Game in a Weekend: Ludum Dare Success

Ludum Dare is over, and the result is I now have a "D" next to my name on Kongregate. The "D" dear readers, stands for developer. I have now published a game on Kongregate. My development partner has published his own entries on his Kong account, so I got to put this one on mine.

Here it is: http://www.kongregate.com/games/hakoMike/fade

The theme of the event was "minimalism" and graphically it is quite minimal. Is it great? No, not at all. Is it a functional game (albeit with no losing condition) created in a portion of a weekend? Yes. Yes it is. As a learning experience it was great. I feel equipped to take on more ambitious gamedev projects now. You will likely hear of them here.

Ludum Dare ... Game Jam Time!

This weekend is Ludum Dare, the themed game development compo/jam across the world. I attempted to do something solo for the competition a while ago but didn't get very far. This time around I will be working with my coworker jomomomo and our families to produce something for the "game jam" portion. There's no competition for this part, but you get an extra day and we're looking forward to using what we've learned on our gamedev lunch sessions.

So far, we've been putting together a quickie vertical scroller, which will eventually become a shooter. It's hosted at http://github.com/jmorast/LunchHaxe if you want to see the code. It's all in Haxe using the NME and Flixel libraries. Good stuff, Maynard. The cool part is it ports directly to my android phone with no coding changes required.
And now I'm going attempt to embed the silly little WIP.....


Hey, it looks like it worked! The arrow keys move left and right... and that's it! No shooting. No collision. Nothing. Yay. The part about cross development for Android is exciting to me. It can do iPhone as well, but I'm skeptical about my ability to do this with no iPhone or Mac of my own. From what I can tell in this how-to videos, the process isn't entirely straightforward.

I just can't connect all the dots from start to finish...

 The Ludum Dare theme will be announced at 9:00PM Eastern time!

Legend of the Nurglecorn

In the grim darkness of the far future, yadda yadda yadda. From the same novelty store that sold the flies that I made into Nurgle Furies, this $0.99 plastic unicorn becomes ... something. I'm not sure what yet. He's on a 40mm base, so I could either use him as a spawn, a beast of Nurgle, or maybe even something like putting a chaos space marine lord on him and counting it as a bike. Or a palanquin of Nurgle maybe... the options are endless.

I started by hollowing out the abdominal cavity some (influenced by the KD:M antelope no doubt) and carving the mouth back and the eyes out. The original mouth was closed, so that was a bit of work. The intestines are milliput rolled out and given segmentation by rolling a stick of balsa at intervals. My wife suggested the ragged skin at the abdominal opening (love that woman!) and that is made from thin paper towel and super glue. I just tore a strip of paper and glued it to the border, soaking the strip, The tear was ragged enough to do most of the work, but I reshaped some of it with snips after the fact.

The mane and tail were, go figure, originally green. The unicorn was pink, I think. Funny, I can't remember now. Anyway, he got a base of the usual corrugated styrene that I've been using plus some Vallejo heavy gel with a light drybrush of Praxeti white. If you haven't used the new Citadel dry colors, they are awfully strange, more like a gel than a paint. They remind me of oatmeal with not quite enough liquid in it.

All those years in art school won't help you now Eldar

Kingdom Death Resin First Model

I know Monster is a long way off, but I thought I'd show my one and only Kingdom Death model, in all its completely unassembled glory. The model in question is "Beyond the Wall" which depicts a survivor hiding, terrified. The vignette feels like there is more going on than one can see. I love that untold story feeling. The pic on their site shows the model well.

Notice the "not aimed at crotch" angle

The packaging shows how a boutique manufacturer differs from a mass manufacturer. From the stamped card box to the included art print, even to the black tissue used to pad the mailing box, it just drips with classy execution.

