I'm on leave currently and I had actually done up a list of things to do, as I have nothing in particular in mind for this leave. There were 7 things on my list:

1. Complete extras decks for Swift Swords Underworld.
2. Create more shelf space for my games in the games room
3. Do up a very literal fun dungeon
4. Do Gobbos cards
5. Print my collection of geomorph tiles
6. Rewrite SSU rules
7. Swap my painting table around for the computer table. 

So far I have actually done a few of them. I did 6, a rewrite of the SS Underworld rules book, and its a lot better now. I also did 1, but in the process redeveloped the whole game.  Instead of having a fairly big initial game package I stripped out all but the basic decks and made the others into expansions.  It seems a much better method to me.  I got so into it that I created two whole new decks as expansions - Potions and Enchantments.  You can find them as at http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse.php?manufacturers_id=3986 if you are into PnP files.  I made the base game free, and the expansions Pay What You Like, will be interesting to see what happens.

As part of the process of updating the whole thing I also got to send emails to everyone who had looked at the old game, to tell them it had been updated. That seems to be working pretty good too as I am getting a lot of people re-downloading.

I need to redo the Gamecrafter files (physical product), but that will take longer as you have to proof every card. It did mean that the price dropped a little, from $70 to $60. Thats still too high but nothing much I can do about it. Be interesting to see what the expansion decks come out price wise.

Thats all I have done from the list however... but I still have some time left to go.

Sudden creative urges.

Time flies since my last post.

A month ago I got a sudden urge to be creative, writing and proto-type wise. So initially I started work on my Savage Worlds campaign/rule set - Aegyptvs.  Obviously set in ancient Egypt, but with a lot added in.  I ran the campaign that goes with the rules set a number of years ago and it was probably the best one I have done, even my players said so.  Anyway work progresses on that.

Then I got a sudden urge to do a boardgame, and the best materials I had lying around was a map from one of my old Play-by-Mail games - El Mythico. In its day it was a very good game, but PBM was mostly killed off by the internet... so enter a completely different creature:

El Mythico the Boardgame.

I put a lot of thought and effort into this one, and I am pretty happy with it. We had a playtest last weekend with 3 friends, of various skill levels in boardgaming, and this was pretty good. The mechanics worked well, which is a good start. So I am encouraged enough to move forward with it.

Below is the current incarnation of the game map:

It actually looks pretty good if I do say so myself. We got a professional artist to paint the original map (back before digital), and then had a bunch of maps printed. I got the maps scanned and spent a lot of time playing around with Paintshop getting a nice colour and feel.  I then used MS Image Composer (my god this is a useful tool, why on earth did MS drop it?) to put all the components (area boxes) onto the original map.  The original map had a hex grid, which is visible still, although I have de-emphasised it. I like the hex grid, it reminds me of serious wargames. ELM-TBG however uses an area based system.

ELM-TBG