tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80160643700393058352024-03-17T04:22:27.045-05:00Warprime's Game Design JournalThe ongoing development and experimentation of Board Game design by Eric Sexton.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10081002700176970080noreply@blogger.comBlogger65125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8016064370039305835.post-33956503701554390082014-06-02T19:50:00.000-05:002014-06-23T20:55:54.573-05:00Kickstarter is an investment<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><br />Hey everyone. As we approach the launch of the Kickstarter I wanted to talk about what it means to be a Kickstarter. I have had several conversations with friends and strangers about Kickstarting projects and thought I would share my thoughts on the subject.<br /><br />I believe in helping out the little guy. Giving him a chance to step up and get his game made. That idea is what lead me to build my company Kingmaker Games. Its all about helping the little guy. The guy who doesn't have a shot on his own. The team that doesn’t have the funds to get it made. The friends working out of their garage who could’n’ make it any other way. Give them a chance at doing something different. Maybe even take on some of the big guys who have all the money and marketing clout.<br /><br />I am a believer and a backer of Kickstarter. I have backed 38 projects, all of them in the Games category. In most of those cases I backed the little guy. There are a few well funded projects, but for the most part they are all indi developers. Games that would never have been made without some help.<br /><br />I have had a few conversations with people who take the stance of a customer and here are some of the anti-Kickstarter comments I have heard. Saying things like “Ill buy it when it out in the store”. Or “I would give them money if I thought they had a chance”. “I don't believe in Kickstarter because they should only be able to make it if they can pay for it themselves”.<br /><br />Is Kickstarting is a risk? Yes! Its scary to give your money to an idea and never know if you will get a return on your investment. Maybe they might fail. Maybe they don’t make something that meets your expectations. Maybe their dream was grander their their abilities. But maybe, they will build something never seen before. Maybe you will help them build something out of reach for most people. And maybe, just maybe they will forge a path that the big successful companies dare not to tread because the financial risk is not in their Shareholders best interest.<br /><br />In most cases I will never change the minds of these people with such a negative idea about Kickstarter. In their minds they have made their decision. They are locked in the old way of doing things and can’t escape the old brick and mortar ideology. But I hope I can convince a few people to not think that way. Because without a little help these games will never get made. You won't be able to buy it in the store. Without the funding they creators will have to get a job and may never have the time to build this new idea. <br /><br /> Without you, it will never exist.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10081002700176970080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8016064370039305835.post-31876590830365289332014-05-30T15:27:00.003-05:002014-05-30T15:37:24.928-05:00The War Prime the game Announced!The flood gates have been opened and War Prime is unleashed!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioz2yujPbh6v0zFyituYJUTlJmsJsMLR_Yu-ehgYCGVJV_7u8mhC3DVUoIxC8W1wdGH54ezhrQ8gwq-qYhkmgPHmsTprATt7B5-0f1Vv7bHkWGHb7ssI4S8Dukkhk-gYDzvR8p7blWYhcp/s1600/War_Prime_Link_04.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioz2yujPbh6v0zFyituYJUTlJmsJsMLR_Yu-ehgYCGVJV_7u8mhC3DVUoIxC8W1wdGH54ezhrQ8gwq-qYhkmgPHmsTprATt7B5-0f1Vv7bHkWGHb7ssI4S8Dukkhk-gYDzvR8p7blWYhcp/s1600/War_Prime_Link_04.jpg" height="125" width="400" /></a></div>
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So the name WAR PRIME has been an idea I have had in my head for many years. It originally started as a 3rd person Action shooter strategy game. Think of something like the game Dynasty Warriors mashed up with Warhammer 40K. I designed it, wrote the world history, and there it sat for years waiting for a programmer to help me build it. <br />
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Two years ago I started playing Warhammer 40K again. While we were doing that one of my friends moved to Arazona. it got me thinking about all the people I use to play with and how I missed playing games with them. So last year I had the notion to make a digital tabletop war-game. This would allow me to play the games I like to play with my friends regardless of where they are in the world.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTyRWEgaP41jJnBFKYYGJH4pbtZyZXyT5w3OaqsU_jpVQSurHDXiv598h3co8qccIpQUwg2djvIEEMu93SXiyFhfut31YLbTO_ElM2p4TfxGPnbv8iNzR2v6PAazri7-HPBB1enp8qHS_h/s1600/War_Prime_Link_06.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTyRWEgaP41jJnBFKYYGJH4pbtZyZXyT5w3OaqsU_jpVQSurHDXiv598h3co8qccIpQUwg2djvIEEMu93SXiyFhfut31YLbTO_ElM2p4TfxGPnbv8iNzR2v6PAazri7-HPBB1enp8qHS_h/s1600/War_Prime_Link_06.jpg" height="125" width="400" /></a></div>
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I started looking though my old design documents and came across Warprime. Well that game wouldn't work, but some of the ideas in there would. I used it as the foundation for this new game. Once again I designed it and this time found a small group of people to rally behind the idea. We got a prototype built but before we could get it ready to show to investors, my programmer vanished into the ether (the perils of working with people over the internet). Once again I couldn't find another programmer to pick up the mantel.<br />
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But this time it was different. I had spent to much time and money building this universe to just let it go. I looked at my options and thought I would look into how hard it would be to make actual miniatures. Looking at the cost of miniatures, manufacturing, and shipping I was astounded to discover how much money miniatures companies were overcharging.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1Mwy9BWLgl86izrV8J-eZMAZf2U_F92sjZGF4Ct-lrhhnF4zxuOqiKlfZ7S2bxdth0oV45xVq3nWulqe9iBXVhiW8-6NOZ267vYCVfR7U04BVhBniYuC7npTFWXfI5o1Jn0EJSPd505Ov/s1600/Concept+to+Miniature.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1Mwy9BWLgl86izrV8J-eZMAZf2U_F92sjZGF4Ct-lrhhnF4zxuOqiKlfZ7S2bxdth0oV45xVq3nWulqe9iBXVhiW8-6NOZ267vYCVfR7U04BVhBniYuC7npTFWXfI5o1Jn0EJSPd505Ov/s1600/Concept+to+Miniature.jpg" height="78" width="400" /></a></div>
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For less than $1.00 worth of plastic a customer is charged $30 for a pack of miniatures. There are many reasons for this.<br />
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1. Shipping<br />
2. Packaging<br />
3. Store Markup<br />
4. Advertising<br />
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But there is another factor that is less obvious. Competition.<br />
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There are many tabletop miniatures games. There are even many tabletop miniature war-games. But there is only one science fiction 25mm tabletop war game. This game doesn't need to be named. Without competition this game has become synonymous with the grim dark future of war and have stood at the top of the war game pile for many years. But without competition to keep them honest and hungry, they have become greedy. Without someone to challenge them they have run roughshod over the hobby and their fan bass. It is time for this to change.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrd-lrgSYCV6lA1HT3cbRX6nXtBypiNE_fUsW3lWWKd3Aix5gOSIcisFx6iuF7TmExqBHxHwVmyeRd0J3kM26__FaAlcapPLwHU-3mfs_uq_aTqzEBjAFu0cZtLpDtD1_Ke6LcwqzbiPOX/s1600/Human_Army.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrd-lrgSYCV6lA1HT3cbRX6nXtBypiNE_fUsW3lWWKd3Aix5gOSIcisFx6iuF7TmExqBHxHwVmyeRd0J3kM26__FaAlcapPLwHU-3mfs_uq_aTqzEBjAFu0cZtLpDtD1_Ke6LcwqzbiPOX/s1600/Human_Army.jpg" height="280" width="400" /></a></div>
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I am going to push forward because playing without an opponent is against the rules.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10081002700176970080noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8016064370039305835.post-76120123412844344842014-03-13T08:18:00.002-05:002014-04-05T11:06:15.238-05:00Kingmaking Students and indi developers....My friends over at Kingmaker Games have been working with students from College of Richland in North Dallas to help them bring their games to the market place. This is so awesome I wanted to share what they are doing. Please go and support their efforts. www.kingmakergames.com<br />
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<a href="http://www.kingmakergames.com/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1Zj9S1tHVdB2FTkPd4pAPxsa-IvpiMYTOsmr2RQhSOOav9RRn2L23NrTGtaUHkbZq0C-3DQhmDb4Gay36TKhiD7nKaJjQi18NyxXt3g1ykVIXhwja3AfNudGnQtWggQWf5fpSmK-I-sHk/s1600/kingmakergames.jpeg" /></a></div>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10081002700176970080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8016064370039305835.post-15767236505479609722014-03-01T18:03:00.002-06:002014-03-01T18:03:50.940-06:00How to build a Warhammer 40K Imperial Skaven Army<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have been working on my Imperial Guard army and someone wanted to know what my process was for building them. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is going to be a very long post with lots of pictures. I will try to make it easy to follow along, but if you have questions feel free to drop me a line.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>NOTE: </b> If you are not experienced with using <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8LBsqMpi3k" target="_blank"><b>Green Stuff</b></a> then I would not recommend this project for beginners. It requires a lot of cutting, chopping, and altering expensive models and repairing them with Green Stuff. I will include some links for people who want to learn more about using green stuff and sculpting and moding.</span><br />
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<b><u><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Step 1</span></u></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Clean all parts of mould lines and place them on a clean work space so you can see them all clearly. In this image you can see I have a Skaven Body, an Imperial Guardsmen Torso and Arms. I also have Imperial Grenades and a Utility Pack that includes an ammo pack, a canteen, and a knife.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEEKuCXGxhlOAaO0UiT86aSyHUMAfLuDA5PRnwiFl5ISzFPomPnC9JmPQMuFJebtLy9PkMVKO_fVrl41aALi6XVdYikTZs96Duo_sNQk7bUZPYd4hkwvzxE4xxAA3Hc5Pm-z-NP_XODKkK/s1600/40K_Skaven_Tutorial_01.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEEKuCXGxhlOAaO0UiT86aSyHUMAfLuDA5PRnwiFl5ISzFPomPnC9JmPQMuFJebtLy9PkMVKO_fVrl41aALi6XVdYikTZs96Duo_sNQk7bUZPYd4hkwvzxE4xxAA3Hc5Pm-z-NP_XODKkK/s1600/40K_Skaven_Tutorial_01.JPG" height="239" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Clean all your parts. Its easy to brake your model if you have to clean it later.</span></td></tr>
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<b><u><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Step 2</span></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Next I cut the Skaven torso off of the bottom half of the Skaven legs. Its very important you don't cut the tail off or you will have to add a new one (unless you don't want tails, then by all means chop them off).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I try to make sure that I cut the just above the belt line at a slight angle with the higher point at the back. This helps to give the model the hunched over stance of the Skaven. If you cut it too straight, not to panic. If its a guardsmen that will be in a big group, you can leave it as is. This will help the model to brake up the unified look of the squad a little bit. If its a special unit like a commander then you can just use a little Green Stuff to build up the back side a bit.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMlVzzynO6ecwpjs9JICIaSA2XT0ofTIg4UvR2_OIxKRSiy1sqEqYOS83jZ4e9Re1c1FvPNqqG8KGUcY-ALudR8jkXyXL19X_MRMq9cxKgF2AZOKYeS3o4B7Z5CAADMP2DOm1h3CcQpGLN/s1600/40K_Skaven_Tutorial_02.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMlVzzynO6ecwpjs9JICIaSA2XT0ofTIg4UvR2_OIxKRSiy1sqEqYOS83jZ4e9Re1c1FvPNqqG8KGUcY-ALudR8jkXyXL19X_MRMq9cxKgF2AZOKYeS3o4B7Z5CAADMP2DOm1h3CcQpGLN/s1600/40K_Skaven_Tutorial_02.JPG" height="239" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Make sure the cut area is flat so gluing the torso will not cause problems later.</span></td></tr>
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<b><u><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Step 3</span></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Once you have the legs ready you can glue on the human torso. You shouldn't need to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A15G71ZeszU" target="_blank"><b>pin it</b></a> but depending on how clean your torso cut is you might have to.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Skaven head may need to be trimmed down a bit. This head had a lot of extra plastic for a cloth collar that was going to make positioning the head difficult. I used my snipers to trim it back and an XACTO knife to smooth it out.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In this case I wanted the Skaven with a hard look to the left so I had to pin the head. I used a small piece of a paperclip but you are free to use anything you want.</span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxxYyloJpZMcJ2_sCW1nwd5gMGGLuY7NTr5sMs6s9iCtIXZvh6d8MfUNHfl3GWSh5XVI16x10eZRLewgTN9owCu07Bj7DmHWYeXn3DxP197PnNHmA_RUl_-6n71IjAVq6IYENws_6mbY7B/s1600/40K_Skaven_Tutorial_03.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxxYyloJpZMcJ2_sCW1nwd5gMGGLuY7NTr5sMs6s9iCtIXZvh6d8MfUNHfl3GWSh5XVI16x10eZRLewgTN9owCu07Bj7DmHWYeXn3DxP197PnNHmA_RUl_-6n71IjAVq6IYENws_6mbY7B/s1600/40K_Skaven_Tutorial_03.JPG" height="239" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Skaven Guardsmen is starting to take shape.</span></td></tr>
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<b><u><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Step 4</span></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Adding the arms works almost exactly the same as when you built Imperial Guardsmen with one or two small exceptions.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The head of the Skaven extends out over the torso in a way that it might block the arms that you have chosen. Make sure to do a dry test with a few small blobs of Green Stuff first. Just add a couples of tiny green beads and stick the arms on to test it. Keep doing this until you find a pair of arms that work then glue them in place.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUxWLhqwpfTax_nwEdVbm0d7uBBA4L4hPnOCh4X5rzs5v9wsg9WE9-x5tlWHPAU9sUG8FH4EDYEV1oXtuOMsbHzYEIhrxASStFcM9q7iKBYLXN_sB3juXf09hRXyKkUE4EiTavX4rVL5To/s1600/40K_Skaven_Tutorial_04.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUxWLhqwpfTax_nwEdVbm0d7uBBA4L4hPnOCh4X5rzs5v9wsg9WE9-x5tlWHPAU9sUG8FH4EDYEV1oXtuOMsbHzYEIhrxASStFcM9q7iKBYLXN_sB3juXf09hRXyKkUE4EiTavX4rVL5To/s1600/40K_Skaven_Tutorial_04.JPG" height="239" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I chopped down the barrel of the Las-gun. The small size of <br />the Skaven makes the longer barrel a problem sometimes</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVClG79LKVaWir2vIq6bvTs-bbckdgU_EUFVfE9nH-E2gahrvnCQvlpIBCf_-8Y6Ukufzned5_6y63R6KD9MT1hr1Wz0uYi7eNnvW3gLtHlrs-EMPnhN-EB1SihglagvNrqY_FzWX_yZWG/s1600/40K_Skaven_Tutorial_05.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVClG79LKVaWir2vIq6bvTs-bbckdgU_EUFVfE9nH-E2gahrvnCQvlpIBCf_-8Y6Ukufzned5_6y63R6KD9MT1hr1Wz0uYi7eNnvW3gLtHlrs-EMPnhN-EB1SihglagvNrqY_FzWX_yZWG/s1600/40K_Skaven_Tutorial_05.JPG" height="239" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You can fill the waist with green stuff if you want but <br />you don't have to. It will get covered later.</span></td></tr>
