I'm working on some new Pushout cards. I plan to have a graphical overhaul of the game. (These graphics will be changed) Plus I'm making 60 or more different cards. The guys at Lackey are helping me port the game over so it can be played over the internet using their super awesome program for playing CCG's. You can read about it here. I hope to have a more formalized version of the game by Monday or Tuesday. The old version is here.

Tags: game, update

Over the weekend, I added all the games in the house to Board Game Geek. We have over 150 games, just in the house. We didn't even look downstairs and I know I have some games at Kel's house. The goal is to use this random selection to get us to play games we haven't played in a long time. I can think of 10 games off the top of my head I've never even played that I've bought. I admit it, I'm a game-a-holic. So, take a look around, refresh the page and discover some games you'd like to play.






I also added the random selection of games to the sidebar.

Tags: game, project

Here's my poorly painted mini from the con. I also won these nerdy dice.

Tags: craft

HERE'S the game. Pushout is under half a meg.


It's a nine page PDF with all the parts you need to play including 30 cards (printed off twice to make the 60 card deck), the card backs, the fully illustrated rules and a page of variations.

Download it now. It's not big and it's a full free abstract strategy card game for two players. Yea! I wrote a new game. And this one's pretty good.


An addition to the rules after play testing a bit:

A left/right movement may push itself off the board, lemming-like, leaving a hole. All normal side rules apply.

If a face down card is pushed off the side of the board, it comes under control of that player's side. The player has two options, discard the card or place back into the newly created hole in it's starting orientation. The player does not get to chose the card's orientation as all flipped and drawn cards onto the board are treated this way.

Tags: game

Today's Thing is part one of a new abstract card game I wrote called Pushout. Today, I spent a few hours on creating the templates, formatting, design and layout of the 30 unique cards of the game. The picture you see is the set-up for a bigger variation of the game called Double Pushout. There are seven pages of printable cards, including a page of card backing for double-sided printers. The nut of this Thing for me was developing a system to make the cards easy to assemble in a factory-like way. This will make it easier to add expansions down the road.

When the game is finalized, it'll have graphic examples of game play and some game play variations. Tomorrow, I write the rules and will post the PDF.

So, warm up your printers for a free game tomorrow (probably late) and help me play test Pushout.

Tags: game, art, project

My biggest enemy is time for these daily Things. I have about 7 or 8 big ideas, but no time to really finish them to my satisfaction. Most of these projects actually have some work completed, but with the draining, but necessary work still ahead.

For instance, today I wrote an abstract card game based on a mutual player use of cards. It's got thirty cards in the game. I know what I'm putting on the cards and the rules aren't too complex. The problem is graphics. That's the time suck, making each card graphic for the PDF and the one or two graphic for the rules to show the table layout for the game. Here's a mock-up of one of the 30 different cards in the game. It took me fifteen minutes and it's not my final idea. Ugh.



So, today's Thing is a quick run down of some of my larger projects, mostly games.

1. The game you see above. It's a smallish card game.

2. The big game. It's a word/tile game with modular, scalable rules. This game, if it works, is the one I want to get published. There's 144 cards in the first expansion and 200 small tokens, 50 of four different colors. There's still a lot of math to do, plus writing the rules and the 20 or so variations we've already dreamed up, making each individual card in four colors.

3. My two-player RPG, still in the very early stages.

4. An evil office game that's mostly written. It uses a deck of cards and could get you fired. It's a social game to help spice up the question, "So, how'd work go today?" You can play by yourself even. It's less a game, than an organized prank.

5. A different fame/RPG based on the Dreamblade miniatures, adding a storytelling aspect to the game.

6. An RPG using CCG cards like Magic or The Spoils as a sort of GM for the game and character creation.

7. A Hybrid game using OctaNe and The Roach.

8. A fake TV Guide to the new season, I have the graphics finished and some of the comedy written. I hope that's done by Monday because comedy grows stale quickly.

9. An OctaNe adventure.


I know this is mostly gibberish, but it's a reminder of what I have yet to do. Most days it's easy enough to slap out a comic or create some goofy TTOTD web page or generate bad abstract art. I try to be finished in an hour or so, but the large projects still nag at me. Even the new podcasts take about 4-5 hours.

One last note, The Cashington Roach setting I made for The Roach of Al-Hib Shari was noticed and linked by the game creator, Jason Morningstar. It's HERE, cool. He posted it weeks ago and I finally noticed it, duh. I also posted The Walking Dead scenario to Board Game Geek.

Tags: game, essay

Two more radio shows from the archives today. Both shows are hosted by my computer friend, Electronic Filler and the Big Beat show has lots of fun cutting and shenanigans. Off to Nukecon.




Get the Older Brother's Records Big Beat Show HERE.








Get the Older Brother's Records Trip Hop Show HERE.



Soon, I'll be all out of old shows and have to make new ones.

Tags: music, podcast

Since we're going to Nukecon on Friday, I thought up some all purpose cards to use while playing games. The best one is for a bathroom break. There's only two. There would have been more, but the site I used to make them crashed. They print out like business cards.

Get them HERE.

Tags: game, project

Shelly and I picked up a new game this weekend to get ready for Nukecon, plus the game is one I've been looking forward to for a while, Last Night On Earth. It's a zombie game where one player plays the heros and the other side are zombies. There's a real cinematic feel to the game and you can play a game in two hours or so. Monday's game even had the full plot of a B grade zombie movie. The four heros arrive to town find the bio canisters that are causing the undead out break. The drifter was lucky early on finding the first canister in the hospital and getting to the truck. As the others spread out, farm girl Jenny held off the zombies in the cornfield and the sheriff came along as back up. Track star Billy was the real early hero finding the other canister, but on the way to the truck he was killed and turned into a super zombie. The zombies swarmed around the remaining canister. The Drifter, trapped, died in the hospital. The only female, Jenny, got to the canister as the Sheriff died protecting her. The heros won, but only the buxom Jenny drove away alive. Shelly won.

Ok, the rest is just for the nerds who have the game and I'll post this scenario to the Board Game Geek page. This is a rough draft.





The Walking Dead (20 Turns)

The Walking Dead uses the zombie rules found in the comic The Walking Dead. Basically, if you die, you come back as a zombie, period. This scenario is best with only two people and is meant to build and escalate. The hero player starts with only one hero. He's gotta find all the other heros, join up and save all the townsfolk, get to the truck and get out of town.

Set up

The board uses the Manor center with the four random L-Shaped pieces around the Manor AND the remaining two pieces forming a square in the middle of one of the edges of the large square. The truck is placed in the middle of the farthest piece from the Manor.

The hero player can if they want put all eight characters in any order in a pile to start the game. It's more fun if it's random. The hero starts with one character at the truck and draws three cards to start. A random building is with each of the 1-6 L-shaped pieces given a die number. The next Hero is placed in that building, but is not activated or able to play yet. How a Hero is activated one of two ways: either a current active player searches the building the dormant Hero is in or at the start of the third Hero turn after the dormant Hero was placed. When a Hero is activated, they may draw two cards and only two cards. When a Hero is activated, another dormant Hero is placed in a random building. You can have up to eight active Heros.

Zombie set-up

The Zombie player gets twenty zombies. At the start the roll only a D6 and place the Zombies. There is always Zombie spawning. It is equal to the number of active Heros.

The Objectives

The Hero wins if they rescue all eight townspeople and all the live Heros leave town in the truck. The Zombie player wins if all Heros are dead after turn five. Heros can replace their last character until turn five. However, once a character dies, it is removed from the game. The Zombie player cannot win on a Hero deck depletion, the cards are just reshuffled on the next zombie discard. To rescue a townsfolk, the Hero must guide the townsfolk into the center four squares of the Manor. Once in these squares, the townsfolk is safe and cannot be attacked for any reason. The townsfolk are items for the Hero. When a townsfolk is drawn, roll for a random building, that's where the townsfolk is. You must search in that building to find the townsfolk. If a hero is killed or chooses to leave a townsfolk, the townsfolk can survive on their own. The get to draw one card and keep any item, but must discard any events. They are a two wound character with no special abilities. If the townsfolk is killed, set aside their card. At the start of the next Zombie turn, the townsfolk is a Super Zombie in a random building. The Super Zombie must be killed before the regular townsfolk is placed again in a random building.

After all of the townsfolk are rescued, all of the Heros must make it to the truck. They are safer once on the truck square. Zombies can only enter the space on a roll of 4+. However, the game is not won until all active Heros are on the truck. The Zombie Player may play the Locked Door card on a remains in play card on the truck only. Then the Hero needs the keys.

Super Zombie

All Heros and townsfolk who die will become a Super Zombie. That's just how it is in The Walking Dead. However, as an extra action, a Hero in the same space with the newly dead may immediately use gasoline and fire to burn the body and prevent the change. The good news is the Super Zombie does not turn right away or even where they died. The new Super Zombie is placed at the beginning of the zombie turn.

I think that covers it for the rough draft. Enjoy.

Tags: game, review

It's game week at TTOTD.

But, today's little Thing is a pointer to TV Big Shot---it's like Fantasy Football for TV Nerds. You buy shows, create a mini network and see how they do in the ratings. (BTW, I'm doing really well in the Fantasy Football league I was coerced into joining, who knew?) So, I bought some shows. I balanced cheap shows like Kitchen Confidential and Reaper which may pay off benefits in moderate ratings for a low price (Isn't that the modern TV programmers modis operandi? That explains the glut of reality shows.) with high profile shows like Private Practice and Ugly Betty. We'll see how it goes.





One show I picked is a drama I screened a few months ago, Dirty Sexy Money. I think this show might be big and have at least one big season. It's a big old-time soap with an okay mystery at the center, a great cast, fast pacing, clever writing and more edge-pushing than most soaps. There's really only one likable character, Peter Krause as the family lawyer, Nick George. As you've probably gathered from the promos, Krause is running around getting the evil, rich spoiled family out of trouble. The great thing about Krause, as he was on Six Feet Under, is he can be both a sympathetic and jerk character in the same scene. If he was a genuinely good guy, you'd be mad at him for putting up with the craziness. That's the other good part about the show, almost no one else is a moral, good person. It's a show of highly motivated, good looking Larry Davids without the apologies. Fortunately, one of the benefits of a highly capitalistic society is that seeing rich people suffer is almost a mechanism of the zeitgeist. In that way, Dirty Sexy Money almost fulfills a social mandate. Yeah, evil rich people is a cliche, but clever, spoiled, whiney, well-acted rich people transcends. The twist is that all these spoiled kids have their political, religious (a entitled New Yawk social climbing Minister) and talent-based jobs paid for by Daddy Evilbucks (Donald Sutherland in a great scene-chewing role). And it's by the people who brought us Arrested Development.

It's a good show. I put the show on my team. So, it'll probably get cancelled.

A quick mini-review: Pushing Daisies is a very pretty, cute show about a dark topic that could at any minute devolve into preciousness. Check it out, give it three episodes.

Tags: game, television

I made this bad modern art using The Digital Post Modernist Modern Generator and Comic Life.

Tags: art

Today's Thing is a set of morality tests. I took them all. It took about an hour and a half to take all of them, but you can take the main ones in a short period of time. The problem is squaring your self-image, either up or down, with your actions and practical thoughts. I have a hard time with absolutes as well.

Try it yourself.

Tags: web, wankery

So very, very sleepy.

Tags: pass

Thingor is a Giant Dragon that kidnaps Blonde Women, has a Toughened Steel Skeleton, is in League with Dark Forces, and can Regenerate. Strength: 7 Agility: 7 Intelligence: 9 To see if your Giant Battle Monster can defeat Thingor, enter your name and choose an attack: fights Thingor using Strength Agility Intelligence

I'm working on a longer comedy piece this week, so some entries may be light.

Tags: web, wankery

Another nonsensical comic strip can be found at The TTOTD Strip Generator Site. As always, apologies in advance for the blue material.

Tags: comic

Tags: comic

Show Number 2 of 5 from the archives.



HERE.

Tags: music, podcast

I have a bad cold and when I close my eyes I see only evil clowns.



The slow Thing week continues with evil clowns, as if any other kind exists.

Tags: web, art

There's plenty more cool paper creature designs at Readymech. And I'm sure you can put them together better than me.

Tags: art, craft

Kind of a slow week this week, Today's Thing continues the endless stream of TOTTD hollow promotions, I signed up for facebook. I created an entry for myself. Then created a group for this website and put it in the sidebar.

I like facebook way better than myspace---better layout, easier to find people, impossible to remember the URL. However, there is a bit of a stalker-y vibe to the whole site. I know the just-outta-college girls and the creepier just-outta-college boys at work sit around eating up company time cross-referencing all their comments and semi-connections to each other and every other just-outta-college kid on the planet. It's a rabbit hole of endless, pointless info.

The amount of cross-referencing of groups, ID's, locations, work and everything else is tasty tempting catnip to even the laziest of looky-loos. It's almost im-pos-i-ble not to click down the chain.

Anyway, I still think cell phones can be blamed for all this self-absorbed constant blather. Not a new thought, but cell phones + Twitter will end civilization.

Anyway, enjoy the TTOTD facebook page.

I hope inspiration hits, so there's real content from me this week.

Tags: web, wankery

This week's show is all new music except for Old 97's. That's All.


Get the CD Jewel Inset HERE.

Get the deluxe AAC version HERE.

Get the crappy MP3 version HERE.

Subscribe in itunes and visit the TTOTD Radio Page.



Long Week. Have a good weekend.

Tags: music, podcast

HERE.

Tags: art, project

In June, I contacted Bully Pulpit Games about posting an audio recording of the rules to The Shab-Al-Hiri Roach. They were very nice about it. At Gencon, Roach creator Jason Morningstar premiered an add-on to the Roach called The Roach Returns. The expansions details two new settings for Roach-y mayhem to take place.

I had an idea for a new setting and that's today's Thing. Today's Thing actually took a few days.

The Roach always struck me as an evil, evil soap, so why not expand on that idea. It's Dallas meets American Psycho. The Cashingtons are not just merely rich, but unholy rich. And like most large rich families, the siblings are at each other's throats. You play a spoiled sibling out to harm your other siblings. This is BEFORE The Roach arrives. Greed is great, but bedlam is better.

The four-page PDF features character sheets, events, business interests and obsessions, descriptions, dice charts and play rules, plus a new rules page add-on to encourage deep, dark secrets to come to the surface. Most of the changes in setting can be inferred from the PDF and your imagination can fill in the gaps. I hope it's playable. I haven't play-tested it just yet. I just finished the new setting today. If you want to know more about this weird game, The Shab-Al-Hiri Roach follow the links below down the rabbit hole. The Roach, um, commands you.

Also, if you have any suggestions for improvement, leave a comment or email me.

Grab the Rules in handy audio form MP3 version HERE or AAC version HERE. The rules are slightly abridged and poorly read by me. Also, the card text was left out, so buy the game. Or come over to my house and play. This is a taste.

Download the new setting, The Cashington Roach HERE.
It's a small four-page PDF, handy for printing and usable with existing Roach rules.

Enjoy.

Tags: game

After spending a weekend figuring out Fantasy Football, I've decided to start a faux advocacy group, Games Not Gaming. GNG is founded on the idea that if you have to bet on a game to play it, the game itself is boring. It's not an anti-gambling group, it's an anti-lame game group. There's no real game in Fantasy Football. It's just gambling dressed up and nerdified. Ever play Blackjack NOT for money. Bo-Ring. However, people play Monopoly, a game about getting money for free, with no bets everyday. The only betting game I can think of that's interesting is poker. And really, it's just mildly interesting. Playing for no money renders poker pointless. Slots ISN'T a game. Real games of skill and strategy are only played for money by hustlers and fools. Case in point, pool. And you can enjoy pool without money changing hands.

So remember, if you have to pay to play, the play is lame. Word.

Tags: game, web

Today's thing is a creative Commons License for the web site.

This is for the original work on the site. If you must steal, please attribute.

Tags: web

UNZIP.
PRINT.
POST IN PUBLIC PLACES.
TEAR DOWN.
NO REVOLUTION.

THE 'MY IMAGINARY FRIEND' EDITION

HERE

Tags: art, project

It's so sad when you send yourself e-cards on your birthday.

It's even sadder when you make your own birthday card.

Happy birthday to me.

Tags: comic

Today's Thing was supposed to be a Alberto Gonzales cartoon. I had the master panel and titles done, but didn't like the jokes. Although, did you know that Gee-Dub's nickname for Gonzales was "Fredo?" So, that means either a.) Bush thinks Alberto is the weak son link in his mafia (uh, so, yea, he must also see himself as operating the gub-ment as a mafia business. Yep. Uh-huh.) or b.) he really likes spaghetti sauce.

So, I had to come up with something else. The guys at work have been bugging me to join their fantasy football league. Bugging me like carnival barkers, bugging me like jackals. They know a mark when they see one. But, hey, it is a new Thing. I can learn about it, see what the buzz is (That buzz is about what 10 years old?). I'm not a sports guy, I'd rather watch a movie. I'd rather play a board game than watch a game.

But Jiminy Christmas, fantasy football is the nerdiest circle jerk I've ever run across. On the nerd scale, fantasy football guys make the Star Wars dorks at Comicon look like Hugh freekin' Hefner. Obsessed with minutia to an OCD extent, the blowing up of ghost legends and lore to sycophantic heights, the pointless debates, the tiny-dicked bragging, the twitch twitch twitch at the websites worse than a porn-obssessed meth addict, all that sound and fury signifying nada.

Sports nerds are the nerdiest nerds in nerdville. Most other kinds of nerds I've met have some humorous detachment from their obsessions, but not hardcore fantasy football nerds. Fantasy football nerds are like the mainstream religion of nerdom. Enough people do it, so no one can question it's wackiness. It's serious 'effin business.

So, anyway, I decided to embrace the nerd half of FANTASY football. It's all abstract BS numbers and luck anyway. A weird stat-based game minus the cool, nifty bits. So, I whipped the graphics in this post because every team needs a logo and signed up. Hey, new weird software. I can't think of a better name for my team than The Turf Nerds, but I do like the first fantasy football pic.

Looks like I'll be losing 20 bucks on a stupid game. It's happened before.

Tags: art, project, team

More bad conceptual art. For some reason, you get a lot of toliets. It's avant garde art circa 1926. Try it HERE.

Tags: art, web

Awhile ago, Shelly and I did a TV Blog. It was mostly a bust. Sure, I'll take the fall. Anyway, I work for a giant media conglomerate in the way a worker drone serves their queen and I've seen the pilot episodes for some new fall shows on a network that rhymes with 'Shmay-She-See.' I thought today's Thing would be a short review on these new shows. To make it hard, I saw the pilots, like, two months ago and the reviews are hazy. TV is best remembered half-way anyway. I usually see the Shmay-She-See pilots early. I have a track record of liking shows that die a quick death. So, the shows I don't like should be your cue to grab that TIVO pass. Also, bosses, please look kindly, I consider myself part of that New Geek Consumer that determines national tastes and is mentioned in every article about Comicon. In college, they just called us music nazis and Point dexter.

Comedies today, dramas later. So in no particular order.

