Hiccup

It is hard balancing this hobby/career.  When the same money used to pay for gas and food has to also be used to purchase prototypes, it gets sort of strained.  I missed my deadline I set for myself to have a working prototype for PsiMaTEK Ops. to be played on International Tabletop Day, on April 5th.  All of the graphics are finished though and simply waiting for that last bit of capital.  It should be ready by the end of April.  I am however, still on schedule for the PsiMaTEK Kickstarter project, which is simply to have a Kickstarter going to acquire art assets for the game as well as some power to advertise, perhaps create a few games for people.  Hiccups are something you have to hold your breath for when things are not aligned.  Rest assured, It will pass.

International Tabletop day

So, I have a new goal for my New Years resolution to have my PsiMaTEK Ops. game up on kickstarter by the end of the year.  I want a playable prototype of the game done by March for International tabletop day on April 5th.

I have finished the rulebook, (which seems to be my issue with most of these things as of late with all of my projects), as well as started to revise the short story "Interview with the hollow girl".  I plan to have a short story with all PON games.

New Year's projects

So, the last time I was on here, I may have submitted a neat little game called Landslide.  It didn't get any play in the contest, but the process of making that game was quite invigorating.  Anyway what I have in the works is simple:
-Meteor 55 needs some cards before I can make an alpha.
-A new game based on adventure game tropes is penned and ready to have graphics made.  It will probably be pretty easy to make at this point.
-PsyMaTek Ops is on hold until I learn how to draw good, or sucker some undergrad work out of MSU.  I at least need the cards created for the Alpha
-I want to add some promo cards to my other games to advertise them.
-Send a copy of Landslide to TABLETOP, a part of the Geek and Sundry Youtube network. Who knows, perhaps Wil might take pity on a poor soul like me.
-I also have a deck building/ Military strategy/ Risk Legacy scarring game penned.  Needs graphics and an Alpha.

Last year was a year of a lack of means and a lack of time, but I will soon have a better foothold on the workings of my financial realm.  I am excited to be able to bring some of these things to life.

-Ryan

LandSlide! Ready to go for thegamecrafter.com's contest for November.

I have placed an oldie but a goodie on TheGameCrafter.com.  This game was fleshed out back when I was in middle school.  Ben Johns and Dan Trombley, two friends of mine, beta tested this every morning with me from 5th grade on until we were driving cars and no longer needed stimulation for bus rides.

THe premise is to play all of your cards before everyone else.  The trick is that you can only play one card at a time lower than the card on the top of the pile, and if you play a card, it is not guaranteed that this card will stay there.  The next player may give those cards back to you, and then some.  If you are not careful, you might go from having just one card, to taking the whole pile.  It is a game of table talk, of trickery.  It's rules are simple, but from those rules, a complex and rich strategy experience emerges.  It is one of my favorites.  If you have anything to say about it, please send me an Email at RyanJRiojas@gmail.com

Se7enDIEse7 is ready in TheGameCrafter.com!

I have put the final gloss on the first Riverleaf Designs game on TheGameCrafter.com:
     -Changed the rules to be 4 cards instead of 5 cards to win
     -Updated a rule that would cause confusion
     -Added a scorecard and a box with a classy action shot on it (woo)

In the next few months I expect to get a Google Sites Site running where I will try to showcase the games I am developing.  One is a card game that I have been developing since I was in the 3rd grade...  Seriously.  LandSlide will be submitted for a contest to create a small Tuck Box game.  Until then, there is also Meteor 55, a few Hextile games that I was working on (They never could be made under budget for the contest, but I like the games, so I think those will be published as well.)  PsiMaTek Ops will be a long term project, and once I have a few things that I can give out for the Kickstarter, we can start making a legitimate project out of my cardgame.

Meteor 55

I am gearing up to start a Kickstarter for PsiMaTEK Ops.  It is simply a project with a scope bigger than I originally concieved.  I am happy to accept submissions for artwork for the game, but until I secure the funds to do so, my other option is to finish a game that is easier to manage and ultimately take the meager art assets I can derive on my own.  For pledge awards I have decided to obviously offer Psymatek Ops at a discount,  but I was at a loss for what on earth to do about the other tiers; What do I give to the 10 and under pledge crowd?  I will offer 7DieSe7 as a lower item, and a new game I was incorporating into the PON universe:  Meteor 55,  The birth of the Jaxon corporation. 
   
     The game revolves around an 18 areas that spawns Alien Monsters called spindels, bug like creatures that usually live in the ultra low pressure environment of space.  3 surviving members of a crashed space ship are fighting against radiation, wounds, and hoards of an alien hive.  All signs point to this rock being a part of a planet that held a queen, but now it hurls through space.  The radiation is avoidable,  the help becaon is charged, now the remaining crew members must survive the assult of a colony of aliens who see their presence as a threat to their queen.  At your disposal is the enhanced marksman of Z corp Space marines, the resourcefulness of Belt Mercenaries, and the raw killing force of the exterminator suits, colloquially called Burners.  Together, the players must stir up the queen and kill it in order to pacify the Spindel defenders and survive until help arrives.

New Game in the works, hopefully part of a series of Cyberpunk Dystopia games to be created on TheGameCrafter.com

In the future, the world is privately owned by corporations.  These corporations own resources, land, and technology and each person is born into debt under one of these governing corporations.  The global market and global government has dissolved and a sort of corporate feudalism reigns as the most prominent form of rule.  This new era was given the designation Post Orchestra de Neronibus,or PON. 

In order to protect the holdings of the corporations, they employ security companies which are now more mobile armies than security guards and system installers, protecting assets and keeping their indebted employees in line.  This is an age of relentless expansion across the world and beyond, where security companies can be rewarded for their audacity and cunning, and where a lower stock value might spell the end of the lives of all of your security agents, not just a bad bottom line. the year 200 PON, this is the story of one such security company, who endowed those in their employ with superhuman psychic powers.  
I have dropped a bit of pre-writing for a story I want to tell using games.  The first game in the series is a deck building game called PSiMaTEK Ops.  PsiMaTEK stands for Psionic Manipulation of the Temporal Electromagnetic and Kinetic.

Every player starts with a deck of resource cards.  They can use those cards to build a formidable deck of more resources and skills that allows the player to complete marks with custom dice depending on what skills are being used.  However, during the course of the game, the player also accumulates negative "trauma" effects that affect how successful a check against a mark is going to be.  The player with the most Evaluator favor (Eval) wins, and the other characters in the game get sent to the Vault.  It is a dark setting of Cyberpunk intrigue, global rebellion and war, and corporate and military espionage.  Think Ascension on Snow Crash and Blade Runner.  More about the specifics of the game in later posts, it's late guys.