Generation 2 pt 2

Good morning/evening interwebs!

I thought I'd start my morning off with breakfast and blogging.   What better way is there?

So it seems the UVic games club will be meeting tonight.  This gives me a solid deadline for about 8 hours from now to have the prototype done.  It's going to be tight, but I think I can make it.

I stormed up most of the order designs last night.  They're slightly more complicated than the units were so I'm going to draw each one by hand rather than cutting them out.  It's going to take time, but last time I was cutting out each piece individually, so I have only gained speed.

I spent 4 or 5 minutes racking my brain over how to do "swing", a new infantry order.  The unit has to move then damage a set of tiles.  The figure in the order image will be doing a vertical swing, because I can draw it in 2D even though it doesn't make sense.

I've also been developing a small library of symbols to describe which units can carry out an order, the effect of the order, and the function of the arguments. It's going to be a moot point without the written rules, but I hope it can help people keep things straight after the first reading.

I think I'm going to drop the white backing idea. Whatever table I'm playing on will have to suffice.

Well, it's 10:30, and I'm done my cereal.  Time to get back to work.

Saturday 11:05

Ya gotta love the difference between the math of the morning and the math of the night before.  After checking my numbers again, I actually needed 156 of the 1x1 guys.  The backing for the film strip is definitely out.  Anyway, just finished tracing out all of the argument pieces, which will henceforth be known as detail tokens.  The next thing to trace out will be the order tokens.  The name change is to spare the manual and future blog posts from the cards within cards confusion.  An order card will have an order token and a number of detail tokens.  Before I create the order tokens though, I need to go back to my notebook and finish their design.

Saturday 11:30

Oh boy!  This part is going to be a bit more messy.  The detail tokens were each single pieces, but an order token consists of four sections:

• the order image, which identifies the order and provides a conceptual image of what it does.
• the order availability, which identifies which units can use this order.
• the detail token list, which lists the detail tokens needed to fill out the order.
• the order explanation, which uses a series of symbols o explain the order's functionality.

These sections are not equal, so they won't be given equal space. My plan is to make the image 2.5x2, the availability 1.5x0.5, and the token list and order explanation each 1.5x75.  Clearly this won't be nearly as simple as the grid layout used for the detail tokens.  I think my best shot is to do one pass to outline the whole tokens, then a second pass to outline the subsections.  This might take a while.

Saturday 12:20

That got it.  I have traces of 56 cards and I only need 48.  I'm a little worried that some of the side sections may be cramped, but I'm committed now.  I may choose not to outline the smaller details and just leave the pencil versions.  Of course I haven't actually done the pencil versions yet, but I have a good excuse. My pencil just ran out of lead.  For the paper prototype creator, this is like getting splashed by a dolphin.  It's a good thing.  Between the patterns on the paper and my lack of lead, I'm getting that swelling "you're actually accomplishing something" feeling that I love so much.  Also getting that "I'm hungry" feeling so I think I'm going to make a quick snack run.

Saturday 1:30

I have finalized the design for all the subsections.  Now all I have to do is make 6 copies of every card. This is going to get a bit tedious, but the tension will be maintained by the fact that I have been unable to locate my backup leads. I have one pencil that still has lead, but I have no idea how much.

God is my co-pilot.

Saturday 3:05

Done tracing!  By some miracle, that lead never gave out.  As badly as I want to cut them out, I think the better move will be to take one of the spares, and use it to build the cards.  The plan is for each token slot to consist of 4 slits large enough to hold the corners of  the token in question.  This shouldn't be too hard, but finding a good way to make a slit without having any edge to come in from poses a problem.  Time to scour the house for a suitable tool.

Saturday 4:15

So after failing with a 4 slit slot, and finding that a single tab let go too easily, I found that the best system was to create 2 slits in a v which all comfortably allows tokens to be added and removed without easily falling out.  Having made all six cards, a contiguous film real is not possible due to the size of the cards.  I'm going to forgo the film strip for now and just see how order assembly goes with the card system in place.  All I have to do now is cut out the tokens, bag them, and take them to the games club to test them with a fresh audience.  I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow.

Till then, see you later.