Cyber Pet Quest, Lunar Rush, Omicron Protocol, Playtesting, Prototyping, Artwork
Bernie Lin
July 2023 Recap - Cyber Pet Quest, Fulfillment, ...

July was a relatively quiet month where we did a lot of playtesting of Cyber Pet Quest and preparation for GenCon, as well as wrangle the logistical beast that is shipping and fulfillment for Lunar Rush and Omicron Protocol - Critical Condition Expansion. We are now 2 days away from GenCon 2023 starting, so if you're headed to GenCon, PLEASE come by Booth 2932 to say hi to us and check out the games!

July 2023 Recap - Cyber Pet Quest, Fulfillment, and GenCon!
Insights and Musings
Bernie Lin
What are the chances? The Omicron variant...

The last week has been surreal... And since we haven’t written a blog post in a while, I thought I'd post this here to share.

What are the chances? The Omicron variant...
Brendan Kendrick
Black Lives Matter
Black Lives Matter
Painting
Brendan Kendrick
Painting Alt Sculpt Lucky

Preparing for DunDraCon, GAMA, and JoCo cruise haven’t left me with much free time but I managed to squeeze in a couple hours of painting. Without further ado, here’s Lucky!

Painting Alt Sculpt Lucky
Painting
Brendan Kendrick
Painting Bolt and Lucky Alt Sculpts

The blog has taken a back seat since the end of the Kickstarter campaign. The holidays were busy and we had a lot of logistics to figure out as we finalized our manufacturing plan and got started producing OP. Exciting times! One of the exciting developments is that we produced our first prototypes of the alt sculpt Bolt and Lucky miniatures.

Painting Bolt and Lucky Alt Sculpts

Game Design Thoughts #2 - CyMS, CyMS, CYMS!

Game Design Thoughts #2 - CyMS, CyMS, CYMS!

Oh boy that was a rough 2 weeks of internal playtesting!

As many of you know already, one of the unique mechanics of Omicron Protocol is the existence of a 3rd party enemy called the CyMS (Cybernetic Mutation Syndrome), or “Crazies” as the locals of San Lazaro calls them. The cool part is that besides having to do your objectives and fight off your opponent’s faction, you also have to deal with these pesky citizens who seem to randomly decide to attack you. The not-so-cool part is moving and keeping track of them at the end of the turn when both players have finished activating their heroes.

Rapid Iteration with nanDECK

Rapid Iteration with nanDECK

Game Design = Iteration

Once you have your basic rules and theme in place game design becomes iteration. You test and test and test, and as you go you make changes to your rules to improve play, simplify, balance. In our game we have many unique characters with a wide range of themes and abilities, we have objective cards, scenarios, and forage cards to balance….

Worldbuilding: Charactor Bios and Stories

Worldbuilding: Charactor Bios and Stories

So we’ve talked about how we create a character and how we use the Genesys RPG system to help us fill out the details of our worldbuilding for Omicron Protocol. Now I’m going to give everyone a little bit of a background on WHY we spend this much time and effort creating, researching, and writing (through our awesome writer, Nick Brown) about each character.

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Pacificon 2018 and Protospiel - What an Experience!

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Pacificon 2018 and Protospiel - What an Experience!

Brendan and I just got back from a weekend of demoing, playtesting, learning, and meeting other game designers at the Pacificon Protospiel, so I'll keep this one short.  What a weekend!  Besides teaching the game roughly 6-8 hours a day for 3 days in a row and getting invaluable feedback, we also met a lot of great game designers and event organizers who we'll definitely be keeping in touch with in the future.

Writing and Testing "Learn to Play" Rules

Writing and Testing "Learn to Play" Rules

As PacifiCon Protospiel approaches this Labor Day weekend, Brendan and I have been busy creating our first "Learn to Play" (LTP) version of the game, intended for:

  • Fast 15-30 min demos that we can give at conventions and events, and

  • A single sheet version of the rules that teaches new players who eventually buys the game and want to learn the basics quickly.

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Creating a Character

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Creating a Character

So the last few nights we've been writing a lot.  Mostly writing the 1st draft of our rules.  Today, while working with our writer, Nick Brown, we realized that to do more world building (that'll be in another series of posts later), we had to get all the outlines of our characters for the first few factions written out for him to reference and add into the world story. 

Game Design Thoughts #1 - Small Changes, Big Consequences

Game Design Thoughts #1 - Small Changes, Big Consequences

After reading Jamey Stegmaier's great blog post about writing a blog, Brendan and I have decided to see if we can try to post more often.  We may not be able to do 5 blogs a day for 6 years like Jamey, but we'll start blogging about our design thought processes, painting experiences, and any other cool and exciting things we encounter in this fun adventure designing a game as first time game designers. :)

Cleaning Shapeways "Smoothest Fine Detail" for Painting.

Cleaning Shapeways "Smoothest Fine Detail" for Painting.

SHAPEWAYS "SMOOTHEST FINE DETAIL"

As first time game developers we are lucky to live in these times of bountiful information and helpful posts on how to bring a game to life. In our research we came across this very helpful article from Gate Keeper Games about how to get miniatures made. This led us down the path to Shapeways for our first prototype miniatures and the suggestion to use the material called "Frosted Ultra High Detail" which - at the time of this writing - they now call "Smoothest Fine Detail Plastic". With this material we are able to get prototypes made at 28mm scale for less than $10/model which is a fantastic deal for a pretty good level of detail.

But it is not perfect: