Posts

Showing posts from January, 2012

Found it!

Image
Figured it out... I was wondering what caused this latest spike in sales.  Turns out someone posted a favorable review on Reddit , which got a little traction and generated some sales.  Pretty neat.  It was really killing me to know that there was something out there, but I didn't know what it was.  Pretty cool.

Purple Mountaineers!

Purple Duck Games is currently looking for: 1) Playtest groups to run through Purple Mountain Level 10. If you have a group that is interested in playing drop me an email or level a comment. 2) Writers to work on additional levels of Purple Mountain. Drop me an email if you have the time and the inclination to be part of this huge project!

Sales Data

Image
Hidden in Plain Sight is closing in on 1000 sales. I think the sales graph is pretty nifty.  There's a nice little bump where the Joystiq Indie Pitch article hit. Also note that the sales seem to be progressing pretty linearly.  Contrast this with Bad Golf's sales over the first three months: Very different curves, neh?  I'm not sure what it means, but it's interesting.

Eisenkern Heavy Trooper (Preview) 28-32mm miniatures

Image
I am pleased to introduce the Eisenkern Heavy Trooper. Shown here are the three variants. On the left, an anti-personnel or AA mount, nothing says suppressive fire like a quad S.A.W.   Center, is an assault specialist armed with a power sword and wearing the fluted commander’s helm and chest armor. To the right, a belt fed auto-cannon to deal with that armor problem. Quad mount front Quad mount rear Assault specialist front Assault specialist rear Auto-cannon front Auto-cannon rear Here is the optional helm for those that prefer a more unified WWII/Weird war feel. Here is an exploded view. Note the separate arms, head and shoulders… this will allow the modeler to use components from other miniatures to keep a cohesive look to their weapons, no matter what game they choose. Here is a scale comparison with a Sturmtruppen. Here is a scale comparison with another manufacturer’s sci-fi mini. Note: These will be very slightly taller than most 28mm scale at 33.5mm from t

I'm in a funk...

No games to play...  No game projects to work on. Bleah.

Encounter - Blizzard of Loss

Image
Yuki-onna by Michael Scotta This image is available as stock art from Michael Scotta and Purple Duck Games Blizzard of Loss Environment:  Cold forest Encounter Level:  8 (4,800)    Area : The encounter takes place in a remote hamlet deep within the forest. The area is currently within the grip of a terrible snowstorm  and the hamlet presents the characters with refuge from death by exposure.     Situation:  The player characters have been travelling for some time across the snow landscape as part of another quest when suddenly the weather takes a turn for the worse. While making their way through the snow and wind players may detect the presence of a small hamlet (Perception DC 20; -4 penalty due to inclement weather).    The hamlet provides a dozen empty houses that can provide shelter from the store and a single occupied house. The owner of the house is an elderly man named Kousei. Kousei is currently frightened as he is being stalked by a yuki-onna and has and unfriendly attitude.

Sneak peek of an Eisenkern Heavy Trooper

Image
Still a W.I.P. Here is one of three troopers for the "heavy" trooper class. The soldier is clad in full power armor and wielding a quad mount machine gun. On his back is an auto-loader system to reload his main weapon as well as a massive power supply for his armor. There will be three heavy troopers…. More to follow….   TGN has nominated the Leviathan Mortis and Crusader for best vehicle 2011. If you feel either of these should win, please head over and vote HERE

Narrative not a game mechanic?

Introduction I just stumbled upon Raph Koster's "Narrative is not a game mechanic" and found that it contains some stuff that I do not really agree with. Now, thinking somebody on the internet is wrong happens all the time, but I think this article brings up some stuff that warrants a reply. While it has up a few good points, it also contains views on a few concept that I think can be quite damaging when trying to expand upon the medium of videogames. "Game" The word game is a very broad and fuzzy one. I can refer to boardgames, gambling, politics, drug dealing , sports and whatnot. For more part of the the article, Raph seems to be talking about videogames (given the black box analogy and that he specifically says "racing videogame"), but then later on slot machines and choose-your-own-stories are used as examples. Now one can see this as just using simply making a point, but I think the unclarity leads to an important issue: Videogames are very dif

