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Showing posts from November, 2014

Character Stat Cards, Equipment Cards, and Initiative Cards

My array of newly printed Character Stat Cards, Equipment Cards, and Initiative Cards. Lately I've been really anxious to both get out and demonstrate Broken Contract to the masses, and also allow people the option to "print and play" so that they can play test at home. Over the past several days I decided to take matters into my own hands and try and flex my very rudimentary Photoshop skills. I spent a half dozen hours or so making mock ups that people can play with that aren't completely embarrassing. Luckily, Sam created cards that weren't so elaborate that they made any hope of editing them impossible. At the same time, they don't have the polish, nor the subtle variation, that even his early work has had. This is okay though since these are just for play testing purposes anyway. Talla Kellerman mock up character card. Initiative Deck and prototype "card back". The above cards were a mock up Initiative Deck that Sam threw togethe

New Action: Focus

In my last post, Play Testing Recap , I discussed a suggestion that play tester, Aaron Schmidt, threw out there, and that Brian Parisi, seconded. It was a new Action called Focus. The intent was to give players the option of using an Action to concentrate on what they were doing to improve their chance of success. After mulling over how to implement it into the game I came up with this: Focus (1AP) – They take a deep breath and clear their head, then launch into action with tunnel vision. Focus allows the Character to use an Action to improve the chance of success of their next Action or Interruption. After declaring Focus, the Character receives +1 to the die roll for their next Stat Check. Focus is much easier to achieve when there are no immediate threats and no Check is needed to succeed. However, if there are any unengaged enemy Characters within 6” of the model they must make a Psyche Check to Focus. If they succeed in the Psyche Check, they may Focus as described above

Play Testing Recap

Pizza from Dimo's. (photo stolen from the internet) On Thursday night, my friends Brian Parisi and Aaron Schmidt met me at Dimo's Pizza here in Chicago to eat pizza, roll some dice, and discuss our various projects that we were working on. Brian has been my most regular play tester and he's a bit of a rules tinker himself with some rule sets he's been dabbling with.  Aaron is a sculptor currently working on Wreck-Age models for Hyacinth Games. In addition, I long ago noticed that he enjoys analyzing and discussing game mechanics as much as he enjoys playing games. This was going to be Aaron's first time playing Broken Contract and I was really curious what he'd have to say. I had intended to run a new scenario I had concocted weeks ago that integrated a bunch of new design elements focusing on the robust collection of Stats characters have. I got home from work and I discovered I had given most of my board sections to my graphic designer to scan and

Where Hobby Games and Board Games Collide

Recreating board sections like these would be very easy. When I first conceived Broken Contract, I imagined it as a board game that would have all of the framework in place to seamlessly transition into a hobby game. With that in mind, I specifically opted for measurements in inches and decided against using squares. Now that I've seen that pursuing the game strictly as a miniature board game isn't necessarily the best plan, I've decided to translate the flat game boards into modeled terrain to showcase its versatility. Below are two WIP shots of game board sections translated to modeled terrain using hardboard, pink insulation foam, and a breakaway blade to texture the mine walls. Each mine section is on an 8"x10" section of hardboard. This is a view up the mine tunnel. You're seeing three 8"x10" board sections in a row.  Over the next few weeks I'm really looking forward to making board sections of a variety of shapes to emulate