Presentation means a lot here

The resin is absolutely gorgeous. I don't have a ton of experience with resin models, but this one is far superior to what I'm used to. The cast is absolutely flawless. Only the McVey models I have rival this level of quality. Two torsos are included, one of which is dressed as in the illustration. The alternate torso does not have all the armor but is still clothed (to an extent.) The legs join the torso where the stockings end, so assembly should not require too much smoothing. The head is my favorite part, with deep crevices in the tousled hair and great expressive eyes.

pictured with the art card in the box

The base is nondescript, and honestly a bit disappointing. The wall is nice, but the circle is just too plain to warrant using resin. A 50mm styrene base would have accomplished about the same. I will probably either paint faces into it (a la Monster) or sculpt something more interesting.

The piece also comes with a postcard artwork prominently displaying the subject's crotch. Way to keep it classy, guys.

This is in contrast to the portion of the illustration shown on their web site, which oddly enough is the exact aspect ratio of a postcard in landscape. Oh, the choices we make.

Eye-rolling aside, it's a nice model. The attention to detail on the sculpt and casting makes me anticipate getting Monster all the more. 

The $5 Nurgle Fury Unit

I have been playing around with Chaos Daemons, more from a fun approach than a game approach. There is a local novelty store across the street from The Model Cave, so I decided to see what they had in terms of a fly for a fury proxy.

As it turns out, the plastic flies they had were pretty much perfect and I bought a full unit's worth for $5. To bulk them up a little and give someplace to put the brass rod I added some black milliput to the abdominal cavity. The paint job is mostly Nurgling Green drybrushing, with some of a lighter green too (the name of which I can't remember.) Tamiya clear yellow (thank you, Javi!) was used to tint the wings. The eyes are Vallejo air color silver (my single favorite brush on silver of all time) with a coat of Tamiya clear yellow over it, then a green wash on the bottom half of the eyes. The legs are not changed. 

A base, a little cork and some Vallejo plastic putty snow later we have a full unit of these pretties.

Ultraforge Greater Plague Demon

Not bad for a night's work. I am slightly mystified at this model's disappearance from the Ultraforge lineup. Dakka Dakka forum threads as long ago as 2009 confirm that it's gone and not coming back, and theorize that GW cease-and-desisted poor Sophia. All blame casting aside, I am glad that I have one of these.

You like grilled cheese?

Like all Ultraforge minis, he's resin and horrifically hydrophobic. Seriously getting this guy even primed was like putting two like pole magnets together. Scrub and scrub these minis until you don't think there could possibly be any mold release left, then double the time spent scrubbing. I kind of surprised myself painting him this far in one night. It was regular hobby night and we started early, so this is maybe 4.5 hours work. He was only primed before that.

Oh, and he's big. Like Forgeworld GUO big.

You! Stand still laddie!

We Need More Zombie Antelope

I finalized my Kingdom Death Monster Kickstarter pledge today. Realization: I really need to stay off Kickstarter.

Imma hoof you!

I really find the artistic direction of Kingdom Death appealing. All fantasy is a collection of tropes and cliches at this point, and a good execution requires expertly picking your cliches and fitting them to your imagery. Say what you will about the hyper-sexualization of that world, Kingdom Death Monster is stylish, disturbing and consistent.

The mini I am most excited about painting from the game is the never-really-mentioned antelope. He appears for a moment in the Kickstarter pitch video and in group shots of the game contents, but that's it. I l love the eviscerated abdominal cavity, the exposed musculature, the bushy tail, all of it! It's the sort of mini that I want to show to every manufacturer as an example of how to still be original with cliches like zombie animals.

Sanguinary Guard and a Sandwich

Yes, they're very gold. It's kinda their thing.

 The Sanguinary Guard are complete. Well, at least as complete as they are going to get because I'm giving them to their recipient now. It's March, and we're getting into ridiculous territory for late Christmas present. Talking with my friend today, he mentioned selling some of his Blood Angels, so I may deliver these guys just in time to be complete pointless. Whoops.

CMON link for attractive, intelligent people.

==== Completely Unrelated ====

Take a Wendy's Crispy Chicken sandwich, no mayo. Take a Wendy's Junior Bacon Cheeseburger, also no mayo. Take the bottom bun off the chicken sandwich and the top bun off the burger, then combine them to make The Barnyard. Chicken, cow and pig surrounded by lettuce, tomato, cheese and wheat. I feel so rustic. Also fat.

