Last week I discussed the use of magnets for storage. This week I'm going to pimp their use for projects. While they're certainly useful for storing miniatures in a practical sense, they're also great to add to miniatures to give them some versatility and in some cases, pose-ability, though this is trickier. My primary example here is going to be using the Heavy Gear Blitz Caprice Army Box. I don't know if I've ever seen miniature more ripe for the magnetizing. But these principles can be applied to many multi-part miniatures, especially those that come in a single kit and can build multiple units.
I can't believe it's almost May. Last week's goals:
Uncommon Valor
I did what I said I'd do, though I have to admit there were a lot of complications. I also have been spending a bit of time playing the Panzer Dragoon games, so there's that. I love rare earth magnets. They're the bee's knees for all kinds of hobby stuff. I use them in my scale models to add joints and mobility to parts that lack it; I use them to store things in and around the house, including in my portable hobby kit; I use them to mount and store miniatures; and I use them to give my miniatures 'hardpoints' so I can swap bits onto and off of them. I first learned about these marvels around twenty years ago when my friend used them to store his miniatures in a toolbox. It blew my mind; he could store things upside down, shake the box around, and be no worse for wear while I was using a shoebox and foam I'd cut using a boxcutter. His miniatures were always secure and separate from each other while mine were constantly having the paint rubbed off them. At the time, I couldn't afford to buy magnets and was using exclusively second-hand miniatures I'd gotten much earlier, and didn't buy a new miniature for years. But recently, I decided to reconsider these magnets and I was blown away to find out they've become cheap and widely available. I now buy them in bulk and use them for all kinds of stuff. So should you. Last week's goals:
Uncommon Valor
My wife and I have started playing Aeon's End, a co-op deck building game. We mostly play co-op games together, and not games I design. I don't know why I don't leverage our game time to test games, but I don't. Maybe if I make a game about flying dragons around frying things with a light dating simulator aspect to it, she'll be really interested in something I make. But that's not the point of this post. Playing Aeon's End immediately brought me face-to-face with one of my old enemies: single-point tokens. In Aeon's End, they're used for counting health points on enemies. I fucking HATE these. Last week's goals:
This has the strong potential to lead into another project, of course... Lately I have been reading a bunch of games designed by other people. Usually they are in the early phases of development. Most of them are probably never going to be finished. The main reason I say this is because of the way they were presented. The simple reality is that it's a "shit in, shit out" process. If the person designing the game isn't willing to put in some minimal effort on presentation, the likelihood that they're going to put much serious effort into finishing the game where it gets into the boring parts of development are probably pretty low.
A lot of this stuff will be related to a series I wrote on getting feedback from people on your games, and you can find all that stuff here. If you even want to get to that step, this article could be considered a useful precursor to getting your foot in the door. I'm not an expert on making games or anything, but what I am pretty good at is reading other people's rules and deciding if they're worth caring about or not. This is totally divorced from my pretense of making games, and just advice I provide as a guy who spends quite a bit of time analyzing other people's materials. Well, I had a pretty successful week with the launch of Afterglow and Plamo vs Plamo enjoying a one-day sale on Wargame Vault where I sold a good number of copies. Afterglow has been well-received by the people who have bothered to tell me their thoughts on it, and it's well on the way to selling better than anything else I've ever released.
So for this week's goals... Uncommon Valor
I remember I started writing this game after not having slept for a few days, so it feels weird to push it out now fully cognizant and very pleased with it. Afterglow was the game I think I've developed in the shortest amount of time, with the least tweaking to the fundamental rules, and was the easiest to work on both multiplayer and solitaire.
This wasn't exactly an easy game to make, but compared to Split Second or Plamo vs Plamo... yeah, it was a pretty easy game to make. |
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