated the list yesterday and like each and every time I do that, I get innundated with email asking me for trades to places like Poland or Mexico. Oh well.

I did say I'll talk about the cards I got yesterday... it was quite a haul, particularly the cards from Tomi. Here's the list:
Wildstorms
Warlords
Guardians
Judge Dredd
James Bond
Marvel Overpower
Rage
Vampire/Jyhad
Middle Earth
Ani-Mayhem
Dark Age
Dark Eden
Doomtrooper
Dune
Echelon of Fire
Echelon of Fury
Killer Instinct
Netrunner
The Crow
Galactic Empires
X-Files
Red Zone
Top of the Order

All I can say is Yay, cards from both Echelons! I've still gotta sort those cards out later today, but I'm psyched about them. Kiitos Tomppa!

One thing I won't be getting soon it seems is the Kathars expansion. I hear that Spielbox, who owns them isn't allowing Rio Grande games to publish them. So I either have to shell out big bucks to buy the out of print German version or... shell out even bigger bucks to buy it on auction sites. I don't fancy doing that much work for just 4 tiles. I guess I'll pass until there's an easier way to get those tiles.

And there goes the reason I was going to get the next issue of Games Quarterly... no more Kathars... but wait, GQ itself has been sold and shutdown it seems and it's no longer publishing as well. I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that Kathar wasn't going to be available next issue. I guess I'll never know.

I also took a gander at the stats on the engine and was surprised to see that MND has gone down a great deal. I guess it's because the Brazillians have decided to desert the game en mass again, now that school has started for them? Probably. Rage also hasn't been doing very well lately as well for 2 months now, but HC is trying to inject some enthusiasm with a new tournament that's pretty much a sealed deck with ante-ing. That sounds interesting, but it depends really on players to trust each other.

I saw this picture last week and was rather impressed by it:



Image by Annette Burke. It's a MND image of course. I think I named this creature a Burkey after her and her brother Daniel. I really do like this image.

-+@ 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.

-+@ Dead Magic Zone @+-

Whoa, long time no update!



Decipher's Lord of the Ring cards from the Wraith collection. Yup, that's half of the last expansion from Decipher for LotR. Just 6 cards in the expansion. The above 3 images are from WETA workshop, hence the bug in the lower right. However, the images aren't very "movie-like" which has prompted someone to comment that they seem more photoshop than WETA workshop. Oh well.

These cards are not available on LotRO though, thanks to the Sony takeover. Stupid Sony, I guess. Meanwhile, Decipher has already confirm that the next expansion, Rise of Saruman, is in development. Thankfully this time, the set will revert to the usual 100+ cards (140, IIRC), but it will be chok-a-bric with Sarumans (or 4 instead of the usual 1).

I did get all 6 cards from the Wraith collection since the last update, as well as probably half a dozen booster boxes from various expansions - they were going cheap. My free time was spent opening and sorting those cards out though, which probably explains why no blog update was done. I don't seem to have too much free time these days anyways. Still, I made some nice pulls of rares and foils and I'm ever closer to getting my collection complete.

I also got 2 boosters and a starter box of WARS, but haven't managed to open it yet. It's sitting there, calling out my name to get them opened, sorted and stuff, but I know that's gonna take time. No point doing a rush job and not enjoy the satisfaction of doing it properly. I'll get to it some day.

Got about another half dozen MND booster boxes, not only to fill my collection, but to get cheap commons for self-made customs. I don't want to blog about MND today though, because that will just take ages. Perhaps tomorrow when I get the time, I'll talk about all MND happenings and going-ons.

My 1910 expansion just arrived yesterday. This isn't for a CCG, but the boardgame Ticket to Ride. Nevertheless, it's just a cards-only expansion and it comes in a metal tin. I like the tin, it's nicely done, and it's probably done to attract people to buy the tin. However, as someone pointed out, it won't fit in the box for the original game, so I'll have to forgo the tin and just place my cards into the box at some point. Oh well.

