Now for a month or so of playtesting!
It's finally arrived from The Game Crafter, and it's looking good! A few minor colour and sizing issues to sort but very happy!
Now for a month or so of playtesting!
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... that's pronounced Cube Quest, and it's the latest game in development at sinocono!
DIY prototyping last month was great, but double sided tape and thin card just doesn't hold together very long, so a full prototype has been ordered from the Game Crafter and should be here for testing within the month The game takes lots of the most memorable classic Dungeons & Dragons style monsters, spells, traps etc and distills them down to very basic rules and imagery, with adventures played out on 35 cubes (dice), representing the dungeon, creatures, treasures, characters, spells, traps etc CUB QST can be played single or multi-player, with the ultimate aim to collect more treasure than your opponents (or beat your own treasure hunting record), or to out-play the Cube Master (Dungeon Master) in competitive multi-player games Some of the cube stickers for creatures (Zombie, Demon, Dragon and Medusa) and other game elements are below, simple graphics to get your imagination going! More news soon! Seems that just as one game nears completion, another one is born and takes up all the precious resources! The new game is a dice based dungeon crawler, drawing on the classic creatures and dungeoneering elements from early Dungeons and Dragons. By simplifying these elements, and using a minimal graphic style to maximise imaginative play, we think this will be an enjoyable dungeon romp! Here is a very DIY attempt at prototyping it! The final game looks like it will have around 30 dice, representing dungeons, caverns, creatures, characters, traps and treasures.
Graphics are almost ready to get a GameCrafter prototype produced, so keep an eye out for more updates on our website! SOURCES is now available at the Game Crafter website, why not check it out here ?!
Really, really pleased with how SOURCES has turned out, plays great, ideal for a quick game session for two to four wizards And other projects are now on the move... The retro computer game is 99% done, just waiting on some final graphics, and for someone to guess which game it is! I think it is much more obscure than we first thought! Art on the zombie game is coming on, and a new game, a solo or possibly multi player game based on a haunting at a Victorian mansion, with Cluedo like elements is now in development, more on that soon Just awaiting a proof copy of SOURCES now for final checks then we are away! I imagine B-Side Games will be enjoying their proof copy a lot sooner than us, sometimes living in the UK and having to wait for US post sucks!
Progress on the other sinocono games is now gathering pace - the solo / two player game based on a retro computer game is almost there but a last minute hitch accessing some of the original graphics is holding things up. But the guys at AmigaCD32.com have been brilliantly helpful in looking at the files to try to convert them. That's a bit more of a clue as to the identity of the game, it was on the Amiga and CD32 in the early '90s (20 years ago next year hence the need for this anniversary edition!). No one has guessed the identity yet, not even the guys at AmigaCD32.com, have a go, there is a mock up card on the Coming Soon page of this site Cheers Looks like SOURCES is only weeks away from release on the Game Crafter now, just some final testing and checking and it should be available to buy! Here's a look at some more of the spell cards in the game: The first edition will be cards, hit dice and avatars in a tuck box, but we are talking about a 'deluxe' edition in future with a full colour game board, and gems rather than hit dice
Other projects are on hold at the moment whilst SOURCES is finished off, but it will be full steam ahead on these too! These are some mock up cards from a project we are collaborating on with B-Side Games called SOURCES...
In this game, powerful wizards battle against each other by collecting source (water, fire, air and earth above) spells, and combining them to make more powerful spells, like the BEAM OF HURT and the ARROW OF ICE Look out for it soon on The Game Crafter! No one has guessed the name of the retro game we are developing into a card game yet! No clues just yet, just take a look through our past tweets for a few taster cards and see if you can work it out from the graphics, which are straight out of the original game!
Work is going well on that, only hampered by the fact that playtesting it is such fun the cards just aren't being developed fast enough! Still, 20 years since the release of the game is next year, so got a while yet to get this commemorate edition out Had a few awesome ideas for the fast paced zombie survival horror game which has been on the back burner, and looking at the market we think they are ideas that haven't been tried yet, so we need to pounce on that one really fast before another developer comes up with the idea - will be keeping this one under wraps until we are close to publication! Have been working feverishly on two games recently...
