A "quick" summary of last session. The Alpha mission was left on a cliff hanger and they flash backed to the beginning of their careers with the Rebellion. The first time they worked together as a team (3 years prior).
They were sent ahead of the Nebulon B the Blackhawk (yes, the same Blackhawk from the ice planet, about 4 years in the future) to scout a mysterious debris field that was picked up by the Blackhawk's scanners.
When they arrived in their Y-wings they found an Imperial Star Destroyer completely thrashed to bits by some unknown force. From the bridge of the Star Destroyer a distress signal was being emitted and they were ordered to turn it off. They approached half of the split bridge and noticed that the life support was cut off. The team donned their space suits and with 1 hour of air (1 hour of real life time, not simulated, in-game time) entered the wrecked bridge.
Now, I would like to point out at this time the Wookie's R2 unit was damaged after a collision with some debris while entering the debris field. After repairing him, he was using the R2 to help navigate the zero G environment inside the bridge.
They split up to investigate the bridge. Loffy went through the front of the bridge, through main hallways and control rooms. Anya found herself in the back-of-house area of the bridge with security, ship systems, etc. Crystal went into a large mechanical/electrical space filled with wiring and ductwork. Anya discovered bodies in a closed room in the back of house area, figuring that what ever happened to this ship probably happened quickly. Crystal was able to follow some emergency power conduits and discover the emergency generator room. While Loffy was making his way over there, Anya proceeded to unlock the door leading to the EGR. While doing so, she managed to activate a tamper switch which deployed 6 spherical security droids in the EGR, which split up. Two down maintenance tunnels, two towards the hallway with Anya and Loffy, and two out another exit. At this point there was probably 15 minutes of air left.
During the ensueing fight, Loffy's air tank took a hit and lost 5 minutes of air, along with his R2 being caught up in the explosion of one of the droids. This too the Wookie was able to fix. Crystal had a little harder time, though only fighting a single droid. He managed to just run away, even though his glowrod was hit and left with only the heat signature of the conduit to follow. Anya was able to quickly shut down the generator and book it back to the ships.
Loffy was the first to make it back, with seconds of air left in his tank. Where he found the two droids who took a different exit waiting for them. He quickly hopped into his Y-wing and noticed that the droids had flown down and began messing with his engines. Crystal made it to where the ships were and he also hopped into his Y-wing. At this point Anya was still running down back to her ship when one of the droids from the maintenance tunnel popped out and was waiting for her by her Y-wing. The droids took a shot at her and hit some of the loose flooring underneath her and she was flung out into the debris field. Seeing her in trouble, Crystal fired up his Y-wing and took aim to capture her. Realizing his plan, Anya kicked and bounced off pieces of debris and righted herself so she practically fell into the copilots seat in the Y-wing.
The droids on the Wookie's ship were still reeking havoc on his engine (speed now reduced by 2). In a fit of wookie rage, and with a deep breath, Loffy clambered out of his ship with no air left in his tanks, and ripped the bothersome droids off his ship and hurled them into space. He managed to crawl back into the ship moments before he would have passed out. Once inside he realized something Anya and Crystal both missed. Outside of the debris field was now surrounded by Ties and another Star Destroyer.
With Anya's ship now being piloted by it's R2, the three Y-wings burst through the debris field and are engaged by two pairs of ties while they quickly have their R2s make astrogation checks. With no pilot to cloud the R2 unit in Anya's Y-wing, it quickly jumps into hyperspace after taking a few hits. Loffy is next to jump into hyperspace, but by the fur of his teeth. After taking damage from a pair of ties along with the Tie Interceptor that decided to join, his Y-wing was straining to stay together. Just before he was supposed to jump, the Interceptor takes aim and lets off a barrage. His R2 Unit, in a self sacrificing act, quickly makes some last repairs, soaking some of the damage, but in the process breaking free from the Y-wing just as it leap into hyperspace. With Anya and Crystal left, they dodge the incoming fire from the remaining ties and take off as well towards the rendezvous point indicated by the Blackhawk which had jumped near the debris field after the ambush was detected.
