Mobile Games Dos and Don'ts

Mark Barrett turned me on to an interesting presentation from back from 2013. It's by one of the founders of NimbleBit, who have been cranking out hit mobile games for almost a decade now. It encompasses 29 bits of advice ranging from the general to the specific. It's only a half hour so you're not risking much by giving it a look.

Give it a watch here.

Then you can read an interview with the presenter for some extra explanation.

I've been working with Mark, doing some coding work for a project he's working on called Rescue Pups. You can read about that over on TIG Forums. It's a game about running a dog rescue shelter. Dogs come in, you take care of them, dividing your time and money amongst them to get them as adoptable as possible so someone will adopt them as their pet. The initial prototype is kicking along.  I'm really happy with the progress I was able to make in just two weeks using Objective-C and XCode's Interface Builder. We've got the initial game loop in and we've been iterating on individual gameplay elements, working to find the fun.

So before this post ends without a single picture, here's a concept image from Rescue Pups.

Rescue Pups!

Progression of Rats

I've finished off the wererat assassin. I'm not super happy with the painting, but I'm not super happy with the model either. The reaper bones miniatures are made of a low quality pvc. If you do pickup any of these miniatures I'd recommend thinking about them like the prepainted miniatures you might get out of a blind box, except that you'll be painting them yourself. The cost of the models makes them ideal for bulking up your collection, especially for things like role-playing games.  But the quality of the cast means there's a very low level of detail and you probably won't want to put a huge amount of effort into their paintjobs.

Shhhh. He's being sneaksy.

He's up to something...

I'm closing in on the last of the rat figures for the pathfinder campaign. Here's the current state of the Skaven Grey Seer that I've been gradually covering with paint. The model is very detailed but actually pretty easy to paint, with all the details accessible even after assembled. I think Games Workshop did an awesome job with all their clamshell plastic character models. After their finecast debacle they just really knocked it out of the park with these miniatures.

More Rats

skitter, scratch, stab

Work has been progressing on the rat-folk models for the pathfinder campaign.  The skaven assassin I'm using for my character is almost complete.  He'll be going on the base with the tall archway on it. I've also started putting together a module for pcgen (a fantastic program for creating and tracking a character) that includes some things that we're using in our campaign.  It's got the ironskin spell that we wanted to use but wasn't already in a module.  It's also got some updates to the monk class and ratfolk race for options that we wanted to use but that weren't there.  It's up on github so you can use it if you're interested. Check it out here.

We've got skeleton guards protecting our loot.

I've also put together a map of the dungeon we're currently exploring. We were teleported into it by our employer (and now nemesis) and doors have been slowly opening up, leading to new locations full of folk who want to kill us. I'm no artist, so the tiles were made using a free tileset created by Buch over on OpenGameArt.org. Go here to get it for yourself.


I'm gearing up to start an RPG campaign that I'll be running myself.  The beast trainer adventure that I've mentioned before will be part of that. Right now I'm thinking about how the world works and what the major players are.  To foment conflict I'm looking at having four factions I can draw upon when the players want to be explore in a particular direction. Political, religious, economic and military powers are the broad strokes I'll rely upon to create conflict and tension in the world.

Rats, I'm stuck in a dungeon

Tuesday game night occasionally sees us playing some Pathfinder where the three players in the party are all Ratfolk. We're currently trapped in a dungeon and have plans to take over the whole complex, but first we have to assert our dominance.

Rats!

I was in Portland last weekend and was finally able to pickup a handful of miniatures at Guardian Games to use for the PCs in the campaign. I love Games Workshop's line of Skaven and I was able to find a few that I wanted without having to order online. Instant gratification!

I also picked up a wererat assassin from Reaper's Bones line of miniatures. I knew about Bones but had never purchased any. They really are cheap miniatures, about a tenth of the price of a GW character mini. They aren't high quality, and I don't think any amount of painting skill is going to turn them into display quality. But if you just want some cheap character minis you can use for gaming they're probably not a bad way to go. At about three dollars a pop, though, you're probably better off buying a regiment box from Games Workshop if you need a large number of similar miniatures.

I've gotten a start on painting them up.  One of the PCs is a bomb-tossing alchemist and I was hoping to find an old Poison Wind Globadier but no luck.  I may have to go to the web for that one.

Paaaaaaint Meeeeee!

The Riptide of Joy and Suffering hasn't gotten any love for a few weeks. I've got him sitting on my shelf, staring accusatorily at me. Some day I'll finish him up.

