Kickstarters, board game idea, and Celebs!

Sorry for the lack of a blog over the past few weeks. It’s the usual reason – I honestly did not have all that much to talk about!

Oh before I get into the meat of the blog, the video version can be found here.

This week I have a few things on my mind, and I’m hoping to have another blog up on Sunday or maybe early next week as I will have a few topics to touch on, but I don’t feel like making another 35 minute long blog!

As it stands, I’ll get right to the point for this week, and keep it nice and short as a result.

First, a couple of Kickstarters.

First, if you happened to have backed the BattleTech computer game Kickstarter a few years ago, it’s finally available in beta mode. I gave it a shot, and other than trying to get the camera angles to work the way I wanted them to, I didn’t have any other serious issues with it.

Well – with the exception that I own a near top-end computer. Even with this, I found the game was still a little choppy here and there.

The one aspect of the game which really appealed to me is the fact it plays like the classic table-top game. You control a lance of 4 Battlemechs and it’s purely turn based!

It will have an actual campaign, and there will be PVP, but don’t expect me to play that.

I really am not a fan of PVP, and if you want to know why, just ask.

Another one is called Metal Dawn.  This is essentially a robot apocalypse board game and it has been successfully funded.  By the time you read or watch this, more than likely it will have ended, as right now there is only 25 hours left.

If I had a little bit of spare cash, I would have backed this project, but as it stands, I’m a little strapped!

One of the reasons I’m talking about these Kickstarters, is I really am considering making a prototype game. It has been something I have been thinking about for a couple of years now, and mentioned it in passing to Michael Varhola when I was in Houston last year.

I am thinking about a Post-Apocalyptic game which is set up in a manner which combines the ease of Talisman with some of the more complex rules found in the excellent game Runebound.

Both games have the exploration, combat, and other challenges. Each game has the players using a variety of different characters – which can gain equipment, spells, followers and so forth. 

I want to start putting together something like this, which will have the exploration side, but the various locations will have either fixed encounters (like many of the locations on the Talisman board – where you roll to see what occurs, or in Runebound where you have a encounter which is already predetermined based on the level), or cards with events and so forth to be drawn (again, like Talisman).

I want to have various events, as well as things like animals and humans (normal and mutated). I would like to see mutations used in the game the way spells are used in Talisman (although mutations would be permanent).

The board itself, I see it set up covering North America (including Canada and maybe Mexico), split into either states and provinces or specific regions, which would use a movement system similar to that found in Runebound.

Of course the prototype will be constructed with tons of stolen (yes you read correctly) images from online. After all, this will never be used by anyone but me and those who I choose to try it out!

If it ever goes to Kickstarter and production, I’ll end up hiring artists to do the work for the game, so it will have all original work.

Now, about the work I was doing for RPG’s.

I got around to dividing the creatures I wrote up from various media sources into types. All 300 of them.

Next I will take the 218 New Mutant Monday and treat them to the same division.

Furthermore, I have printed out all the rules covering Types and Subtypes, so if I decide I will put the time and effort into converting them to Starfinder AKA Pathfinder, it will make my life easier.

Speaking of Starfinder, I found a link on Facebook the other day which explains five major differences between the two systems.

I wonder what else we can expect? No matter what I am so eager to get my hands on this monster!

I’m planning on talking about Starfinder in more depth when I write my next blog.

There is a chance I might have touched upon this in the past, but after reading a few articles online the past two weeks, I figured I would bring it up again.

A friend of mine once said he did not want to meet anyone whom he admired for one simple fact – they might be assholes and would end up ruining the mental image he had of that particular person.

Sadly, I fully understand this now, and I have for a couple of years.

For the most part, the celebrities I have met were pretty cool people. Some really stood out, while others were just average.

And then some were just dickheads.  This is really disheartening to encounter, as my friend said it… you have a mental image of the person, and when they turn out to be assholes, it destroys the image and you’re left heart-broken.

This was the case with Gil Gerard. He played Buck Rogers when I was growing up, and he was my hero.

When I finally had a chance to meet him, the only impression I got from him was that of a greedy prick, who used the fact he was my hero growing up against me and ended up not even giving me my change when I reluctantly purchased a photo with him.

And then there were the encounters with quite a few members of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Jonathan Frakes – cold fucking asshole who didn’t give a fuck unless you were paying him money. Merina Sertis – insulting!, Michael Dorn, cold but not as bad as Frakes. Brent Spiner, likewise. Even Levar Burton.

I gave up after those guys, feeling very angry and highly disappointed all at once.

Then you get guys like Michael Rooker, Lee Majors, Tia Carrera, Ray Parks, Paul McGillion, John Rhys Davis and others.

They more than made up for the few assholes I had encountered.

So, for those of you who take the time to meet celebrities at expos and conventions, I hope you have far more excellent encounters than bad ones!

I guess I’ve been lucky because I have had far more good encounters.

That’s all she wrote folks. Until next time, stay happy and continue enjoying summer, since today is the first official day of summer – well, as I posted this blog at least.