Man's Greatest Culinary Triumph

The Plan Backfires

In an attempt to diverge from the path of "everything 30% complete" that I seemed to have been on lately, I attempted a new policy of not switching figures once I started painting one. I would paint it start to finish. Wow, did that go wrong. Instead of focusing me on painting one model, I ended up just not painting if I didn't feel like painting the current exclusive model-of-the-moment. Whoops.

Anyway, here is the current thing I am finishing. Yes, that's the same model that was going to be part of someone's Christmas gift. It still is, just a tad belated.

A few things need completion (including the gems and top piece) and there is some cleanup to do. I tried to stick to the box art for the banner as much as possible, but I'll be going with a darker cloth base to match the wings I did with the darker interior.  I did learn one thing with this... don't make the background of any detail work a series of paints and washes. You will inevitably need to fix some slop and you'll never get it right if the fix is elaborate. Stick to paint color that you can reproduce easily in one small spot.

I have been trying to transition to the new GW paint set someone bought me for Christmas. Ouch. I am surprised how much of my planning involved knowing the colors of the old range. I find myself scanning the cardboard "chest" that holds the paint jars (a great idea if you ask me) for something that looks like color x.

Thrift Store Treasure = Good Photography

So I found myself at a Salvation Army thrift store recently. Now typically I can't stand pawing through thrift stores or garage sales... that's not to say that good things can't be had, only that I have no talent for finding them. (In contrast, my brother-in-law excels at finding things that will have 10x eBay value.) Anywho, I come across a "Clairol True-To-Light VIII" in the electronics area, which looks to be a lighted vanity for seeing how your makeup looks in various light-types. There are settings for day, office, evening and home. Two fluorescent tubes provide the light, and colored filters provide the difference in light coloring. On a whim I dropped the $6 figuring I could try it for photographing minis.

Here is the setup I contrived. I took out the central rotating mirror from the vanity and stuck a plastic tab on the bottom with construction adhesive. The stand it came with was made to tip it back so one could look slightly downward at it, not really conducive to my intended purpose. The backdrop for the mini is a 40k Razorback box I hacked up with a piece of thick gray poster-board nestled in it.

So then I started taking some pictures... and .... wow!

I have never, never gotten a good photo of this guy. Until now. This was my first attempt at a Golden Daemon entry and it got an honorable mention, finishing just behind Cathy Wappel's bronze winning Chaos Spawn.  I'm tempted to throw this guy back up on cmon now that I have a decent pic.
 

And this feller is what I actually won a daemon for. Again, a better photo than I have ever taken of him.

Best $6 I've spent this year.

The Perils of Low Light Painting

No no no no NO. How many times will I fall into this trap of stupidity.

So, there I was, painting up some Sedition Wars Vanguard troopers. They weren't anything special, just tabletop quality. A little clean, a little dirty. I have enough of these that I can use a few to get a feel for the model before I try to make anything look nice. Still, I was pretty happy with the overall effect.

30 points of shooty goodness

For reasons of sheer laziness I had painted under my kitchen overhead lights instead of my Ott or gooseneck CF lamps. I thought, "Hey, the light isn't that different, right? I mean, how much could light affect my ... OH MY LANDS WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR FACE, WOMAN?"

Looks like phase 2 infection to me

Seriously, what looked like a smooth skin tone and decent eyes from my overhead light looked like horrible acne scar makeup death mask under real light. On top of the acrylic texture issues, the mold line remnants don't help one bit. So are they getting repainted? Noop! Like I said, I have so many of these that I don't care all that much if some look like crap. I'm certainly capable of painting faces (shameless, I know) but this one is going to stay disfigured. Maybe I'll paint a big scar there. I dunno.

I still haven't come to grips with this plastic either. The mold lines are just torture to remove for me. Maybe I should have bid for the chance to spend the day with Mike & Aly at their paint studio just to learn how to clean the models. Sigh.

