To my geeky gamery friends:

[mythfish]

Today I relearned how to use Microsoft Publisher while making the first draft of the DragonMech Battles mech sheet.

DragonMech Battles (in case you haven't heard) is this tabletop miniatures game that walrusjester and I are making. I think the core mechanics of the game are pretty solid now, but there's a lot of work to do in the "tweaking and balancing"

Comments

[fbhjr]

We've got a games night coming up Friday...

[mythfish]

We're not quite ready for people outside of our direct control to play yet...so not this Friday. :)

But perhaps a Friday next month.

[mythfish]

And see below what I told Tristan.

[mythfish]

That is to say, look below this and read what I told Tristan. Don't look below what I told Tristan. There's nothing there.

[lr0dy]

Heya,

A) My friends and I might be up for a good playtest -- we're always looking for something to do like this, and

B) I figure the publisher'll probably handle it, but if you want, I do a lot of graphic design work and will redo your sheet. I've actually done a character sheet before, too -- a long time ago, mind you, but I still did 'em. You can see the front here, and the back here.

Of course, ye olde Tripod is being a little bitchy today, so bear with me.

I also do symbol design work.

[mythfish]

Yeah, the publisher has his own graphic designer who will eventually redo the sheet all nice before publication. But if you get bored and feel like doing one anyway, knock yourself out. Mine will work well enough until a professional gets to it, though. And it'll probably undergo lots of changes before publication anyway.

We're not exactly sure when our official playtesting phase is going to begin (I'd guess Feb or March), but you're now on my list of people to contact when we do start it. Just so you're absolutely aware of what you may be getting yourself into, our playtest period will only last a month or two and we need a lot of testing done. Having a small number of people playing the game over and over is far more valuable than having a lot of people playing the game once or twice, so we're really looking for folks who have the time and energy to play quite a bit, and then report back to us about what works and what doesn't.

[dreamwell_ali]

yeah, really you should be using InDesign for that, not evil Publisher. But if the publisher has a graphic designer to do them all in the end, I suppose it's not a big deal. Hmm, that sounds like a fun job. Don't suppose your publisher is hiring a graphic designer who knows very little about gaming?

[mythfish]

Publisher is what I have on my computer.

Well, when I say "he has a graphic designer" I mean he has someone willing to do freelance graphic design work for cheap, not someone on staff who gets a nice salary from doing game-related graphic design.

[facetiae]

David said he's interested in playtesting, too.

[mythfish]

I told Matt that David was interested, so hopefully Matt will get in touch with David. Since, you know, they're both in Iowa and stuff.

[cassandra_e]

If you are still looking for people to do playtesting, and would like some youth participating, I have a 15-year-old son who would be very interested in taking part. I'd be glad to go into more detail or have him contact you directly if his participation is a possibility.

[mythfish]

We really need people (regardless of age) who can play the game a lot over the next couple months and give us feedback. So if you think he's the sort of person with the time and energy to play a lot, and the responsibility and gamer knowledge to give us regular useful reports, we'd love to have him.

The first step would be for him to create an account on the Goodman Games forums and contact me there with his username. I go by mythfish there too. Once that's done, we'll let him into the super-secret playtest area where he can download the current version of the rules and get to playing.

I don't know what sorts of gaming experience/equipment he has access to, but he'll need a d20, a hex map, and some counters to represent mechs on the map in order to play.

[cassandra_e]

We have quite a bit of both the equipment and the experience around here so those items won't be a problem. I'll have him contact you.