Hobby Progress: Orc Boyz

I found some time to base my orc boyz this week.  It's actually my first time using static grass.  I tend to prefer using small gravel or drywall paste for my bases, but I thought these guys would look best walking over a grassy field.

Get me my choppas!

Basing these guys took some forethought.  With ballast/gravel I usually use watered down white glue. which sits tall on the base when wet due to surface tension. This works fine for heavy rock pieces but I didn't figure the lightweight static grass would do very well. I ended up just using straight white glue thinly applied with a brush. This meant the stickiness of the glue let it sit as a very thin layer. After dunking the base in the tub of grass I used a second, clean brush to clean any grass off their boots and the sides of the bases. It worked well and went very fast.

The last step was to spend a few minutes finishing up the logo on their banner. A fine brush and a bit of time got a spider and some skulls picked out.

I don't really have a use for orc boyz so I've put these guys up for sale over on Half Price Minis.  If you have a use for them you can pick them up for pretty cheap.  Check them out here.

February Hobby Wrapup

February is fading from sight in the rearview mirror, so before it's completely out of sight I thought I'd say a few words giving myself a hobby report card.

• Empire Swordsmen - A+. Nailed it.  I finished painting all six swordsmen and even got a blog post in about it that you can read here.
• Bloodletters - F.  I pulled these guys out of storage and then they sat on my desk scowling at me the whole month. I hear Khorne is intolerant of failure, so I expect some kind of retribution.
• Riptide - B-. I got some more paint on this guy and started in on his line highlighting. Not done, but not forgotten.

Riptide of Joy and Suffering

I started his line highlighting up around where the head attaches so I could get that bit glued in.  The arms and shield are being held together with bluetac for the picture.  I want to get them and the torso finished before gluing them on permanently.

For March, I think I'll leave the bloodletters on the desk.  There's really not that much left to do on them.  Of course I'll continue work on the riptide, but instead of thinking I'll get it done I think I'll set a more modest goal, like getting the torso and arms finished.

I've also got a band of Warhammer Fantasy Orcs sitting on my desk that just need to be based.  I'm thinking I'll just sprinkle some static grass onto them and call it done.

Waaaauuuuugh!!!

Painted: Empire Swordsmen

There's certainly not much time left in February for completing my hobby projects, but after a nice afternoon painting session I do have my Empire Swordsmen wrapped up.  They go along with my other swordsmen, Master Engineer, Witch Hunter and a gaggle of flagellants for the painted Warhammer Fantasy Empire army I've been working on.

Reporting for duty.

There's a lot of detail on these guys that I didn't pick out. I made the decision early on with this 30 strong troop choice that I wasn't going to spend much time on each individual. They're meant to run around on the table as a large mob so the important thing was for the paint scheme to consistent across the regiment. That's why they call it a uniform, after all.

Here's an older shot of my witch hunter and his retinue.  The freshly painted swordsmen and master engineer aren't included in the shot. I still have a steam tank and 12 more swordsmen that need painting up, then the original composition of the army will be fulfilled.

A witch hunter and his retinue

I'm not going back and putting these guys on round bases for Age of Sigmar. Even though that's probably the rules set they'll be used in from here on out, I still like the look of them when they're all ranked up in traditional Warhammer Fantasy style.

My Cygnar Collection

I thought I'd take a break from my painting updates to showcase my Cygnar army.  It's the faction I chose when I first started playing Warmachine. It is the largest in part because it has had the most time to grow, but mainly because I still have a soft spot for it in my heart and end up adding the occasional model her and there even though I don't really need it.

Here are my warcasters. From right to left: Caine, Kraye, Haley, Sloan and Junior. I'm most happy with the Sloan model.  I really like the conversion to her aiming her rifle rather than holding it up in the air like a drum major. I've also realized upon taking this picture that Caine needs some touch up work, especially on his face. Dude looks like he's wearing a mask.

Here are the heavy warjacks. Again from right to left: centurion, stormclad, defender. I think the defender is my favorite jack by far. Not because his rules are necessarily awesome, but because I love lobbing cannonballs downrange and the idea of robot-brain-killing-hammer.

And the light warjacks.  We've got a charger, hunter, firefly and sentinel. You'll usually find the hunter being run by the journeyman warcaster and some mix of the others running around causing problems where they can. I like to field them even though they're probably not the best choice given that the warcasters I run are happiest when they're keeping their focus to themselves.