Ubuntu Wireless and 2Wire U-verse wifi

Ah, technology. It enables us to do so many things, yet spend so many hours banging our heads against a brick wall trying to get the simplest thing working. Like Wifi and my Ubuntu laptop. For the longest time it just worked with my home network. Then it didn't. Then it did. Nothing that I am aware of changed.

Finally, after a little poking around I determined the problem was the Wifi encryption protocol. Ubuntu and the 2Wire router play just fine with WPA-PSK (TKIP) but not with WPA2-PSK (AES). So when the router is set to use either, of course the two of them negotiate to use the one that doesn't work. Yay, technology. The solution was the tell the router to only use WPA-PSK (TKIP). Every other router I've tried just works with my laptop, but something about those 2Wire routers is just odd.

Anyway.... played Sedition Wars for the first time last night. Lots of rule questions. Lots of inconsistent terminology in the rulebook. I guess it's a matter of "come for the miniatures, stay for the voluminous FAQ and errata." All the same it has a lot of fun potential, and the wonderful cinematic climax to scenario 1 was worth the game. Everyone was pretty happy at the end. Vanguard won, by the skin of their teeth. One more turn would have ended it. I love a close game.

Sedition Wars: Patient Zero Identified

Last night was hobby night and the first of the Sedition Wars: Battle for Alabaster minis got painted. There are maybe 100 figs total in the "Biohazard" level Kickstart package, so assuming one model per night I have a good amount of painting ahead of me. 

This is a start to finish one night paint job, and that leads to my new "thing." I'm going to try and stay focused on any model I start to paint until it's finished. I have way too many models at the 25% completion level, and I want them to be done. They don't have to be painting competition level or perfunctory level, just done. Like Mr. Revenant here. Done. 1% of the way to fully painted SW:BfA set. I am not limiting myself in the same way for building models, since I might want to assemble some for gaming, but once paint touches a model all others shall be forsaken until that one is done.

In other news, Khador Brian brought in FFG's X-Wing and we played at lunch. Wow, is that fun. Simple rules and nice pre-painted models meant everyone could get into the game easily. Matt immediately realized that he would be dropping a lot of money on this game, and I know he was shopping online shortly after lunch. Larger battles appear to be in our future.

Last Of The Horsemen

An epic poem of seriously inside humor

No more the crack of salty seeds
no more the jest at some's expense
the final horseman met his end
hear now his final tale

In days gone by of fleeting youth
the horseman stood flanked by his peers
but years did pass and fade they did
and left him last to stand alone

Though challengers arose in turn
outlast each one in turn he did
as years went by he persevered
by moving not an inch

But at last the vicious beast
reared its vile head and roared
Amperdragon was its name
Its bane a thing of arcane lore

Long fought the two in fields of strife
What manner of epic conflict this?
What can you say of struggles such?
What knowledge can you lend?

At last the arcane lore revealed
the beast was slain and vanish did
to be replaced by the next threat
an endless queue of ceaseless foes

But in the end the horseman's foe
revealed to be his hand alone
and now the horemen gone are they
their legacy to be forgot

=====

Have you ever wondered what could fill someone's shoes, only to discover that those shoes were actually rotting squirrel carcasses held together with scotch tape and bits of twine? Yeah, better buy some new shoes.

Overcoming the Sedition Wars Glass Ceiling

An analysis of the "Biohazard" level kickstarter rewards, Vanguard faction.

14 male Vanguard models

• 4 w/ heavy weapon (29%)
• 9 w/ helmet (64%)
• 2 hero classification (14%)

19 female Vanguard models

• 6 w/ heavy weapon (31%)
• 8 w/ helmet (42%)
• 1 hero classification (5%)
• 1 commander classification (5%)

If you are a female Vanguard you are less likely to be assigned a helmet and less likely to receive a promotion from trooper to hero. You are more likely to be promoted from hero to commander. You are slightly more likely to receive a heavy weapon. Those promoted to hero or assigned a heavy weapon cost the same as their male counterpart. 

