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In the vein of similar threads (games played, purchases, hobbying and painting, etc...) why not a slightly motivational thread for the sub-forum?

What did you do with game design today?

I'm a night owl, but I'm about to sit down and give another run-through on my Creature cards (assigning and detailing actions). Trying to get enough done for another test print as I've re-done maybe 90% of the stuff since my last one!

I also am going to work on the revised text for a number of Trap cards.

V4 of my personal pen and paper rpg. Im pulling away from emulating core systems whole sale from my inspirations and instead creating something new that just builds on the ideas. The basic game structure is all there but i need to get into the nitty gritty lists of things so they can be tested and balanced. But i am excited about the new directions.

The changes will fix problems in multiple systems that i noticed could be exploitable easily enough if i wasnt super careful about certain elements and now instead it will just work and be self correcting.

Working on the layout of the Zero Dark rulebook. Having mostly written it all, now I have to re-jig the text to make room for illustrations and colour text. Then I have to replace the images I "borrowed" from the Internet with ones I actually own the copyright to...

Independent game publishing: it's not all fun and games....

Few weeks back I playtested my skirmish game for the first time. Pleased with how the mechanics are working, but it appears a lot of the magic of the game comes from not knowing what your opponent skills are, and in what combination are they used. Playing alone removes that and slows down a bit due to tracking all the stuff going on.

This is a 3 vs 3, the Elves have a Necromancer, Ranger and Warrior. They easily dominated the forces of Chaos as they wrecked from a distance the Beastman (before being executed by the elven warrior) and the corrupted-Dryad while keeping at bay the Chaos Warrior with curses and arrows to the knees.
I think at least 4 models per side should work better (I was aiming 3 to 8 for the game), leaves more room for varied skills to face every situation.

Need the motivation to further test. Balancing out those 209 Skills and possible combinations can potentially take a while.

 precinctomega wrote:
Working on the layout of the Zero Dark rulebook. Having mostly written it all, now I have to re-jig the text to make room for illustrations and colour text. Then I have to replace the images I "borrowed" from the Internet with ones I actually own the copyright to...

Independent game publishing: it's not all fun and games....

I feel your pain. I can't afford to pay any artists, etc., so all of my imagery is being concocted from 3D dungeon set-ups with painted miniatures. Downside is that I have to take hundreds of photos (for hundreds of cards) and I have to paint every single thing I want in the game...so my shopping list is lengthy and I need to paint a ton.

Also been learning GIMP (free photoshop) the hard way...trial and error. Made a lot of progress since 2012 when I started working on self-produced games.

 precinctomega wrote:
Working on the layout of the Zero Dark rulebook. Having mostly written it all, now I have to re-jig the text to make room for illustrations and colour text. Then I have to replace the images I "borrowed" from the Internet with ones I actually own the copyright to...

Independent game publishing: it's not all fun and games....

You can also use WkikMedia Commons and Pixabay for images.

They have rules for use, but are generally free use. I am always surprised with what I can find that will fit into my generic rule books.




I have been working on the scenario generator for Wars of the Republic. I was unsatisfied with the number of scenarios in Men of Bronze so I am trying to expand it for this book to provide a fresh experience. This is taking much longer than I thought....

Trying to hammer discipline and scope in a design mess that has neither of these and more ideas than restrictions...

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
Trying to hammer discipline and scope in a design mess that has neither of these and more ideas than restrictions...

My current game I'm working on was started in 2002...so, nearly 18 years of notes/garbage, dozens of failed attempted starts, etc. It'll eventually happen May just...take two decades.

I have quite a few years of starting, reaching a point, scraping, restarting, doing something else, restarting this, I feel I want to see it finally reaching a definite state so I can start shaping it into something.

It’s a steady thing now, that I only work on my game project on train journeys, and Xmas time granted me three of those, so I’m moving forward a bit. A lot of moving parts in my game is chosen/drawn/defined dynamically after players meet, including unit abilities in some cases. So the latest thing I did was going through the notes of those for my basic factions and word them in coherent way.

As a palette cleanser I worked on a Fantasy Model vs. Model skirmish set of rules. Mostly just some lay-out and editing stuff.

