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. I had one job last week.
Afterglow
But I went above and beyond; I edited it and then published both Afterglow and Outer Dark. They're both in the wild now. Since Afterglow was one of the first things I spoke about when I started this website, and it's been a near-constant fixture in the Milestone Mondays for nearly a year, it's kind of weird to cast it off, but I'm done with it for now. Go and buy them both please. Afterglow here and Outer Dark here. I'm even running a nifty promo for the first month where anybody who buys Afterglow can get Outer Dark for half off! A very good week for testing, though it was a swerve...
Uncommon Valor
I didn't do this. Instead, I played my Monster Mash against some Star Marines. It was very productive. Afterglow comes with some pretty nice (I think) printable templates to use as your stellar obstacles to complicate your tabletop hyperlight warfare. But I'll always advocate for using 3D obstacles because they just make the game look way cooler. Fortunately, Afterglow doesn't need a whole lot of "terrain" like most skirmish wargames do. In fact, I only own about ten real pieces and a bunch of spare templates. I made them all over the course of two leisurely days, so there's not a huge time commitment for these either. And of course, they're super cheap to build.
You can make or buy nicer-looking pieces, but this is all stuff anybody can do without breaking the bank; it might end up costing you ten dollars total. The other benefit of these is they're 100% functional; you can simply pick them up and remove them from the template marking their boundaries on the table, then put them back as needed. This lets you measure more accurately or move markers anywhere you need to, preserving both the integrity and aesthetics of the game. A departure from my usual ramblings about game design, this week I'm just going to talk about using miniatures in Afterglow and where you can get them. I don't own ships from most of these manufacturers, but they all produce product that people have vouched for I know and that would be a good fit with Afterglow.
Mmmm... wouldn't wanna mess with it Afterglow/Outer Dark
I had a pretty dogshit week and was sick to boot, so I didn't get much done on these fronts. I was able to do some assorted hobby work, including magnetizing this very sweet Caprice mount from Heavy Gear. I'm just including it because it was fun to work on and I like pictures. Review of the week's goals...
Afterglow
Last week's goals:
Afterglow
Afterglow is close to completion now. Both the "primary" game and the solitaire/coop expansion Outer Dark are in the last phases of testing and refinement, and I'm working on cleaning up the graphical assets so they're printer-friendly, size-limited, and easy to use. The new card format for Systems, the token sheets, all kinds of stuff.
As I've been reviewing the documents, I've also been thinking back on the various things that I wanted to put into the game but have left out at some point, or ideas I wanted to use but couldn't. I'm consolidating that into a post here so that I can go back and reference the ideas, and do a bit of a post-mortem on them: why they got cut, how the decision came about, and the consequences. Last week's goals:
Outer Dark
|
Blogroll SearchArchives
September 2023
Categories
All
|