Random Encounters, Otyughnomicon and Grindylows

Image
Even More Random Encounters Remastered by David Nicholas Ross Last week, Purple Duck Games saw the release of its two newest products. The first was Even More Random Encounters Remastered by David Nicholas Ross. This is the third and final release in the Random Encounters Remastered line. It has been very successful for us but with the release of this third volume which covers encounters in the bowels of the earth, endless caverns, highlands, scorched wastes, windswept plains and the within the teeming veldt we have cover most of the possible wilderness environments. If you have suggestions for other environments then please leave a comment or drop me an email . Grindylows by Michael Scotta The second release was the third volume of our template line known as the Otyughnomicon. The Typhoon-Kissed Otyugh  was written by Sam Hing and presents the typhoon-kissed template along with an encounter with otyughs, brass dragons and a tribe of grindylow. I really like grindylow as a monstrous r

Nominated for best vehicle of 2011

Image
I am pleased to announce that the Leviathan Mortis and Leviathan Crusader have both been nominated for best vehicle of the year by Table Top Gaming News! Voting for the best game, miniature, vehicle and others is still on going and ends Friday the 20 th . The winner is chosen by you! If you feel the Crusader and Mortis are some of the best game vehicles for 2011, please head on over and cast your vote . Your help is truly appreciated. UPDATE :) this is a msg from TGN. Hey guys, For those of you that went and checked out the polls for voting last night saw that there were nominations missing. I am working to fix that problem and make sure that all of the nominations are available for voting. Then the voting process will resume next Monday! Thank you for all the entries for the Reader’s Choice awards, and for your patience. Ross All the best! Mark- DreamForge-Games

Great Review...

This review brought a tear to my eye... http://nerdmentality.com/article/5925/review-hidden-in-plain-sight/

More fan email...

I just noticed I had a Facebook message waiting from a few days ago from a random woman.  Almost sure it was spam, I hesitantly opened it.  Best email ever! Mr. Adam Spragg, It is a rarity that I would feel so compelled to send this message. Just to make sure you know right off that this is not a weird message, let me start by saying how big of a fan I am of Bad Golf. Seriously a huge fan. I have showed it to all of my friends and have yet to find a person who is not throughly entertained (although frustrated) by playing this game. As I often download indie games, I recently downloaded another treasure called Hidden in Plain Sight. It is a delight! I have found that our favorite is the death race. Due to the way in which you sign into the game, it appeared that the creator of hidden in plain sight was also the creator of bad golf. With a little lite research, I found your name. This message has two purposes. One of which is to let you know personally that your ga

State of the Duck - 2011 Review

Image
The State of the Duck (2011 - Year in Review) It’s the 4 th of January 2012 and I thought I would take a moment to discuss how the last year has gone for Purple Duck Games. I’ve never ever written a “year-in-review” before and I don’t believe Stefen has either so please bear with me as I struggle through this post. Who the Duck is in charge? Purple Duck Games is the creative partnership of Stefen Styrsky and Mark Gedak. Mark was hosting a PBEM campaign Stefen joined. The campaign was a miserable failure as were all of Mark’s future attempts to run PBEM games, but Stefen and Mark continued to communicate and work together. Mark Gedak was the owner of the Grand OGL Wiki and Stefen became a contributor to an experiment on that site known as the DM Sketchpad. Their collaboration on the Grand OGL Wiki led them to work write Forgotten Foes with Bret Boyd (Tricky Owlbear Publishing) and Axel K. Carlsson (Headless Hydra Games).  Mark had the bright idea to continue their collaboration on a mo

Best of 2011

Image
Since 2012 is here I thought it might be a good time for a short best of 2011 list! Note that only games that have been released during 2011 are included (and not games that I have played last year). So without further ado, here are my top picks from the past year (starting in reverse order, to make things exciting!): 3 - Portal 2 What I liked the most about Portal 2 were these little moments where you really felt immersed in the world. For example if you hesitate to follow Wheatly's advice and a make a not very safe looking leap down, he will try to persuade you using hilarious quips. These (unfortunately sparse) moments created this kind of special connection to characters you rarely see in games. There also exists a very strong sense of place in Portal 2. I think this is mostly created by how the dialog and environments come together and interact. Unfortunately most of this is in the first third or so and the game becomes more and more drawn out during the end. There is also a