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<b><u><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Step 5</span></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sometime you might have to cut the knife (or ammo clip) off of the utility belt object. Depending on what Skaven model you are using you might or might not have to do this.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Very carefully use your XACTO knife to cut along the edge of the canteen. Be careful not to cut off the knife's hilt or the detail of the handle. One you have it you can clean the rough edges and shave down the back side of the knife (There will be some extra plastic that might make the knife sit at an odd angle if you don't don't this). <b>NOTE: Don't cut yourself!</b></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6ZMoZc-DKmNLNBiffzU3pAapflgzb8s190xZO8Q4Ms4zzVvvPR1lwqhy09bbur0e41cVcCVy1DlSx3pyFI4I3SToyzxsD0kulxVw9cm_L_RuA4QEkJ0s-wf6UcBLJ20Sa_MnH2j9zyrRK/s1600/40K_Skaven_Tutorial_06.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6ZMoZc-DKmNLNBiffzU3pAapflgzb8s190xZO8Q4Ms4zzVvvPR1lwqhy09bbur0e41cVcCVy1DlSx3pyFI4I3SToyzxsD0kulxVw9cm_L_RuA4QEkJ0s-wf6UcBLJ20Sa_MnH2j9zyrRK/s1600/40K_Skaven_Tutorial_06.JPG" height="239" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This can be tricky. The key is to take your time. Working with small items <br />like this is also an easy time to cut yourself so be extra cautious.</span></td></tr>
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<b><u><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Step 6</span></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Gluing the Utility items in place is simple enough. Just place them where they work best and look good. Try not to put them at strange angles unless the Skaven leg is bent in away that will make it lay that way.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVls7G8BhRf2yT3LiwdXSIcr72sBtBs9k1Mf7XXnlZiiQFWqn7i3pmqSU2Wo1BFJ_0xHYsvZQhuhuogMwnrr6H_Sq8reG73NoKKTNETKx7Bui0mAIUMuNNH8ojepeIni6hWDZTQCHIlgtT/s1600/40K_Skaven_Tutorial_07.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVls7G8BhRf2yT3LiwdXSIcr72sBtBs9k1Mf7XXnlZiiQFWqn7i3pmqSU2Wo1BFJ_0xHYsvZQhuhuogMwnrr6H_Sq8reG73NoKKTNETKx7Bui0mAIUMuNNH8ojepeIni6hWDZTQCHIlgtT/s1600/40K_Skaven_Tutorial_07.JPG" height="239" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In this case I could have placed the Grenades a little higher <br />and more to the right over the tail to cover that gap.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: center;">In this next image you can see the small blob of blue. This is the blue half </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: center;">of the yellow and blue mixture that makes Green Stuff. I was using it in these pictures to make the model stand without a base. If you have a tricky model that you have trouble finding a good spot on your base, this is a good trick for positioning your model on the base before gluing it down.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: center;">You can also get a really good view of the Pin that is holding the head to the neck. I am going to fix that with some green stuff in the next section.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_EI2HZQrX0xnXrWl1OaQP1gealUd9t-VAuyU59AndgaFR_kU5rKlHti0H44g8Mbng9vrE6wL5kDzeeWBhRikpCWd8A2iN7ssYxs9pKX9Za-rr-NN6chyphenhyphenD4jKB-4DDnTYzQgo25B4IVqEl/s1600/40K_Skaven_Tutorial_08.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_EI2HZQrX0xnXrWl1OaQP1gealUd9t-VAuyU59AndgaFR_kU5rKlHti0H44g8Mbng9vrE6wL5kDzeeWBhRikpCWd8A2iN7ssYxs9pKX9Za-rr-NN6chyphenhyphenD4jKB-4DDnTYzQgo25B4IVqEl/s1600/40K_Skaven_Tutorial_08.JPG" height="239" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The knife is angled along the direction of the legs motion. <br />This helps the illusion that this is part of the model.</span></td></tr>
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<b><u><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Step 7</span></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Skaven is almost done. One last thing to do is fill that neck area with some green stuff. Roll a small blob into a tube and wrap it over the neck. Use your sculpting tools and gently push the green stuff in and stretch it down to make a corner meet with the Imperial Guard torso collar.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBPcoCHRpz2tz0mZ3oeUqP-rB9A_HIT3KTNknfvn5491GSr0xpV9lH4jIud39wtNwYhm3qYvS-WljI3vfNh4ahA2nE_pTU5Pq1-_621RpNEQDpJ6vDq4syUk2XpVpErddU5smhEbxB59fY/s1600/40K_Skaven_Tutorial_09.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBPcoCHRpz2tz0mZ3oeUqP-rB9A_HIT3KTNknfvn5491GSr0xpV9lH4jIud39wtNwYhm3qYvS-WljI3vfNh4ahA2nE_pTU5Pq1-_621RpNEQDpJ6vDq4syUk2XpVpErddU5smhEbxB59fY/s1600/40K_Skaven_Tutorial_09.JPG" height="239" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Its looking a little lumpy. Not worry, we will shave some <br />of that off and smooth some of it over the head.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With the main area filled its time to smooth it out and make it look good. The Imperial Guard collar has a hard obvious edge. We want the Skaven flesh (or fur) to look like its going down under that collar. Make sure your sculpting tools are wet so they don't stick and make it look good. This Skaven head happens to have a skull face and head so I made the back of the head smooth to match the rest of it.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcoIxSV67nM0AmUeaxtTlZurlBInDrUGbjMzc2z3evbxR-tREkDkrSAVRw5RSBZxZ9itzDwx5PaXrC44ZH-M4mqOdQq14dH3Xf1kwWd-RzgW2Cvjp4UYwLiLBzZyU-LAmPOXt3CsUGA2gp/s1600/40K_Skaven_Tutorial_10.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcoIxSV67nM0AmUeaxtTlZurlBInDrUGbjMzc2z3evbxR-tREkDkrSAVRw5RSBZxZ9itzDwx5PaXrC44ZH-M4mqOdQq14dH3Xf1kwWd-RzgW2Cvjp4UYwLiLBzZyU-LAmPOXt3CsUGA2gp/s1600/40K_Skaven_Tutorial_10.JPG" height="239" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is just about done.</span></td></tr>
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<b><u><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Step 8</span></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I decided that It looks a little plain so I decided to add a larger collar to the neck area. I took some left over Green Stuff and rolled it out long and thin then draped it along the color line. I tucked the corners in on each side to help it stay in place while I shape the it.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoKK4uxlMXsi9o_X9JdqFIpcvYFBfILQSn7PK_Xy7IjdmkRfx6JXpqhqz1aiX6wd7SAwz5XliXOL6OcsdtSpkBK1EuNf7oVvjyh6_QFEQW-mTODE8HJJaTDSqlPheEQ6IiUEnYBpf8bAu-/s1600/40K_Skaven_Tutorial_11.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoKK4uxlMXsi9o_X9JdqFIpcvYFBfILQSn7PK_Xy7IjdmkRfx6JXpqhqz1aiX6wd7SAwz5XliXOL6OcsdtSpkBK1EuNf7oVvjyh6_QFEQW-mTODE8HJJaTDSqlPheEQ6IiUEnYBpf8bAu-/s1600/40K_Skaven_Tutorial_11.JPG" height="239" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That looks a little too big. Lets flatten that out.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With a wet sculpting tool I pressed the roll flat. Being very delicate I pushed the rounded edge to make it a little sharper. I wanted it to look like the collar of a trench coat so I didn't smooth it down into the Imperial Guard neck cloth area.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMPb0P9URtc9SuP9vvOKopJlpjlYdqYhBGQd8xtpA0lhZoiLb7mXuLr13EiJxK7InE6XFBHM-RKyVdvLgK1OQzPdd6qp-_z5qffUWUgBf1ahO1zxTM-LGZH8q5-aYEfZPnBv1FeGulM1Fv/s1600/40K_Skaven_Tutorial_12.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMPb0P9URtc9SuP9vvOKopJlpjlYdqYhBGQd8xtpA0lhZoiLb7mXuLr13EiJxK7InE6XFBHM-RKyVdvLgK1OQzPdd6qp-_z5qffUWUgBf1ahO1zxTM-LGZH8q5-aYEfZPnBv1FeGulM1Fv/s1600/40K_Skaven_Tutorial_12.JPG" height="239" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This guy is ready for a base.</span></td></tr>
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<b><u><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Finished</span></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That's it! Prime, base and paint as you normally would. From start to finish this takes me about 10 minutes (after removing the moulding lines) to cut and build one of these guys. feel free to drop me a line if you have questions and I will do my best to help you with some advice.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Happy paining!</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjofItiA-ihcl06EPhJljCiWR5YJW28zy2CgcMoAtj1ZfwhgdCbsB0F122nJoIcsU9CeYDByb1sHtRMu9A5woU_veeLyjqUU61h0eoxD0gPyYLQA_WNpjFyw-7LQ-o5xJgej3an4MInhL0k/s1600/40K_Skaven_Tutorial_Final.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjofItiA-ihcl06EPhJljCiWR5YJW28zy2CgcMoAtj1ZfwhgdCbsB0F122nJoIcsU9CeYDByb1sHtRMu9A5woU_veeLyjqUU61h0eoxD0gPyYLQA_WNpjFyw-7LQ-o5xJgej3an4MInhL0k/s1600/40K_Skaven_Tutorial_Final.JPG" height="239" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All finished and ready to paint.</span></td></tr>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10081002700176970080noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8016064370039305835.post-76397489126193823532014-02-16T19:22:00.002-06:002014-02-16T19:22:49.287-06:00Where have I been?Wow....what a long time to wait in between posts. Well my work on Borderlands 2 became busy enough that I really didnt have the energy to work on that and devote my free time to working on board games.<br />
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I had a lot of fun working on the Unity 3D Class stuff and then I started working on a few personal projects with that. Then my wife took a Job in Seattle and moved there late last year (October2013). After that my creativity just sort of lost any momentum.<br />
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In an attempt to get that back I have been getting back into painting miniatures. I took a bunch of pictures of my Necrons and posted them here:<br />
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http://hyboreal.deviantart.com/gallery/48191060<br />
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In addition I have started my long talked about dream project of building a Warhammer 40K Skaven army. This has been 15+ Years in the making. Here is a sneak peak:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbk1CLOnweXd_Gf69OUYy3Kdq9EIvZf6d934_YYLo-sSTw5onqYTocO6MUHIZc1b5MOjrh8cy1_1LtWpB35BpQx5cmR67HQfc6hQd_25rjdDrhxNjJee3B_kFHac7LeFe-0h5XZhyphenhyphen1cDzS/s1600/40K_Skaven_Ogryn_01.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbk1CLOnweXd_Gf69OUYy3Kdq9EIvZf6d934_YYLo-sSTw5onqYTocO6MUHIZc1b5MOjrh8cy1_1LtWpB35BpQx5cmR67HQfc6hQd_25rjdDrhxNjJee3B_kFHac7LeFe-0h5XZhyphenhyphen1cDzS/s1600/40K_Skaven_Ogryn_01.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<span id="goog_1833620285"></span><span id="goog_1833620286"></span><br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10081002700176970080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8016064370039305835.post-57609959481853850072013-05-13T07:26:00.000-05:002013-05-13T07:27:26.983-05:00Unity 3D ClassI have been taking an online class for Unity 3D. One of the other students asked me to shoe them how I did something in Unity and their Project Information section is not a convenient place to put a bunch of screen shots and info without making a big mess of my page. So for lack of a better option I am going to place it here on my Blog.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">SkillShare Class: Week 2</span></b><br />
Here we have an arial view of my Scene. I only decorated the area that the camera would be showing the player. The Soldiers that run by the camera are done in the worst way possible! To save time since I was so late to make the project deadline, I just duplicated him a bunch of times and lined them all up into the distance. If you wait long enough, they will run out and stop walking by. Next time I will figure out how to make the Soldiers die off screen and respawn and then I would only need 5-6 of them rather than 20.<br />
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Here is the FMS of the Clock. I have 4 directional lights (3 are turned off) for Dawn, Noon, Dusk, and Evening. When the Clock first is set, it is at Dawn and it sits and waits for a MOUSE CLICK. The iTweenRotate is set to rotate to the position of the current light, in this case the Light_Dawn.<br />
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Now that I have learned about how the Variables work (from Week 3 of the class) I think I would have used a Color Ramp and stored the Color Variable, then used that with the Set Color. This would have created a smooth blend of color instead of the harsh pop.<br />
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The scaling of the rock was a little tricky. I have an empty FMS that waits for a MOUSE CLICK. Clicking it goes to the next state where it will shrink to a scale of 0 over 3 seconds. It will then wait for 5 seconds before going to the next State where it will grown then then return to the Wait for Mouse Click state.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHZqM0O7xsmHoETLMwzO1_bkmzrsZrndX2u5ObnCxQ4owpztzPqPm9KYXtoL_40XBntGsXfymtkUpot_S36JOK7-TP2PC8aFzgzoT_wVKXsr5d1uHJ3YyV8rgiX5t-XoJADzCjzMZQrYkA/s1600/FSM_Clock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="351" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHZqM0O7xsmHoETLMwzO1_bkmzrsZrndX2u5ObnCxQ4owpztzPqPm9KYXtoL_40XBntGsXfymtkUpot_S36JOK7-TP2PC8aFzgzoT_wVKXsr5d1uHJ3YyV8rgiX5t-XoJADzCjzMZQrYkA/s400/FSM_Clock.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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First off...this is all fakery! The King is not really "Walking"...he is playing an animation and he is moving, but its just an illusion. The King is already set up to use all of his animations so when you use the Play Animation Action, you are given a list that you want to run. I couldn't figure out how to make the Animation Loop, so I just had two FMS Nodes that bounced back and forth to each other. Then I just set the Controller Simple Move to a point in space off the screen to the Right and kept adjusting the speed so his feet didn't slide.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV9SjcRXV91We_30-lnNko-Zu2HCiDynC8fiTl3u5xF-VGJt5vEbullDhPfRy9msg7w7EC6JDMFifols2GRpKmK0YEDfyuIxPbOXs2QmESC8aQE_VVgJUWceo1EEGoKrYk2LG2uO07kZWl/s1600/FSM_Spartan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV9SjcRXV91We_30-lnNko-Zu2HCiDynC8fiTl3u5xF-VGJt5vEbullDhPfRy9msg7w7EC6JDMFifols2GRpKmK0YEDfyuIxPbOXs2QmESC8aQE_VVgJUWceo1EEGoKrYk2LG2uO07kZWl/s400/FSM_Spartan.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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And here is the final scene with the Clock set to Noon. I also played around with the Screen Shake so when you press the space bar the screen will shake...also there is a tree that is not labeled that will shake and play a sound when you click on it.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_GhiFD6Iqbkf8CKceC-pB_YGRbTx_YKcI13uUFPFe0MohvvRd6GnLrlwYhmQqg_V-4G1S9QnbWewdxhqMEi9PgtEx56IumvIbCm_CCLvxJ_Wm1oyuZpF2JO_OLks8iMYhvlydTWORFqrH/s1600/The+March.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_GhiFD6Iqbkf8CKceC-pB_YGRbTx_YKcI13uUFPFe0MohvvRd6GnLrlwYhmQqg_V-4G1S9QnbWewdxhqMEi9PgtEx56IumvIbCm_CCLvxJ_Wm1oyuZpF2JO_OLks8iMYhvlydTWORFqrH/s400/The+March.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10081002700176970080noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8016064370039305835.post-60393805878453881292013-02-24T00:08:00.000-06:002013-02-24T00:14:26.940-06:00Something new is coming...<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have been working on a new personal game project. It's not a board game, but I could see doing a Card Game version of it. I have a really neat Dice Mechanic that could be a lot of fun to explore with this idea. I have been making good progress with the game design and I hired an artists to get some traction on the visuals. So far I would say that is has been going really well.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here is what the Elite Unit started out as. On the right you can see my art direction making suggestions of the parts of the design I was not happy with.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjceLj8ePBJHxEycfZeVT7Tu1NjJURxiL9Yko2inuu0D_dVzCAh_RGCOu74KAgjo60pPc95MkO8j0rjTzEvFSat3vLnZLKJtd0WR_btWoAziBTdQ6qbjBRGe3vbCN1A1rs6N-8UYls9dHP/s1600/Elite_Direction1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjceLj8ePBJHxEycfZeVT7Tu1NjJURxiL9Yko2inuu0D_dVzCAh_RGCOu74KAgjo60pPc95MkO8j0rjTzEvFSat3vLnZLKJtd0WR_btWoAziBTdQ6qbjBRGe3vbCN1A1rs6N-8UYls9dHP/s320/Elite_Direction1.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The second round was much closer to what I was looking for. I didn't like the head design or the size, but for the most part that was it. There was a third version where I was still not happy with the head design, it was so similar to this version, its not worth adding another image. In the end Nick came up with this head design that I really like.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB6nJuzOgAJLfxvtQ8C0yDkBI5m0F4FWbHBpXTZx0-s5wpMGZ2iYgWH7JjQ0HDbJljrUGVH3ZHffJh594kwcntIiGKrt_fwyuarM85wSqJrGcskueVZA5Xx7FvSjzIzgsfUJawSw9lGCEu/s1600/Elite_Direction2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="284" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB6nJuzOgAJLfxvtQ8C0yDkBI5m0F4FWbHBpXTZx0-s5wpMGZ2iYgWH7JjQ0HDbJljrUGVH3ZHffJh594kwcntIiGKrt_fwyuarM85wSqJrGcskueVZA5Xx7FvSjzIzgsfUJawSw9lGCEu/s320/Elite_Direction2.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The final version he added some darker shadows and additional details, but the major shape didn't change. The total time was about 2 days of back and forth emails (mainly because Nick lives in Greece).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have been posting the final images to Facebook, but this is the first time I have talked about the Art Direction and the whole process. I have really enjoyed working with Nick. His rendering skill and ability to interpret my insane direction is amazing. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You can find the original posting here:<a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_678173998"> </a></span><a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gorgon-Interactive/168411264342">Facebook.com/pages/Gorgon-Interactive</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10081002700176970080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8016064370039305835.post-9297206896780236332012-12-30T10:30:00.003-06:002012-12-30T10:30:57.175-06:00A very Zombie New YearNow that my work on Aliens: Colonial Marines is done, we got a much needed break for the holidays. These past few weeks I have been working on a new game...not a board game, but a personal video game project I am very excited about. I am not talking about what it is just yet, but hope to have some info that I can share soon. If you are interested go check out the <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gorgon-Interactive/168411264342" target="_blank">Gorgon Interactive FB</a> page to see some early concepts of the project.<br />