The Random Babblings of A Fenngineer
February 17, 2014
November 25, 2013
Grow Prix!
Working on Coup has been a very fun and entertaining experience. Creating cards, boxes, rules, and having them all printed and assembled has been awesome. Now with the prototype just having been shipped, and expected to arrive in a couple of days now, I have started to look for more to do. Having an idea and seeing it come to life has been extremely enjoyable. But with the design work on Coup winding down, I've started looking for new projects to work on.
A couple of days ago, I started working on a new project. Instead of a reprint like Coup, I have decided to create my own micro-game! Coming up with the theme of the game was surprisingly easy. Coming up with the mechanic has been more difficult.
The theme of the game developed from the idea of having competing flower shoppes in Switzerland (Why Switzerland, I'm not quite sure). From there it developed into a flower "pageant" where you tried to get the highest scoring flower wins. But I felt like that was a bit too devoid of meat and finally decided on a sort of Black Jack mechanic. So it turned into a flower competition called the Grow Prix (a play on Gran Prix) where you have to attempt to match and NPC Lilly Gardener, the master gardener who has convinced the Judges that she is the trendsetter in the competition.
The objective of the game is to get a flower as close as possible to that of the NPC Lilly Gardener. The game itself consists of two decks of cards. A Flower deck with 10 different flowers, each with a number named "Petal Points". There is also an Action deck consisting of 9 different actions, allowing you to do many things in an attempt to reach a flower with the Petal Points near that of Lilly. I am waiting for some blank playing cards to come in the mail to play test the game design. Currently, the game can be made for $8.57 a box, about 50¢ cheaper then the coup design. This is most likely due to there being 15 wooden cubes instead of the 50 cardboard shards.
Listed below are the revision zero rules that have been created so far. The cards and flowers have not been included since they are still being worked on. But I will include draft card backs. Colors and designs are just temporary. If you want to check out the current full rules, click here and ignore some of the consistency error.
Rules
The objective of Grow Prix is to have a flower with Pretty Points closest to the flower that Lilly Gardner possess by swapping, modifying, and protecting your flower. The player with the most Championship Tokens (Championships), or the first to 5 Championships wins the game!
The game begins with the 10 flower cards (Flowers) and 18 action cards (Actions) separated into two decks. Place the Lilly Gardener card into the stand. Shuffle the Flowers and deal facedown 1 Flower to each player and 1 Flower to Lilly Gardner. Next, shuffle the Actions and deal 1 Action to each player. The player with the most house plants goes first.
During a round, play rotates clockwise (or counter-clockwise if you're in the Southern Hemisphere). At the start of a player's turn, the player draws one action card. After that, the player must play one Action and must play the effects of the card, even if it does not benefit the player. After the effects have taken place, the next player may take their turn.
The round ends if any of these conditions are met:
At the end of the Round, All Flowers are flipped upright. The players then compare their flowers to Lilly Gardener's Flower. The winner is determined by which Flower's Petal Points are closest to the Petal Points of Lilly Gardener's Flower. If the Kadupul Flower survives at the end of the match, that player automatically wins the round, no matter how near or far from Lilly's Petal Points you are. If two or more players are equally close to Gardener's Flower, the winner is determined by:
If there is still at tie, the player who has no boosts from Actions wins [nature over chemicals].
The winner of the Round receives a Championship Token and the cards are reset for another round.
A couple of days ago, I started working on a new project. Instead of a reprint like Coup, I have decided to create my own micro-game! Coming up with the theme of the game was surprisingly easy. Coming up with the mechanic has been more difficult.
