New Game sneak peak

I've finished cleaning up Galaxy Runners and have copies of it, the Mining expansion for Cosmic Odyssey, and an edited copy of Twenty Six all ordered and on their way.  So I've started working on a new project that I've been jotting ideas down in my notebook for.  I thought I'd post a little sneak peak of some of the initial art work i've been doing.

CO Expansion 2 New Cards

I've been moving along on cards for the 2nd expansion to Cosmic Odyssey.  This division is going to add the Mining division to the game.  Previously I had posted some pictures of the asteroid cards.  I have some more cards finished to show off now.

This first one is one of the missions for the mining division.  There is a new mechanic for the third mission value on these cards.  When the players are at any type of asteroid, and a player with a mining starship plays this type of mission, they get to draw and either play or discard that card right away.  Any added points from the newly played card are added to their total.  If they draw another mission like this and play it, then they would be able to draw a third card and play it as well, potentially adding even more points.

This second card is just a regular Stellar object, but almost all of the stars in the mining expansion are Binary Stars.

I also wanted to give and update on our contest games.  Twenty Six didn't win, it was a finalist, but ended up being second runner up.  It's a bummer, but it was still cool getting picked as a finalist.  Our previous game Galaxy Runners didn't even make it into the finalists.  I'm still working on tweaking it some before clicking "publish" on it at TGC.

Updates

So I just have a couple of updates.  Our game Twenty Six was chosen as a top three finalist in the TGC mashup game contest!  We are very excited and can't wait to find out how our game does.

I also have a couple asteroid card tests finished for the 2nd expansion to Cosmic Odyssey.  I've ventured back into the world of Blender to create the models for these cards.  I couldn't figure out any other way to do them and get the look that I wanted.

Cosmic Odyssey Expansion 2

I received another copy of the first expansion to Cosmic Odyssey with the art changes that I had made to the first game.  I want to play with some more to test out the new cards that I added, although it's fairly well tested already.  I've started working on cards now for the second expansion, which will introduce the Mining Division giving players another division to be a part of.  The big change for this expansion is that about half of the starships from the Mining Division (as well as one from each of the three original divisions) will have have higher cargo levels and allow for players to have more cards in their hand.  There will also be new celestial objects in the form of Asteroids and Asteroid Belts.  I haven't worked on any of the art for those yet, but I have the models all done for the new starships and have the first new starter starship card finished.

Twenty Six

Guest blog from my wife:


"When my dear husband started working on publishing a game, I started thinking about what kind of game I would create.  I have one idea that has been lingering in the back of my head, I'm not sure how to execute it, so I sat on it.  Recently, a new game struck me.  It's a combination of poker and a word game.  Immediately, I knew what I wanted the cards to look like. I wanted brown cards with distressing, lots of words, a typewriter font, and swirls.  Almost like magic before my eyes, J had designed the cards I was describing.  We were able to play test rounds of the game, which went pretty well.  I chose to call the game Twenty Six, because that's how many letters are in the alphabet.  I also wanted that to be the part of the game that was kind of risky.  Score as many points as possible, but go over 26 in your round and you get a zero! We have changed the letter counts, changed points values, and added in some fun bonus point opportunities.  When all was said and done, the game came together beautifully! I am hoping that it's been published in time for holiday gift giving and more importantly for families to spend quality time playing games together over the holidays!


So, without further introduction...you can check it out and purchase it here! "

Art Style Change

Well, I wasn't happy with the way the art was looking on the previous cards.  I spent some time the last couple evenings working on a new style that I am much happier with.  Below you can see my effort so far.  I decided that I wanted to have less text on these cards so the icons are what will have meaning.  The card below is an island card and has four landmarks on it.  It also has a ship encounter and a major mountain landmark.  I know these don't mean a whole lot now, but if you have played Cosmic Odyssey, you should have at least an idea of how this will work :)

I've also made some headway on finishing the card list.  Really all I have to finish on this is the names of the cards.  I have the numbers mostly worked out and am working on a prototype to start testing the game.  The only struggle I've had is cutting the number of cards down for only 2 to 4 players.

Secret Game update

I've been working the last week or so on a card list and mechanics for the new "secret" game that I posted about a bit ago.  Most of the game mechanics I have down as they are similar to another game of mine.  I'm not too worried about balancing these as much, but I am designing this game from the ground up to be based on 4 players for the base game instead of 6.  But, at the same time I am working on the first expansion that will add a 5th and 6th player to the game.  Eventually when I go to release the game then I can release the expansion shortly after the base game.

