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DZ2 FAQ up
Made Me Smile :)
Just found one of the most amusing Kickstarter videos I’ve seen. Thought I’d share it with you 🙂
Posted in Random Thoughts
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Adding Some Structure
I’m trying some different ways of organising my work, my posts, and my gaming.
For this site, whilst a rigid format is probably unhelpful, I think a bit of structure is useful. With that in mind, I’m going to try out some fixed days with fixed topics.
What I’m going to start with, and what I think will fit well, is Miniature Mondays (MM). At present, I don’t have any miniature game client work. Sure, several of the board games I’m working on will have miniatures (some of them really quite lovely), but they’re board games with miniatures rather than miniature games per se. A very different beast.
This leaves me a bit of head space to reclaim miniatures games as a hobby, sort of. Or at least mess about with them for my own amusement rather than someone else’s requirements. Until the next client job comes along 😛
To start with at least, MM will effectively be a project log for the Old School Skirmish game I’ve been working on. I’ve got some ideas for articles, and I’m sure more will come. For now though, just know it’s coming, starting next Monday.
What I won’t be doing much or any of on MM is reviews. I think of these as a separate thing, even if I end up using the models in OSS. Reviews are both a chance to dig into a game or model range in detail, and often to use it as a springboard to talk about a specific feature that has a wider implication. I’ve also got more miniatures I’d like to review than will fit into one day a week, so it won’t really work anyway. Naturally, I’ll still be talking about models a lot on MM, just not in review format.
Finally, before I add any more of the ideas I’ve got for days, I need to go through the UKGE stuff and resolve the FAQs. Aiming to get the decks cleared of all that by the end of this month 🙂
Posted in Miniature Mondays, Old Skool Skirmish
Tagged Miniature Mondays, Old Skool Skirmish
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Hectic Time
It’s been a busy couple of weeks, what with the UK Games Expo and all. Still sorting through the fallout from that before I post an AAR. I’ve also been along to several gaming sessions, including some very interesting playtest stuff. Seems like there’s more going on in the North East gaming scene than there was in Nottingham, which is nice for me 🙂
My brain’s also been in inventive form, with 4 new game ideas roughed out this week. But before I get on with them, I need to finish off a bunch of loose ends including the DZ and DS FAQs. The DZ2 FAQ is finished, I think, and should be posted very soon. I’ll link that when it’s up. That was processed very quickly, so I’ll be using some of that model to speed the resolution of the DS stuff.
I’m also slightly changing the way I work and what I’m doing – more of which over the next few weeks. All intriguing stuff for me, at least 🙂
Posted in Random Thoughts
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UniCast LOADed
Having got my hands on some of the production (I think) models for the LOAD Kickstarter, I thought I’d put up some more pics of UniCast in action before it finished.
LOAD is a full game using UniCast to make dozens of models. They’ve been designed with this material in mind, so they make the best use of its ability to largely ignore things like undercuts. They’re nicely three-dimensional, and highly detailed.
Rather than tell you what you can see for yourself, I’ll just show some pics and keep my comments to a minimum. On the whole, it’s more of what I’ve already discussed in previous posts: models with loads of detail in poses you couldn’t possibly cast in one piece in any other medium. Most pics should click to enlarge.
Note the tiny fishing pole among the baggage, above 🙂
How?
One thing which differs between these LOAD figures and the previous UniCast models I’ve seen is the level of detail on the bases. I’ve picked an extreme example here, but many of the models have tufts of grass modelled on. And I don’t mean a texture on the base, I mean blades of grass sticking up. You can see these on the “demon” and the “foot knight” above. The tree-thing model above has stuff sticking out in every direction, and is still a single piece.
The German site brueckenkopf has loads more pics and a nice review (in German) of this set of figures. They agree about the process being impressive overall, though they do flag up mould alignment as a potential issue. I have to say I’m not very concerned myself. Looking at their pictures and the samples I was sent, there are indeed a few models with imperfect alignment (see the pics below). However, we’re talking fractions of a millimetre here, and nothing I haven’t seen in metal, plastic, resin, restic, HIPS, etc – in fact, anything that is produced in multi-part moulds. It’s a function of that process, not the material you pour into it, and is something I would expect to see in here too because UniCast is moulded.What seems strange about it here is that it appears only on part of the model rather than all over, which is usual in metal, for example. Overall, I can’t see this being a surprise or a real problem for anyone who’s prepared models before.
Brueckenkopf suggests that the very flexibility of the moulds that allows for such insane undercuts in the first place, may also allow for more slippage, and that is a very good point. Only time will tell. However, so far, I’m just not seeing it.
So, in summary, another set of models that would simply not be possible to make in single pieces by other traditional means*. As a process, it’s got a lot of promise.
*Thinking about it, I suppose that you could theoretically make a steel mould with multiple, interlocking slides, that got similar results. I’ve never heard of anyone doing that for single figures though, and I can’t see if being anything other than prohibitively time-consuming and expensive.
Back From The Expo
Feeling a bit jet-lagged this morning after a marathon train journey back from the con. Very happy with going though – I’d not miss it. My head’s still buzzing with all the stuff I saw, all the people I spoke to, and all the new games I played, rummaged through, bought, and planned myself (worked out the bones of 3 new dice games on the way home). Lots of cool stuff and interesting ideas.