Looking at the scenarios from a sci-fi project I finished off also helped jump start me a bit on the Wars of the Republic Scenarios.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
I have quite a few years of starting, reaching a point, scraping, restarting, doing something else, restarting this, I feel I want to see it finally reaching a definite state so I can start shaping it into something.

Oh, I feel you. My other published game I thought up and put into 90% form in a single evening...so that made this project ultimately more frustrating. I always wait for that "shower" moment, and thankfully mine hit around June this year when all the disparate pieces of what I wanted finally snapped into place. It's still far from finished but the spine of the project is there.

I have another side project that is likewise waiting for the "oh, here we go!" moment...I just hope this one doesn't take 18 years. I may not be alive that long!

Slowly, but surely, working my way through a science fiction skirmish game that I've had on the backburner for quite a while. The whole of the pieces are there, I just need to put fingers to the keyboard and get typing - although a bit more slow going than I'd like, because I'm writing in my non-native tongue.

Hopefully I'll have a working prototype ready for 2020, so I can get it out and tested. I'm aiming for a release around July this year, uni permitting.

I went to my FLGS and did some promo work for my book.

I've been slowly painting up more figures (which I need for photography for main components in my game). This has increased the cost/time producing my current game quite a bit. Every encounter card, chamber card, etc. etc. needs painted miniatures and terrain for pictures....so...just painting some stuff.

 Elbows wrote:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
Trying to hammer discipline and scope in a design mess that has neither of these and more ideas than restrictions...

My current game I'm working on was started in 2002...so, nearly 18 years of notes/garbage, dozens of failed attempted starts, etc. It'll eventually happen May just...take two decades.

Same!

I'm trying to work up the motivation to start trying to make the art for my game, which I have the basic rules & cards set up for, I just need to start actually producing something people will want to buy!

I also need to stop jumping to new projects and actually frikkin finish one!

Big shout-out to Easy E for pointing me towards Pixabay. Picked up a few royalty-free/attribution-free pieces to decorate my book.



But the cat is out of the bag, now. I'm working with Strato Minis to adapt the Horizon Wars rules to their Hardwar setting and miniatures range.

Today I'm going into the text file and carefully wording everything, having established a vocabulary and an index. Describing all of the many Creature/Ally actions that will be used in the game. Also creating a bit of a style-manual for the game rules, so they should be consistently worded.

I finished the basics Scenarios for Wars of the Republic. Next up is the Complications section.

Then, the hard work of Historical Scenarios follows.

If I work an hour everyday I expect the next stage to take 2 weeks.

I was glad to have my three boys home for the holidays to play test my new game "Realm Lords" and got it all ironed out. Just polishing up the final miniatures and some promotion play testing at my two FLGS next week and then launch on Kickstarter in about 4 weeks. You can check out the promo KS page here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mdsw/realm-lords-for-castle-and-country?ref=5ra4gp&token=54b51f2f

Sorry for the shameless plug!!

Well I had to bite the bullet and put placeholder images on a handful of my cards, but I just ordered the version 2 test print, a slick 303 individual cards...

Now I just have to hope they show up in time for the convention I'm supposed to attend in a few weeks.

Another train journey, another part done. Two basic factions done, now to preliminary point costing. My system has compound cost, there are four values: mobility, offense, defense and build. List building stage uses build value and then m/o/d sums comparison is used to determine which and how many special tactics cards players draw to balance out differences.

I mentioned working 1 hour a day for two weeks? That plan has not worked out for me. Silly real job getting in the way of my Hustle!

 precinctomega wrote:

That's great!

Nice work Precintomega!

I managed to get the Complications section of Wars of the Republic done.

Running another play-test...





Madness as usual, found a few new cracks that need filling. The second picture is our last two heroes (on one and two wounds each) escaping a random Wyvern by a single turn (the Wyvern moves exceptionally fast and was chasing them down). The surviving Dwarf had already ran up the stairs.

That looks really good Elbows!

I also got to run a playtest this weekend for Wars of the Republic that had been set-up and sitting on my table for a while. Just using paper templates right now.....

https://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2020/01/battle-report-wars-of-republic.html

I made HUGE progress! I opened the draft document.... and proceeded to not write a thing!