Also got my starter pack of The Spoils sometime back, and I must say the cards seems interestingly designed. I don't like the bicycle-deck cardback though, and since what I got are beta cards, some of the images does not have any colours on them. However the coloured images were properly done, and I would say even better than comparable games like Mystical Empires. I haven't played the game yet, or even read through the rules (don't have enough spare time to do either), but based on the images alone, I'd recommend it to someone (who's CCG savvy) looking to pick up a new game.

Talking about new games, Stargate has been pushed back to next year apparently. I don't think anything is happening there at Comic Images or whoever is publishing the game. It's a pity because I was really looking forward to the game. Oh well, next year is a few weeks away.

There's also this new CCG based on a computer game. It's called EVE, and I have no idea if it's one word, or if its an acronym or something. Rich Riley, the only active rules team member of MND has been promoting it almost everywhere, including on the CCG Workshop forums which is where I heard about it. I wonder if there has been any progress getting permission to adapt it. Probably not...

Hmm... this would be a good time to talk about CCG Workshop, but I'm running out of time, so things to talk about in a later blog:
1. all things MND (including Insiider)
2. CCG Workshop - main (including nipa and Mythos)
3. Tournaments
4. Final Twilight & Hyborian Gates
5. Ludoholic (Capitol and Urland!)
6. VteSO
7. Dinosaurs Arcade & Tabernacle?
8. WA post Sony
9. Days of Wonder
10. Remember the Titans

-+@ Superior Tactics @+-

won me a game today, more on that later...



That's 2 of the promos that Logan got for me and one that I wish I asked him to get. But I didn't so Oh Well. From left to right - Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica CCG, a mecha from Robotech TCG, and We Must Find Jack from The Nightmare Before Christmas TCG.

Just two quick things to write here.

1. I played a game of MND with Cole. He used a burrow deck and all I had was a pure (and by pure I mean 100% of one region, no universal cards even!) Bograth deck. He started off well with a 'fuf and Trygar and I was drawing like crazy with Baa. He dropped an Ormagon and I was devastated, so I just let Baa bite the dust. Wiep flipped next and although I wanted to do a flip-kill, I can't, thanks to his Tunnel Hyren burrowing his Ormagon. I had to settle for waiting a turn before Darkness struck and Trygar went away, but not before leaving a Freep.

I played out a cautious line of creatures, but when he revealed his magi, it was Trug, which, thanks to Freep had enough energy for a Cataclysm. Bye, Bye Wiep. Grahnna flipped next and played a Black Stuff from the discard pile after I had use Transform to grab that Darkness. The response was Strag with another 'fuf. Darkness + Spirit Drain = dead Strag.

That was rather unexpected though as I had only that one card which could take out the burrow creatures. I told Cole that had he been more aggressive he would have got me. Also, if he didn't boast about his Ormagons and Trug, I would have done things differently. Instead I converted my creatures to cards most of the time to be able to survive getting all my cards in played being wiped out. I never got to Ninibom - more than meets the eye! - nor did I get to play that Mist Hyren that I never got a chance to draw.

I enjoyed that game, and there were 3 observers for most part. I think near the end, especially after 2 successful comebacks after getting all my cards in play cleared away, the observers were rooting for me as the underdog. That's the great thing about MND - it's not just great cards that wins a game, it has to do with deckbuilding and skill in playing. Oh and of course, psyching up the opponent with annoying cards always help!

2. I've been playing a lot more Ticket to Ride today, mostly out of boredom, but I have to say, I'm enjoying the "kiddie" version more than the more complicated European map. There's simplicity in the rules, yet there is a whole lot of complexity with the game and that's what I've been enjoying.

There's two different type of players - grandees and annoyers as I call them. Grandees tend to build the longest lines with the longest tracks raking up a huge score in the process by getting the right cards. Annoyers though, are the opposite. They will choose 2 short routes and complete them fast, then play interference with everyone else to prevent them from reaching their goal. I don't have the patience to be a grandee, and running interference is hard because I really, really like those long intercontinental stretches.

