a pursuit of fruitless endeavors and endless refinements

Tag: pretzel games

Welcome to 2017!

I hope your 2016 went well.  I’m pretty happy with how it went on the gaming front this year and so this will be one of those obligatory “review” posts.  This was a “do or die” year for this blog as I had to decide if I wanted to pursue this passion or give it up due to lack of time and commitment.  As you can tell, I chose to keep it going and I’m really glad I did.  I’ve had the chance to meet some great people and the research that goes into each post is really showing me that pimping games has really come into its own in this hobby.

In 2016, I showed off some of my favorite pimped games like my Thunder Road Advanced and the Rum and Bones “travel” set, the latter of which was featured in a CMON facebook post earlier in the year.  I also finally posted my Assault on Hoth set, which has been a work in progress over the last few years (thanks to Rogue One for galvanizing me to finish up).

Mustaches, version 2.0

I had a lot of fun making my first batch of Flick em Up! mustaches but I was not 100% happy with how they turned out as the process of cutting them from labels made the cut outs imprecise and limited what styles I could actually use.  I thought about using decals but the starter kits for those are around $20 and I wasn’t that unhappy with my results.

I shelved the concept until recently when a friend pointed me to this Instructable regarding Clear Stickers by user AndelDOA. This “hack” seemed really easy and very cheap.  Being this close to Christmas, almost everyone should have everything you need on hand: Packing tape, a spoon (or burnishing tool), bowl for water, scissors, and your print out on regular printer paper from a laser jet or xerox machine.  That last item is the key to the whole trick so if you don’t have access to a laser printer, you should be able to go to a local print store and get a print out for maybe a dollar.

Variety as Life Spices

While I love pimping out games, my first foray into altering board games came from the mechanical design side of the hobby.  Cutting my teeth as a young lad on such classic titles as HeroQuest and Battle Masters, it wasn’t long before the little wheels in my head started turning as I yearned to dive deeper into those gaming worlds.

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my yellowed copy of one of the first variants I attempted – an expansion module to HeroQuest

Slowing things down

My Walking Dead miniatures game didn’t arrive this week so I decided to take a break from some of my ongoing projects and focus on a little side project I’ve been wanting to wrap up. I’ve been fascinated with slow motion option on my iPhone for a while now and after messing around with Pretzel GamesFlick ’em Up!, I found a great subject to try out this feature.

Initially, I tried out a little sample video but quickly realized I had a big issue: light flicker.

If You’ve Only Got a Moustache

update January 1, 2016: I’ve revised this technique here: Mustaches, version 2.0

I’ve been exploring more of Flick ’em Up! from Pretzel Games recently and wanted to add a little flair to those great little cowboy minis.  According to Stephen Foster (or Seth MacFarlane), what these fine gents need is a mustache.  This seemed pretty simple so I sketched out some concepts to see if it would work out.

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New Dropzone Commander: Reconquest Phase 2

The latest Dropzone Commander book, Reconquest Phase 2, came out a couple weeks back and I was able to get my copy the other night.  In celebration, a group of friends threw down a four player, 1000 pt army mash up.  Brian hosted and put together the scenario “Survey and Control.”

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Survey and Control ready for action

Gen Con 2016, Part 1

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Gen Con 2016 was a whirlwind of gaming, events, meet-ups, and fun. This year I decided to forgo the multi-day tournament route and focus on smaller events/tournaments and check out some non-standard activities.  After 10 years of attending, I’m missing more and more so I’ve let go of that compulsion to try to do everything and just do what I can and what is fun.

Meeple mania

I first encountered them in Klaus Teuber’s Carcassonne well after the term “meeple” was coined.  These iconic pawn figures have been a mainstay in the board gaming world since their classic design in that equally classic game.

Carcassonne-meeple

image from wikipedia

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