And all my gun mages. There's two units of regualar gun mages in there with their officers.  Also along for the ride are two gun mage captain adepts and the Black 13th.  Gun mages are my favorite of all the various Cygnar units.  Having almost 20 of them in various flavors on the board puts a lot of tools in my swiss army knife.

I've also got a few random solos.  Three stormcallers, Arlan Strangeways and a storm strider.

And here's my pile of unpainted miniatures.  There's Nemo, a couple squads of long gunners, a unit of stormguard, a range squad, Thunderhead, a second sentinel, an ironclad and Captain Darius with his halfjacks. Someday I'll get all these guys painted up, either through my own efforts or by farming the job out to a miniatures painting service. Blue Table Painting has already handled a fair bit of the army, but I'm open to doing some research and seeing if I can find someone else to do the remainder.

I'd love to have an excuse to add to the army. I like the rules on the minuteman light jacks and I've always wanted to throw down a cyclone heavy. Some sword knights would let me field the theme force for Darius. Of course adding in a stormwall colossal would be fantastic.  The work of an obsessive collector is never done.

Sadly, the army hasn't seen the tabletop in years. Some of the painted units like the firefly and storm strider have never seen action. I really want to be able to write a resolution that I'll get them into combat soon but I think that would just be empty words. C'est la vie, I suppose.  Someday.

Riptide of Joy and Suffering

I remain, as always, a slow painter. Do you also paint slowly? I feel like a couple hours of painting only gets me through one little section on a large model or that I just get one color laid down on a squad of miniatures.  C'est la vie, I suppose.  I should give up on any dreams I had of being a professional painter.  It would take much too long for anyone to want to hire me.

I wouldn't want to hire me.

Clank Clank I'm a tank.

The base colors on my Tau are Bastion Grey from Privateer Press and Mecharius Solar Orange from Games Workshop. Both paints need two coats to get proper coverage, but for different reasons.  The grey is very thin and lets a lot of the primer show through so two coats are necessary to get a smooth finish.  The orange is extremely thick, and remains so no matter how much water I add.  My brush seems to end up pushing globs of paint around and it takes two coats to smooth it all out.

It's time consuming.

I might get one more evening of painting in on the Riptide before I set it aside to tackle some of this month's other projects. I pulled out a reference model from my empire army so I will go ahead and tackle the six empire swordsmen on this month's todo list.

Cairn Wraith and Riptide Wrapup

Well, January is all over except for the crying so let's wrap up this month's hobby goals. I wanted to get my Empire Engineer, Cairn Wraith and Riptide finished up in January and I met some of the goals.  You can see my engineer in this post and I also managed to wrap up the Cairn Wraith.

spooooky

I'm pleased with how he turned out.  I did try to put some nicks on the weapon haft but I don't think they came out very well so I'm going to go back and repaint bone over the top of them to smooth it out.  

The Riptide did not get finished, but I did make more progress on it than I thought I would at the beginning of the month.  It's a large model with a lot of pieces that took a long time to clean and assemble.  I thought that I might only get the subassemblies primed but I did manage to steal a few nights of paint time to get a basecoat on parts of it.

So many pieces...

So the Riptide will carry over into February. I'll also be looking to get a few more empire swordsmen painted up and to put the finishing touches on a big group of khorne bloodletters.  It's quite a mob of models, but the bloodletters are already halfway done so I don't expect they'll take a lot of time to finish up.

That's a lot of demons.

Engineer Beauty Shots

The whole family left town on vacation this week so no progress on this month's hobby goals.  I did get a few minutes to snap some shots of my finished Empire Engineer.

Checking range on the enemy!

I did get some time to think about the RPG adventure I'm cooking up. One important element for any adventure is the addition of a cinematic scene.  This will usually occur during a battle and act as a set piece for the whole adventure. It's a chance as the adventure writer to describe something memorable for the players.

In the case of the beast trainer adventure I'm cooking up I've got some little dragonling/kobold guys and the dogs they've been training.  I've already decided on having the trainers holed up in a cave for the adventurers to explore. Setting this in the cave creates a scene with few routes of escape and a heightened urgency. Since dragons and fire are pretty much synonymous I thought to have the elite dragonlings spit fire.  This led to consideration of the players being trapped in a conflagration and having to escape. Images of smoke filled rooms and crazed, burning animals filled my head and I figured I had the perfect setting for a climactic battle. 

