…And Now For Something Completely Different

So this is something that we’ve been slowly kicking around behind the scenes…though to be honest, I’d not even opened the file in over a year. But as we continue to make headway to solving the production issues, I decided it would be a good time to take a look at this again, update it, and start using it and see what happens.

It’s a computer game for Leviathans based on some shareware. I did a screen capture below to show a game on my computer in action to give you a quick idea of what it currently looks like.

So, what exactly does this mean? To be honest, no idea. Will we release this for people to purchase? No idea. Will it instead be released for free? No idea. Will there be an open alpha test? No idea. When could it come out? No idea?

I think you get the picture. Ultimately I absolutely believe the universe and visuals are cool and robust enough to support a full-fledged, AAA title. But in the mean time, we’re exploring every option, including this little computer game that would allow people to connect and play the board game online.

If you guys are interested in this, or interested in an alpha test, then by all means, let me know. It’ll certainly give me good ammunition for what the community would like to see as we explore this option more fully.

Thanks!

Randall

Playing With Data: Italian Ship Design

I’ve mentioned in previously blog posts about the direction I’m looking to take the various factions. Been working on the Italians for a while and today I finally got back the first look at the Ship Cards.

Despite years of working with spread sheets, some times you lose site of the over-all effect you’re looking to create with your data. So below are three jpgs that show one ship’s line on a spreadsheet…it’s a very, very wide spread sheet. But to show it here, so it’s relatively easy to understand, had to split it into three sections to view.

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What New Web Material Does The Community Want?

Hey crewmen,

So been seeing a lot of great discussions going on about what new material should be released online as a consequence of the continued delays. I’m fully willing to fall onto the proverbial sword on this one. A combination of the continued hope the game will finally come out, as well as a subconscious desire to not work on new web material as it means driving that stake a little further in my wound. But it’s time to stand up, stiff-upper-lip and all that, and get some new material flowing for you chaps wanting to toss some dice in our 1910 skies.

Now, right out of the gate, let’s discuss the Commander’s Manual. There’s been some suggestions of releasing this before hand. In fact, well over a year ago I brought this up tentatively and a little over a month ago I sent out a big email to the Catalyst Management team, but also included some other key players (two in particular that together have 40+ years of marketing/distribution/retail experience in our hobby). The email was a break down, as I saw it, of the pros and cons of releasing the Commander’s Manual in PDF form before the Core Box Set is available on store shelves.

Ultimately it was decided that as many experiments as we’ve done with Leviathans, that’s an experiment that’s just a little more than what we’re willing to commit to at this time. We simply have no way to gauge its effects on the ultimate sales of the Core Box Set. It could do what we’ve seen with print books and increase sales…but it could also be detrimental as this isn’t a book. Now we continue to discuss this, but at the current time there’s no plans to release the Commander’s Manual in PDF format.

With that said, however, there’s a pretty big list of things we could work on and release via the website in the near future. Here’s a few I can think of:

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New Ship Sign

Hey all,

Amazing how the weeks at the end of a year fly by, especially as you’re hard at work trying to unstick several production projects.

Much to my shock a sample of the “final production” miniatures, exactly as they’ll appear in the Core Box Set fell out of the mail yesterday. As I always promise, as soon as I had a moment to catch my breath, I’m sharing these.

Now the miniatures we received at Gen Con, while the decks were painted different for the British and French, the hulls were the same color, when the French were suppose to be lighter. Now we wanted the British to actually get a darker hull, but ultimately the French were considerably lightened. Considering we learned that the British were almost lightened after we explicitly told them to darker the British, we’ll take it.

Additionally, the tray as been completely revamped. The previous vacuum tray the ships sat in did not have a lid (just a plastic bag), so the pieces for the stands just cascaded everywhere. Additionally, the miniatures were held in place so tight it was the labors of Hercules to extract a ship without bending a turret or shearing off masts. However, the new vacuum tray is almost perfect in every way. It’s got a lid that holds everything in place and the ships simply slide in and out of their positions with ease.

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Germans Vs. French Playtest

Hey all,

So Bryn and I managed to get a Germans Vs. French playtest in before Thanksgiving.

