Please Excuse The Mess

Posted on July 23, 2011 by Quirkworthy

I’m trying to get to grips with some of the structural stuff on the site today so I can better organise the space for the articles, reviews and extra rules bits I have to post. Need to get them into a framework or they’ll just end up in a disorganised heap. That’d be bad.

So, test pages will appear and disappear for a little while as I fiddle about. Please just ignore them. There won’t be anything interesting on them anyway. They’re all placeholders 🙂

I may also have another fight with Gimp and see if I can’t get the banner more like it should be. Not a big fan of Gimp 😦

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What Do You Want?

Posted on July 21, 2011 by Quirkworthy

We all have different reasons for gaming, and might rate the myriad aspects of the hobby as a whole in a variety of ways. Is board gaming more your cup of tea than tabletop games with figures? Do you like collecting miniatures or is it painting or gaming with them that really floats your boat? Can you not bear to play games that use twenty-sided dice? Or only those that do? There are no right answers.

One of the reasons I think this is an intriguing and worthwhile bit of introspection is that it informs how you and I choose to purchase our toys (or not). Like everyone else, gamers have to be picky with their purchases. Few can afford all that their interest might demand. Do I have a point? Well, funnily enough I do. Getting to that.

To get the most fun for your buck I think you need to understand yourself. It’s easy to follow the trend, and jump though the hoops of the latest cool marketing ploys, but will that be the mostest fun you can buy with your limited funds? Perhaps. Asking yourself some questions before you part with your cash may help ensure you stick less of it back on Ebay after one play. I’ll give you an example. Me.

I like clever and elegant rules, beautiful models and gorgeous artwork. However, I never have enough time to paint or play all I want to (who does?). After thinking about this, I decided not to buy models unless they had a specific game purpose. Smog, for example, is a range of models of the most outstanding quality and wackiness, but I never bought any as I couldn’t do anything with them in terms of gaming. If I had the time to paint something (which is a whole other post) I’d make it something I could stick on the table and play with. Of course, now SmartMax have done a game for Smog, I’m poring over what my first purchase will be…

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They’re Doing It Again

Posted on July 19, 2011 by Quirkworthy

Those Beasts of War chaps have got another video of me up today, this time talking about Dwarf King’s Hold: Green Menace. It’s sort of self-explanatory if you watch it.

It’s all a bit strange for me though, because I’m not really used to seeing myself on video at all, let alone repeatedly over the past few months as has been the case since DKH came out. It is educational though as I can start to see what works and what doesn’t. Hopefully I’ll get better at this as I go along. If I’m guessing right there’s another video for thursday and that should be the game play one. That is a topic which is much harder to film well and something I’ve been tinkering with myself for this site so that I can do some “how to” sorts of things. It’s a way away yet as I’m something of a Luddite at times. Well, not Luddite really, just not very interested in the process, more focused on the result.

For example, if I was more technically minded I would work out how to post the BOW video so you could watch it in a window here. I’m sure it’s easy enough when you know how, but I just don’t have the time or the inclination to look very hard. Anyway, I’ve got a Bushido game to prep 🙂

Posted in Dwarf King's Hold | 11 Comments

Late Afternoon of the Living Dead

Posted on July 18, 2011 by Quirkworthy

The Zombies are here!

Check out the new rules for Zombies in Dwarf King’s Hold on the DKH hub on the Mantic site 🙂

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Busy, busy, busy

Posted on July 16, 2011 by Quirkworthy

Not got time to chat today other than to say that you should check out Beasts of War next week if you’re interested in Dwarf King’s Hold. They’ve got some burblings from me plus a couple of new videos to go up in preparation for the release of Dwarf King’s Hold 2. As I said yesterday, Mantic will also be putting up the Zombie rules I’ve done, and that’s just what I know about. You never know what else may be lurking 🙂

Posted in Dwarf King's Hold | 8 Comments

Gravedigger

Posted on July 15, 2011 by Quirkworthy

I was in the Mantic offices this morning and they tell me that the invocations are almost complete now. The Zombie rules should go up on the Dwarf King’s Hold hub next week.

Mortibris will be pleased 🙂

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A Rumble in the Distance

Posted on July 14, 2011 by Quirkworthy

With less than 2 weeks left to go before the second starter set for Dwarf King’s Hold is released, folk are getting excited. The buzz at the Mantic Open Day was really enthusiastic and after my talks and demos a lucky few went away eagerly clutching pre-release copies that we’d managed to assemble early. I’m already hearing back about the fun and mayhem that the Orcs and Elves are getting up to. Check out the comments on this post, for example 🙂

The chaps at Mantic are even now doing the final touches to the layout on the new scenario (14) that comes with the bundle deal and the special Green Menace offer. But wait a moment. Scenario 14? There’s 6 in Dead Rising and 6 more in Green Menace – what happened to 13? Well, I’m not superstitious enough to skip a number, so it’s not that. It’s actually in Mantic Journal 4, which is out at the same time.