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I sent out and played some games last night. I was lured by the promise of Zombicide, but when I got there the group had left to go get dinner. I went over to another persons house and we played a game of Ticket to Ride.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijGxCpwYH8oFfx5hCT1hO3YOT5p2qbwKlQd699lU3MCGSzOLV5E29UD44ONCYW_T7DMlurlaP-E8BTcsIaptY9_JKr_y2E330wwvAcjEXvPsiNdyIYvAJQRMuInK7hnTvT4_2I3ZWjD5vR/s1600/T2R.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijGxCpwYH8oFfx5hCT1hO3YOT5p2qbwKlQd699lU3MCGSzOLV5E29UD44ONCYW_T7DMlurlaP-E8BTcsIaptY9_JKr_y2E330wwvAcjEXvPsiNdyIYvAJQRMuInK7hnTvT4_2I3ZWjD5vR/s320/T2R.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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This is easily my least favorite 'Great Game'. Its so easy it is presented as the 'Gateway" game for people looking to get into board games, but in reality it is a brutal cut thought game where every move has to be concealed so you don't give away your intended route.</div>
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I did OK. I took second. A good game if you are not playing with hard core players..otherwise this game is to much of a 'Screw you' game for my tastes.</div>
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After that I finally caught up with the original group and played Zombicide. This is a co-op game where the player have to work together to complete some goal as dictated by the mission they choose to play. Because we had 6 players the people teaching us the rules decided to go with one of the bigger and more difficult missions. What were they thinking?</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjthcn9ybtnearopvyXqJV8nG8q0H7xkNPRG1BiNT2Wo0Eqelf1vrrV9eTbwbJtxmnQ0hzCEeHGy7qwwXZtCLwWa5OzfZABcXmvZakmjM7rGAP6PreMkvS5GMn3ox-Eutza8LV6jSFJbNBy/s1600/Zom1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjthcn9ybtnearopvyXqJV8nG8q0H7xkNPRG1BiNT2Wo0Eqelf1vrrV9eTbwbJtxmnQ0hzCEeHGy7qwwXZtCLwWa5OzfZABcXmvZakmjM7rGAP6PreMkvS5GMn3ox-Eutza8LV6jSFJbNBy/s320/Zom1.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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Were good. We have half of our objective markers....we got this. We just need to cross the street, get into that building...and then get to the north part of the map...no problem.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrz8sGdMPl-M7dQVWXzr1gtlbRcTbdAWotV-YncVufiOM0f16WD5yxxvtyvq8XIOEpMu1iFOoXjOIMBR0Hu2k_8nsskrDTwvZcIlsqQWO9Xqym_XFEdBQA0tDHr4dvfOTySiIEtVPrqWo7/s1600/Zom2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrz8sGdMPl-M7dQVWXzr1gtlbRcTbdAWotV-YncVufiOM0f16WD5yxxvtyvq8XIOEpMu1iFOoXjOIMBR0Hu2k_8nsskrDTwvZcIlsqQWO9Xqym_XFEdBQA0tDHr4dvfOTySiIEtVPrqWo7/s320/Zom2.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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OK, we got across the street...and lost Dave to a pack of runners. We wiped them out and are still in good shape. We spend a few turns gathering supplies to hopefully get a Molotov Cocktail to kill the Abomination....this was not a good plan.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyBK0Voi8LoRDL_P3hJno_u_y6vlim2SQqPvb_HdrZk5rpGRp0Y05j0ZI1olPpmQoJefZunuzHPhlu45nq05xapQLyh3IUMzgqb0eSoXCgQhTbxnACVt0C_VqnHYA26FJGefqrSA56c2id/s1600/Zom4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyBK0Voi8LoRDL_P3hJno_u_y6vlim2SQqPvb_HdrZk5rpGRp0Y05j0ZI1olPpmQoJefZunuzHPhlu45nq05xapQLyh3IUMzgqb0eSoXCgQhTbxnACVt0C_VqnHYA26FJGefqrSA56c2id/s320/Zom4.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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What idiot thought it was a good idea to barricade ourselves in this death trap? Needless to say, this did not end well. We killed the Abomination, fought out onto the street, and died in the middle of the intersection just to the north of where we are...it was not pretty.</div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10081002700176970080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8016064370039305835.post-37910178151525590872012-07-25T01:25:00.001-05:002012-07-25T01:25:53.294-05:00Its been way too longAfter working way too many hours at work, I lost a lot of my momentum in working on Taipan. In an attempt to regain some of my Mojo I have started working on some of the changes that I have been meaning to do since my last play test over a month ago.<br />
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The first change is to reduce the number of Combat Cards from 32 to 12. This is an attempt to fix the issue where players can get screwed when one player can have a bad round of combat leaving the Combat cards in the favor of the following players to do combat with little worry of loosing<br />
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I am slowly working on building a new Victory point system. When players turn in cargo they will have a choice to collect Coins they can use to buy more cargo or upgrade their ship, or they can receive a victory point card based on the number of a specific cargo type delivered.<br />
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For example: If you deliver 3 Silk Cargo Cubes you may choose to receive the Coins you would normally receive or you may take the single 3 Silk Victory Card.<br />
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I still haven't figured out how to trigger the end of the game. I am thinking it will be the depletion of some or all of the Victory Cards. In the mean time here is what the Victory Cards look like:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi4K8UJ9EOfh7ANHHB8bojkft5GivtXJCin72IM_wH9qexPQl-tu1HUmzf0NdbwwDI_mGIthga5qbc4Fr3BZQs8Q8tyqeKjUHe6HnHCe_UfRjDSByL-jwScHHYs8UT8wiqBPm-ue2AzCHu/s1600/Tea3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi4K8UJ9EOfh7ANHHB8bojkft5GivtXJCin72IM_wH9qexPQl-tu1HUmzf0NdbwwDI_mGIthga5qbc4Fr3BZQs8Q8tyqeKjUHe6HnHCe_UfRjDSByL-jwScHHYs8UT8wiqBPm-ue2AzCHu/s320/Tea3.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10081002700176970080noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8016064370039305835.post-69072187771465960092012-05-15T21:13:00.000-05:002012-05-15T21:13:14.654-05:00Taipan sales and new LinkI have just made a few minor changes to the Description section of Taipan in the Store to help point players to the two different versions of Taipan on the Game Crafter.<br />
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<b><a href="https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/taipan" target="_blank">Taipan: Merchants of the Far East</a></b><br />
This is the full version that has higher quality parts, a 10'x10' box and divider to help keep the parts organized. There are also high quality Micro Cards to represent money and Cubes to represent Cargo.<br />
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<b><a href="https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/taipan-play-tester-" target="_blank">Taipan: The Play Test Version</a></b></div>
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This is the less expensive Play Test Version. There is no box or divider. Coins are represented by Paper Money and Cargo is represented by Plastic Poker Chips.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOYWRT9HjxuT_74QKqubysYfRpS0Fih6nItWJdTlP-ShJOXMqW03u5nL4ZlxpSzfgfOZnzhIREpaIvLHBEgZes8r5qh17uUgICZ_OKThJmShXBqZyKqzlKOBAfbEj_XJ4mn-wuIr5RHpue/s1600/StoreGameCover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOYWRT9HjxuT_74QKqubysYfRpS0Fih6nItWJdTlP-ShJOXMqW03u5nL4ZlxpSzfgfOZnzhIREpaIvLHBEgZes8r5qh17uUgICZ_OKThJmShXBqZyKqzlKOBAfbEj_XJ4mn-wuIr5RHpue/s1600/StoreGameCover.jpg" /></a></div>
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I have also added an Image of Taipan in the upper right of my Blogg. You can direct link to Taipan in the Game Crafter store by clicking the image. Please share the links with your friends and help support the Play Test of Taipan.</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10081002700176970080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8016064370039305835.post-56742440776590290542012-05-14T08:06:00.001-05:002012-05-14T08:06:35.090-05:00Come One Come All....<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have opened the store on the Game Crafter site. If you have $50 extra bucks and want to help test Taipan, go and pick it up at:</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsaWA9RqtVoJyISi6seglxu1a0Rhdg4g5EDHu177-m4uT_nD55LidtsUzl5XssF9_PDWenhcrvzCUWkePKenwrzkU4TYZe_OxRumQmzkYN9yABGw1qUnRUSLsREYRDb26VsIsaaNF8Tjkn/s1600/ShopAd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsaWA9RqtVoJyISi6seglxu1a0Rhdg4g5EDHu177-m4uT_nD55LidtsUzl5XssF9_PDWenhcrvzCUWkePKenwrzkU4TYZe_OxRumQmzkYN9yABGw1qUnRUSLsREYRDb26VsIsaaNF8Tjkn/s1600/ShopAd.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Look for this image in the list of games.</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/taipan</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You might have to do a search for Taipan, it seems like the link only takes you to the list of games, not the actual Taipan page.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It takes about 10 days for them to print and ship it out to you. I need a lot of feed back on the Rules. No one but me has read them so I am sure there is a lot that doesn't make any sense. I need your help smoothing out the bumps, so please send notes and feedback.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thanks for your support.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10081002700176970080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8016064370039305835.post-59027040499332128932012-05-10T08:55:00.004-05:002012-05-10T08:55:59.048-05:00Playing Again!<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tuesday night I went to my friends house to play Taipan. I brought over the newly printed Game Crafter version of Taipan and set it up. We BSed and ate dinner for about an hour and go started around 8PM.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8D0GuusGkVHI0DDCP_sfQuyQzjtuGyE_PcsEMKibLI3NGyxbRzqOUsCdI9-gQBpZr3sI_V2td5sqpwUxRALis7wFYLHs7lYB8wBXWQTvFItktTuMkE68Y3Z4pmPqpt54VYKgdVYaXmQ2W/s1600/EricJSexton(May2012).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8D0GuusGkVHI0DDCP_sfQuyQzjtuGyE_PcsEMKibLI3NGyxbRzqOUsCdI9-gQBpZr3sI_V2td5sqpwUxRALis7wFYLHs7lYB8wBXWQTvFItktTuMkE68Y3Z4pmPqpt54VYKgdVYaXmQ2W/s320/EricJSexton(May2012).jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I blame the bad picture on the 21 year old Scotch. Mmmmm...Glenfiddich!</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I had two new people who had never played (TJ and Sean), so it was good to get some fresh eyes on the game. Right out the gate I got very lucky where I fought off 3 pirates and got two gold cargo. This would have resulted in me earning 22 coin on the second turn of the game. In my continued attempt to minimize the huge random swings of the game I adjusted the rules only allowing players to choose 1 cargo from any Pirate victory.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVxqadzLi94NoobzqAleA_ATpzsZ4bL9BUkrM2crO4zT9XNTrVLcisBmcyYwsuRPF-I-k3i1Q1Cq1wCwMte8Tq2gLIokgespj8dYmJpwyUQ07xHsxkayL1YD0_P1zxVgDIBfgpdLC2cKGO/s1600/Taipan1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVxqadzLi94NoobzqAleA_ATpzsZ4bL9BUkrM2crO4zT9XNTrVLcisBmcyYwsuRPF-I-k3i1Q1Cq1wCwMte8Tq2gLIokgespj8dYmJpwyUQ07xHsxkayL1YD0_P1zxVgDIBfgpdLC2cKGO/s320/Taipan1.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Start of the game using the new Game Crafter set.</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Over the course of the game we found several other issues that need to be addressed. TJ got himself into a bad position where he had no money and lost most of his cargo when he got into a fight with Pirates. We came up with a new rule that allows a player to stay in port on his turn to earn 2 coins. I might change this to if he takes no Port Actions, he gains two coin. This will prevent players from loosing a turn and falling behind the other players who are earning much larger amount of money.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In addition, TJ also took Rasheed which did not help his situation any. After talking about it we have determined that his ability (Repair any two damage for free) is purely a defensive ability and playser can rarely win a game by playing all defensive. I will be revisiting that character to change his ability in some way.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWZFc3WgWyYVjNLIF4WJWVYGqCZ0eu-32srPruXQAMAZom0Eb8szjU810cYE_IZRCnrT21fRAAUrXD5_lOEdsvOQztVNL-apxJalB78YTFfhggg4czdUdkuYSKvyi_9mntmiSYS5288h2y/s1600/Taipan2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWZFc3WgWyYVjNLIF4WJWVYGqCZ0eu-32srPruXQAMAZom0Eb8szjU810cYE_IZRCnrT21fRAAUrXD5_lOEdsvOQztVNL-apxJalB78YTFfhggg4czdUdkuYSKvyi_9mntmiSYS5288h2y/s320/Taipan2.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Clearly Sean and Bryan have had way too much to drink.</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I had a good lead for a long while, but in the end, it was Bryan who won. While I spent the game slowly paying off my debt, he built up his ship so that he had Max Sails and Hull. In combination with Markus Seawell (Move into and out of Port once per turn for free), this allowed his to make big buys and massive sells and pay off his debt in the last four turns of the game. This is a good strategy and the one I think all expert players will take, but it makes it very binary and appears to be the only correct choice. We talked about reducing the number of Ship Upgrades from 3 to 2, but my fear with this is that it will slow the game down. The game took 2 hours, and that is the perfect amount of time in my mind.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think I am going to change Marcus Seawell so that he will be able to take advantage of specially marked short cuts on the Sea Map and Rasheed will become the Harbor Master allowing him to move out of Port for free, but not into port. There where a few other issues, but nothing to major. Some art issues on the cards, and some missing details and typos in the rules.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cant wait to have time to make the changes and do it all again. Maybe this weekend I will get to dive back in. Until next time, happy gaming.</span><br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10081002700176970080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8016064370039305835.post-23390723273685977922012-05-04T01:23:00.001-05:002012-05-04T01:23:25.780-05:00Old Dog, New Tricks....It doesn't happen often so don't get use to it, but sometimes I do like to learn something new. This time around it's making, editing, and uploading videos to YouTube. Thats right, my first video and I am such a big nerd that it is the Open Box reveal of Taipan! Sorry for the inconsistent video quality and random flares of over-saturated light.....did I mention this was my first go?<br />