Master Engineer and Riptide Progress

I've been cranking away on this month's goals and I've got my riptide mostly assembled.  It took a fair number of evenings to get the whole thing assembled and cleaned up.  He's a jumble of subassemblies at the moment so that when I go to paint him I'll be able to get my brush into all his little nooks.  I might even magnetize the torso to the legs to make storage and transportation easier.

Riptide Parts!

Once the riptide was mostly finished I was itching for a change of pace so I broke out the Empire Engineer and painted him to a playable state.  I don't imagine I'll ever need two empire engineers in my collection, but if I had to do it again I would definitely paint the base separately from the rest of the model.  There are a lot of fiddly bits on there that are difficult to reach with a brush once the model is standing on top.

Scoping out the competition!

My January goals are going to be coming in tight.  I didn't think the riptide would take as much time to complete as it did so I'm not sure there will be time to get paint on him.  Finishing the Engineer was nice, though. I can't let just one thing eat up the whole month. Progress needs to happen on all fronts, not just the biggest, shiniest parts.

I've also started brainstorming and outlining a little Pathfinder/DnD adventure.  I dug out some minis from the old DnD tactical combat game for inspiration.  I'm thinking the little kobold/dragonling things on the left are training beasties to help them fulfill some sort of plan.  I haven't decided completely on their motivations. Maybe they're retrieving an artifact or trying to drive some townsfolk off their land.  Maybe they're just lurking or being bandits.

2015 Hobby Wrapup and 2016 January Goals

2015 is done! Hooray! But before we put last year completely in the rear view mirror let's spend a bit of time in reflection.

Everything I painted in 2015

I managed to play only a handful of 40K games. They were all fun, but difficult to arrange and took much too long for the points values (many hours for 1500 points to a side).  All but one were also four player games which is probably why they took a bit longer.

Fantasy suffered a bit of a blow with the introduction of Age of Sigmar.  A buddy and I had been collaborating on an empire army themed around witch hunters, and even had a plan to run something like a campaign with them. With no more GW support for proper Warhammer Fantasy we're not likely to do that anymore.  We've played the Age of Sigmar rules but we're not terribly impressed with them. We're just not sure how best to organize a battle so the fight isn't lopsided. We did play around with counting wounds and whatnot but it's just not the same as having points values and force org charts.  We'll see.  I think the rules themselves play fine, but I'm not sure I want to spend a bunch of money for scenario rules or that it has legs enough to keep me interested.

In Warmachine territory I only played a single game even though most of my painting time was put into Privateer Press models. So that's a bit lopsided.  I'm sure I can arrange some more battles this year.

Hobby Scorecard! A lot of this year's hobby was spent finishing models that had been started a long time ago. This is another trend I expect to continue in 2016.  I'm resolved to make a dent in the pile of half finished miniatures I have lying around.

Here are the models I completed in 2015. Twenty-nine total, which comes out to about one model every two weeks.

     12 Empire Swordsmen

     Dark Angels Azrael

     Rhyas, Sigil of Everblight
     Rask, Hordes Warlock

     6 Tau Stealthsuits

     2 Tau Drones
     3 Tau Battlesuits
     Bull Snapper, Hordes Warbeast

     Journeyman Warcaster
     Harlan Versh

Looking into 2016, I'd like to do more one on one combats across all the rule sets that I have armies for, even Infinity. I'm also looking to expand my Tau collection and finish up a few of the half-started armies that are lying around. Setting a goal for the month seemed to work well leading up to the new year, so I think I'll keep that around and try to make it a thing.

Here's a picture of the January goal:

In the front there is a half-finished Cairn Wraith and an assembled and primed Empire Master Engineer. Then of course there's a Tau Riptide taking up most of the picture. I'm building my Tau force very deliberately, only adding a new model to the army once all the other models are assembled and painted.  The only exception I'm making is for drones.  Drones will be saved up to be assembled and painted once I have a sufficient number of them.

Painted: Harlan Versh

Harlan Versh is done. He was the last model on my 2015 list. I guess I'm a day late to have completely met my goal but since I set the goals and hold myself to them I'm going to go ahead and give myself a "Job well done."

I don't really like the model now that I've painted it. He's supposed to be a formidable witch hunter but his pose doesn't speak to this. It's very stiff and wooden.  He's standing with his knees locked. There's very little dynamism to his pose. The cloak on his back is a wide expanse of flat metal that practically requires freehand work just to make it look decent.

Whatever the case, he's done and ready to rain hot lead on enemy witches and warlocks. So along with my Journeyman Warcaster, Bull Snapper, Tau weapons and Sorcha with her Devastator I managed to make the hobby year go out on a high note.