My strategy though has been to be a speed-hog (i.e. a cross between a speed-demon and a ground-hog) - take up the most regularly used up line on the west coast and finish as quick as possible to deny everyone else from completing theirs. That usually wins me the game.

---

And in other news - I had a go at Mark for not blogging as frequent as he said he would about his week of boardgames. Consequently he's been getting more regular - there's even a picture in the last installment. Well, thanks to him I'm now playing on TtR...

I hope Martin has finally added those 350 cards to his test version of VteSO. Just over a week left before he'll have to release it. I gave him a formula in Excel to help him speed out the process instead of doing it manually, but I have not yet had a chance to talk with him to see if it works.

Ed's getting headaches these days, the server although seems rather stable is not at 100% yet. He's trying to straighten out the last kinks and he's also pondering the future of CCG Workshop. I hope there's a future.

Logan still hasn't wrote up his Origins report although he said he would a while back. I guess he's just busy. He's been dribbling out info now and again about what went on and stuff, but I can't wait to read about it in full. I hope this doesn't mean he's gonna shelf MoA until next year's Origins!

Oh and I hung out on the engine today in the usual MND timeslot and chatted with a few other people regarding the game. I seem to have demigod status or something. Sheesh! Also got my CCG Workshop email account fixed so that I can send out official emails and stuff. My first email was as Tech support to some guy in Korea.

-+@ Playa @+-

which obviously is supposed to mean "Player"...



Three cards from the missing Gen 13 Classic Trading Card Set for WS CCG. They were the last of the CCG cards printed, even after BoW, and are some of the hardest to find. A new CCGW user, Travis Bickle, noticed that they were missing from the engine and kindly suggested that he scan them for the engine. I acquised and he did them relatively fast, so I had to reward him by coding them in the same day that I got the images. While I was doing that, I added the extra kibitz messages as well. I like the cards. They are cool... and new, even to me, a veteran WS player. There's an ad to go along with it... but I don't think it turned out that great, so I'm not posting it anywhere...

And it seems to be a WS fest as I'm still crazily photographing the remainder of the WSS2 cards. I figured out how not to use the flash, but instead have natural sunlight such that the end result looks better. Well, they do, but not buy too much. I still have to crop them and adjust them, and do the cardback, before the images are done. Then there's more work coding the cards since I have to make up the stats for them as well. I was hoping to get things done this weekend, but life happens as usual, and long story short, they will probably be done before the end of next month.

MND work has been going slowly as well, because I'm on hiatus... I had to post up the tournament and contest because it's the end of the month, in preparation for next month... but ever since people found out about the XP system on the engine, I've noticed that the tournaments and contests aren't too much in demand... too much work for too little reward I guess. Oh well. It's a good thing that next month's MND tournament would be the last one... maybe for this year.

And end of the month means I have to do a whole lot of things. I've already submitted the verbal report to Ed about the statistics for the month... yay! As for the plates post, Go Fish definately need an update for that soon, but I'm waiting for MoA and/or CA to go closed/open testing respectively before I update that. It's gonna be another big update.

Yeah, Mark is busy with CA, which will probably be his first game to go live this year. That's what he's saying and I think he's close too. I hijacked him today though, by posting defects for 3 of his games yesterday, when I was going through all the games, downloading all the latest gMLs. He's working on Aquarius as I'm writing this, having already fixed Nodwick earlier. I must confess I'm a bit guilty for sidetracking him off to his other games...

Logan has spent the last few days working on the MoA boards, after I've stiched them together. He's making the lines thicker and easier to read, and then he has to code them. A large part of it is done though which is good, but I'm sure there's still quite a bit more to do before it can go public. Logan is definately busy though.

Tomi has been doing little things on his games, adding in the latest stuff to Yahtzee, Doomtrooper and Mythos mostly, although I think I saw a Tomb Raider update as well there. I won't be surprised if these updates are taking up a lot more time than it seems... maintaining a game is a huge task.