The theme of the game developed from the idea of having competing flower shoppes in Switzerland (Why Switzerland, I'm not quite sure). From there it developed into a flower "pageant" where you tried to get the highest scoring flower wins. But I felt like that was a bit too devoid of meat and finally decided on a sort of Black Jack mechanic. So it turned into a flower competition called the Grow Prix (a play on Gran Prix) where you have to attempt to match and NPC Lilly Gardener, the master gardener who has convinced the Judges that she is the trendsetter in the competition.
The objective of the game is to get a flower as close as possible to that of the NPC Lilly Gardener. The game itself consists of two decks of cards. A Flower deck with 10 different flowers, each with a number named "Petal Points". There is also an Action deck consisting of 9 different actions, allowing you to do many things in an attempt to reach a flower with the Petal Points near that of Lilly. I am waiting for some blank playing cards to come in the mail to play test the game design. Currently, the game can be made for $8.57 a box, about 50¢ cheaper then the coup design. This is most likely due to there being 15 wooden cubes instead of the 50 cardboard shards.
Listed below are the revision zero rules that have been created so far. The cards and flowers have not been included since they are still being worked on. But I will include draft card backs. Colors and designs are just temporary. If you want to check out the current full rules, click here and ignore some of the consistency error.
Rules
The objective of Grow Prix is to have a flower with Pretty Points closest to the flower that Lilly Gardner possess by swapping, modifying, and protecting your flower. The player with the most Championship Tokens (Championships), or the first to 5 Championships wins the game!
The game begins with the 10 flower cards (Flowers) and 18 action cards (Actions) separated into two decks. Place the Lilly Gardener card into the stand. Shuffle the Flowers and deal facedown 1 Flower to each player and 1 Flower to Lilly Gardner. Next, shuffle the Actions and deal 1 Action to each player. The player with the most house plants goes first.
During a round, play rotates clockwise (or counter-clockwise if you're in the Southern Hemisphere). At the start of a player's turn, the player draws one action card. After that, the player must play one Action and must play the effects of the card, even if it does not benefit the player. After the effects have taken place, the next player may take their turn.
The round ends if any of these conditions are met:
- Each player has taken 4 turns.
- There are no more Flowers left to draw.
- There are no more Actions left to draw.
At the end of the Round, All Flowers are flipped upright. The players then compare their flowers to Lilly Gardener's Flower. The winner is determined by which Flower's Petal Points are closest to the Petal Points of Lilly Gardener's Flower. If the Kadupul Flower survives at the end of the match, that player automatically wins the round, no matter how near or far from Lilly's Petal Points you are. If two or more players are equally close to Gardener's Flower, the winner is determined by:
- If Lilly's Flower is >5, the higher number wins [Judges like Complexity].
- If Lilly's Flower is <5, the lower number wins [Judges like Simplicity].
- If Lilly's Flower is =5, then Lilly wins the round. No player receives a Championship.
If there is still at tie, the player who has no boosts from Actions wins [nature over chemicals].
The winner of the Round receives a Championship Token and the cards are reset for another round.
November 24, 2013
Creating A Card Game: Revamping the Rules
Everything I have been doing for my reprint of the game Coup has been done after I stumbled across the rules online. After reading through them, I decided that I liked the game so much that I was going to add it to my collection. Finding that the only way to get this game was to do a reprint, I had to go in and edit the rules.
Revamping the rules for Coup was a fairly simple process. Or at least it became fairly simple after I decided to not re-theme the game. Originally when I decided to go ahead with the reprint I wanted to give it a Space/Future theme. This eventually fizzled out for two reasons. The major one was that it was going to be more difficult to find "open source" artwork to use, and with commissioning artwork taking a lot of time, I decided I was too impatient. It can always be re-skinned after I cut my teeth on the production.