Miss/Guided


A mid-season replacement. I'm a fan of Judy Greer and I've liked her in almost everything I've seen her in, even crap. And she's the lynchpin of this show. Like David Duchovny and Californication, this show wouldn't work without her or with another actress. My network has caught onto geekmania but is contractually obligated to skew female, so this is the result. The premise is a female Welcome Back Kotter where Kotter was the unpopular nerd kid. Unstated theme, you can always re-invent yourself, Ugly Betty without the camp and gay. Judy's a guidance counselor who, get this, could use social counseling herself. Wack-ee. She has an unrequited crush, a popular girl arch-enemy and (the new stereotype for the new century, IE 1970's) an exasperated, overworked black principle. Actually, I liked the show. The pacing was Earl-esque, Judy's great, most of the adults are okay, they could use less kids, but, hey, it's a high school. Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas has already been on the show and left, so that's not good news. I keep hearing 'retooling' when people talk about the show. I have a feeling the pilot I saw will not look like the show they'll air three times before canceling it. Yea, I liked it. It's canceled. And it's a mid-season show, so look for According to Jim to eventually replace Miss/Guided which will replace...

Carpoolers


Quick, name a four person all male buddy sitcom that was a success. Y'know, the one that is inevitably called "The male Sex In The City." Can't do it. Hasn't been one. Seinfeld had Elaine, she doesn't count. And the gawd-awful Wild Hogs is a movie. But hey, all the cliches are here--- the newly married naive guy, the lothario with no furnishings in his bachelor pad save his plasma TV and exercise chair/barcalounger, the hen-pecked weak husband who uses the carpool as his escape, and the normal guy who feels emasculated. And the hook, they share a car pool. Yep, that's the whole flimsy premise. Male bounding through sitting in traffic. There's lame 'a guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do' speeches, the weirdo grown-up son, ironic jobs, and other sitcom-land conventions. At least it's not all done on a sound studio. It's really generic on all fronts. I understand Jerry O' Connell and Faith Ford will work cheap and the rest of the cast just needs a job, but c'mon, step up people. It's hacky on almost all fronts. It's isn't According to Jim eye-searingly bad, but Jim will be doing double-duty soon. There's another show with incredibly lame premise, you've heard of it, hell, you may even have their insurance. But at least...

Cavemen


doesn't suck. Yea, I know, I'm surprised too. Mind you, it isn't a great show. But, Cavemen benefits from living up to low expectations. I'm not TIVO'ing it, but I'll ditch working to watch it. The premise, Cavemen are the new black people. They don't come out and say it and they even conspicuously have one black bit part in the pilot to drive that point away, but who's kidding who? Cavemen living in modern times are subject to all kinds of racists (specieists?) stereotypes. They're the dumb weather guys on TV, their athletic, and so on and so on. And this notion is what makes a dumb premise watch-able, there's some satire in the show. It isn't razor-sharp, but there's room for improvement and growth as the subculture and regular folks reactions are explored. Although, the show could get dumb fast if they stick to the three main characters personalities instead of widening out. There's the dumb one, the sarcastic one and the one who wants to fit in. (See a pattern here with sitcoms?) A few nifty visual gags, clever sarcastic remarks and a drunk Julie White (Work that cliche, baby!) made the tired set-up of rednecks at the country club trying to woo daddy (John Heard, slummin' away) to get the way-too-hot girl actually not seem painful. Caveman will probably only last a season just by name-recogition alone. Could go longer if the right tone is set. Speaking of toney, or Shmay-She-See's attempts at it...

Samantha Who


falls a little short of that new brand comedy that's funny and failing over there at NBC. Okay, it's a female My Name is Earl, no getting around it. There's no list or wacky meth addicts, but the redemption template is pretty well set in stone. Bad girl Christina Applegate gets amnesia (hi-larious!) and uses her forgetfulness to atone for her bad past. What bad thing did she do in the past, I bet a funny flashback will let us know. It's a high-brow show 'cause, c'mon she was a bad girl and she's our hero. But now she wants to be good. Having cake and eating it, mmmmm, mmmm. It's al