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In about 4 hours I filmed it, learned how to use iMovie to edit it, did said editing and then added the fades (the parts where it fades to black). After that I learned how to upload to YouTube, and finished it off by posting it here. All in all, not a bad nights work.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/m7I0wUMvlbY" width="420"></iframe>
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My only complaint with opening the box and seeing the parts was the Micro Cards. The Micro Cards turned out to be much smaller than I was expecting. This doesn't really affect the Coin Cards, but the Cargo Cards are near impossible to shuffle, so I will have to order a set of the regular Poker Card sized deck of the Cargo Cards. Also, the Coin Cards I left the Coin to small on the card, so its hard to tell the difference between the gold and brass coins.<br />
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The only other issue I have found is that everything printed a little bit darker than I was anticipating. That doesn't affect the game any, so it's more of an observation than a problem.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10081002700176970080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8016064370039305835.post-68717404448509518172012-04-21T12:32:00.001-05:002012-04-21T12:32:35.546-05:00Break the Silence!<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hello friends,</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am sorry to have been gone for so long but work has gotten extremely busy. After a 12+ hour days 7 days a week, its hard to muster any creativity or the willpower to write about it.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rest assure, I have been working on Taipan, however slow, and I am happy to say that this week I am expecting my first demo copy of Taipan to get here from <a href="http://www.thegamecrafter.com/" target="_blank">The Game Crafter</a>.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJA09-wvKrj2LTo9_vzpUoWGjQABPfElvhMCI8rNILQzv6e-haVsGp6gUn9Z4UvzpyMuxlV1GhZfSSxD7iwOygj9F7dLx3NV5t5wg9N2nn5Gx_IUu9MxF9gm0yXhZs3sqY1Fz9yICLI48H/s1600/Shot_Coins(small).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJA09-wvKrj2LTo9_vzpUoWGjQABPfElvhMCI8rNILQzv6e-haVsGp6gUn9Z4UvzpyMuxlV1GhZfSSxD7iwOygj9F7dLx3NV5t5wg9N2nn5Gx_IUu9MxF9gm0yXhZs3sqY1Fz9yICLI48H/s320/Shot_Coins(small).jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Game Crafter store has several of these images highlighting several aspects of Taipan.</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Once I have proofed the Demo copy I will open the store up for anyone who wants to grab a copy. The game still needs some play testing so I don't recommend getting the regular version ($59.99) and instead should get the Tester version ($34.99). I do not make much money off of these (about $4). This is just intended as an easy way to deliver the game to players who are interested in doing some play testing.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I will have a Box Opening post some time next week when Taipan gets here. Hope you can come by and check it out.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10081002700176970080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8016064370039305835.post-57523853506189164522012-02-26T12:59:00.000-06:002012-02-26T12:59:30.316-06:00Taipan Testing and Design Changes<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This past Thursday I got to play test Tiapan. It was a good group of players including my friend and fellow Game Designer CW Karsten, the creator of the recently Kick Started game 'Dragon Valley'. I have been trying to get him to play Tiapan for a while now.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The game played well and we played all the way to the end. Things seemed to play quickly and despite a few big problems and lots of little ones, there were no game stoppers. Also, I got one of the best compliments I could ever get. 'I like this better then Merchants and Marauders'. If you have been following this Blog since the beginning you know that M&M is the game I frequently referenced early on in the development o Taipan. So for one of the players to say that was a nice ego boost to hear.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhroZVVephq3ZvQHPgQcj-BvrMo45SME4j8IKN4Ml7nsiR-pbGYhyZxdHcmqREE2zpi3YgASsgCnuwEi4Sd8-WDsSK9SxQ8qWjOIF1PnK8Dwn7397vwCDpRFwK9Yi_UBs4wEcfDvYR-Tfp/s1600/IMG_0896.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhroZVVephq3ZvQHPgQcj-BvrMo45SME4j8IKN4Ml7nsiR-pbGYhyZxdHcmqREE2zpi3YgASsgCnuwEi4Sd8-WDsSK9SxQ8qWjOIF1PnK8Dwn7397vwCDpRFwK9Yi_UBs4wEcfDvYR-Tfp/s320/IMG_0896.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">After the initial Set-Up, the game is underway.</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For the first few turns things played really well. Right off the bat, players scattered to the four corners of the board, so that felt like a big win since early versions of the game everyone always went straight to the top closest ports. I think one of the things that helped with this is the new City Cargo Values and players getting the Free upgrade of their choice. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHRYnE_d3VW9QYIExkhd2wTNWrrdx5g1EMRG8M5-AzNofFplm-jh4OgvsAZGPCIRQQ6yqogerMQX35N4KNWRdjYoVnq78TbV_xEgGNX5CIYhYPp6hL4Qkb5ImoUULchM_2ZSIPlfEKuqh7/s1600/IMG_0889.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHRYnE_d3VW9QYIExkhd2wTNWrrdx5g1EMRG8M5-AzNofFplm-jh4OgvsAZGPCIRQQ6yqogerMQX35N4KNWRdjYoVnq78TbV_xEgGNX5CIYhYPp6hL4Qkb5ImoUULchM_2ZSIPlfEKuqh7/s320/IMG_0889.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Things are about to start going very bad. Let the Brokenness commence!</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And then the first big problem happens. One of the players draws an Event Card that doubles the sell price of a random type of cargo. A cargo he just happened to be carrying, and in the city he just happened to be going to. This let him sell those 2 Rice Cargo for 10 each instead of 5 each. This got compounded when he took that money and upgraded his ship twice, a rule I will need fix by saying players can only upgrade once per port visit.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To fix this problem I am changing the card to a +1 per cargo sold. I was going to do a +2, but there are also City Modifier cards this card might stack with making to the total possible bonus to be up to +4. This feels like too much of a possible bonus, so I am keeping it small. This is a good general rule about using multiplication in game design. Unless you have some way of controlling it, don't use it. The numbers get too big to fast, so its always better to use smaller additive bonuses.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk_4qd7-WUk5UXPArJOKbJDrD9pBau1g1B6MIrvIbD6PGTgxSRFtS8VZhON9elVQ2s5E0xhN43zjKdvOzYry34c0a8Q8AxYxGUetJY0LlfsYlqmY1a6K8d4sS3wGDW4RbUIRxmH_WSRYz2/s1600/IMG_0900.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk_4qd7-WUk5UXPArJOKbJDrD9pBau1g1B6MIrvIbD6PGTgxSRFtS8VZhON9elVQ2s5E0xhN43zjKdvOzYry34c0a8Q8AxYxGUetJY0LlfsYlqmY1a6K8d4sS3wGDW4RbUIRxmH_WSRYz2/s320/IMG_0900.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">CW trades in some Cargo to Upgrade his Ship.</td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The next big problem game a few rounds later when the same lucky player (John) drew the 'Gift in Hong Kong' event card. This allowed him to pick a single cargo of his choice. Before the last round of big changes this wouldn't have been that big of a deal since the most value he could have got would have been 8 coins (still broken but not as bad). With the new changes I made to the City Cargo values, he got a value of 12 coins, and if he wanted to take an extra turn moving to another City he could have got 15 coins.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha9EslPUQqRxxEU-OfyxqC9EK66GCl2rz_TA6uwZAe_fmI2TJu_Qf3r78Qc6j9h7UAtiuWwZ72iVtnMTRJj-IKekDoONsXHzF3T_H1dmurLMkulu47Uz0DWHBVfIViUcZ4vXi4AYLlH9Am/s1600/IMG_0899.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha9EslPUQqRxxEU-OfyxqC9EK66GCl2rz_TA6uwZAe_fmI2TJu_Qf3r78Qc6j9h7UAtiuWwZ72iVtnMTRJj-IKekDoONsXHzF3T_H1dmurLMkulu47Uz0DWHBVfIViUcZ4vXi4AYLlH9Am/s320/IMG_0899.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A gift in Hong Kong? What a coincidence, I just happen to be in Hong Kong! =)</td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After the game, we discussed the problem of 'A Gift in Hong Kong' and came up with an interesting idea. Players can sell 2 cargo of the same type and get 1 of the next highest cargo for free. What I like about this is that it forces the player to have to do something to make this happen, it doesn't just happen for showing up in the right place at the right time. The down side is that if a player sells Black Powder (the highest cargo type), what does he get? Now I have to come up with some special rule for that? I think I will revert to what it was originally 'Players gain the Ship Upgrade of their choice' with the added mechanic that they have to sell 2 Cargo of the same type to get the benefit</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPaBtRUs-ANo4gPrzhtnVSnS393CDRIvVM7yWTtfYFQz9aiCb9pvrV0EWy9AChOHgRjIP-IujZPEjtlSnVLcs1d0l5sGHzeIlxGHJZAwOQk4I7cAAZypT-yDnLqFkMhX1HoliQnkPBC1DO/s1600/IMG_0898.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPaBtRUs-ANo4gPrzhtnVSnS393CDRIvVM7yWTtfYFQz9aiCb9pvrV0EWy9AChOHgRjIP-IujZPEjtlSnVLcs1d0l5sGHzeIlxGHJZAwOQk4I7cAAZypT-yDnLqFkMhX1HoliQnkPBC1DO/s320/IMG_0898.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John (the guy on the right) just got lucky and goes on to with the game.</td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After this it was clear who was going to win. He had gained so much money there was no real way to catch up, but everyone was happy to keep playing to see what they were able to achieve before the game ended. Near the end of the game I realized that my Captain's special ability required that I get into combat to use it. He can repair 1 damage once between Port visit. Bus since there were a total of 4 pirates the whole game, it never really got used. I am hopping this will get fixed in the next game when I have more Pirates starting in the game, and make some adjustments to the Event Deck to fix some of the unevenness.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWb-a4XrJ5XUXPG_WJbVNz-zJ9pJIqloGkruN3vPCU_mY7orsxeyIzFKc-g4F1W3pjVSjMYdFQg4LhyYJIZEbxI7VO44P0XsexoYDLBt2ZjENXoZvdEuKUfSUU8t_P9DPAq_ar5hII7-bx/s1600/IMG_0901.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWb-a4XrJ5XUXPG_WJbVNz-zJ9pJIqloGkruN3vPCU_mY7orsxeyIzFKc-g4F1W3pjVSjMYdFQg4LhyYJIZEbxI7VO44P0XsexoYDLBt2ZjENXoZvdEuKUfSUU8t_P9DPAq_ar5hII7-bx/s320/IMG_0901.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My Captain is only useful if I get into enough combat that I need to repair a lot of damage.</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Other issues included: Not enough pirates, some copy paste errors and poorly phrased descriptions that made understanding some of the cards difficult, Cargo Token colors not matching the Cargo colors on the cards, and Players being able to buy more than one Ship Upgrade a turn.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some challenging problems and lots of small, easy fixes! I just wonder how many I will find in the next play though. =)</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10081002700176970080noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8016064370039305835.post-71682069474352985942012-02-11T18:37:00.000-06:002012-02-11T18:37:40.742-06:00The forgotten taste of free time!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have been working long hours, and when I do come home I spend my free time with my girlfriend. (Pro Tip: Spending time with your girlfriend makes them happy. Do not put them off to work on your game, its never worth it). This does not leave a lot of free time to work on my game or write about it.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Needless to say, I have been working very hard on Taipan, but as my past posts discouraging you from working on art would indicate, the second you start adding art, the development time suddenly becomes takes much longer to keep focus and maintain your development and testing pace.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This past week I got to print my cards and get them cut out and sleeved. The total process took almost a full week, but that was mostly because I was doing it an hour at a time when every I had a little free time.</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2GQll7kyuYIcnj4O_78hAA6X2lqyVCSt4GF3JoWr0aWx6YuPVxbtipDgSOpOzRMhcY_iYnvz56dPGJvlfdVuawF2efUFLkJo4dRgasBLvZQ6jswrZ2_XFmlvX-t2_6dlPSFyIfEWk5TER/s1600/IMG_0879.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2GQll7kyuYIcnj4O_78hAA6X2lqyVCSt4GF3JoWr0aWx6YuPVxbtipDgSOpOzRMhcY_iYnvz56dPGJvlfdVuawF2efUFLkJo4dRgasBLvZQ6jswrZ2_XFmlvX-t2_6dlPSFyIfEWk5TER/s320/IMG_0879.JPG" width="240" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">It took me 2 days to cut all of the print outs.</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cutting the cards wasn't difficult, just boring and time consuming. In the end I didn't make the guides small enough so some of the cards wouldn't fit in the sleeves. This required more cutting as I was trying to slide the cards into the sleeves. That was frustrating.</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiimHof7fdQTJJaHBBkuod0Tjag0hd-atlLceECXJeS9R8ri2OzvVIIyLXJYGWAHfTz_vTtNUSo5J23AjTDYncCGIYnVr10L-yRMR-wB1303o-vDSQkikq2ajobvn6LomhnI-nmlw4-lwe0/s1600/IMG_0883.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiimHof7fdQTJJaHBBkuod0Tjag0hd-atlLceECXJeS9R8ri2OzvVIIyLXJYGWAHfTz_vTtNUSo5J23AjTDYncCGIYnVr10L-yRMR-wB1303o-vDSQkikq2ajobvn6LomhnI-nmlw4-lwe0/s320/IMG_0883.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">In the end, the leftovers look like this</span></td></tr>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCy0R0X7A8TPJQUDaoM3cFCBmGW-GkBG8jNmKAVjMkmWJGpxCu2adEpey_G88cYKluO2V6A3nRBfGlM320Jyd7phhRaiO9uLYlKkgBpcfg9MOm1w8wALve9Z0doHq0GO_CqelQwzz3hPr4/s1600/IMG_0880.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCy0R0X7A8TPJQUDaoM3cFCBmGW-GkBG8jNmKAVjMkmWJGpxCu2adEpey_G88cYKluO2V6A3nRBfGlM320Jyd7phhRaiO9uLYlKkgBpcfg9MOm1w8wALve9Z0doHq0GO_CqelQwzz3hPr4/s320/IMG_0880.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here all the cards before they got put into their sleeves.</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The final count is 5, Ship Cards, 14 Captain Cards, 34 Cargo Cards, 32 Combat Cards, 48 Event Cards, and 29 City Cards. I also printed out a new version of the Map using the new art and the new cities that I added. The map and all of the cards look great.</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKpdlp99oZX3RLuGOs9vAa5PXGlR3bD78HwrEdZSToAh5GkXHZ8VOxGdmvEBmc2R4bjxF8AIxsS6nntXpTsGhjAW5w29i2RDZWmton55qZ5gKgjRMGlpRXY3eKweFhYVgOO9_cKNzPBwEk/s1600/IMG_0887.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKpdlp99oZX3RLuGOs9vAa5PXGlR3bD78HwrEdZSToAh5GkXHZ8VOxGdmvEBmc2R4bjxF8AIxsS6nntXpTsGhjAW5w29i2RDZWmton55qZ5gKgjRMGlpRXY3eKweFhYVgOO9_cKNzPBwEk/s320/IMG_0887.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The final product looked great.</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This past Thursday night, I left work early to attend the Dragon Valley release party. My friend CW just got the first print run of his game Dragon Valley that he got funded through Kickstarter. It looks great and I am very happy for him. When Taipan is ready to go, I will have to pick his brain about the whole Kickstarter process.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTmJgifzd7X3dwPKos5YoVaRebEX1O-BUscI2qT7VFKcmkpsr7RoHCIN6WsXFC_hpKiP86G0_G4FUu9lu42ZLNVWrVXs1ZyXiBmY8UG7bY7H37-7oCn84kBTncpZKVNFAMqdK4IbIvu6kG/s1600/DragonValley.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTmJgifzd7X3dwPKos5YoVaRebEX1O-BUscI2qT7VFKcmkpsr7RoHCIN6WsXFC_hpKiP86G0_G4FUu9lu42ZLNVWrVXs1ZyXiBmY8UG7bY7H37-7oCn84kBTncpZKVNFAMqdK4IbIvu6kG/s320/DragonValley.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dragon Valley is now available.</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While I was at the Dragon Valley party, I got a chance to sit down a play a partial game of Taipan. I say a partial game because I didnt have a lot of time, so I quickly came up with a rule that I thought would make the game take about half as long. I was right, a game that I thought should take about 90 minutes took about 45. Just enough for the game to get going, but not enough to get a good sense of the flow of the game.</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif65dbtpbQpVtdy3uH3h1pdXy-D2pYTZq9tEIja4q0InJPBdT95lPnkZg0qsQbmx3gKHcSKGMa7hyphenhyphenKwgM8PD_I6DSygHn4cTACOsbbmHaMCLwDSq3jwurfkPzMPrOaeMzUM52SQN5CXwrY/s1600/IMG_0889.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif65dbtpbQpVtdy3uH3h1pdXy-D2pYTZq9tEIja4q0InJPBdT95lPnkZg0qsQbmx3gKHcSKGMa7hyphenhyphenKwgM8PD_I6DSygHn4cTACOsbbmHaMCLwDSq3jwurfkPzMPrOaeMzUM52SQN5CXwrY/s320/IMG_0889.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The start of the first game of Taipan I have played in about a month.</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It did help to identify a few new problems. Not enough threats from Pirates allowed for player to hang on to their money instead of spending it on upgrades or paying off their Debt. Some Event Cards still reference the old Cargo type Medicine which has been replaced by Tea. Upgrades were too expensive in the cities other than Hong Kong.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With all the new rules and mechanics, I am not surprised there are all new problems to solve. Well, I guess its back to work. I will try to have an update about the new changes soon.</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10081002700176970080noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8016064370039305835.post-76697238244499315752012-01-29T14:36:00.000-06:002012-01-29T14:36:31.880-06:00Taipan is still here...just barely!<div style="text-align: justify;">