Scenario 13 pits Dwarfs against Undead and can be played with the contents of Dwarf King’s Hold – Dead Rising alone. Scenario 14, on the other hand, is the first scenario specifically designed for the Orcs and Dwarfs to battle it out, and also features the Mantic Dwarf Driller model.You need both starter sets to play this, which is why it comes with the bundle deal. It could almost be a plan.

And that’s not all. With a little luck I should also get the (Not Very) FAQ on the Mantic site in the next few days, and next week I’ll be doing some pieces for Beasts of War for their Dwarf King’s Hold excitements. It’s all go here!

Posted in Dwarf King's Hold | 11 Comments

One Tiny Thing

Posted on July 12, 2011 by Quirkworthy

In the land of one-square models, the two-square model is… bleedin’ awkward.

I am referring, of course, to the Dwarf Driller that comes with the Dwarf King’s Hold bundle deal, and who is a central feature of the scenario that goes with it. You might not have thought that it would make much difference, having a two square model, but it does. Oh yes.

All other models in the game fit neatly into a single square. This means that they are nice and discrete when it comes to movement, turning and so on. They can get round corners in one square wide tunnels and all manner of clevernesses. With a two-square model you have to think about things like which square does it turn on (front or back), where are its front and rear arcs, how does it fight, and so on. Basically, this one model needs almost a complete rewrite of the rules. He is Mr Exception.

You may be expecting that I’ve done some inelegant phone book of a rule set for this chap, but if you are then you need to have more faith. Fret not. All is under control. Having some additional rules is unavoidable. Simple geometry requires explanation of the difficulties that being 2 squares big causes. I have, however, been able to refine the rules down so that even with his inherent awkwardness the mechanics are clean and simple (if you’ve played Dwarf King’s Hold, you may have realised that I like clean and simple rules).

So why am I bleating on about this? Well, I thought it was a good illustration of how one tiny change can make a huge amount of difference in design terms. As an example, this will make more sense to those that have (had the good taste to have already) played Dwarf King’s Hold. The principle applies to any game where you move in squares though. Try playing snakes & ladders with a two-square big model. There are almost zero rules in snakes & ladders, and all of them need a caveat when you change to two squares from one for a piece.

I am well over my allotted words by now, so I’ll leave you there to ponder. Suffice to say that I shall revisit this concept in an article later.

Posted in Dwarf King's Hold, Game Design Theory | 9 Comments

You start here, I’ll start there

Posted on July 11, 2011 by Quirkworthy

I started writing a post this morning about Dwarf King’s Hold, but it’s got rather long so I’ll finish it as an article and post it later this week. Basically, I want to talk about the Dwarf King’s Hold games as a series, and what I mean by starter sets and expansions. I’ll have a go at a short version here:

Starter sets: each of these is a stand-alone game. They are designed so that they contain everything you need to play and are a complete game in their own right. If you have any one of these and never see another bit of DKH then you still have a brilliant game that you will enjoy playing for many years (so I’m told). So far, we have two starter sets: Dwarf King’s Hold – Dead Rising, and Dwarf King’s Hold – Green Menace. This second one is not officially out yet, though you had a chance to nab one early if you made it over to MantiCon (Mantic’s Open Day) on saturday.

Expansions: these are not yet released, and exist only in my fevered brain. The idea is that these will expand on the contents of a starter set, and that you will need one or other of the starter sets to use the expansion. They will not be stand-alone items. The new rules, models, tiles and so on will take the game in the starter set in a new direction and allow even more playability from the game.

Series: this is the accumulated pieces from all the starter sets and expansions. It isn’t an endless beast, but it is ambitious and will take time to release, assuming you guys want it. Along the way, important pieces include rules for mixing together all the starter sets and model ranges; linking together the individual boxes to form a seamless whole. That’s how it works in my head: as a single piece. And that’s part of the challenge for the design. It’s got to be a fun and popular game in each box because if it isn’t the whole series will never see the light of day.

How does that sound for you?

Posted in Board Gaming, Dwarf King's Hold | 13 Comments

A Picture Paints…

Posted on July 10, 2011 by Quirkworthy

…a thousand words, and over at Tears of Envy’s blog you can see several thousand words’ worth of pictures from yesterday’s Mantic Open Day (they really should call it MantiCon).

Tears of Envy, in case you didn’t know, is the hugely talented lady who did the graphics for the board, counters, logo and so on for Dwarf King’s Hold 1&2. Have a look round her site and see how many other cool logos and graphical goodies you can find.

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