Martin just uploaded a VTES update yesterday, and I noticed that as I was downloading it. He's obviously keeping his attention on the game to keep everyone happy. The game is also the most played game on CCGW for the month of April, thanks in large part to the free game passes Ed has given out for the server problems. I hope there aren't too many complaints.

Ed has been busy trying to fix the server stability issue. He explained in techie talk what was wrong with it, which went all over my head. It seems to make things a lot better, but it still crashes the engine. Long story short - a new server is needed and I'm not sure if he has the moolah to afford it, especially not for the free games that is currently being supported. Hmm...

And that's it I guess. These days, there are only 6 PLs working on CCGW, or so it seems. Everyone else has other commitments, or is just feeling too left out and/or way behind the curve. Nevertheless though, a lot seems to be happening even with the existing 6. Perhaps that's all that's required - a handful of dedicated people churning out quality work instead of a lot of mediocre people wasting resources and producing nothing... ah, hobbits!

I did manage to get to Dan last night and we talked quite a bit. The real reason for talking to him though, was to get his permission to finish adapting Chess Wars for the engine, which he gladly gave. So that's my other game for the month of May besides WSS2, or that's the plan, at least. I've got to rev up the game to the latest technology, which will probably include things like automation, nice graphics and sounds. It would be good to get into that again.

-+@ Six Pack! @+-

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



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

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

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


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

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

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

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

-+@ It's Time to Party @+-

Yay! Paaaaaaarty!



Three different cards, Yukk's Feed the Dog, Hamlet's Ending cardback and YNDT's Skyscraper. It's a change though, but it's also apt for what I have been doing today. I spent quite a bit of time today, adding the YNDT and Hamlet infomation to the CCGW wiki. Why those 2? Well, because together with Yukk, they are the 3 Interactivities Ink games that I've adapted for CCGW.

The story actually began yesterday though, when Tomi asked for a slightly different format to the game box for Mythos. I played around with Doom's box and at the end of the day, Tomi was happy with the modifications I made. So that got applied to Doom and to Mythos as well. I see he has done Dark Ages after thatwith Dark Eden being blank. Of course, a change to the format means I had to go back to each and every page to add the necessary stuff. Not a lot of pages at the moment, but that will grow soon enough... at least I hope.

MND was the other page that I created yesterday and it was just a quick cut and copy from wikipedia for that though. Not too much infomation yet, but since these are easier to edit than webpages, hopefully, they'll get polished up to a good enough standard.

Talking about MND, I actually had a look at the tournament results today. It seems that some people are reporting their results on the forums, but not on the engine and vice versa, which means that there are now two different records of the tournament. It almost seems as if it's two tournaments running concurrently. Ack, I hope I don't have to clean up as well. Transition periods are tough though.

I actually did some game coding yesterday - can't mention the game here yet. Was going to do some Hyborian Gates, but realised that I didn't have the files here. Grrr... oh well.

Ed is still trying to figure out what's causing massive lag on the server. I thought it was an error in the collections script, but it turned out not to be so. Maybe it's just something random or maybe it's a hacker. Who knows? It's interesting though, because the lag can oft times disappear and then reappear for no reason. Perhaps the physical server is just being cranky?

And everyone else? I really have no idea though. It's the beginning of the year and there's a million things to be done. It's also a new year to make resolutions to complete a game you said you'll code 2 years ago. Perhaps that's why Aaron's been hanging out around the engine these days? Who knows... I have' also seen Craig online though, although he hasn't hung out on the engine for a while now. I guess he's gone on to other things.

-+@ Left for Dead @+-

Well, I'm not dead yet. Really. And I'm going to be a bit more "chatty" in today's blog because, I'm tired of technical writing.