Things are moving along very slowly. Work has kept me busy and I have had several setbacks with the cards and data sets. There wasn't much point in posting till I had some good progress to report. Sadly this is a report on how little progress I have made.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7g8HKj21hLjnCLaLUG56GBkOKX7ciWY297jJbTxDk1HoMEoMuADwfWmCBICTml977C6DH1PKSDEi4mDdx8lkxFh2BMybXfhNB2LjOc-IsmTIdf2klR6yBtQxNY3Ya-YwCpwKnHd2qc39J/s1600/Fire.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7g8HKj21hLjnCLaLUG56GBkOKX7ciWY297jJbTxDk1HoMEoMuADwfWmCBICTml977C6DH1PKSDEi4mDdx8lkxFh2BMybXfhNB2LjOc-IsmTIdf2klR6yBtQxNY3Ya-YwCpwKnHd2qc39J/s320/Fire.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My ship was nearly sunk by adding all this art! As cool as it can be RESIST!</td></tr>
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On my last post about Taipan I showed off the new art I had been doing and trying my damnedest to dissuade you from following in my footsteps. DO NOT DO ANY ART until the game is done. Remember that mantra I was chanting a few weeks ago? Well, doing art continues to take a big wet bite out of my ass. In the process of making images I could post for you all to see, I saved on of my more complex Data Set images into a single layer JPEG. What does this mean? I will have to rebuild that file from scratch.</div>
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Since I had a free weekend (the first in almost a Month) I thought I would have an opportunity to finally print the new cards with all the new art. Sadly this will not be the case. I have been finding lots of little problems with the Data Sets since adding the Art References and now I will have to rebuild the City Modifier Event Cards. It brings up one more good point about not doing the art yet. Its one more moving piece that you have to get lined up with all the others. It adds another layer of complication to your design process and just gets in the way of making the fun.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja71VVSTbdU3HrT5k2g0LsNeiM4GaQnJLIAYYXqNY99IxpRVF3mgxNzqx8MSrIy3sMuTx_xvGEW5iHPgDpBToQ92SP7o348ZphrJ15SNT8nZw6PabuyzaiUgvprsMsw6vg6eKoMySFmby0/s1600/PirateMovement.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja71VVSTbdU3HrT5k2g0LsNeiM4GaQnJLIAYYXqNY99IxpRVF3mgxNzqx8MSrIy3sMuTx_xvGEW5iHPgDpBToQ92SP7o348ZphrJ15SNT8nZw6PabuyzaiUgvprsMsw6vg6eKoMySFmby0/s320/PirateMovement.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sailing once again. I will have more news soon.</td></tr>
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I hope to have good news in the coming week.</div>
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<br /></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10081002700176970080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8016064370039305835.post-45005293904969296662012-01-17T14:00:00.000-06:002012-01-17T14:00:02.532-06:00Dissection of Cargo Noir<div style="text-align: justify;">
Last Friday, after playing Thurn and Taxis, I played Cargo Noir. I have played this game several times and have really enjoyed it. It's a simple, elegant game, with a great theme and art style. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNBjaQkyGJw9QW5p3onSGVkbI7MV9Cr1IcarLrputfBy8Sq9f8vmTOszaHlaCsOLrEQL_CZQeJ2Toi1Dh98D78c7JqL77UpLAvw1taTO4R_csMSEtKN3CEJevX41eig7jjiCGDwHACWG_p/s1600/Cargo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNBjaQkyGJw9QW5p3onSGVkbI7MV9Cr1IcarLrputfBy8Sq9f8vmTOszaHlaCsOLrEQL_CZQeJ2Toi1Dh98D78c7JqL77UpLAvw1taTO4R_csMSEtKN3CEJevX41eig7jjiCGDwHACWG_p/s320/Cargo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Players are smugglers traveling the world and trading in illegal goods. At the start they each receive 3 ships and 7 coins. Each player takes his turn by placing all of his ships on locations around the world to make a Bid of no less than 1 coin on the goods located there. This is called <b>Worker Placement</b>.</div>
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<b>WORKER PLACEMENT</b></div>
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The Worker Placement mechanic is very common and there is nothing unique or special here. In many games, the spaces that workers are placed can only be used once or have limited space requiring players to make the hard choice of choosing one thing over another because, once each player has gone around in order, the thing you want to do might not be available. However, in this game there is no limit to the number of players that can occupy a spot.</div>
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Players may also choose to go to the Casino space or they can go to the Black Market space. Then it's the next players turn. That player has the same options of placing his ships where he wants. But now if he wants to bid on the same cargo as the first player, he must outbid him. Play continues like this until it is the first players turn again. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtiKESuW0BGknKnML3A_xPphgajlhvskclOJnDXZnHy1Fj8rGx8a5pZ5dRHTr04uAbKVYVlQApsHbnT8sk2l8rf7JLdwlK5F9Fu5lz8KoAeGO2wMytFBsZJk1x0HlqX9fV3gw0f6b0GUVX/s1600/IMG_0862.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtiKESuW0BGknKnML3A_xPphgajlhvskclOJnDXZnHy1Fj8rGx8a5pZ5dRHTr04uAbKVYVlQApsHbnT8sk2l8rf7JLdwlK5F9Fu5lz8KoAeGO2wMytFBsZJk1x0HlqX9fV3gw0f6b0GUVX/s320/IMG_0862.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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The first player, at the start of his next turn, recovers his ships in any order he wants. If he is the olny bidder in a world region at the start of his turn, he pays his coins to the bank, recovers his ship, and collects the cargo and places it in his warehouse. If another player has outbid him, he has must choose to up his bid or pull out. If he ups his bid he must sit there one more round and hope that no one out bits him again. If he pulls out he gets his ship and his money back. This is called <b>Bidding</b>.</div>
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<b>BIDDING</b></div>
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Games that have a Bidding type of mechanic often do it all in a single turn where all players participate in the bids. This game has an interesting twist on the Bidding Mechanic because players must decide if they want to spend an action to keep their ship in that spot, increase the bid, and hope they are not outbid again, having to wait until their next turn find out if each player in turn will jump in on the bidding action of that space. This makes staying in an auction costly and should only be done if you absolutely need the cargo at that location.</div>
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If a player's ship is on the Casino he takes his ship back and gets 2 coins for each ship on the Casino. Any ships on the Black Market are recovered and allow him to choose to ether draw a random cargo from a bag or trade any one cargo for any one of the eight cargo there at the black market. Once he has collected all his ships, cargo, and coins, he starts placing his ships in hand back out on the board again like he did on his first turn.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBaoQeLD28gjeuNN073cQ9FqBF4ntqqBJDZvpcTxy18BJD2_7Tt6Or_8j1IPCdwbIjjJKFC6ClOoufF8VgNzNk_4uUyokn41f7pvCxLPA2TtpZjZ8-3ukH6gstmOZKujXL4F-W1nRS4HsA/s1600/photo+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBaoQeLD28gjeuNN073cQ9FqBF4ntqqBJDZvpcTxy18BJD2_7Tt6Or_8j1IPCdwbIjjJKFC6ClOoufF8VgNzNk_4uUyokn41f7pvCxLPA2TtpZjZ8-3ukH6gstmOZKujXL4F-W1nRS4HsA/s320/photo+2.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My warehouse has too much in it. I must spend it or loose two cargo.</td></tr>
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Collecting all this Cargo is great, but there is a problem. You can only hold 6 cargo after our turn is done. If you dont spend it you loose it. Before the player's turn ends he may have as much cargo as he wants and he can spend the Cargo before he looses it. The Cargo value is a little tricky. In the image above I have collected 3 Jewels, 3 Alcohol, a Uranium and a Gold. Looking at the chart at the bottom of my Warehouse you see the scoring chart. Three Cargo of the same type is worth 9. Two Cargo of different types are worth 3. So I have a total of 22 points (3 jewels = 9,3 Alcohol =9, Uranium and Gold = 3) to spend on victory cards. This mechanic is called <b>Pairing</b>.</div>
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<b>PAIRING</b></div>
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Pairing is the act of collecting many of the same type of item, resource, card, etc. Many games have this and is most familiar in games like Poker. The interesting thing in this game is that the Pairing mechanic is coupled with a scaling value system applied to it. This makes it more difficult to collect large number os the same type, but also a lot more valuable if you can do it. The nice thing is that they have an alternative scoring mechanic if you cant make the more valuable Pairs.</div>
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In addition to victory cards there are 3 cards that affect the game. Syndicate cards give you 2 coins if you are ever outbid. The Warehouse lets you hold two extra cargo. Cargo Ship gives you one more ship token to place on your turn increasing your actions each turn. Each of these cards are great but will not win you the game alone. This gives some nice perks but if you spend your turn buying these thats one less turn focusing on wining the game. Its a balancing act that has to be evaluated carefully.</div>
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The game is elegant but there are some problems. As the game progresses it starts to slow down. Each player that gets more Cargo Ships adds to the duration of their turn and decision making. In addition it is a perfect information game where you know everything out on the board and in each player's warehouse. This can create long waits between turns if you have players that are very analytical who evaluate every player's option and likely direction. This is the one bad thing about this game.</div>
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Our game was less than stellar. Coming off of Thurn and Taxis which didn't go that well for me, and John didn't seem to enjoy it all that much, there were a general feeling of unhappiness. I thought this game was light enough and it would play fast enough to be OK. Unfortunately, there was an important rule that we over looked until mid way though the game. When cargo tokens are removed from the board they are immediately replaced from the bag. Well, we were mistakenly putting the tokens that we were spending back in the bag. It should not have been done this way, the rules say to remove the Tokens from game until the bag is empty. Removing the tokens makes for a more balanced distribution of the cargo allowing players who are collecting one type of cargo know the value of the cargo out on the board. i.e. if you know there is only one more of a token on the board it can be a lot more valuable depending on if another player is trying to grow his set of that cargo type. This might encourage other players to out bid him to prevent him from getting a large scoring set of cargo.</div>
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This was the worst game of Cargo Noir I have played and I think its because of the mistake we made about putting the cargo tokens back in the bag. There was another issue that only seemed to be affecting John. If you are out bid and remove your Ship and Money, you are not allowed to place your ship back on that spot to out bid another player. John kept forgetting where he pulled his ship from and then got hung up on it. His frustration was palpable about half way thought the game. To solve this, we used black wooden cubes from another game as markers.</div>
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I love the theme of the game and the art style captures this magical time of 1920's through the 1940's, but at the same time it feels modern. All of the characters look like they are straight from a movie that I cant quite put my finger on (except the americans...that would be the Godfather). They do skirt the edge of the offensive racial stereo types...but I also think that adds to the charm. </div>
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The last point I am going to make is that while I love the theme, its very abstract. There is no reason it had to be smuggling. There is no law officers trying to bust you. No port authorities you have to bribe. No thugs with guns or attacking other players. It could just as easily had been a merchant trading and biding game, but the theme makes it much more interesting. I feel like it's fairly clear that the game was designed, played, and balanced, long before it was a smuggling game. It just goes to show how a theme can carry a game idea and really make it shine.</div>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10081002700176970080noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8016064370039305835.post-88294102211071788062012-01-14T21:26:00.001-06:002012-01-14T21:26:57.838-06:00The dissection of Thurn and TaxisI took a break from the long days at work to go play some games last night. I went to my friend Bryan's place and when I got there they were half way though a game of 7 Wonders. I helped a newer player with his first game. After that I drank way too much Rum and got my but kicked in Thurn and Taxis and Cargo Noir. I should have stayed at work.<br />
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I am going to try something a little different. Being that I am a game designer and an aspiring board game designer, it feels like I am doing myself and anyone interested in reading my ramblings a disservice. From now on, I am going to attempt to give a re-cap the rules of the game and then dissect the game mechanics. I think this will be a lot more interesting than what I have been doing.<br />
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Thurn and Taxis</span></b><br />
This is a typical Euro game where you are building the first mail routes in Germany during the 16th century. It has a similar feel to Ticket to Ride and shares some similar mechanics. It is a light game at first and gets closer to a medium game as the game progresses.<br />