One is a graphics job for another publisher, on a great sounding game based on elemental forces - really pleased with the graphics so far for that, a little different from the normal style so that is a nice challenge The other is one we will be publishing to commemorate 20 years since the release of a certain computer game with which we were quite closely involved! Graphics are already done - lifted straight from the game so they have a nice retro look, and playtesting is going well. It is our first game with a solo player option, and that is lots of fun! Playing it feels a lot like playing the computer game, which is good for me! The original game had a split screen two player mode (one of the first games to have this!), so there will be a two player mode option in the card game, and that's up for testing next! BLOODTHIRSTY BEASTS Clang! expansion is now available on The GameCrafter, links, rules and more pics here
The beasts look brilliant, and it makes a great addition to the original Clang! CORE ARMY PACK, adding some more strategy into the game And we are so pleased with the consistently good quality of the products The GameCrafter delivers - I think for the next project we will be adventurous and try a game board or some hex cards to see how those turn out too! Clang! expansion BLOODTHIRSTY BEASTS is done and proofing copy is on its way from the Game Crafter! Yay!
Tested this mostly with the kids and it works quite well, adds a good deal of strategy into Clang!, attacking opponents with beasts when they can't use beasts themselves, deciding whether to sacrifice the lead to look for beasts etc More rules and info here and on the Game Crafter soon... Bad news - game testing showed that Fiend Fodder and Mock Monsters just complicated things, so they're out, leaving just the Beast Hunters, and the Beasts they hunt. Good news - special attacks / powers are now in for some creatures, to give a bit of variation and interest.
So Bloodthirsty Beasts is now very close to completion, and gives a whole new strategic thinking aspect to Clang! Bloodthirsty Beasts, the first expansion to Clang! is zooming along now, with the Beasts pretty much there (see the Clang Coming Soon page for some great new pics), and other cards all sketched out. Just a few more cards to finish before the print test and some more realistic game testing (no more half scribbled test cards!)
Decided against summoning beasts (don't like magic in fantasy games, prefer the swords to the sorcery!), and went with Beast Hunters instead - suicidal trappers who risk everything to ensnare monstrous beasts to fight for their army
Clang! needed a stronger strategy element to it, so I thought that rather than just starting with a horde of beasts, players should send out their Beast Hunters to gradually find and trap beasts, but doing so loses you the lead so players need to decide what is more important, short or long term gain. And if Beast Hunters don't manage to trap any monsters, I thought maybe they could return with cartloads of half eaten cattle that littered the monster's trail of destruction (which I've called Fiend Fodder), which can be used to tempt other player's beasts over to their side And if they don't even manage to track a beast, then they spend some time building a huge beast effigy out of old weapons and armor and wood etc (Mock Monsters), which a player can use in place of a beast to fool the enemy into thinking they are being attacked Seems to work on paper, but I need to mock up some cards and get it tested! All of the creatures for Bloodthirsty Beasts, the first Clang! expansion, are done, but the last three or four are proving difficult to name. I've got some corking names in there though, straight from Medieval myths with a bit of a twist!
Now all I need to do is work out just how the expansion works in practice, whether the creatures are 'summoned' from the netherworlds, or whether they are captured and used in a more 'real world' way I like the idea of summoners calling the beasts into being, but then I also like the idea of groups of 'beast handlers' prodding the beasts into battle - decisions! More than halfway through finishing the Bloodthirsty Beasts expansion for Clang! Looking for a release at the end of the Summer or sooner, but really enjoying dreaming up beast after beast in the meantime!
And other game ideas are coming along really well too - the zombie survival horror idea has taken and unexpected turn, and a faster, more energetic multiplayer version is now literally on the cards, and should be complete by the end of the year. The more involved, mission based version will take a bit longer but will be worth the wait! Playtesting a very very early prototype of our survival horror game - trying (unsuccessfully) to escape from a police station surrounded by zombies - when the idea for a game card that shows the overall flow of a game round struck me
Mocked it up and it really helps to remind the player what they should be doing next, and shows all the options they have at a given time - will definitely be included in the final game Shame it couldn't help me being eaten! Never mind, reset the cards and try again ... And time to relax .. feels good to have got our second game out!
TOTEM is finally on The Game Crafter and we think it looks quite good! Time to start work on the next project, the first expansion to Clang! called Bloodthirsty Beasts! |
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