The second reason is that I couldn't come up with Space/Future sounding names for the characters. Or at least ones that would make sense. Captain could stay the same and become a starship captain. Duke might become a Senator and Ambassador might become a Diplomat/Minister. But I didn't like any of these very much. And I had absolutely no idea what to do with the Contessa. Some of these names almost gave way to an American President theme (senator, first lady, president, vice president, assassin). But I found that theme a bit distasteful since it would boil down to political parties trying to kill each other. So in the end I decided to stick with the Italian Mafia style theme.
So the rules themselves were pretty well written. Few exploits or loop holes were found. One concern was the lack of mention of how many actions you can take per turn. Also missing was a description of the turn taking itself. Along with that, continuity errors were cleaned up and consistency throughout the document was improved.
To add a little bit of originality, I decided to change the name of a character in the game. I felt like "Ambassador" was a bit of a mouthful to say. I also felt like, based on my limited knowledge of 16th Century Italian culture, that it didn't fit the game as well. It took me a while to determine an alternate, but I eventually decided on "Governor". In the end, I really like Governor more than Ambassador. Initially, I wanted to change the "Contessa" to something else. But after some digging, I learned that "Contessa" fit the role to a peach. The definition being: an Italian Countess. Using that definition, I might change "Duke" to "Count", but I'll wait until I get my prototype set and get some comments from others.
With all this in mind, I put together the rules. Adding a design, formatting, and etc, I have ended up with my prototype rules sheet. Unfortunately, I didn't read the information on the printing very well, and should not have put the background on the rules set, since the Documents from TheGameCrafter are not full bleed. I could have it printed as a one page "booklet" but I didn't feel like this little reprint should be anything fancy. I wanted to do a minibooklet, but again since this is just a fun little reprint, I didn't devote the time or effort into this.
What I have been working on though have been three extra cards to include with the game. When the game is created, cards are printed in sets of 18. I pay for all 18 cards, even if I don't use them all. So with Coup only having 15 cards, I have 3 cards left for me to do whatever with. With one I have put my "game company". The second card will have a link to a facebook page. The third card will have a link to the Wounded Warrior Project for people do donate to. Concepts for these are included below.
Revamping the rules for Coup was a fairly simple process. Or at least it became fairly simple after I decided to not re-theme the game. Originally when I decided to go ahead with the reprint I wanted to give it a Space/Future theme. This eventually fizzled out for two reasons. The major one was that it was going to be more difficult to find "open source" artwork to use, and with commissioning artwork taking a lot of time, I decided I was too impatient. It can always be re-skinned after I cut my teeth on the production.
The second reason is that I couldn't come up with Space/Future sounding names for the characters. Or at least ones that would make sense. Captain could stay the same and become a starship captain. Duke might become a Senator and Ambassador might become a Diplomat/Minister. But I didn't like any of these very much. And I had absolutely no idea what to do with the Contessa. Some of these names almost gave way to an American President theme (senator, first lady, president, vice president, assassin). But I found that theme a bit distasteful since it would boil down to political parties trying to kill each other. So in the end I decided to stick with the Italian Mafia style theme.
So the rules themselves were pretty well written. Few exploits or loop holes were found. One concern was the lack of mention of how many actions you can take per turn. Also missing was a description of the turn taking itself. Along with that, continuity errors were cleaned up and consistency throughout the document was improved.
To add a little bit of originality, I decided to change the name of a character in the game. I felt like "Ambassador" was a bit of a mouthful to say. I also felt like, based on my limited knowledge of 16th Century Italian culture, that it didn't fit the game as well. It took me a while to determine an alternate, but I eventually decided on "Governor". In the end, I really like Governor more than Ambassador. Initially, I wanted to change the "Contessa" to something else. But after some digging, I learned that "Contessa" fit the role to a peach. The definition being: an Italian Countess. Using that definition, I might change "Duke" to "Count", but I'll wait until I get my prototype set and get some comments from others.