3 cardbacks? Yup, I got a pack each of X-Men, Raw Deal (Base Set) and Star Wars (Decipher) - Death Star II expansion two weekends ago. Got them for cheap from the markdown bin as well. I have no idea how to play any of these games, and the only one that is on the engine is Star Wars, although I wonder how long will it last on there since even Decipher it seems have stopped supporting it. Hopefully for a long time more to go.

I haven't really been doing anything interesting for CCGW - sure, there's the usual forum maintenance, the BOT question clearing, some FPN and WGO updates, but otherwise life is quiet.

Unlike Tomi, who's been busily updating his games - almost half of his games got an update over the last weekend alone - both the Doomtroopers, Kult and Yahtzee. Even Reversi got a quick update over the weekend to move it forward to the new engine. As always I am grateful for the work he does, particularly that on Reversi.

Martin has also been a busy ghost as well, updating VTES within 24 hours of the complaints. It seems to be a full time job there, and I'm glad that I'm not doing it, because I simply don't have the time or the patience for that sort of thing. Still, Martin is the best person for the job and he's doing a great job supporting the game. I think Ed should just plop down some money and hire Martin on a semi-permanent basis just to handle VTES.

Mark has also been busy. There was Sideshow, then Summer Camp and now Endeavor has been made public on the engine all in time for Origins. Not only is the engine the main draw, but there's also a demo event of Endeavor at Origins too. Whew. Talk about dedication. That's the type of busyness that I can symphatise with.

Kev is still trying his hardest to get Monkeys out before Origins. I hope he meets his deadline. I know the frustration he's probably facing as he tries to hurries up, yet with all the "improvements" in the engine, it seems that for every step one gets closer to the goal, the engine takes 2 steps - eep! Well, the black queen said it best in Through the looking Glass, the sequel to Alice in Wonderland - if you want to get anywhere you'll have to run twice as fast.

Well, running fast isn't something JC has to worry about ever since he got his Mille Bornes public on the engine. I've yet to play that game - too many things to do, too little time, but from what I can see, he's got a custom expansion up there in record time as well. To quote Inspector Gadget - "Yowzers!"

Even Nate is gearing up for the big summer Con season. There's this new Community Service for Final Twilight and an entire rules update due (which has my name in the opening credits, so thank you Nate). He buzzed me a few days ago to warn (if that's the right word) me that the new expansion will be ready in July. Eep! The details are already available on the website. Time for me to get busy too.

So what have I been doing? Well, I've been like the hare in the parable of The tortoise and the hare, I've been napping while the tortoises are going slow and steady. But blegh, if they wanna win the race, I'll cheer them on, I'm not trying to win races, I'm just here to adapt games.

I've got a YNDT playtest up in about half an hour - I actually fixed most of the defects from the last playtest 2 weeks ago today and I hope it holds water with all the extra oomph that I've put into it. Give me another 6 hours or so and I'll probably close the noose and fully automate the entire game. Yes, the engine has gone that far. When I first started working on YNDT, nothing was possible except the very basics. Now I find that everything is possible, if I can only imagine the code for it. It's too bad nobody is playing it much though, I even updated the rules today to fix all the typos and stuff in there.

And there's always a MND section. No, I haven't done anything yet. Today is the last day for the signup of the tournament and I doubt I'm going to get the "quorum" required for the tournament, so I'm going to let it pass. It's a pity though. I've yet to find the time to actually get Twilight War into shape, let alone work on Double Jeopardy, and there have been people (OK, one person, and his name is Doug) asking about DJ already. Oh well, like everything, they'll just have to wait until I have more time. It's nice though to know that there are people actually waiting for my custom cards.

The end of the month is coming up soon and the madness for that time period will certainly consume me. Let me be the first to predict that even with the 100 players, VTES, being completely free at this closed beta phase will take the top spot of being the most played game. Not only that, I'm sure it'll also be the game with the most defects reported this month, since the players are going crazy there. That might be a good thing for Origins too.

As for my own goals... well... I'll doubt I'll meet any of them, which means I'll have to push everything back to July and delay everything for a month. Whee, that should be fun... not.