Hold Up... New Job

 

"Wait... Universal Life is just like Variable Life, but lets you invest? Gah!"

I'm finally leaving the low-paying retail gig behind. It's being replaced by a much better paying financial services job, which requires me to get licensed. Which means I'm spending all of my free time studying for that test.

Should be wrapped up in a week so. Then a couple more of weeks of training before I can get the sane work hours and boost in free time that I'm expecting.

New Cover Image

The New Cover Image For The WarStrike eBook

The cover will most likely change again every time there's a major alpha/beta/final release.

AI Diversity Is Hard

The Updated Section Image

This is the last of the 36 rules-specific illustrations that needed to be updated. Which took all of 2 weeks. There will be more for the faction-specific fluff, although some of those are done already. But the only thing left to update in the rules is the photographs of gameplay situations. For which I'll be using the 3rd-Party miniatures and terrain that I painted up for Gencon a few years back. That's all ready to go.

But the reason I'm so happy with this particular illustration has to do with its difficulty. Given the inherent biases that Stable Diffusion (my AI model of choice) has.

A Path Has Been Made Clear To Me

Here's my Zero-G Illustration of a "Nice" Colseran That Will Star In The Fiction I'm Writing

It's been a pretty rough year all around, with huge layoffs in film Animation/FX and games both before and after the recent strikes in Hollywood. I'm getting by, as almost every 3D guy I know is, with a mix of freelance and retail work. 

The good news though, is that in completing a Product Management certificate last fall, I've gotten plugged into the investment community. Where there's actual interest in WarStrike as a disruptor for an industry that's still stuck in a business model that Games Workshop created in the 1980's.

"I'm afraid I CAN do that Dave..."

 

AI Rendered Gruin "Cardinalsar."

I played around with the paid version of ChatGPT earlier this week, having it write some boilerplate letters and resume outlines for my ongoing job hunt. But I got to thinking today... What if I tried to get it to write a little WarStrike fluff?

The process was interesting...

Re-Illustrating WarStrike With An A.I.

This job market isn't as easy to find employment in as the media lets on. Not by a long shot. But I've managed to establish myself as a graphic/programming freelancer with a couple of good clients.

Fortunately, because I'm now a full-time contractor, there's no limits on what I can create and sell outside of work. So I've cracked open WarStrike's rulebook, and am currently working on upgrading my often so-so stock art collages with much better images generated by an AI. Which has been an interesting experience.

The State of The Game

Believe it or not, a computer created this image from a text prompt.

Welp... It's been almost three and a half years since my last update. So for whoever is still interested (because I do get asked about the game from time to time) here's an update on where things currently stand, and what has to happen to move this project forward again.

And... We're On Facebook Now!

Just a quick update to say that we're on Facebook now, under the name "@WarStrikeM42".

I've not been posting much to the blog because so much of the work I'm doing now is little edits that would take longer to write a post about than the changes themselves. Facebook is a better place for quick updates that aren't limited to a small paragraph (like Twitter). Plus I'm planning on doing some videos going forward, and that's a better place to reach people with them.

All that said, I will be posting a summary to the blog of what I've been up to in the last month later this week.

Thoughts?

Gencon Playtesting Results

That's Farmpunk in the white hat, he came by to watch for a bit between Flames of War tournaments. 😀

Whew! That was an exhausting week! So were the weeks of work leading up to it! But in terms of Playtesting WarStrike, our Gencon adventure was VERY productive! We only found a few minor potential rules bugs, and two of the test groups had some very interesting feedback about how we might appeal to a wider audience than we had originally planned for.

Demo Minis Are Ready!

It was a slog, and I'll be doing a little more work on these after Gencon to brighten them up for use in the rulebook. But I got 49 test minis, for two opposing test forces, done to better-than-tabletop quality in just 10 days. With fully flocked (and bottom-felted) solid-resin bases that aren't going to slip off of whatever terrain they're placed on.

Our Gencon Demo Times Have Been Finalized

Our demo times for the First Exposure Playtest Hall have been finalized. There were no changes, so the times that I reported before are the same as on this screen graphic that I provided to the organizers.

Quick Update: Rules Done, Speed Painting Underway

We're now at the week-and-a-half mark before Gencon. I finished up the rules for the next pre-alpha last Wednesday, but I'm holding back on releasing it for now. First because I'm busy painting up minis and terrain for GenCon, and second because I want to work up some generic unit and weapon stat-lines for the major factions. Since some of you have commented that you can't test the rules with the models you have. That's fair.

Our First Exposure Demo Times At Gencon

Gencon's just 3 weeks away! 

Here's the time slots that we have reserved in the First Exposure Playtest Hall:

Thursday August 2nd: 4PM - 6PM

Thursday August 2nd: 8PM - 10PM 

Friday August 3rd: 4PM - 6PM

Friday August 3rd: 8PM - 10PM 

Saturday August 4th: 12PM - 2PM

Saturday August 4th: 4PM - 6PM

Saturday August 4th: 8PM - 12PM

Sunday August 5th: 10AM - 12PM

See you there!

Rolling Right Along...

Three pages. I had just three pages left in the Action Phase to revise and I thought I was done. Then, like a Rubik's Cube when you can't get the last 2 squares to line up right, I found myself revising parts of other rules sections so that I can come back to the Action Phase.

Why? 

Movement Phase Changes

This phase was a real pain to edit. Between the rules-lawyer holes that Stelek found, the new rules for Overwatch and stunned models, the need to properly separate and interlock the new reserve rules across three different sections, AND the need to simplify the existing building/obstacle rules... This one's been a bear. Oh, and the illustrations are a lot more sci-fi looking now. There's that too.

Observation Phase Changes

As I was finishing up the Movement Phase revamp today, I realized that I hadn't shown you the changes to the Observation section yet.

Putting Reserves In Their Places

Thought I'd check in with an update to what I've been doing with reserves. First up, we have a new page added to the "Setting Up A Game" section, which you can see above. It defines the four types of reserves, and how they're put into reserve in the first place.

Solving My Blur Problem With A Bit Of A Tilt

Photography test setup in my modeling room.

Hello everyone!

I'm still working on the next Pre-Alpha release, it's just been delayed a bit by my son's birthday, the end of the school year, and some more extensive editing than I'd anticipated. 

But... I did discover a solution to a problem that had been bugging me, so I thought I'd do a quick post on that. At some point relatively soon, I'm going to need to produce sets of introductory gameplay videos. But how would I do that? It's not enough to simply aim a camera at a table and hit record, because some things on that table would be in focus, and others wouldn't. The solution, as it turns out, is rather interesting, and uses some tech that was originally developed for spy planes.

The New End Phase (Used To Be The Starting Phase)

Finished up the new End Phase yesterday. What's different?

Setting Up A Game

Yeah, on Sunday I said that I was done with the "Basic Rules" chapter. But then I decided that chapter needed a section on how to set up a battle (which was mostly done already) and that it should include the very basic "Training Day" mission.

Why?