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At the start of a turn, Players MUST draw a city card and MUST play a city card each turn. Players can draw a random City Card from the top of the deck or one of the 6 of the available cards out on the board. Players may also use the special ability of one of 4 of the helping characters. They give the ability to: Draw 2 Cards, Play 2 Cards, Discard and replace the 6 Cards on the Board, or Gain a carragie with less cities than normally needed (The carriages are point cards you gain when you close a mail route and have enough citires in a route). After drawing and playing cards, the player can close his route to score, or pass his turn. <br />
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The entire game is a <b>Perfect Knowledge</b> game with the exception of the Cards. This means that you can see everything every player is doing with the exception of the cards in other players hands. The Cards is the only <b>Randomness</b> in the game, but its enough. It makes it hard to build a stratagy or plan based on the cards that are on the board because by the time it comes around to you, the cards on the table are not very likely to be there. Because the game is almost Perfect Knowledge, you sit and wait while the other players contemplate the best cards they can take for themselves while damaging your visible routes. This makes for longer turns and longer wait times for the other players.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bryan teaches us the rules to Thurn an Taxis</td></tr>
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Building a route is done by laying Cards in front of you. This MUST be done every turn or you loose your entire route and do not score any points. This is called a <b>Press your Luck</b> or <b>Risk Reward</b> Mechanic. You keep adding onto something for as long as you want, but each time you do, you risk loosing more. If you Score the longer routes you get Bonus Score Tokens, and can collect Carriages that required longer route to collect, but must be collected in order. This creates an exciting sensation of risk for the player, they have to choose when to cash in or loose it all. Basicly, it's gambling! It also has a good chance of making players upset and feel disgruntled about their gaming experience. In T&T it felt wrong, what is the reason for loosing the mail route if you don't add another city? Don't know! But thats the way it works because the designer decided it would be a good place to shoehorn this mechanic.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtGvHJuqKGu2uZ6veRgaX1qL5iWFfAPY8_wPZ0FU4-mERvD5CcNmgK6OzOwV5XgnHzAmx8RrCUsDB8Si4z-qDnq9XzXYdR3WtKFpCQ1ozCKo8VnC6rUgXzSh6NvtxWiQ8xo_vWIDKSkBII/s1600/IMG_0858.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtGvHJuqKGu2uZ6veRgaX1qL5iWFfAPY8_wPZ0FU4-mERvD5CcNmgK6OzOwV5XgnHzAmx8RrCUsDB8Si4z-qDnq9XzXYdR3WtKFpCQ1ozCKo8VnC6rUgXzSh6NvtxWiQ8xo_vWIDKSkBII/s320/IMG_0858.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Early on I was doing very well, then I got unlucky and fell way behind.</td></tr>
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Each City Card in the route must connect to the neighboring city on the board. Once you have placed a City Card, you can only place another connecting City Card. You can place Cards on ether end of the route as long as the Card connects to the adjacent city. This is a modified version of a Mechanic called <b>Pairing</b>. Players are trying to collect sets or runs of items. This is most recognizable in games like Poker. In T&T, players are trying to collect runs of Cities that must be connected by roads on the board. This was the most interesting mechanic to me.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyCEgVaP6lTb7lrsQjsitUXP76VggQJzCFF8LqAUo5bKG59ov5ZIf7Iy62fE6rInLUZbaNCUWvXFEYZtC1U9fa0O8tYqbbuXNs2C0Clp67iZMkxgazK4YMIngUnpCjz3MmpNYjUs5bn-91/s1600/IMG_0860.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyCEgVaP6lTb7lrsQjsitUXP76VggQJzCFF8LqAUo5bKG59ov5ZIf7Iy62fE6rInLUZbaNCUWvXFEYZtC1U9fa0O8tYqbbuXNs2C0Clp67iZMkxgazK4YMIngUnpCjz3MmpNYjUs5bn-91/s320/IMG_0860.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John, Bryan, and Ryan</td></tr>
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Scoring happens when a player closes his route. Before I explain this part of the game I should explain that the Cities on the Board are divided into regions that are colored. Each colored area has a number of cities and a stack of Score Tokens. In addition, SOME of the colored areas are divided into two shades of the color (i.e. light blue and dark blue). <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizD62_PlZdCVqeQf5b638hjr3sJDhmLvSr4tKe6hZbyVqESGkEBViMc04ljCPRErIG-8Jw2ciWr2Pnt-RZ2d6DuoTVSmfJPQDmO6HLuxGbVXTlnNkPISQRUiDePlmBCyhFbuEMlB8BV1QU/s1600/IMG_0859.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizD62_PlZdCVqeQf5b638hjr3sJDhmLvSr4tKe6hZbyVqESGkEBViMc04ljCPRErIG-8Jw2ciWr2Pnt-RZ2d6DuoTVSmfJPQDmO6HLuxGbVXTlnNkPISQRUiDePlmBCyhFbuEMlB8BV1QU/s320/IMG_0859.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Note the colors of the province that each City is in.</td></tr>
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To collect the Score Tokens you must have a house in all Cities in an area. When you close your route, you may choose to place a House 1 of Cities your route hits in each region your route passes through or, all of the Cities in a single region your route touches. This includes the division of colored regions. So, for example, if you choose to put all your houses in the green region, you will have to choose if it will be the light green or dark green part of the that region. Are you confused about why the designer added this layer of complication to this game? I am not 100% sure, but if I had to guess, I would say that the designer noticed that people would just focus on one region at a time, complete that, then move on to the next. This would force players to use both mechanics of placing all houses in a single region and 1 house on each city in a region.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTGJyqD0HY0lDNgyvV2BDCyGCos7LUv9Efkq50n_V_Y7km6_gdsqfZ24tX6GRmDa8ju8EnIizV7i8C3s3TNzb4mZWAE4sq8Inza1h02NEA6mZ26_CR24kErO8sUEqMYkGG764eaK0N84Dh/s1600/IMG_0861.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTGJyqD0HY0lDNgyvV2BDCyGCos7LUv9Efkq50n_V_Y7km6_gdsqfZ24tX6GRmDa8ju8EnIizV7i8C3s3TNzb4mZWAE4sq8Inza1h02NEA6mZ26_CR24kErO8sUEqMYkGG764eaK0N84Dh/s320/IMG_0861.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Thankfully nearing the end of the Game!</td></tr>
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This was out first game and there were a few rules that we botched. Because of that, I misunderstood a few things and as a result made several critical errors. The distinction between the different colored regions was not explained very well and there were some mistakes made there as well. This resulted in 3 bad turns in a row and loosing a route. Because of this I spent the rest of the game trying to catch up. By the end of the game I was feeling very frustrated. The mistakes I made and the bad luck that caused me to loose my route made me wish for the end of the game to come quickly. All in all not a bad game, but some of the arbitrary mechanics makes this game feel (despite there very specific theme) a bit abstract. It would not be a game I seek to play again, but would play if asked.<br />
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Later we played Cargo Noir which, since this post went longer than I planed, I will cover in my next write up tomorrow. I will try to have something up on this by Monday since I want to try and find time to work on Taipan, spend time with the girlfriend, and do this dissection as well.<br />
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<br /></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10081002700176970080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8016064370039305835.post-18687961866550470792012-01-12T21:12:00.000-06:002012-01-12T21:15:19.832-06:00And I thought I was soooo clever!<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, its been a fun week. I have been working late every night as we try to meet our deadlines. It seems that working 12+ hours a day does tend to cut into your Play Time....who knew? That Said I did manage to get a basic art layout for all of my cards.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXPf0AcTARfIVRrWH3Jo03QDrgDZ246ZcWawO11l-psTYrpCo7uyR4b4Ra6fCpkk9DatJts94vtxlTvAAH-mZBOfInt-8yJOR734gVbj_NtUALhC_wNyNFkPFpeN4pnP3R79Yw3JdQyA7Y/s400/Taipan_ArtCards.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From left to right: Cargo, Captain, Damage, Cities</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXPf0AcTARfIVRrWH3Jo03QDrgDZ246ZcWawO11l-psTYrpCo7uyR4b4Ra6fCpkk9DatJts94vtxlTvAAH-mZBOfInt-8yJOR734gVbj_NtUALhC_wNyNFkPFpeN4pnP3R79Yw3JdQyA7Y/s1600/Taipan_ArtCards.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am still using the test art for the Captain and Cargo Cards but that will be changing soon. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You can see the difference in visual quality on the Cargo and Captain Cards compared to the City and Damage Cards. I will have to go back and rework them so they look like the same art.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Thanks to my good friend Ben and his fantastic info about how Public Domain works, I should have most of the art done in the next week or two.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Now for this weeks lesson: </b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> DO NOT ADD ANY ART until your game is much closer to being done. There are a many, many....MANY reasons for this:</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>1.) </b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cards Change and so does the Art. There is no point in making art that will get thrown away. You will be driven mad by how often you will change stats, layouts and cards. Save your sanity.</span> </blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>2.) </b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Printer Ink Costs are not cheep. There is no point printing out all the ink and colors if the balance of the cards are broken. Save your money.</span> </blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>3.)</b> Until you have an artist hired, your art will be inconsistent and look like its from different games (like my cards). Save your time.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>4.)</b> Once you add art, you have invested a significant amount of time and money into your game. Now you will be less likely to make the changes that your game needs because it will mess with all that work you put in, making you more resistance to change. Save your creativity.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>5.)</b> When you finally bring your game to a publisher, and persuade them to publish your game, they will hire an artist and have all of the art redone. This can be very frustrating since you grow attached to the work you put into your art. The Publisher will have other ideas about how best to market this game they are taking a chance on and will (unless you are a world class artist) insist on changing the look and layout of the art.</span></blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the end, you should resist adding art. I know it makes it all look better and gets others more excited about it, but you will only kick yourself. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Making art is very time consuming. Unless you are an artist, you will be better off using stick figures and focusing on making the </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">game play and mechanics fun.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I know all of this and I still do it. Almost every game I have ever made I started piling the art on almost from day one. Maybe I am starting to learn since this time I waited a full 2 months to start in with the art.</span><br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10081002700176970080noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8016064370039305835.post-62016493529648423532012-01-08T10:38:00.000-06:002012-01-08T10:38:07.431-06:00A first look at the Cards<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have my first prototype of what the Cards will look like so wanted to share it with you.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUnag74SJhaqeZI8eZRq7ZqCBKcxrgo-n0Q9DuFkK6vZQhiO_KqAb4cR0QDofyx-boG2QLvC3k5KVi5s2Mz3bh9Of3xDb7nYzxS-sgYOxdlT8BtLI9wY8g5hyphenhyphenjGUtmXBwxE6vhjVZV2BqY/s1600/TaipanCard.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUnag74SJhaqeZI8eZRq7ZqCBKcxrgo-n0Q9DuFkK6vZQhiO_KqAb4cR0QDofyx-boG2QLvC3k5KVi5s2Mz3bh9Of3xDb7nYzxS-sgYOxdlT8BtLI9wY8g5hyphenhyphenjGUtmXBwxE6vhjVZV2BqY/s320/TaipanCard.png" width="228" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The new Hotness!</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It has taken a lot longer than I originally thought, partially because of work monopolizing my time, all the gaming I have done over the Holidays, and the complexity that my Data Sets have taken on. In addition, while working on creating the new Data Sets, I became unhappy with some of the Event Cards. I have been struggling with how to make the old Event Cards, which only affected an individual player, work on a Global Scale to affect all players evenly. Many of the Cards just didn't work, so I had to scrap them and create new ones. Some of the ones I kept needed to have their mechanics changed. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9N3EcJiRfU3dAq_87P6IvBNgPhyphenhypheniw2ScqbCD6A-N0B26xJE279aQf_nj5AbnHmhOjp_WOCx7ToXrmsfhUFE_htCS9Q8erXCh85zxr4aZZdLY9qSzjqjaDTmBxyI7W18yCCTa6HbSjY54k/s1600/Storm2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9N3EcJiRfU3dAq_87P6IvBNgPhyphenhypheniw2ScqbCD6A-N0B26xJE279aQf_nj5AbnHmhOjp_WOCx7ToXrmsfhUFE_htCS9Q8erXCh85zxr4aZZdLY9qSzjqjaDTmBxyI7W18yCCTa6HbSjY54k/s320/Storm2.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Deadly Storm.</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Storm Cards were the most problematic Events. Where they once just hit a single player, they now needed to affect an area. I played around with dividing the map into 3 section, north center, and south. To make it simple I even thought about making Storms affect the whole map, but this felt cheep. Instead I choose to use the same mechanic that I use on a lot of Event Cards. Draw a Cargo Card to choose a random city and then any ship up to 2 spaces from the city at the end of the round will receive damage. This lets players avoid the area and escape it if they happen to be caught in the area when the storm hits. This way, if a player takes damage from a storm, in most cases it will be their choice if they want to risk the storm.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHBIjqcZQrldF9Cg1I_S-izbLBCUl6jUtfFdhJANnezno7QSZEb6MdgtIjeHmqDMIOoaRkOoDIFDMu_KkmO4ig1STEPfjd3wJDxfS6szG-WXYNkW2Ffq71oxL3sP_Q56QTjQ_1PasoQKOb/s1600/Bounty.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHBIjqcZQrldF9Cg1I_S-izbLBCUl6jUtfFdhJANnezno7QSZEb6MdgtIjeHmqDMIOoaRkOoDIFDMu_KkmO4ig1STEPfjd3wJDxfS6szG-WXYNkW2Ffq71oxL3sP_Q56QTjQ_1PasoQKOb/s320/Bounty.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Pirate Bounty, a dangerous way to make some extra cash. </span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To complete the Data Sets I needed to include the pointers to the Images that will be on the cards. Once I had the place holders for the images, I couldn't stand looking at the empty Data Sheet "Fill Space" where the image would be placed when the Data was called. So I got to work on inserting the image references into the Data Sets. Even with the much faster process for creating the Art Images, it is very time consuming trying to find images that fit the theme and time period, and are free and/or Public Domain. This is why it is always good to make a game themed to a fictional setting so you don't need to worry about being historically inaccurate. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2a_QEj0pxOxsWHZfeKEu8LxS85KsJXjpUO_thG1idbWBiF5NcRfDwPv1OuqtReTxmK-yGPx6qBkvXP_3c6M9FQOWtzrvEw92QXJ0jhiysuMQrZxy7DcAvu7AgHIhWUOli6V9yk34RJrjM/s320/Upgrades.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This photo for Ship Upgrades does not look right and will be changing.</span></td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2a_QEj0pxOxsWHZfeKEu8LxS85KsJXjpUO_thG1idbWBiF5NcRfDwPv1OuqtReTxmK-yGPx6qBkvXP_3c6M9FQOWtzrvEw92QXJ0jhiysuMQrZxy7DcAvu7AgHIhWUOli6V9yk34RJrjM/s1600/Upgrades.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is very difficult to find images that fit for the cards I need to represent. It has forced me to choose a few images I am not happy about and will be changing the first chance I get. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This image doesn't fit the other images because its built from a photograph. This is one of the images I will change when I find a suitable replacement.</span></div>