With all this in mind, I put together the rules. Adding a design, formatting, and etc, I have ended up with my prototype rules sheet. Unfortunately, I didn't read the information on the printing very well, and should not have put the background on the rules set, since the Documents from TheGameCrafter are not full bleed. I could have it printed as a one page "booklet" but I didn't feel like this little reprint should be anything fancy. I wanted to do a minibooklet, but again since this is just a fun little reprint, I didn't devote the time or effort into this.
What I have been working on though have been three extra cards to include with the game. When the game is created, cards are printed in sets of 18. I pay for all 18 cards, even if I don't use them all. So with Coup only having 15 cards, I have 3 cards left for me to do whatever with. With one I have put my "game company". The second card will have a link to a facebook page. The third card will have a link to the Wounded Warrior Project for people do donate to. Concepts for these are included below.
November 21, 2013
New Blogger Banner
Here were the three iterations of the The Fenngineer blog banner. Not sure which one I like the best. I like the vector arrow over the 'F'.
November 20, 2013
Creating a Card Game
In the past couple of months I have recently picked up the hobby of listening to podcasts at work. Originally introduced to the hobby through the Geeks of Steel and Order 66, has rekindled my enjoyment of playing paper and pencil RPGs, board games, and card games. So I've gotten with a game group to play some RPGs, taken a trip out to game stores, and started listening to The Dice Tower podcast.
While visiting a nearby store, Underhill's Games, to purchase a copy of Settlers of Catan, I stumbled upon a small game called Love Letter hanging on the rack. It looked like a theme I could get my girlfriend into and play some games with her. Not one to make an impulse buy, I held off and promptly started a week of looking up reviews on the game. The game sounded fun and simple, and with only 15 cards, it was in a niche called microgames. With my incredibly unreasonable microphillia, I had to purchase this game. After playing it, I have to report that I love the game. This began a search for other games to add to my now established microgames collection. I purchased a game called Agent Hunter also by AEG. While the game wasn't as fun as Love Letter, the box and card art looks great, I like the theme, and with 20 cards it fits the microgame genre.
Wanting more, I stumbled across the game Coup, a simple game of bluffing. But when it came to purchasing the game, my efforts became fruitless. It appears that the game was only in print for a short run and that there is no place out there to buy it. I found that a new skinned version of it was up on Kickstarter, but with no release date information (and with a dislike of the artwork), I decided it was as good as nonexistent. I gave up looking for it.
One day while filling through some of the Geeks of Steel podcasts, I was listening to an episode when one of the cohost stammered and it sounded like he said "ice, ice" and I mentally put a "baby" after it. I laughed at myself and briefly wondered how cool it would be to have someone make a chopped up version of the Vanilla Ice song made with bits from the GoS. That's when it hit me. People on the internet create stuff like this all the time and we take that for granted. We think that stuff like the Internet Song just generated by a higher being called the internet. But it's not. It's created by someone who had an idea, put effort into it, and produced this piece of "art". So if it can be done with remixes and mash ups, why can't it be done with a card game? And with the age of the internet, finding the resources and production methods have become almost comically easy.
So, over the past few weeks I have developed a friendship with The Game Crafter and put hours of effort into recreating this game. Being that it was already published, everything I am doing has been under Creative Commons and not for profit. I am working with friends who will be developing artwork for this project later, while I have chosen artwork from online for the time being.
It's been a lot of work, and a lot of fun. And as of Monday, I have sent out for my first prototype set. Over the next few days I will be posting artwork, insight, and photos of the prototype. I will also post reviews, comments, and quotes of people who I will ask for opinions.
So, ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, I present:
While visiting a nearby store, Underhill's Games, to purchase a copy of Settlers of Catan, I stumbled upon a small game called Love Letter hanging on the rack. It looked like a theme I could get my girlfriend into and play some games with her. Not one to make an impulse buy, I held off and promptly started a week of looking up reviews on the game. The game sounded fun and simple, and with only 15 cards, it was in a niche called microgames. With my incredibly unreasonable microphillia, I had to purchase this game. After playing it, I have to report that I love the game. This began a search for other games to add to my now established microgames collection. I purchased a game called Agent Hunter also by AEG. While the game wasn't as fun as Love Letter, the box and card art looks great, I like the theme, and with 20 cards it fits the microgame genre.
