machai-umno

Within the Temple of the Locust Lord there are five prisoners at the start of the adventurer. They are Tith-Tor (female half-cyclops oracle 1), Armin Carl (male human ranger 1), Querig (male gnome sorcerer 1) and Beatiz Vace (female half-elven rogue 1). Each will be detail here over the next week or so, on the Purple Duck Games blog, should you need their full stats for use as replacement characters while exploring the depths of Purple Mountain. All characters are created using the 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 ability array and are considered player characters. Beatiz Vace ( Female half-elf rogue [bandit] 1) N Medium humanoid (elf) Init  +2; Senses  low-light vision; Perception +3 [Defenses] AC  12, touch 12, flat-footed 10 (+2 Dex) hp  11 (1d8+1) Fort  +1, Ref  +4, Will  +1; +2 vs. enchantment Immune  magical sleep [Offense] Speed  30 ft. Melee  by weapon +3 Ranged  by weapon +2 Special Attacks  sneak attack +1d6 [Statistics] Str 17...

On my drive home from basketball, I had a revelation about a new game mode. It’s been something I’d had kicking around in my noggin for a while, but something just kind of crystallized and it reached a tipping point where I thought it would be worth doing. Here goes: The mode is called “Death Race”. A bunch of characters start out lined up along the left side of the screen. Each player controls a single character.   The rest are NPCs. At the right side of the screen is a finish line. Players can move their character to the right by pushing “A” to walk, or “Y” to run. The NPCs move randomly to the right, starting and stopping randomly, but always moving directly right (think lanes on a racetrack). NPCs always walk.   They never run. The first character to reach the finish line wins! So why not just run from the start? Each player also controls an aiming cross hair.   Pushing up or down on the Dpad will select the next character in the race.   (You don’t need to aim,...

When I released my last game, my old high school friend Aileen contacted me.   She said that her husband is a musician that has been trying to break into the video game business, and to let her know if I make another game.   I’ve met her husband once at our high school reunion, and knew that he did actual music for actual TV shows.   Way out of my league. Anyways, now that I’m actually getting some work done and getting closer to creating a finished product, I emailed Aileen.   I made no bones about what kind of project this is (amateur), and exactly how much I was willing to pay ($0).   There’s plenty of “good enough” music out there that can be had for free.   And I’m all about “good enough”.   Really, the only reason he’d want to participate is if he wanted to be able to tell someone “I made music for a game that a couple hundred people played.”   A pretty raw deal, for sure. Aileen forwarded the email to her husband, who we’ll call “Jim” (be...

Indulge me in a slight rant. Please be aware the new plastic line is 31 mm to the eye of a FULLY ERECT figure, posed, they range from 28-29.75mm to the center of the eye. As the bases are thinner than most, the figures are roughly the same height as most of the major manufacturers. -Example of scale comp- The subject of scale is one that many sculptors wrestle with, I am no acceptation. The use of digital technology to sculpt a miniature provides a certain amount of freedom, the miniature looks the same to me at 15mm or 50mm scale, I can make last minute adjustments on the fly and scale the miniature to my heart’s content. Ultimately, gamers want miniatures that look right with their other minis from manufacturer A, B or C. This is not as easy as it sounds. Place a true scale 28mm mini next to many manufacturers product and it will look small and emaciated by comparison. The whole 28mm scale convention is garbage if you ask me. Scale creep has made it useless and “heroic” scale doubly ...

As a Dakkite pointed out, I had the legs on the cannon backwards. I was thinking about the old wheeled gun carriage when I put the single leg to the rear. These are aimed turned by turning the complete carriage. As this is a pintle mount it would have fallen over when shot with this configuration  :- P It’s always good to have another set of eyes on these things… Here you can see the revised model and gunner position.

Now that the basic troopers are completed, I will turn to fleshing out the other troop choices. The basic unit org. will have: ·          Riflemen (done) ·          Support weapons (SAW) (done) ·          Grenadier (done) ·          Weapons specialist (Sniper) (done) ·          Medic ·          Communications ·          Forward observer ·          Command (officers) Here we have a heavy support AT weapon (PAC38 Short) with a coaxial MG53 Here you can see the mods for Support (SAW) and Grenadier.

I had a couple playtests this weekend, and things generally went well. The first night, it was just me and Mike.   We played through each game mode a couple times. Ninja Party seemed to work really well.   I think aside from adding some scoring, it’s basically good to go. Catch A Thief was ok.   Seems like it needs some tuning. Assassin, for some reason, was better.   I had a hell of a time when I was Sniper, but Mike seemed to have no problem picking me off when the situation was reversed. Knights vs. Ninjas didn’t seem to work well at all, but that was ok, since it was just added that morning and still pretty rough. Then, on Sunday evening, I got the chance to play with Mike and Iwan and Justin for a full four-person session. Again, Ninja Party worked well.   Catch a Thief, again, was just kind of ok.   Assassin was ok.   Knights vs. Ninjas was surprising good. In general, I just wanted to get some feedback that I was on the right track, and that t...

In a burst of inspiration, I've put the broad strokes on a new game.  Actually, I have so much reusable framework stuff in place, it really didn't take too long to put something together. The working title is "Hidden in Plain Sight", and it is a game (actually a couple of different game modes) that revolve around the theme of accomplishing goals while trying to remain hidden.  The original impetus was learning about SpyParty, by Chris Hecker.  That is a 3D game which pits one person (the Spy) against another person (the Sniper).  The Spy wanders around a cocktail party, trying to accomplish goals, but he tries to ACT like he's a computer controlled character.  The Sniper watches carefully, and tries to figure out who the Spy is and kill him. In my own mind, I questioned if the complicated 3D'ness of the game was necessary.  Could the game be boiled down to its essentials, and be a simple 2D game?  I whipped up a quick prototype (which I called "SpyPar...

Divine Favor: the Paladin begins a series I wrote for Open Design meant to expand the options available to divine PCs. This includes new archetypes such as the Templar who carries a piece of the divine within himself, and the Metropolitan, a defender of the urban world and who possesses a sacred link to cities, but also alternate class abilities such as divine aspect. Divine Aspect allows the paladin to infuse his very flesh with the power of his deity, granting him greater strength, resilience and combat prowess. There's also suggestions on to build a paladin PC with regards to ability scores, and spell and feat selection. The series will also cover the cleric, oracle, druid and inquisitor. (By Stefen)

Mark over at Dropship Horizon once said, “To hell with your fluff, tell me a story with your miniature” That stuck with me. Having built my fair share of 1:35 scale dioramas, I completely agree with the statement. Here we have a Sturmtruppen but how can I tell a story with a miniature? Options!, lots of poses and accessories to make each miniature unique. Let’s start with how the miniature breaks down. Having separate heads arms and chest will allow you a great deal of freedom when posing each model. Here are six leg poses, I can mirror many of these and easily come up with ten different leg poses. Here are some weapon options, some hip fired some shoulder fired and some are both.   Here is an accessory pack, LOADS of options to customize your unit. Arm raised in halt, throwing a grenade, pointing, double gunning with pistols or SMG’s. Hand replacement options for knife fights, carrying rifles, ammo boxes, etc. Items such as pistol holsters, combat knifes, ammo pouches and med-pack...