This new game I've been working on is a Pirate themed game.  It's going to be more of an alternate universe type Pirate game rather than based on any real history (even the romanticized version we get in movies) or real places.  While jotting down notes in my game design notebook when I have time I've also kicked around the art style some.  I've already modified the style some from the sneak peak that I had posted before.  Here are a couple different versions that I have so far.  These are going to be from the card faces,  the card back will look similar to the sneak peak card.

I'm partial to the gold border one but have been thinking I may actually use both.  The picture on the inside will actually be different colors, so it won't all just be browns.  

I've heard that the art shouldn't come before the game.  I enjoy working on both though, and I'm using fairly established mechanics that have already been play-tested quite a bit.  It's just really a matter of finishing up the list of cards and I figure I can work out the art style I want to use while that is in progress.  Anyways,  if anybody has any ideas or comments on these, let me know.

Oh, and I did finish up the art and order a prototype of my wife's game.  I plan on posting some info on it here when she is ok with revealing it :)

Cosmic Odyssey on BGG!

I had submitted Cosmic Odyssey out on Board Game Geek late last week and it was approved earlier this week.  I've gotten all the pictures and website links added to it and approved now.  Check it out!

Cosmic Odyssey's page on Board Game Geek

I also finished up Galaxy Runners and have it submitted on TGC as of last night.  We'll just have to wait and see how it does.

Super Secret Sneak Peak

So I've been working hard today to get everything done for Galaxy runners and decided to take a small break and work on a future project a little bit.  I've mostly just worked on the the rules, card ideas, gameplay mechanics so far, but wanted to fiddle around with the art style a bit.  Here is what I have so far:

I'm not going to say much more at this point since I am pretty far out from actually beginning to work on this project. (Guess I probably should write down how I created the card above) But anybody is welcome to make a guess at what sort of game they think it is :)  Before I start this I have to finish all the art for a game of my wife's too.  Hopefully here soon i'll be posting up some images of that game.

Update on Galaxy Runners

The deadline for the vehicle game contest at TGC is fast approaching and I've been catching back up with everything after going on vacation.  I'm fairly close to being done with all of the art for the game, have decided to go with the name "Galaxy Runners" and am working on a rough draft of the rules today so that I can get them to my brother to clean up and fill out.

I have another part of the game posted up today.  This is a sticker that will be placed on a token.  These tokens are about 1.25 inch wide and will be spread out in the middle of the table to create the Galaxy playfield for the players.  The vehicles tokens that will be used are the rocket tokens.  More to come soon as we get the rules finished up

Another preview card

Here is another preview for the new game that I am working on.  I still don't have a name locked down.  I've got a couple ideas but nothing too great yet.  I'm thinking of something along the lines of "Galaxy Runners" or "Galactic Runners" or maybe "Corsairs of ______"  

More Preview Images from the New Game

I've got the card style pretty much down now for the new game I've been working on for the contest at TGC.  I'm going to hopefully get some playtesting in on it this weekend, and just need to keep working on finishing cards.  Thankfully there are much less cards in this games than there was in Cosmic Odyssey, so it shouldn't take as long to finish them all up.  I have a lot of the art already finished, with just the modeling work to do.  I also should come up with a name for it :)  Anyways, here are a couple of the finished (mostly) cards.

Food Supplies aren't actually going to be contraband in the game. I just wanted to see how the label looked.

Yeah, I know,  obviously another space game... :)  I couldn't really think of any ideas to use for the other vehicles that TGC offered. This game is going to play completely different than Cosmic Odyssey.  CO is focused on exploration, where as in this new game there is no exploration at all.  There will also be other parts, besides cards, that are used.  I don't want to give too much away yet though.

Started work on a new game...

The Game Crafter is having a contest to design games using any of the vehicle pawns that they have available on the site.  Even though I have been starting to design some of my other game ideas, I have put them and work on the Cosmic Odyssey expansions on hold for the moment.  I've been kicking around an idea with my brother the last week or so and have started working on the game for the vehicle contest.  I don't want to give too much away but here is a little teaser pick of one of the card backs that I threw together this afternoon.

There will me more to come here soon!  Yesterday I worked on cutting out pieces from cardstock to use as a prototype for the game so that we can start testing it.  Hopefully soon we will be able to test out this game and also the game prototype that my brother has been working on.

Cosmic Odyssey has Launched!