Next up is to look through my list of projects and pick a few for January. Onward and upward.

Painted: Battlesuits and Weapons

Last night I finished up the weapons for my Tau Battlesuit squad.

I magnetized all the weapon options that come in the kit so it took a little while to do all the fiddly line highlighting on each weapon.  Still, I think the overall effect is pretty good.

The magnets I used are a little bit small, and even though I doubled up the connection still feels a little wobbly.  I'm worried about the weapons coming off during gameplay and losing them. I'm not sure what I'd do differently if I were to do it all over again since the magnets were the largest I could possibly use on the small weapons.

One day left and one project to go to get my project list done for the new year. Harlan Versh here I come!

Painted: Bull Snapper

2016 is rapidly approaching and I've got the Bull Snapper checked off my project list.

I don't have much use for him in a game of Warmahordes. I simply don't have enough Minions models to put together a worthwhile force. Bull Snappers aren't one of my favorite units anyways. Why take a light warbeast when you can have a heavy for twice the price? But he does look good next to Rask, and if/when I get a chance to play the Hordes version of the Iron Kingdoms RPG I'll be rocking a fish man character with attendant hungry crocodile.

Now to close out the year I just need to wrap up the Tau battlesuit weapons and finish Harlan Versh.  Versh is starting too look like a stretch goal at this point, but the battlesuit weapons just need one more line highlighting pass and they'll be set.

Painted: Devastator and Sorcha

I had a chance to finish up the base on the devastator the other evening, so Sorcha and her warjack got some time in front of the camera.

I (obviously) didn't spend a huge amount of time painting up the interior of the 'jack.  Just brass and metal and a few highlights.  Oh well, He's meant to be viewed from above or the sides anyway.

In my desire to get him finished I picked the wrong color for his side and front face markings.  Again, oh well.  They will serve the purpose until I get around to painting over them with the grey the other models use.

I really dig the grass bits by Army Painter.  These are the Highland 6mm tufts and you can buy them on Amazon here (affiliate link). I ended up having to pick up another pack because my first one got lost somewhere in the Basement of Doom.  The packs look pretty small on store shelves, but even a large base like a warjack's can't really have more than two or three tufts on it without looking crowded, so they last a really long time.  They're an especially good way to kick a very simple basing job up a notch.

So with these guys out of the way I'm down to the Bull Snapper, Harlan Versh and a pile of Tau Battlesuit weapons, and I have just shy of two weeks to wrap it all up to meet my goal.

End of Year Painting

With four weeks left in the year it's time to wrap up some hobby projects.  I've been hoarding miniatures for almost two decades now, so my hobby backlog runs longer than people graduating high school have been alive. Still, it's nice to close out the year on a high note so here's a shot of everything I'm trying to wrap up before January first.

We've got pSorcha and a Khador Devastator. These guys are completely done except for some paint, grass and gravel on their bases.  Should be a slam dunk and they'll get my small Khador force completely done.

Then there's a Cygnar Journeyman Warcaster that's been half painted for a few years now.  Time to get him done.

Harlan Versh is there on the left.  I had a very productive painting session where I got some key pieces of him done but haven't gone back to him since.

On the bottom there's a Bull Snapper to go with my Rask model. And lying in a pile on the table are the magnetized weapons for my Tau Battlesuits.

So with four weeks to go in the year I have set for myself what should be a pretty modest goal.  Time to buckle down and get it done.

Khador Widow Makers

These fine fellows and accompanying lady are ready to lay precision waste to the foes of the motherland.  My last post on these guys had them half basecoated standing in front of an equally rough Devastator.  Now their brown cloaks have been finished and their guns are all brassy and ready to fire.

See the last post with my widowmakers here.

This means I can update my Hobby Scorecard on the right and also that my 15 point Khador army is only two models away from being ready to take the field.  All that is left now is a Devastator and Sorcha.  I can't wait!

Khador Prorgress

Some progress has been made on my 15 point Khador army. I've decided to tackle painting the Devastator warjack and the unit of widowmakers at the same time. Here is an in progress shot.

 

Painting time has been limited to an hour or so in the morning just a couple of times a week so I've only managed to get a bit of the base coat on.  The widowmakers will sport mostly brown with only a very small bit of blue on their shoulders.  This is to amplify their role as a stealthy unit while still keeping them cohesive with the rest of the army.

Once this merry crew is done I'll only have Sorcha left and then they'll be ready to carve a trail of destruction across Immoren.