I did manage a small haul of shiny toys, which I’ll look at later. Not a silly amount, but enough to make my bags a lot heavier on the way back.
Despite some technical problems (90 minutes of MP4 interviews corrupted), I can remember enough to flag up some interesting new companies, products and possibilities. New to me, at least.
That last point is interesting though. The UK Game Expo is big enough for everyone to have a different experience. Even after 3 days I was still finding new stuff I’d missed earlier, and I spent most of those 3 days in the trade hall. There were several games I meant to get back to, or to play demos of, and which I never squeezed in. Of course, I also spent a lot of time networking, gabbling to old friends, making new ones, and that’s part of the fun too. It’s a very friendly atmosphere with lots of smiling faces – even when I sat down for a bite to eat I ended up in a long conversation with some random gamers, swapping stories of old role-playing adventures.
Good old Cthulhu does bring people together 🙂
Posted in Random Thoughts
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Expo Is Live!
I’m at the UK Game Expo now, waist deep in gaming goodies, no doubt. Depending on connectivity, I will try to post some observations from the event or my hotel in the evenings. We’ll have to see how that goes. This might be just on Facebook, as that’s probably easier to post little bits.
Just so you know I’m hard at work 🙂
DS: Behind
He’s behind you!
Oh no he isn’t!
Oh yes he is!
Sound like a Christmas panto? Sadly it’s Dungeon Saga.
Q: When is a model behind another?
A: When all the squares covered by its base are in the area marked behind in this diagram. In other words, the model must be entirely behind the red line. The red line in question is a continuation of the line dividing the front and rear arcs of the target model, in this case a Hero facing the top of the page.
If any of the squares a model covers are in the area marked in front then it counts as being in front of the target.
UK Game Expo 2016
Well, it’s that time of year again, and the Expo is on us. This weekend, thousands of gamers will converge on Birmingham’s NEC for 3 days of concentrated gaming goodness. I’m getting quite excited 🙂
I’ve been going to this show for years now, and every year it’s grown. This year is the first in the NEC, one of Britain’s largest exhibition centres, having outgrown the large hotel/conference centre it took over last year. The need was obvious – last time there was gaming in every nook and cranny of the hotel, not to mention the competitions in marquees in the grounds and the gaming in the halls and visitor’s rooms themselves. Even the food had been evicted to make way for more gaming, meaning that the car park was full of all varieties of food vans, a beer bus (below), and other routes to culinary satisfaction. Way better than the usual solitary burger van or greasy spoon you get at gaming shows though – an excellent solution.
Anyway, I digress. It’s big. The biggest I know of in the UK. I certainly can’t think of anything nearly as big for board games or RPGs. Salute has the edge on it for figure gaming, but that’s only one day long so it reduces itself to a frantic shopping spree. UKGE is three days, which gives you the time to explore, to play things, to chat, to relax. There are also artists, LARPing, seminars, competitions, cosplayers, and more to see or join in; not to mention the daleks and stormtroopers to have your photos taken with. Like I said, it’s a big event and there’s loads going on. You won’t see it all.
If you’ve not been before and are at all interested in games, I’d recommend you try to pop along at some point this weekend. You can get a ticket on the day, it’s very family friendly, and it has a very high female/child count (for a game show) – almost as if gamers were part of the real world!
The main trade hall at the NEC is open from 11-5 on Friday, 9.30 to 5 on Saturday, and 9.30 to 4 on Sunday. Outside those times there are other things going on around there, mostly at the nearby Hilton Hotel (where the event was last year). This includes pick-up as well as bookable RPG games that seem to be played half the night. Last year I ended up playing Pathfinder, entirely without planning, just grabbed at the last minute (which I vaguely recall was after 11pm). It’s not hard to find yourself a game if you’re interested 🙂
This year I’m wandering about like the penguins, above. I’ve been on trade stands before, and next year I have possibly 3 different stands I might have to flit between, but this year I’m just drifting about, seeking things to amaze and amuse myself. That means that I get to play some of the many games on offer, and I expect there to be a great many to choose from. Ice Cool (above) is one I’m looking forward to trying my hand at, but there will be loads more – way more than I can fit in during a mere 3 days. Calling the main space the Trade Hall makes it sounds like a big shop, and there will doubtless be plenty to buy. However, there’s always a bewildering array of games to play as well, and hundreds of people who would just love to run you through a demonstration of their latest masterpiece. Some of these will be buyable on the day, but increasingly there are people previewing early copies of things that are set of Kickstarter or Indiegogo. A sign of the times.
All told, a great place for a gamer to lose themselves for a few days 🙂
See you there?
UniCast Tease
I don’t have my camera on me today, but I’ve just had another bunch of UniCast samples for the new LOAD game. They are even better than the previous lot.
It’s weird that my brain is getting used to UniCast’s impossible models so quickly.
In a splendid case of bad timing, I’ve got UKGE stuff to sort out over the next couple of days, and then the event itself over the weekend, so it will be first thing next week before I can do you a big photo spread. It’ll happen before the KS campaign ends though, as I think it’s only fair to show what they can do in case you felt like backing.
I also thought that it might be worth mentioning (as someone asked) that I’ve got no vested interest in Prodos, LOAD, or anything else to do with this stuff. Just got some cool toys and an intriguing process to talk about 🙂
Quirkworthy 