2019 JULY
Huuuge Amount of work done this month!
I solved the problem with locations! Remember I said you can't read the location cards once they are in the game and covered up by miniatures? This was a big problem, as the locations sometimes have very profound rules of their own.
The solution as shown in the picture below: The location card that is placed on the playing field has no text left. The text is moved to two identical cards which are put into a sleeve together with the location. If the location is turned over, each player gets one of the text cards. This not only ensures that the game board remains "clean" and free of text, but also gives the player the opportunity to have the text on the locations in front of him at all times, to discover things that his opponent might miss.
The player can secretly check what a location actually does and when.
This solves so many problems at once! A great solution!
A NEW POKER / RESSOURCE DECK
Finally I made my dream come true and created my own resource deck for the game. The Resource Deck can also be used as a normal Poker Deck and you could use any Poker Deck for the game.
But for the sake of completeness I needed my own poker deck. I put a lot of effort into the deck and made both a black and a white version of it.
Maybe the two decks will get their own kickstarter campaign.
New equipment!
I've been cutting out card prototypes by hand for months, and now, as more and more cards are being made and a lot of changes are being made as the game evolves, the cutting tools needed to be upgraded. Here you can see what I bought. Normally it took me a whole day to cut these cards. With the new tools, I can do it in an hour.
I actually managed to break my graphics card after 6 years of continuous use. This made me very sad, because it was a relatively expensive graphics card... I have now temporarily replaced it with a 2070, because I have to invest in a new computer soon anyway.
Also a new mouse was bought in the last weeks. Finally a wireless mouse that is charged by its own mouse pad. I am not a fan of cables.
A NEW "SOUL" MINIATURE
During a game with a good friend he criticized that humans are replaced by "neutrals" when they die. When a human dies in the game, their soul is transferred to the Alpha or Omega realm.
These souls can come back to earth if they are in the army of an angel or a demon, but they are not allowed to enter earth areas. To illustrate this, I have replaced the realm humans with neutral ones in the games so far, when they died.
This has now been criticized because it "wouldn't make sense" not to have a dedicated soul model when the souls play such a big role in the game!
Well... this criticism is justified. So I sat down and produced 70 soul miniatures. To make it not too easy for me, they were painted in three colours...
As if I didn't have too much to do already! :D
A NEW "SOUL" MINIATURE
Of course, every game design course tells you: don't do feature-creep. that's why i decided from the beginning how many characters and how many cards there should be. nevertheless, i wanted to make the game as beautiful and as rich as possible. that's why i made sure that, for example, coins can be used for several things.
nevertheless, it's often the case that a player comes up with something that really makes everything easier to understand. sometimes you have to work for a week to invent and produce this additional thing.
This month there were again a lot of test games and the associated card changes, value adjustments etc. It doesn't stop and it is exhausting. You think every time: That’s IT now! But no... unfortunately there is always something! :D
I have played around with many Photoshop techniques, because I am still looking for the right image design for the rulebook.
In general it was a very busy month. I think I need a break again! :D
