Volcano Board Setup

Well, may as well toss up the other volcano'y image I have.

A variant setup with no contiguous colors. With all the non-starting colors in an equal but rotated position so no color is seen as a bad choice to go after initially due to position.

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Edit:
Standard setup included for reference. Generally the greens and yellows (in this image) aren't popular choices due to the difficulty of capturing pieces from the center compared to the edge. (at least that's what I've seen)

Volcano: "Safe" Opening Move

I think I may have figured out a safe opening move in a game of volcano... that is, a move that will not allow the second player to get a large and medium piece with one move.

It would help to understand the rules to volcano. Please comment if you can disprove this (find a move from this board position to get 2 pieces...)

-Evan

2min later, edit:

Damn, a diagnol move from the oppiste corner will give a large (center) and a small (corner)... back to the drawing board.

Rabbit Bio

This is my Mad Rabbit Bio, I pasted it here to spell check and figured I'd post it...

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I heard about the mad rabbit program when I purchased a copy of Fluxx [v3.1] for my cousin to gage his interest in card/board games. I felt it was a good introduction to such games as well as being a perfect metaphor for how I wanted to go about introducing them (the rules start simple, but then grow in complexity, often in unexpected directions). So I managed to get him and his mother playing the game, I don't know if they understood it, but I should find out the next time I see them. Anyways, I saw the Lab Rabbit card while being just that, and decided to jump on here.

As for me, I play games from anywhere that seems interesting. I have played a great deal of the games from loony labs, but have purchased them more often for other people than for myself it seems (actually, my personal copy of Fluxx drowned to death *sob*). I also play a lot of games by Avalon Hill, Fantasy Flight Games, Steve Jackson, Cheapass, and Out of the Box (not to mention countless one-game companies).

I got some fanart for having a neat name

Thanks Alison!

Other recent happenings: I now have a pile of pretty pyramids, 4 copies of Fluxx* (the reports of my copies death were greatly exaggerated, it was merely hiding in Chez Geek.), Aquarius, AYAW?, Nanofictionary, Cosmic Coasters (which I love to death),

* I thought my first copy died, so I bought another (with flowers), then I ordered a free flowers and fluxx with another order, and picked up the AYAW? Demo kit, which came with one as a prize... so add to that my newly found old copy... and I have four. Oh, and they're all version 3.0 strangely enough.

Frag

So I really want to play frag again, but I'm not interested in the hour long rules debate that will come from trying to establish the rules of the game.

The debate involves armor, but the question that is debated is whether the game tracks health or wounds. If it weren't for armor, nobody would care how damage is tracked, but due to the nature of the armor cards, it becomes important.

If health is tracked, then armor gives you two bonuses: it adds to your defense roll, and it sops up damage when it's destroyed.

Health Accounting Example:

A character is attacked with a 5d weapon and hit. The defending character has a base health of 2 and is wearing light armor. Attack roll: 6+6+5+3+3 = 23 Defense roll: 6+6+3 = 15 Now the character loses one health, and decides to lose the health from the armor. So now they have 2 health left (effectively taking no damage).

If wounds are tracked, then you still get your bonus to defense roll, but armor does not sop damage, because it is lost when you take damage (and the damage is recorded elsewhere, not forgotten).

Wound Accounting Example:

A character is attacked with a 5d weapon and hit. The defending character has a base health of 2 and is wearing light armor. Attack roll: 6+6+5+3+3 = 23 Defense roll: 6+6+3 = 15 Now the character takes one wound, and since they took 1 point of damage their armor is discarded. Now if you subtract wounds from health, the character has one health point left.

I prefer the latter interpretation as it prevents, or at least weakens "unkillable characters" (people with 2pt armor, 3 base wounds, and a pile of med kits and adrenalin surges who try and stuff them into the wounds before the armor falls off).

It is really hard to kill a character with 5-8 health... and even more so when they just decide to drop their armor (because that nuke only did one damage) and play another next turn. I'm not saying that it still wouldn't be hard to kill them, but at least by doing damage you could start to make progress (for instance, if they lost light armor, they'd be 2 dice down next attack minimum).

Armbands and websites

Well, the blog for the group (if just me counts as a group) is up... and in other news, I flubbed the first set of arm bands I tried to make... Alas Saturn does not present decent oppertunities for stenciling (though I could put down a circle, then stencil the rings over it...


-Evan

The Red Saturns

Well, a quick google search shows two no-finds and a yahoo group with three members... I think I can safely start the gang without fear of someone else having the name already.

Now to make the arm bands...

Cosmic Coaster Expansion

Cosmic Coaster: Phobos v1.0 r0.0

Special Power: Fear Itself

Power Description: Every turn in which you move a unit adjacent to an enemy unit (including teleportation), you may challenge the unit's controlling player to RPS, if you...
Win: you may move their unit 1 space (2 in the case of Callisto) into any open spaces. Does not affect pieces that are surrounded.
Tie/Fail: nothing.

Other stuff: Cosmic Coasters designed by "He who loves cake", you should buy a copy. Phobos image from NASA. I'll probably make revisions if I ever get a chance to playtest the power.

