A Pesky Interlude

I've been very busy over the past week finishing up work on Those Pesky Humans. It's not actually a Wise Turtle product – just a fantasy board game where I was hired on for layout but ended up contributing a bit of game design and writing, too. It's a fun take on the age-old "Humans have come to take the Monster's carefully collected hoard" trope, with players taking sides in the quest to procure legendary treasure/oust the human invaders. The PDF "Print it yourself" version is out now, with the actual boxed game available later this year. But since the PDF price will go towards your purchase of the boxed game, if you order direct from Minion Games, you don't have to worry about paying for the same game twice. You can find out more and purchase the game here.

Okay, with my plugging done, you can look forward to more OVA next week!

Master of Magic

The Magic Abilities, both Arcane and Witchcraft, are the only ones to retain an Endurance cost. Despite this, the rules here have also seen streamlining. Like elsewhere, Players can now use the Ability Perks and Flaws to alter the nature, and the Endurance cost, of each spell. No longer are there built in Endurance costs for casting without gestures, or even without words. All of these, if desired, are handled through the Perk/Flaw System.

The Endurance cost itself has also been simplified. Instead of annoying math like "pay half the initial Endurance cost each round" for keeping a spell in effect, there is no such extra expenditure. The amount you pay up front is the amount you pay, no matter how long the spell is in effect.

The rub is that this Endurance cannot be regained until the spell is relinquished. That 10 Endurance you spent is gone, no matter how much you rest, until you give up the effects of the spell. It's like a semi-permanent chunk of your character's fighting spirit is locked away within it. It's certainly easier to handle, and I think it is more thematically appropriate to the Ability.

Auren certainly knows his way around magic. But despite all his knowledge as a venerable sage in his world, nothing can prepare him for life as a Japanese teenager in ours.

On a Roll

While surely I hope to make OVA's long-planned supplements materialize this time around, you know, at some time before paper becomes completely obsolete, I also plan to support the game in a lot of little ways all the time, so that there's not quite such a vacant gap between releases.

While gaming merchandise is one possibility (like cute/cool folders to haul your game notes in), I also am looking into digital supplements to the game. These were planned last time around, but my personal programming expertise left a lot to be desired, and all that came out of it was a dice-roller I never publicly released. This time I hope to do it right, and get some people who actually know what they're doing to help me out.

One of the first things I'd like to release is a dice-roller for the iPhone/iPod Touch OS. Being able to shake your device and actually see 3D rendered results is a lot more tactile and entertaining than one might think! Gandreas Software has produced a very nice generic dice-roller, one which can handle even OVA's offball mechanics. I'm currently speaking with them in the hopes of producing an official OVA version of the app. We'll see!

While we're waiting, are there any other programs you'd like to see for the game?