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</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10081002700176970080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8016064370039305835.post-71515129479027561212012-01-05T08:16:00.001-06:002012-01-05T08:19:44.269-06:00Math Bad!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdZsZBZMxNkV_G361jOf7RqdBWrkzc0XqReCGPhd7bdbPqeEfxrXEhPXsInol5geK4oBNP6UsaTbazDvN5YmrZU2GE5FDp6iE80TlrvtfCePlS6HlrBedmrmPe5nJzM-y3t1JaPaErcnUD/s1600/photo+5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am going to go out on a limb and say that for any game designer you will have a much better success at designing games if you have a strong background in math. It helps with more than you will ever know. Take it from a guy who struggles with math, I waste a lot of time trying to solve problems that can almost always be handed by a moderately difficult math equation. I end up doing more iteration because I don't do a great job of figuring out the math issues early on. This leads to some wasted time and frustration. Learn from me and get a healthy does of advanced math skills before you leave high school or college.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I bring this up because I played Automobile last night and fought myself to pay attention and understand what I needed to do all night. It's a deep and complex game with lots of statistical and analytical thingking. Players are trying to build their Auto Manufacturing company by building factories, manufacturing cars, managing Car Sales Men, using the Characters Special abilities (which can change every turn) to their maximum effect.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1aulENwJwo3F6Ms5_lZ6KxA-eA4cLXbRHhZApqyNwIOVLJcc3LOXCH24znvT9Vk8GB1v_coblRG-6c05CIRlP-ncEHPIKKDd2RyfjI6rVrIOH8ndtWSIeuh5Tw8RU9Jyzmh5BcwBfa6Qc/s1600/photo+3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1aulENwJwo3F6Ms5_lZ6KxA-eA4cLXbRHhZApqyNwIOVLJcc3LOXCH24znvT9Vk8GB1v_coblRG-6c05CIRlP-ncEHPIKKDd2RyfjI6rVrIOH8ndtWSIeuh5Tw8RU9Jyzmh5BcwBfa6Qc/s320/photo+3.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bryan (center) teaching the Rules of the game.</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You have money that is a lot in the first and second rounds but is gone after that and is near impossible to get back. I made several big mistakes but they were all based on assumptions about how the game worked and how stiff the penalties were.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9LDQ1qSrA_IH7yAQX_cFVfboqdMXlYfvYslimSVFx_BvjKBYOfcH-5pph4KTmASxURcyUBvdW6Vra6S_buPyWCK6mKHVgdDLbZxUsV1O7FQGvoItIZWhotD3In9Wwr3uRZdArNyPtVL-h/s1600/photo+4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9LDQ1qSrA_IH7yAQX_cFVfboqdMXlYfvYslimSVFx_BvjKBYOfcH-5pph4KTmASxURcyUBvdW6Vra6S_buPyWCK6mKHVgdDLbZxUsV1O7FQGvoItIZWhotD3In9Wwr3uRZdArNyPtVL-h/s320/photo+4.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An unknowing Me, about to get my ass handed to me!<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Late in the first round I used a special phase of the game to shut down my factories and avoiding the penalties I would have got for having the lowest technology Car Factories. But I didn't do the math to calculate how much money the factories would be making for me and that I could have waited to sell the factories until turn two, making a lot more money.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaX7mD-DeD9ulX6Wuku34dr_1NAUVstpDC32RJ2X1vxstGEyOy7V_r0cHCsufEs73PWvegizEz95mSclxzOp3ZpmAgLxufppB5jrA5hFgKsZMFrux0zAEbO9AVUQ37Re7X2Jq78CGbsSjt/s1600/photo+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaX7mD-DeD9ulX6Wuku34dr_1NAUVstpDC32RJ2X1vxstGEyOy7V_r0cHCsufEs73PWvegizEz95mSclxzOp3ZpmAgLxufppB5jrA5hFgKsZMFrux0zAEbO9AVUQ37Re7X2Jq78CGbsSjt/s320/photo+2.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the end it came down to math. The two guys who did the best were the math experts, correctly calculating how many cars they could manufacture and effectively sell, gaining the highest profits, allowing them to buy more factories and sell more cars.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkzdDibaAq0Rxl2UhJ2V-voSFZeqtbv-_W1Ym9AtbPnz4kMQYyRlWu0zDvFS-pE-cmcSrlDf6lH_euWD6pRMtTm1OYbISXXd_Sox-u-93s8qrFfOLPE_UqohJU7-CBcnwRK1lQ-CDNNyGb/s1600/photo+1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkzdDibaAq0Rxl2UhJ2V-voSFZeqtbv-_W1Ym9AtbPnz4kMQYyRlWu0zDvFS-pE-cmcSrlDf6lH_euWD6pRMtTm1OYbISXXd_Sox-u-93s8qrFfOLPE_UqohJU7-CBcnwRK1lQ-CDNNyGb/s320/photo+1.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Apparently Bryan doesn't know how to take a non-blurry picture of me.</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Automobile is a cool game and I would play it again, but I don't think I would go back to it often. It is the start contrast to my game, Taipan, which has a fair bit of hidden and random elements. Speaking of which, I am having a hard time getting the new Data Sheets set up properly. I have made so many changes that the Cards for Taipan have become so significantly changed on the Data side, that I have to clean up the Photoshop files before they will read properly.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As a bonus, check out this insane pistol that shoots shotgun shells. This is Ben (Bryan's son) holding the monster of a gun. That thing is almost as big as he is!</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdZsZBZMxNkV_G361jOf7RqdBWrkzc0XqReCGPhd7bdbPqeEfxrXEhPXsInol5geK4oBNP6UsaTbazDvN5YmrZU2GE5FDp6iE80TlrvtfCePlS6HlrBedmrmPe5nJzM-y3t1JaPaErcnUD/s1600/photo+5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdZsZBZMxNkV_G361jOf7RqdBWrkzc0XqReCGPhd7bdbPqeEfxrXEhPXsInol5geK4oBNP6UsaTbazDvN5YmrZU2GE5FDp6iE80TlrvtfCePlS6HlrBedmrmPe5nJzM-y3t1JaPaErcnUD/s320/photo+5.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Heres me, a 6'4 reasonably muscled guy having a hard time even holding the thing. Aiming it causes my hand to wobble from the weight. Maybe I should have cheated like Ben and used both hands! ;p</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBo83Iqf3w1j33IfzynkHRevL3llynYyXd28slHrj7fZXYi0V_4jr9tUBa2lHxplrMIGCRS0Nm4QSWyyBqE0sHwd_4Uk9QvRNt3k5QEeDFCXs6t-75QeIv48I_qO8MFJhn8DTJcHhqz8mF/s1600/photo+4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBo83Iqf3w1j33IfzynkHRevL3llynYyXd28slHrj7fZXYi0V_4jr9tUBa2lHxplrMIGCRS0Nm4QSWyyBqE0sHwd_4Uk9QvRNt3k5QEeDFCXs6t-75QeIv48I_qO8MFJhn8DTJcHhqz8mF/s320/photo+4.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10081002700176970080noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8016064370039305835.post-44562843533874851262012-01-04T00:21:00.000-06:002012-01-04T00:21:06.155-06:00A picture is worth a thousand words...<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have been working on a combination of Game Designs for the latest version of Taipan and new Art. I have to admit that the Art is derailing me a bit and keeping me from getting my cards printed. But since I don't have the time to organize and play my game this week, it's not that big of a deal.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have added a new Debt system to Taipan that should make for a clearer Win Condition for the game. Players must return to Hong Kong to pay off the 50 Coin of Debt they start the game with. The first player to pay off all their Debt ends the game. The player who has the most Money and is Debt Free, wins.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6xrmkvDcdLFKobHEIHT5dtcBH9jqCdxH9yH9-WmYmoA-_8VG6EUn0-rqJJhAhhJ_H3udLCy4Y5bEhqPQ2oohcqLC2quyUaBCD4-Nq5SBMauJAF5BioGjhHczF7W5vrClQcQkfTGNRiaPn/s1600/Coins.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6xrmkvDcdLFKobHEIHT5dtcBH9jqCdxH9yH9-WmYmoA-_8VG6EUn0-rqJJhAhhJ_H3udLCy4Y5bEhqPQ2oohcqLC2quyUaBCD4-Nq5SBMauJAF5BioGjhHczF7W5vrClQcQkfTGNRiaPn/s1600/Coins.png" /></span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have created Coin Art for a 1,5 and 10 Coin. I also have the Debt Coins made (The red one on the Right). I searched for a while to find coins that were minted close to the same time the game is set. I think the Silver Coin was the only one that was not made in the same time period (about 40 years later). Also, the Debt Coin is not a Coin at all. It's a Wall Plaque that was created in the same time period.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In addition, I have been experimenting with paintings from the same time period (1750-1850) to try out some different ideas for what the final card images will look like. It's very hard to get them all to match perfectly. The art from that era was all so different from one another. Also, there really isn't a lot that survived very well. Much of it is too dark or too damaged to modify and ends up looking bad after I do my process to them.</span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirXAG_iXPE5_U515pVytpfRs_xpDINHa2dqzG02UEZTct7JgdSvxwRx3qCqnE5-bkiAvBU5sZ8ZEBV8hnLitgaoMSb7TrmyXibCKBYf3UvHpoRDzwlJyOpHqgzhbP5yNCIXGgHo6HWfoOp/s1600/Combat_2" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirXAG_iXPE5_U515pVytpfRs_xpDINHa2dqzG02UEZTct7JgdSvxwRx3qCqnE5-bkiAvBU5sZ8ZEBV8hnLitgaoMSb7TrmyXibCKBYf3UvHpoRDzwlJyOpHqgzhbP5yNCIXGgHo6HWfoOp/s320/Combat_2" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">The Rebellion City Modifier Card</span></span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4SJijzDK7UaecW2bexTtIZsc85VzDOzGmvY-CuRVHfFPNy9S9zhO4KxzXkmxtVTQNQ4WgwOMEAeqUSDGgLXgy61G0DZXVq-BhZVEyxvRwMLu-N1JRtinbcvZMcJDgizlU7W3yOxG3tNVk/s320/Port_2" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This will be one of the City Cards</span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM9sKNf07iv9_E5VssoG6DcH5ABVUbsIqCE3Cwk55mAaGNRrQA50Gb6JMag5OdhrONkJpm76hllP8cygTrcpqW8ILmK8zfQK1mFhYSNHPzC_FEnmlmUxkWkXiteFiADDLpeC8ovu8C9sWe/s1600/Wreck_3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM9sKNf07iv9_E5VssoG6DcH5ABVUbsIqCE3Cwk55mAaGNRrQA50Gb6JMag5OdhrONkJpm76hllP8cygTrcpqW8ILmK8zfQK1mFhYSNHPzC_FEnmlmUxkWkXiteFiADDLpeC8ovu8C9sWe/s320/Wreck_3.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This will be ether a Storm or Wrecked Ship Event Card.</span></td></tr>
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I am playing with some textures to make them look like they are painted on rough canvas, but those are not ready to show yet. I have a lot more images as well, but I will save those for another day. I hope to have a sample card ready to show some time this week, depending on free time. I am also going to get one last night of gaming in tomorrow. We are supposed to play <a href="http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/39351/automobile" target="_blank">Automobiles</a>, so I will have an update about that tomorrow or the next day.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10081002700176970080noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8016064370039305835.post-40924765892778251322011-12-31T10:55:00.000-06:002011-12-31T10:55:58.856-06:00The Last Gaming of the Year<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am sure you are all looking for some news or an update about Taipan, and it is coming, I promise. There is just not a lot to show or talk about just yet. In between playing all these games, I have been working on updating the rules (which you can find <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Kox3pL8LBC9-iiQtfwhR7_XwKXzx_C0p1XQ-I5NUUDc/edit" target="_blank">HERE</a>) and creating all new cards to replace the old ones that done work with the new rules. I should have all new cards printed and ready for playing by the weekend. Until then, here is the latest version of the Far East map with the latest corrections. Enjoy!</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_r5z2uAvZs7NpMhOYfNXaNcVVak5JnK79yS_F87D7o1Qx_yfleaGiKz7J0EAwAPTfWcuIt5M6Vrb0Kdy2GEJaarQIACsTIm-ngAW3vkXH0YKLjPTKxnlQhStl9gz6caLBVPJMAukbDT9l/s1600/Taipan_Map.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_r5z2uAvZs7NpMhOYfNXaNcVVak5JnK79yS_F87D7o1Qx_yfleaGiKz7J0EAwAPTfWcuIt5M6Vrb0Kdy2GEJaarQIACsTIm-ngAW3vkXH0YKLjPTKxnlQhStl9gz6caLBVPJMAukbDT9l/s320/Taipan_Map.jpg" width="199" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I went to my friend Bryan's place last night to play some games. We played <a href="http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/39684/merkator" target="_blank">Merkator</a> a ponderous game that is too complicated for what it is. So complex in its game play I barely know where to begin. Players can buy and sell Bonus Cards and Buildings at the start of their turn. Then they can travel to locations to collect resources and when they do this, the adjacent locations connected by a rope (don't ask) on the board gain 1 addition resource on their location. They can also travel to these locations to complete Contracts.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv0BmPfq1zH8_pWKDb7LCdy3iTe1taXJ_UrCeI0apHOcVmPHSTDJdTysOBnCIVvruZuYOl7zxMUjkGvGp6l4nCUyewWx0AiC9H3-qxbTFOI0_1UdEKUYuogKsBst9aaWwvEHJhZHnjV0pd/s1600/photo+3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv0BmPfq1zH8_pWKDb7LCdy3iTe1taXJ_UrCeI0apHOcVmPHSTDJdTysOBnCIVvruZuYOl7zxMUjkGvGp6l4nCUyewWx0AiC9H3-qxbTFOI0_1UdEKUYuogKsBst9aaWwvEHJhZHnjV0pd/s320/photo+3.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Players start the game with 4 contracts ranked 1-4 and are only allowed to keep 5 Contracts. Contracts can be completed over and over multiple times. Each Contract has a location and a set of requirements the player must deliver to that location to complete the contract. If the player completes it, he gets money and a new contract 1 level higher than the level of the Contract he complete. Players have to travel to these locations and depending on the location ether takes a Time Token or pays Time Tokens (its all feels very arbitrary). When the player takes a Time Token for traveling to certain locations they flip it over and the Letter on the back is the Column (on the players warehouse) that all players must discard a Good from their warehouse. Also, other players can then pay that player time tokens to travel with him to perform actions on their turn. This makes it important to know that focusing on one area or one set of Contracts is the wrong way to win the game.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiAmvMN6oajpnyFLIXcLBfp4pfGsz8bjGbcEQD7VX_Q28s9kvvZiASMdIFAi46eRa8aNjTAwFxu1T7rZR_BY7jaw9vceKKcca1wloJvQx2fbp6I9FS-6mC9KqrLPo3hPvRL-jhWenAKh9X/s1600/photo+5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiAmvMN6oajpnyFLIXcLBfp4pfGsz8bjGbcEQD7VX_Q28s9kvvZiASMdIFAi46eRa8aNjTAwFxu1T7rZR_BY7jaw9vceKKcca1wloJvQx2fbp6I9FS-6mC9KqrLPo3hPvRL-jhWenAKh9X/s320/photo+5.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The game ends when all the Time Tokens are depleted or a player scores the single Level 14 Contract. Bryan crushed us mostly by cheating (Unintentionally). He was keeping more than 5 Contracts and several round went by before we caught him. But he also just had the most options of things to do at the most locations. I focused on two really good combos, but it cost me too much time to do those combos over an over to be worth it. Bryan was getting a lot done on our turns and doing a lot on his own turns.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO7corUxIGTHBSHwPpIHC1Eaxl80YNnHC4alAF3s70oRyVq1iDD_6DVahGGIy9peSW0EGt1wUpHURBcNAjtOvA0qUeGw9alf_cKb7qjybbL2SJfWj1bMWbYC9HZzzV-W87iE1XQ3exjEyD/s1600/photo+7.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO7corUxIGTHBSHwPpIHC1Eaxl80YNnHC4alAF3s70oRyVq1iDD_6DVahGGIy9peSW0EGt1wUpHURBcNAjtOvA0qUeGw9alf_cKb7qjybbL2SJfWj1bMWbYC9HZzzV-W87iE1XQ3exjEyD/s320/photo+7.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I like the concept but there was so much abstract, vague, and arbitrary rules and mechanics that, In the end, I just did not have a good time playing. It was all of our first times playing and we discovered several rules that were over looked, or lost in the original translation that we were all just guessing at some points. I would be willing to try it again, but we would have to go another round on learning the rules and check the errata online first.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After a dinner break we came together to play <a href="http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/22545/glenn-drovers-empires-the-age-of-discovery" target="_blank">Age of Empires III</a>. This was sold to me as a 3+ hour game. In that sense I was not lied to. It took just over 5 hours to play. Let me start by saying this is not my type of game. I could have played 2-3 games in the time it took us to play this one game. Bryan taught us the Rules and after 40 minutes we started.