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r0.1: Initial playtest comments

Phobos faced off against Callisto (randomly pulled), and the power seemed rather under-powered... Additionally, the question arose as to whether or not a failed attack still counted as a move (prompting the chance to use fear itself).

Also, the power may have a little more bite if, when fearing an opponent with nowhere to flee, rather than merely being illegal, the opponent is destroyed. Perhaps however the ability will be of more use to opponents that move one unit per turn (then you could scare away an opponent as you approach without giving them a chance to strike first)... More testing is required.

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Supplimental musing: This would be the perfect thing to paint over any coasters that may have gotten mangled in production... ya know... it being the mangled moon and all... nevermind.

Gumball gaming

Admission: I love the little toys in vending machines... especially ninjas.

That being said, I'm wondering if it has been considered/implemented to use the cheap little plastic figures that are sold out of them as game pieces...

Obviously, you'd need to buy them from a supplier, as it would look really silly to sit in front of a supermarket putting a sack of quarters into the same machine (and it would be expensive). I didn't need to say that, but the mental image was too good to pass up.

This could provide the pieces I need for the gameboard bag concept (rather than relying on glass beads and/or dice [the staples of little games]. Yeah, ninjas are more awesome than glass beads...

Note on Label: GDI stands for Game Design Industry... and has nothing to do with command and conquer.

Stencil update

That was quick.

I did a quick cutout of the moon stamp I had, then I painted the fabric paint (blue) through the stencil. It turned out with a clearer image than stamping, without the abundance of paint from the direct sponge shape method. Additionally, I can control the patterns much better than trying to brush the paint directly to fabric without guides)

By the way, I'm using 1" foam brushes for this stuff (they were 6 cents at Michaels this week).

I think this will work well (except obviously for shapes that are not good for stencils)

-Evan

Stencils

I think I can get more than a shiny ghostly shape if I paint the fabric paint on with a brush and stencil. I think I have some card stock around here to work with, so I'll try this and see how it goes.

-Evan

Pretties

Well the foam stamping is going well... On black fabric I'm able to make a shiny sheen pattern which looks neat.

I keep putting red saturns on things. (Ice-7 card holder, this dice bag I just made) I wish I could put an image of these things up here.

-Evan

Sketchup Icehouse update

After getting my pieces finally (wow, that must have been a few weeks ago at least), I can see some flaws to my sketchup models.

For instance, the pieces make contact at the point when stacked, rather than the base as I had assumed. Also, I now have an idea of how to place the dots, even if I don't really know how to display them in the software.

And I still need to figure out how to create anchor points for the pieces so they can be arranged to illustrate games and such without needing to flub with positions forever.

Of bags and things

So I had the idea a while back, inspired by cosmic coasters, to put a game board on a bag, and have the pieces of the game fit within the bag. This was also a branching out of my attempt to make my own chessboard bandanna (or cloth chessboard, not quite big enough to be a bandanna).

I suppose I should also apologise to the looneys before proceeding as there's a fine line between inspiration and plagiarism... and I have no idea where I am right now, but if I'm not over it yet, I'm pretty damn close. (For instance, seeing their wonderful products and wondering/attempting to do my own versions of them.)

Anyways, the gameboard bag ultimately won't be a cosmic coasters ripoff, but that's merely the sample standard I've chosen to work with until I can come up with something fun.

But I digress.

Anyways, cloth as a game material has come to be the focus of my obsession right now. I've been remembering all the really cool cloth maps, like the one that came with Neverwinter Nights, and some nice tile-bags from various board games... It seems like a really good idea, considering how many times I've seen paper/cardboard pieces and boards succumb to the dreaded spilled beverage. It would be nice to have game components be washable... if for no other reason than to alleviate my paranoia of yucky tables at public places (maple syrup, condensation from drinks, spilled coffee, to name a few)

And I knew that this could not be an original idea, but I never expected to see a patent so vague. Hmm... actually, they don't specify that the bag can be the board as well... In fact, that case does appear to contradict the patent as written (where the board fits in the bag).

Hmm... I'll have to keep searching. I may have found an idea that hasn't been run into the ground already.

Again, I digress... what was I talking about?

Oh yes. So with durable boards/pieces, I may be able to make some kind of portable game that people aren't afraid to play anywhere (except perhaps over a sewer grate)...

This needs more thought.

Plush icehouse/chess

So I was thinking of whether or not it would be easy/feasible to make a plush set of icehouse pieces (normal sized, sorry daddy oh)... I suppose I should first try and design a pattern for them.

The chess pieces idea came up though thinking about how to play with a cloth chessboard (without a bunch of pointy things)... I suppose I could merely make them out of cloth... or perhaps small pillows/bean bags rather than plush/stuffed.

Hmm... beanbag icehouse... there's an idea.

-Evan

Martian Chess Board

Here's a rendering of ee0r's tri-chess board (for playing martian chess with anywhere from 2-6 people).

It's arranged in a 3-player layout at the moment, and I had to run off before I could put some pyramids on it... oh well.