As with the British playtest we threw all six German Ship Cards against the six French Ship Cards that’ll be in the Core Box Set.

We set up almost exactly like the previous playtest.

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German vs. British Playtest

Hey all,

First, huge apologies for the last few weeks of silence. For those unaware, we just launched two new BattleTech websites (bg.battletech.com and battletech.com) to coincide with the announcement and launch of the MechWarrior Online site…really awesome stuff for BattleTech fans.

However, that has meant for almost 3 weeks now I’ve done nothing but eat and breath website work. The speed with which I can tear covers off of PDFs, turn them into multiple sizes of jpgs, generate a PDF preview, and then stitch it all together on a page with a half dozen different links, as appropriate, is a little crazy.

The last two days have finally gotten the site to a point I can scale back my work on it to an hourish a day and get back to a host of other projects, including my weekly blog posts.

Second, no, we still do not have a Street Date for Leviathans…if that info had come I’d have let the websites crash if need be to shout that news…. Promise…as soon as I have it, you will.

Okay, now on to the fun of playtesting German Vs. British ships (this wrapped up almost two weeks back…silly websites). I asked whether you’d be interested in seeing some games play out and I got enough “you bet” responses, so here I go.

Just as in the Core Box Set, the Germans will feature six Ship Cards for the four miniatures: a Battleship, two Light Cruisers and three Destroyers. We put all six of them against the six British ships slotted for the Core Box Set.

For unknown reasons, I like my ships at a cant; Bryn likes deploying them straight on. Read the rest of this entry »

SteamCon III Wrap-Up

I love conventions; I love teaching people how to play games; I love the gaming community and the great, fun people I meet every time I attend somewhere; I love the steampunk aesthetic…combine all of those into one, and I really love SteamCon.

SteamCon III just happened over the weekend and as usual it was a blast. While there’s some growing pains here and there, I loved how the gaming area was almost triple the size of last year, with more and varied games being run.

Below are a few quick photos I managed to snap while running dozens of people through Leviathans, while talking to dozens more about the universe and game.

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Playtesting German Ship Cards: German vs. British

As mentioned in previous blog posts (here and here), I’m currently developing/playtesting the German faction. Specifically the 6 German Ship Cards that’ll appear in the faction box set.

I’ve got the usual large playtesting apparatus banging on them and Bryan and I took them for a jaunt over the weekend…a pile of fun.

These photos are when the game was two turns from the end; three ships already down and the rest fairly damaged.

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Play Leviathans at Steamcon III

I had an absolute blast last year at SteamCon II and I’m looking forward to running a pile of Leviathans games at SteamCon III next weekend. I’ll be in the Laurel Room Friday and Saturday, making noise, tossing dice and having a great time with who ever shows up.

If you’re in the area, stop on by and grab your first game, or a more expanded game if you’ve already tried the QSR.

Hope to see you there!

Randall

German Ship Cards…A First Look

So just got in the first layout sample of the German Ship Cards from Matt and I’m immediately sharing.

Below is the SMS Weisbaden…a German Light Cruiser.

Right out of the gate, no, that’s not the correct ship art…for those paying attention that’s the British D-class…the German art is a ways away, but I wanted nice Ship Cards for playtesting.

Second, you’ll note that all the gun batteries use CM; that’s what was used by the Germans at that time. From a blog post ages ago, I mentioned that I’d generated a mega spreadsheet where I’d taken all the real world gun sizes and wedded them with the game mechanics.

In that spreadsheet, the British use “IN”, the French, Italians and Russians “mm”, the Germans, Japanese and Austro-Hungarians use “cm” and the wacky Americans use both “pdr” for the smallest guns and then “IN”.

Now I’m pretty sure some of those gun battery Slots need Bracketing Fire icons on them (will need to check the spreadsheet…I may have not provided the details correctly to Matt).

Finally, you’ll note a new type of Crew Slot…the ship mounts two Screening Crew Slots, which provide some additional cool rules for what can be done with Bracketing Fire…provided it survives playtesting, of course.

See ya next duty shift!

Randall