Well, after 16 months of working on Cosmic Odyssey I just hit the publish button out on the The Game Crafter.
Here is the direct link for anybody that wants to check it out:
https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/cosmic-odyssey

Waiting for the last Prototype

So while I've been waiting for the last prototype copy of Cosmic Odyssey to arrive, I've been working on doing the last small touch ups to the cards on the first expansion.  I also have cards to add to the set so I've been creating a few new cards as well.  I've gotten about halfway through the cards and thought I would post a couple more pictures of new cards.

This first picture is of a new type of celestial object getting added in the expansion.  Comets!  The second card is one of the new missions that has a quite larger bonus if the players are currently at a comet.  There are only a few comets so these missions shouldn't be overpowered with this amount of bonus.  In testing we've only had a couple times when somebody has been able to play one of these missions at a comet.

For the last few new cards I have some modeling work to do, so I expect it will take me a few days of spare time working on that to get those done.  I've also been slowly finallizing the card lists for the next few expansions.  I know, maybe I am making too many expansions.  I have tons of ideas though, and even if the base game does ok and sells some copies, I don't really expect people to buy every/any expansion.  The base game itself is very complete and very fun just on it's own.  So far the expansions just add new things and some new mechanics.

My last test copy should be arriving soon,  It shipped yesterday.  So sometime early next week I'll be clicking the "Publish" button out on The Game Crafter and my game will be available for sale!

Wow, where has the time gone?

The last post I made was long overdue,  so I'm not even sure what this post is.  :)  I know it's been a long time, and I guess I just needed a break from working on creative things for a while.  I've actually been working on Cosmic Odyssey off and on as I have time again the last month and a half or so.  I am almost ready to publish it on www.thegamecrafter.com and am just waiting for the final test copy to arrive so I can get some action shots of the game being played.

The great thing is The Game Crafter site just went through an upgrade and is absolutely amazing now.  If you look to the right, the logo is also now a link to our games on The Game Crafter.  It's sparse at the moment (meaning there is nothing there, haha) but hopefully within the week Cosmic Odyssey will show up.  I am also working on a couple of new games and hope to start revealing some stuff from them here shortly.

The last thing I'll post here is one of the two new cards from Cosmic Odyssey.  When The Game Crafter site updated one of the changes was going from 16 cards per sheet to 18,  so I had to go up from 160 cards to 162.  The sheets are less expensive to print now and even with going up 2 cards, I am going down a printed sheet.  Which has helped bring the cost of the game down.  Anyways,  here is one of the new cards I created.  This is how the final version of the cards are going to look (I know there isn't much difference :) )

Update that is long overdue

So, I haven't posted in a couple months now and I guess an update is overdue at this point.  I took a break in December, and hadn't really worked on the base set of Cosmic Odyssey for a few weeks.  For Christmas I recieved a 1985 Sorcerer pinball machine and have been working on restoring that.  It's almost completely working now and is 100% playable.  I just have some small cosmetic stuff to change out (like lights, and some plastic pieces that were broken) this week and then I'll post a picture.  I've also been dealing with some personal stuff that those of you that know me know about and that has caused me to not feel like working on things as much.

As for the updates...I have finished all the art and tweaking for the base set and have ordered a final proof set for me and my family/friends to play with.  I had the cards all looked over to make sure I hadn't missed spelling and graphics errors and once I recieve the cards and look through them, I'll be publishing the game for sale on http://www.thegamecrafter.com/!

I've also finished a first pass on the first expansion of the game.  Tentatively named "Cosmic Odyssey - Arcturus Upgraded".  I have all the art done this time before printing and think I have all the spelling and graphic errors fixed, so hopefully the print I ordered will be pretty spot on and I can put that up for sale soon as well.  As I work on the card lists for the expansrons I have tried to make each one add something unique and new to the game.  With this first one,  the largest new mechanic are upgrades that you can build for the main starship, the Arcturus.  These cards give a bonus when built, and then also have some ability or value that they give when used.  Players can use them once per star system.  Each player will have a card indicating whether they have used their upgrade or not yet.  The card resets at the start of each new star system.  Here is an example of one of these upgrades:

Another lesser new mechanic are Stars in the Stellar deck that have no orbits, but impart some bonus or some handicap.  Here is an example of one of these cards:

Lastly,  some cards give the players the ability to draw extra cards.  The star card above actually shows this.  The art for the new starships with this ability I would like to keep secret until people get to try the expansion, so I'll just post a starship upgrade that gives this ability for now.

As I move forward here with working on more of the expansions I'll be posting on more new mechanics that will be coming.