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN9VT1-C1IiZw4T3M-9O5ZAhrHD-K7IiAUQXdz2ETcgz-8BMyNG8YSZWczaWbI-mP7xrAR9Dd-xPoaAGy31WtXl81JQZZHhSsZCyE1fUxgTBeX7XZ8v_XOLfu40D2g7sP1Q3B28H2zRA6d/s1600/photo+9.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN9VT1-C1IiZw4T3M-9O5ZAhrHD-K7IiAUQXdz2ETcgz-8BMyNG8YSZWczaWbI-mP7xrAR9Dd-xPoaAGy31WtXl81JQZZHhSsZCyE1fUxgTBeX7XZ8v_XOLfu40D2g7sP1Q3B28H2zRA6d/s320/photo+9.JPG" style="cursor: move;" width="320" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This game is big and Epic. To try to explain it all here would take forever. Here is the Abridged Version. Each player is a European contry trying to expand and colonize the New World. You do this by placing colonists on one of many possible actions. Colony Ships let you move your people to any place that has been discovered. Trade lets you take one of the 4 trade goods that are available. Trade Ship acts as a wild card for your trade goods (you only get money if you have 3 of a kind), Construction lets you spend your money to buy buildings. Discovery lets you send a group over to try to open up a new area for colonization. Specialists lets you get one of the special characters that have additional abilities depending one where and how you use them. And last is Warfare that lets you attack other players.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA9tUQx5e110PC26kGA5JMZvrEHMoqXpf0sGSXPTkIzn_9CV05O2Vcb8EozYwQ0DDi1iBKQYfD87lWu5JzcLZs0ADkukI4_CsJ0sSUJJem6UnfaJnWZDkzpwI6cA9xpmfcU9UZKr5t1GcH/s1600/photo+10.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA9tUQx5e110PC26kGA5JMZvrEHMoqXpf0sGSXPTkIzn_9CV05O2Vcb8EozYwQ0DDi1iBKQYfD87lWu5JzcLZs0ADkukI4_CsJ0sSUJJem6UnfaJnWZDkzpwI6cA9xpmfcU9UZKr5t1GcH/s320/photo+10.JPG" width="240" /></a></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On top of all the special places you can place a colonist, there are 5 special types of colonists. Soldiers, Captains, Merchants, Builders, and Clergy. Each one can be used in different ways depending on where you place them. Soldiers give bonus money when you used them for discovery and they are used in warfare as a colonists. Captains count as 2 when bidding on the Trade Ship and when used for Discovery. Merchants give 5 gold when they land in the New World and they count as 2 when bidding on the Trade Ship. Builders make buildings cost 5 less and they make fortifications in a Colony that act as End of Game Victory Points. Clergy count as 2 colonists when they land in the new world.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy6jQSmnwhOsoke4ot-Tl5t_O_Agdbpwac5nK7jqeQdT9aK2EQDW93nOVs0M5mQeZ65zTLIwMXIUH2RrL1NDJPO5tMotaHMcosik2kcBOi6rmANZdfKT5BTRvLjRLieyYa8hRGkwajZPsL/s1600/photo+12.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy6jQSmnwhOsoke4ot-Tl5t_O_Agdbpwac5nK7jqeQdT9aK2EQDW93nOVs0M5mQeZ65zTLIwMXIUH2RrL1NDJPO5tMotaHMcosik2kcBOi6rmANZdfKT5BTRvLjRLieyYa8hRGkwajZPsL/s320/photo+12.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the start of the game only the Caribbean is available to Colonize so it gets crowded fast. In the image above you can see Orange and Purple have piled their people on there. I got blocked trying to get the Trade Ship twice and I got blocked on getting the building I wanted. I ended up getting a lot of Soldiers, but no money or trade goods. So I went on the War Path. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Half way through the game I was sure I was in the lead. I was scoring so many points from the colonies that I had conquered, I knew it was down to Alex and me.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjupV2hwGash2CJYZWar1BC9f1lKKZVYeBeL6mjDbvgsC0pASg4GiJ7V_pzwfT4eCd2U5vMN_g4PjA-OWMV2QHc7QgY73oy0AKMW0UHbwT4bw6wN4iJ29FRDn41wpImbdRIM-ys2QcqBhv4/s1600/photo+13.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjupV2hwGash2CJYZWar1BC9f1lKKZVYeBeL6mjDbvgsC0pASg4GiJ7V_pzwfT4eCd2U5vMN_g4PjA-OWMV2QHc7QgY73oy0AKMW0UHbwT4bw6wN4iJ29FRDn41wpImbdRIM-ys2QcqBhv4/s320/photo+13.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But in the end, it was Ben who pulled out all the stops. He had generated enough money to buy some really valuable buildings that gave him score multipliers on how much money he had. He had also got a ton of points from his trade routes. Alex and I were dead last! Once we understood what were doing and how all the different Colonists are used, the game started to pick up speed and play faster. I think with people who really know what they are doing the game could be played in about 3 hours.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0wSTGbSGj1xWmf4HpjYBkLjrQMl7aBu50J-slI0nZ4JYQLXELdJqA4KdtMvJ74QAc2vP1-fiTffNx8zFwYGEx4l2ZKxTZtAbBXscrs2Jp7g0-qKp0wDRD6tRB39wmHWFxW2z6W_giDKHt/s1600/photo+17.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0wSTGbSGj1xWmf4HpjYBkLjrQMl7aBu50J-slI0nZ4JYQLXELdJqA4KdtMvJ74QAc2vP1-fiTffNx8zFwYGEx4l2ZKxTZtAbBXscrs2Jp7g0-qKp0wDRD6tRB39wmHWFxW2z6W_giDKHt/s320/photo+17.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Its interesting that on the scoreboard, the two people who where in the lead ended up being last. And the ones in last place on the board pulled all the way to the front. While I did enjoy this game, I do not like 5 hour games, so it is unlikely that I will every play this game again, but I would consider it.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10081002700176970080noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8016064370039305835.post-88985461580957351722011-12-28T11:41:00.001-06:002011-12-28T11:41:29.885-06:00Another round of gaming!<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Its rare for me to get this much gaming in such a short period of time. I have a feeling I better enjoy it since it will come to a screeching halt in January. In the early part of the day I went to a co-workers house to play some games and then later that night I went to Ziggy's Tavern where they have board games every Tuesday.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After a bumpy start we played <a href="http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/21882/blue-moon-city" target="_blank">Blue Moon City</a>. This should have been a fast game but I hadent read the rules or played in a long time so I was a bit rusty in getting it set up and started. This is an interesting game where tiles are placed down on the brown unpainted side to represent a once great city that suffered a catastrophe. The players are rebuilding the city, working together in a way, but ultimately they are trying to gain enough influence that they can make the most offerings the Obelisk at the center and be placed in control of the city.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilHfH3rLWIKSXTkSnu3o_JwEBqt40f7GAxnimacDwoEJFLfKTbOOYu_j4yX0E3Jvh6gpb_uScd91Y4LSBXXz7VP57oZVE3bxJ1zKsHeLgbVEMpH__WWsgoegYVdRHSbZCyUCCaLilJNFcN/s1600/photo+1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilHfH3rLWIKSXTkSnu3o_JwEBqt40f7GAxnimacDwoEJFLfKTbOOYu_j4yX0E3Jvh6gpb_uScd91Y4LSBXXz7VP57oZVE3bxJ1zKsHeLgbVEMpH__WWsgoegYVdRHSbZCyUCCaLilJNFcN/s400/photo+1.JPG" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The game is played with Pawns which are moved around the city, and Cards which are used as a resource to rebuild the city, and as special abilities. The abilities are triggered by discarding the card and range from extra movement, convert cards into wild cards, and move Dragons. The Dragons are helping the players rebuild the city and give the players golden scales for each part of the city they repair in the dragons presence. The scales, once the pool is depleted, are converted to Crystals. When a City Tile is completed it is flipped over and the reward for completing the tile is given out to each player who contributed. The other side of the tile has a bonus that will be given to each adjacent city tile that is completed from her on out.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHIcgJlRoOBcs2-DUj_bwrj1uXUw4puoKsvpNDuZx6X1tN2w3D-WI9_1SNi3v-np7L5PmcNLl3JwxEwdX4BmB9UTBgJwqKU3WX-OsPH7qeTAzYCv2QjDt5xbPJJJdV1SpZb3GiWsiryCyM/s1600/photo+3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHIcgJlRoOBcs2-DUj_bwrj1uXUw4puoKsvpNDuZx6X1tN2w3D-WI9_1SNi3v-np7L5PmcNLl3JwxEwdX4BmB9UTBgJwqKU3WX-OsPH7qeTAzYCv2QjDt5xbPJJJdV1SpZb3GiWsiryCyM/s400/photo+3.JPG" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the end the player wants to take his Crystals that he gets for completing each city section (with bonuses for adjacent tiles already flipped over) to the center and make an offering to the Obelisk. The first person to do that 4 times wins. I tried a strategy that while I think would have been good, did not work out for me this time around. In the end I lost to a player who is fairly new to the Board Gaming experience. Good game Kyle.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Next we played <a href="http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/72125/eclipse" target="_blank">Eclipse</a>. We knew we were going to have limited time with this one and only after we had gotten into it did we think that we should have played this game First, and then played another if we had time. Oh well....next time we will know better.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitxtnzJBGcAE26jOk6tbYYXeuLH1842d2edqg9fzQM7yzsaEaLptXh05jx_telWgivZIF4M4L1FHD-Be4jwHZxtjGeIkEhme1jw8MXZca_O_tw8fzh7QIWrY8qY1wmW7r1Jes85wI6oe0D/s1600/photo+6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitxtnzJBGcAE26jOk6tbYYXeuLH1842d2edqg9fzQM7yzsaEaLptXh05jx_telWgivZIF4M4L1FHD-Be4jwHZxtjGeIkEhme1jw8MXZca_O_tw8fzh7QIWrY8qY1wmW7r1Jes85wI6oe0D/s320/photo+6.JPG" width="240" /></span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After an hour and half of learning the rules and set up, we start playing. I am not going to try to explain the rules of this one....it would take forever and this Blog post would be 5 times longer. Basically you all place different Galactic Empires on the path of conquest. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggCJibdJ9oSkZQAnGOxaGekAZ0Hha3pMXLQiF2mRDxl9f5cAkOwdqvbnlhVFqlUqA6ScN_DVPxKK9iIQrm6I13dL8aiJFwp9elmyt2RD_wjLNcwiiKBKIAbSNPD8TxeEKhOHyfezqQnKzA/s1600/photo+7.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggCJibdJ9oSkZQAnGOxaGekAZ0Hha3pMXLQiF2mRDxl9f5cAkOwdqvbnlhVFqlUqA6ScN_DVPxKK9iIQrm6I13dL8aiJFwp9elmyt2RD_wjLNcwiiKBKIAbSNPD8TxeEKhOHyfezqQnKzA/s320/photo+7.JPG" width="240" /></span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Very quickly the galaxy starts to get explored. The turns go quickly at first and you don't need to worry to much about to much resource management. Managing your resources (Money, Science, and Materials) you will be able to Explore, Build Ships, Upgrade, Research Technology, and Colonize worlds. Its incredibly complex but plays very smoothly. After 3-4 rounds of exploring we start to run out of money and have to start focusing on other aspects of the game.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With the galaxy's farthest reaches explored, the players turn their attention towards the coveted middle of the board and start building up their forces for the inevitable conflict that will soon begin. The alien worlds that frightened us when we didn't understand how combat worked no longer worried us and they soon fell. Ryan found an alien world with "Shard Hull" that he put on his ships. This gave his ships +3 hull early on. As far as I can tell, that was very broken and let him start marching over the other alien worlds that had more alien tech and valuable resources. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiYtb0OKnwT9ZKrL5Fs76OxvcHq4k5QXaqw9XZroxaNUCkcGDhsDGkyybDIYJJcg80tpNas500aznApM-2QhRz3_VaQ2e-LfELJblgVBGtDiR9O70L55gw01PziR4BoZ_MK9SvWFIfx_2j/s1600/photo+10.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiYtb0OKnwT9ZKrL5Fs76OxvcHq4k5QXaqw9XZroxaNUCkcGDhsDGkyybDIYJJcg80tpNas500aznApM-2QhRz3_VaQ2e-LfELJblgVBGtDiR9O70L55gw01PziR4BoZ_MK9SvWFIfx_2j/s320/photo+10.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Unfortunately I could not stay to the end of the game and will have to hear about the outcome tomorrow. I had a great time and want to play this game again. At $100 I don't imagine that I will every buy this game for myself, but it was a lot of fun and cant wait to do it again.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtJYXD5DvGZAe5NFmku5r01ZaNWRDFFT-S3dtLgL2y4fjeAFHmk6pugGim7b00s9-TVQuHv8mx0s8IWXo2OM4CcubPHpEDETDuUF9ETgREG6zShRs28I2h35_UbH1uwocA6htYByU1LIRa/s1600/photo+11.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtJYXD5DvGZAe5NFmku5r01ZaNWRDFFT-S3dtLgL2y4fjeAFHmk6pugGim7b00s9-TVQuHv8mx0s8IWXo2OM4CcubPHpEDETDuUF9ETgREG6zShRs28I2h35_UbH1uwocA6htYByU1LIRa/s320/photo+11.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After going home and taking care of some errands, my girlfriend said that she was tired and had to get up early so she was going to bed. This gave me an opportunity to go to a local place called Ziggy's Tavern that I know has board games every Tuesday night.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I got there late so many games were already well underway. I did find myself invited to a game of <a href="http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/13/the-settlers-of-catan" target="_blank">Settlers of Catan</a>. The owner brought out his First Edition of the US version of the game. I know the game very well so I socialized with a few of my friends who where there until they had finished explaining the rules. For those that don't know SoC, it is a resource management game where you roll dice and get resources, you spend resources to build towns and roads and ultimately cities in a race to be the first to 10 points. There are cards that give special abilities that can be bought with resources. There is also a Thief that is a mechanic players can use to block the resource gathering of other players. And then finally players can Trade their resources with each other.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPEdOOUc2_PPCSfUMYJXugU-x7Q7REfVIF__fCkwG5LHt-VSusw1aR8qhHPSBxJaA5hyL6BVq3K-ViGhf_Nh3D_OZ8frrAqbyyz9xvqMigpUjDG8L-64dXYf75ll9Lq4MDqUrFdtvAjId1/s1600/photo+13.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPEdOOUc2_PPCSfUMYJXugU-x7Q7REfVIF__fCkwG5LHt-VSusw1aR8qhHPSBxJaA5hyL6BVq3K-ViGhf_Nh3D_OZ8frrAqbyyz9xvqMigpUjDG8L-64dXYf75ll9Lq4MDqUrFdtvAjId1/s320/photo+13.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Getting Clay was very tough in this game. After many rounds of very little progress I start to make some progress. I get some lucky breaks and get enough to build a city on the only Clay on a common number (8). I think I have this game locked down and should be winning with in a few turns. Thats when the other players start ganging up to hold me back. The Thief sat on my 8 blocking me from getting any Clay and dragging the game out.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilhkO2Qsvsyj4GQoWE8ZhZPVVWzY46YVT2y74ry3fQ7-bB_EyXVCMUTdgQLcKJWrpc3PU9Xh8Yl8F6Wzb7Ewgehf3Z12nIh_QY4N2B1ZBom-oYOi_r49-zZHSUx7377WAK1KtdUGOeJE6i/s1600/photo+15.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilhkO2Qsvsyj4GQoWE8ZhZPVVWzY46YVT2y74ry3fQ7-bB_EyXVCMUTdgQLcKJWrpc3PU9Xh8Yl8F6Wzb7Ewgehf3Z12nIh_QY4N2B1ZBom-oYOi_r49-zZHSUx7377WAK1KtdUGOeJE6i/s320/photo+15.JPG" width="240" /></span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The game is close and I have been at 9 points for the last 30 minutes. I see one of the new players has caught up and he also has 9 points. I am thinking that it's going to be a repeat of the Blue Moon City game. Then the flood gates open and I get the cards I need to win, but it's not my turn. I am convinced that a 7 will be rolled and I will loose everything. Unbelievably no 7 is rolled and I have a stack of about 20+ cards in my hand. Its 3x more than I need to let me build my final city and win the game.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4IJQYZfJp6E9mZoC3vN4TF9x50XRMkSwIPEKcyUhe_1r-wdTyXJD6ioEbU_XJwseNvo5pG7nPEZgFHYAzpMhiGqo7EXps5znlnTSr3eibvkt7XytArOj6xLnR3OkQxXvvg0mvzhSBpF5L/s1600/photo+16.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4IJQYZfJp6E9mZoC3vN4TF9x50XRMkSwIPEKcyUhe_1r-wdTyXJD6ioEbU_XJwseNvo5pG7nPEZgFHYAzpMhiGqo7EXps5znlnTSr3eibvkt7XytArOj6xLnR3OkQxXvvg0mvzhSBpF5L/s320/photo+16.JPG" width="240" /></span></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I still love this game, but I have move on to play so many better games that I rarely have the urge to play SoC. If I do its on the Xbox because I can play a game in about 20-30 minutes with the computer doing all the book keeping and set up...it just goes so much faster. A one and half our game of SoC just doesn't make much sense to me anymore. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10081002700176970080noreply@blogger.com0