Looking over the breakdown, I note that the two female Vanguard promoted to hero or above have some form of mechanical augmentation. Akosha Nama is a cyborg and Captain Kara Black has a bionic arm. Does this imply that females must suffer some mutilation to advance in the Vanguard ranks? Or perhaps that one must put herself in harm's way more than the average trooper to be considered for promotion? No Vanguard of hero level or above wears a helmet, save for Vade's rebreather mask. Could the stark discrepancy of helmet use between male and female troopers be an attempt by female troopers to show that they are like their superiors and not averse to risk?

I have daughters of my own, and should they choose the Vanguard as a career choice they should be able to advance within the ranks based on their talent, not their bionics or ability to stay perfectly coiffed through the entire scenario.

Stay tuned for the next article in this series where we tackle Strain bias against bipeds in high level classifications.

/// end transmission ///

I started building my Vanguard force last night, and I am torn between loving the models and feeling a little crazy about getting the mold lines cleaned off. I never got the hang of this new plastic, either in Privateer Press models or now McVey. I shudder to think of all the struggling I will do when my Bones vampire level gets here.

I love that they all come with bases like this, but having to pin each one onto the base is going to be a bit of a pain. I'm using a new alchemy called "Loctite Plastics Bonder" which is a combination activator and cyanoacrylate that they claim will create a very strong bond. I'll do a couple models to the base with this stuff and try a drop test and report back. The tests I've done so far seem like the stuff is pretty strong.

 Here's a little scale pic of the SW minis. From left, Warmachine Protectorate of Menoth Deliverer, Sedition Wars Vanguard Reaver, spess mreen, Wargames Factory shock trooper, GW Chaos cultist, Wargames Factory zombie. The primary difference I see is that the head is more adult proportioned than some of the heroic scale minis. That lends to the illusion that the mini is smaller/shorter even though they are comparable.

Can't wait to play some Sedition Wars!

I Will Finally Own A Quality Painted Miniature!

James Wappel, one of my painting heroes, has just kickstarted his series of painting tutorial DVD's. The full set is not, shall we say, inexpensive. At 100 minutes each, I also wonder why the colors red, blue and green need their own DVD, or why multiple flesh tones need their own DVD. Hey, you know what? It's his party and if I painted as well as him I'd be in a much better position to judge that.

Here's what I'm excited about: one of the reward levels gets you a DVD plus the miniature painted for the DVD. I don't think it's the actual mini painted for the tutorial... the text says "you will receive a PAINTED VERSION of the mini that is featured on the DVD!!"  If you've ever priced a really good commission figure you'll know that getting the DVD and the figure for $135 is a steal. 

Turn, Turn, Turn 2013

Well, apparently the world didn't end. Kinda makes me wish I had paid my mortgage in December.

Plans for 2013? They are well defined, with bullet lists of actionable items following the continual improvement cycle as seen below. Okay, maybe not.

I usually skip step 3 altogether and replace step 1 with "Purchase"

I refuse to make New Year Resolutions, because I have enough failed commitments to feel guilty about without having to include myself in the mix. Perhaps 2013 will be the year of hobby self indulgence for me. I will work on what I want to and not feel obligated to get anything done for any reason. Ah, who am I kidding? 2013 will be an endless series of artificial deadlines that mean nothing, flitting aimlessly from hobby idea to hobby idea and never completing anything I start. You know, kind of like every other year.

Here's the current situation:

