Sketchup Icehouse

I've been playing with sketchup and decided that a nice project would be to create an Icehouse Set since the plans were still available on the looneys' blog.

So far I have the three pointer done (no spots yet), and the other two should be fairly easy. From there I can make them into components and use them in other models. I wonder if there's a way to get the pieces to snap to preset points when they're stacked... I'll have to look into that.

Edit: It's a family!
I finished the two and one pointers, and proudly display them on a barren sketchup-scape.

Goings on

Not much work has happened on the hex game (currently 'Ainks) since the last post.

Not much work on anything regarding gaming has gone on really, except I did install Visual Studio C# Express to work on some XNA stuff eventually. The PC/360 cross platform compatability should be interesting.

Aside from that I've been obsessing over Icehouse. Not doing much with it, just obsessing (need income before I start buying such things).

That's all for now.

Mad Lab Rabbit

I would like to bring some easy/fun games to moraine today to demo after my interview, however I don't have any looney games (stupid water) to demo... so I guess I'll look for some other easy-fun-now game.

If such a thing exists... perhaps a card game like give me the brain...

Hex War

I've been working on a game off and on for a few weeks now. The executive summary is that it's a turn based game where players select their moves for each round simultaneously and secretly. Very much like roborallyee, but I want people to be able to not need to think 5 moves ahead every turn (and allow them to react).

The game will probably take place on a hexagonal grid. Each player will have a set of basic moves (like turning, forward, etc) and will acquire better moves/attacks through play and/or experience.

There will obviously need to be somebody to implement the initiative order (still working on how that will work), and to move the pieces on the board.

The initiave order is the main thing that is keeping me from moving to an early playtest stage... though I suppose I can cross that bridge when I come to it, or ask my playtesters for ideas.

Multiplication Game

I've got some framework rules down for the multiplication game... now all I need is some people to test it with...

Hopefully it will more enjoyable than flash cards (Not saying much... I know). It should at least introduce a reward element greater than "you didn't fuck up, good job!"

I so hated flash cards growing up...

Three point oh.

The usual group got together because Steve wanted to run something. All he had was the D&D 3.0 books, so I got to break out all the old broken spells and such again...

I should not be allowed to play wizards.

Anyways, I was impressed with his re-tracking of the train-wreck. He expected his band of bandits to get away and for us to face them one at a time in their base (they were all about CR 5-6, and we were a 5th level party), but we managed to catch up due to some quick horses and a 50min fly spell... So what ended up happening was that, one at a time, they tried to stop us from following them (they stole our cart for some reason).

So instead of 4 consecutive encounters, the adventure became one long drawn out cart-chase, but the nature of our pursuit made it so we would only face them one or two at a time (The priest's Turn undead helped a lot to keep one of the enemies occupied while dealing with the others)

The Minotaur was busy carrying the front end of the wagon once I shattered the front axle (shatter spell, a very good choice for the 2nd level wizard slot). Aside from this, the party managed to maintain the advantage of mobility since we were faster than the hobbled cart, and I was able to air-lift the rogue (we were both gnomes, and fly lets you carry up to max load with you)

But getting back to the main point, it was impressive how he kept the structure of the game intact when we managed to do so much unexpected.

DungeonBlog didn't get started, but the soul still burns.

I've had a few campaign ideas as of late...

1. The End of the World Dungeon
The characters wake up disoriented in a cave on the side of a shear cliff. At one end of the cave is a heavy iron door, the other end, except if you lean out and look back at the cliff face, is open to the night sky in all directions.

The premise is that the characters (and more or less everything else in the dungeon) were cast off the end of the world. The keeper then recovers the discarded objects and puts them into the dungeon. The keeper is an avian humanoid with winged arms, a rooster's head, and thin yet muscular body. If upright it would stand about 9'-10' tall. The keeper(s) also stops people from trying to climb to the surface via the cliff face.

2. Humorous game: a Douglass Adams Ripoff

This is probably the most preperation intensive idea I've had in a while, and the most demanding of the GM, but it seems like a lot of fun. The premise is that interesting facts about every normal DnD item/monster/town etc. are written down ahead of time, and at certian points I'd break into Monolog about them. I described it to someone over AIM:

[11:41] thelonegoldfish: I'm thinking of running a douglas adams style dnd game... (like a normal dnd game, but with random narritive monologs about the strange properties of certian things as the players come across them.)

[11:44] thelonegoldfish: "As you bash in the door you see a small thin reddish rust colored lizard standing in the room, obvously a kobold; Kobolds are quite possibly the second worst tasting creatures in the known world, so much so that not even spice grubs can make them palletable. While they don't smell bad or have any outward appearance to warn such, they leave an aftertaste so horible that some createures have been known to starve to death after taking just one bite of kobold meat."

[11:44] thelonegoldfish: "Drawing on their ability to be universally rejected as a food source, they have gone into the unsavory professions of banking and trade almost exclusivly..."

[11:46] thelonegoldfish: Of the seven saccred condiments, spice grubs are the most often requested for passing at the table of ambrosia, where the gods meet in uncomfortable silence every thanksgiving and christmas."

[11:47] thelonegoldfish: In fact, that's where the phrase "pass the grub" originated...

[11:49] thelonegoldfish: There is even a level of hell for bankers and salesmen, where kobolds are foribly devoured by non-koblold bankers... it's still debated as to whom suffers more in this arrangment...

[11:51] thelonegoldfish: Oh. almost forgot "Light Grog"

[11:53] thelonegoldfish: Light grog was not brewed for flavor, or even to make water drinkable, but rather for it's stability when teleported...

[11:53] thelonegoldfish: This led to it's availablility in almost any tavern in the known/unknown universe...

[11:55] thelonegoldfish: It may taste bad, but it's safe to drink and alchoholic, so it's drunk quite frequently... some customers even claim to have developed a taste for it... though it's mostly out of fear of trying something new and not being able to stomache the cheap and available light grog the next time they're forced to drink it....

3. Motives for an "Evil" game.

The premise I had for the evil game is that a Paladin and his party want to destroy the monsters and make the land safe for their people. The problem is, the players are the monsters.

I don't know how to get the party together, but I've got a lot of ideas as to why the PC's would really, really want to kill the Pally and his party, the main point being that the plan for eliminating all the monsters around the keep/city involves destroying an artifact in the center of the the planned area, thereby clear-cutting every living thing for a mile or two in every direction (the pally wants his city to be big, Pride being his obvious flaw)

Dungeonblog... that's an idea... every day I'll write up a room/encounter... I'd need a map first... perhaps I'll just steal the sample map from the mammoth dungeon people.

Just need a place to start I guess.

-SharperKelp, TheLoneGoldfish, etc.