Wanting more, I stumbled across the game Coup, a simple game of bluffing. But when it came to purchasing the game, my efforts became fruitless. It appears that the game was only in print for a short run and that there is no place out there to buy it. I found that a new skinned version of it was up on Kickstarter, but with no release date information (and with a dislike of the artwork), I decided it was as good as nonexistent. I gave up looking for it.
One day while filling through some of the Geeks of Steel podcasts, I was listening to an episode when one of the cohost stammered and it sounded like he said "ice, ice" and I mentally put a "baby" after it. I laughed at myself and briefly wondered how cool it would be to have someone make a chopped up version of the Vanilla Ice song made with bits from the GoS. That's when it hit me. People on the internet create stuff like this all the time and we take that for granted. We think that stuff like the Internet Song just generated by a higher being called the internet. But it's not. It's created by someone who had an idea, put effort into it, and produced this piece of "art". So if it can be done with remixes and mash ups, why can't it be done with a card game? And with the age of the internet, finding the resources and production methods have become almost comically easy.
So, over the past few weeks I have developed a friendship with The Game Crafter and put hours of effort into recreating this game. Being that it was already published, everything I am doing has been under Creative Commons and not for profit. I am working with friends who will be developing artwork for this project later, while I have chosen artwork from online for the time being.
It's been a lot of work, and a lot of fun. And as of Monday, I have sent out for my first prototype set. Over the next few days I will be posting artwork, insight, and photos of the prototype. I will also post reviews, comments, and quotes of people who I will ask for opinions.
So, ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, I present:
September 4, 2013
EotE Episode IV: Trouble on Taris
Star Wars: Edge of the Empire Campaign
Attached to this blog post is my Star Wars EotE campaign I ran for my game group. This is the redacted version, so my players could see it.https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4NsejlX9qQeajc3RFJXcDFxN2s/edit?usp=sharing
Nearly a Year Recap
So What has Happened?
So it's been nearly a year since my last post in the Fenngineer blog. Being busy with school, work, and other nonsense has led to a complete lack of posts. But I'm hoping to fill all two of you in on the details! This is probably going to get a bit crazy so let's quickly outline what's going to be talk about in this post.- Senior Design Project - Parker Chainless Challenge
- Tech Projects - Raspberry Pi
- Graduation
- Moving Out - House Hunting
- Games, Games, Games!
Senior Design Project - Parker Chainless Challenge
As part of our schools requirements, all students must do a Senior Design Project during their senior year. Parker-Hannifin's Chainless Challenge is an option our university has had since the start of the competition. In a condensed summary, the Chainless Challenge (CC) is a competition between schools to design and manufacture a bicycle that isn't driven via chains. Typically this is done through hydraulic pumps and motors since Parker is a major hydraulics supplier and developer.During a period of 7 months our team of 7 will develop a completely new design for our bicycle. We quickly learned that would be the only team to develop our own pumps and motors. Our team of 7 split into two groups. My group would develop a fixed displacement radial pump, while the other group developed a variable displacement hydraulic motor.
Tech Projects - Raspberry Pi
During the year, I purchased a Raspberry Pi for fun. The biggest thing I've been doing with it has been using it as a media player with RaspBMC. It was remarkably awesome, able to play my Wall-E bluray rip with no problems. It's currently being used with the RetroPi rom currently on it. I haven't had as much success with it, since I'm currently having problems with the video sizes.Graduation!
As of May, I have officially graduated from Cleveland State University's Fenn College of Engineering, and received a full time job offer in the process. I am no currently focusing on passing my FE exam, and on track to getting my PE License.That's all for now! Look for more in the future (maybe).
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