1. I am finally finishing a Christmas present for a friend. It's been quite a long time coming, but the models look nice.
2. I am working on my Chaos Space Marines, but now that I have enough functional models to play I do not feel driven to build. The box of 30 Zombie Vixens I just picked up will add to my Typhus list nicely when mixed in with my other 30 all-male zombies. That's a whole lot of scoring, fearless, FNP troops.
3. I eagerly await the arrival of my box of Pirate Gobbos.
4. I eagerly await the arrival of Sedition Wars: The Battle for Alabaster.
5. I eagerly await the arrival of Reaper Bones, Vampire level.
6. I anxiously peruse the fan-made Kingdom Death Monster pledge calculator to try and allocate my meager funds to the various tantalizing expansions. (And no, the pinup models are not, nor are they the cause of, "tantalizing expansions" no matter what your dirty little mind is thinking.)
7. I am playing Talisman for the first time, and have committed (hah! see! already!) myself to paint whatever model wins each game. So far the Troll and Prophetess are in the queue, with the Troll already started.
8. I am playing Evil Baby Orphanage. It plays quickly and is tons of fun. We love shouting "USE YOUR WORDS!" at each other and other parental nonsense.
9. Something Blood Bowl-ish or Warmachine-y or Skavenesque. When I feel like it.
10. FTL. Soooo much FTL. I think I'm up to about 300 games played and 2 wins. This is the best $10 you can spend on gaming right now IMHO, since it goes to the developer.
11. Fallout 3, which I picked up for $4.49 at local Gamestop. I play for a while, laugh when I die horribly, realize I'm motion sick and then stop playing. I had motion sickness problems playing old PC games with poor frame rates, but I attribute this to my inability to keep my viewing angle reasonable with the PS3 controller. Seriously, it's like I have lost all control over my neck muscles or something.
12. Dungeon Village ... seriously. There has been a major update on Book of Heroes and I still find myself going back to DV over and over. Must.... get.... 5..... stars......
13. Thinking about game design... I have three ideas that I have been trying to flesh out for a while. They are very different scale, and I would like to eventually see one of them come to fruition, at the very least as a homebrew thingy.
14. Mobile/Flash development. haxe-NME is still the platform I've picked for my Android/Flash dev, and I really want to get something done and posted to Kongregate. Maybe a completed Ludum Dare entry, like my work buddy jomomomo has been doing.

Yep. Laser focus.

Stupidly Easy Tabletop Gold

I'm painting some gold power armor, and I am pretty happy with the gold tones I'm getting currently. Here is the stupidly easy recipe. It works great with you have multiple models to paint gold. Remember to let each step dry adequately before going on to the next.

1. Paint the area (or entire model in this case) Vallejo Model Air silver. The brand is important here. Model Air silver goes on incredibly smooth and even. What you are seeing in the pic is one coat, and not a thick one. It comes fairly thin out of the bottle. Once you try this you will abandon all others.

2. Wash with yellow ink. In this case I used Privateer Press's version. Keep the ink moving to avoid it pooling any one place too thick. It's hard to screw this step up unless you didn't wait long enough for the silver to dry or to proceed to the next step before the ink is dry. I tried mixing the yellow into into the silver to try for the same effect but it came out looking like antique gold, not nearly as vibrant as I wanted.

3. Heavy wash sepia. Use this to get contrast where things connect and basic deep shadow washing. Try not to let it pool on a surface too bad, but even if it does that's not terrible.

4. Heavy drybrush bright gold. In this case I used VGC Polished Gold. Make sure to hit any areas where the wash made tide marks. After gold, drybrush very selectively with silver to get top highlights.

That's it! You could probably go more lightly on step 4 if you wanted the gold more yellow, or maybe just apply the sepia wash more precisely so less correction is needed.

Die In 1000 Fires

I cannot say enough good things about FTL. After hundreds of plays, I still have not won it, and yet I keep playing. In that sense it's like Nethack, and just like that venerable favorite death is permanent, "hardcore" if you will. It's hard (at least to me.) Most games I play end something like this:

The game itself is a race across a series of randomly generated star maps, jumping from system to system and either fighting other ships, rescuing castaways (who may be helpful or suicidal and destructive) and trading at shops for better weapons and systems. 

Eventually you will encounter all the various planet/ship combinations, but the game continues to be fun. Unlocking new ships though various challenges only adds to the challenge. I have taken to calling the game "Die In A Fire" for good reason. Like Nethack, dying is frustrating and so very much fun.

It's available for only $6.99, for Windows, Mac and (gasp) Linux. I play the Linux version. Go buy it! Now!

Standard Template Construct Contest Voting

Voting is open in the Standard Template Construct Champion of Chaos contest. There are some fantastic entries, too!

So go and vote on best painted and best converted. Of course, if you wanted to cast your vote for Chaos Fan I wouldn't be disappointed.