Finally finished the model I have been working on for class.  I’m not crazy about everything on him, but overall I am pretty pleased. There are details and changes that need made to get him closer to the original art for the character. The character was designed for Untold, a new card based RPG that is getting very close to hitting the streets. Excitement is building on that front, if you visit the site (and why the heck wouldn’t you) sign up for the newsletter. The most recent one had lots of info on the coming changes, sample art, and insights behind the scenes of what should be a HUGE hit.

The next step on the model will be giving him some textures, which i have started and am never, ever satisfied with the results. You may never see that on the blog :)

Adventure Art #1 is offered both as a print and a PDF, I am reviewing the PDF version and think for this type of produce, while it is nice there is a print version available, really works best as a PDF as you are granted permission to reproduce the art for personal use. The product is a collection of twelve character sketches with a bonus action sketch thrown in. It has a table of contents of sorts consisting of a very short intro for each character as well as the credits for the concept and art.  Very handy way to make sure the creators get credit while keeping the utility of the character sketches clean. The quality of the art is above average to very good.

Other than being just fun to look through, for me, the best use for this around the game table would be a tool to spark ideas for a game master looking for help with NPC’s for his game. Players would gain the benefit of having a picture to place with the description the GM throws at them. Always nice to have a face to associate with in a game. All in all $6 for a PDF of printable clean character art is not too bad. Mythic Design has two issues out so far, give one of them a try.

Mythic Design

One of my favorite past times is heading out to book/game stores. I might be in the mood for a comic or two, maybe a good used or hard to find paperback or hang out for a while at a game store looking over the shelves. Of the three goals there, comics, games and used books, the only thing Huntsville has a good option for really is used books. As for comics and games the selection for my needs are pitiful.

The local game stores are limited to big chains which all carry the same thing and what used to be a very good store which has faded to barely passable. They now carry pretty much what the chain stores carry with a few extra bits and pieces tossed in for good measure. They do have a decent room for the running RPG’s and I suppose miniatures but I really don’t have the time to drive 45 minutes across town to try to play.  They will do a good job of special ordering things for you, but honestly I can do that for myself and often much cheaper than they can. Plus it comes to my house, not an hour round trip away. I do still go there once a month to look around pick up a couple of things they get for me regularly, so I have not completly written them off. I have simpathy for their plight. It is just a lot of effort on my part to go there and it makes me slightly sad a tthe state of an old hobby.

Recently there was a ray of hope. A new store was opening up on my side of town. One which promissed games and comics. They claimed they would host games and wanted to be a friendly place to hang. Wow did they fall flat on their face. I imagine getting a store like this running must be tought to do on a shoe string budget. Their location is a new strip mall so the rent is probably a killer. A store like this really needs location to make it I think. Word of mouth just ain’t what it used to be unless it is bad word of mouth.

So the first time I went into the store I gave them the benefit of the doubt when selection was sparce and no one was playing anything. I did not see any comics that caught my fancy and had no intention of picking up any games or miniatures. They are supposed to be big into miniature gamming so I would have expected them to have some, they had a smaller selection than the other place that has not put anything new on the shelves in 5 years. The 2nd time I went in I picked up 4 comics and tried but failed to find a graphic novel I wanted. Gaming supplies were still non-existant. Placed my comics on the counter and had two options for payment, a debit card and a $50. The dude behind the counter looked like a deer in the headlights when he saw me pull out the card. THEY DID NOT TAKE DEBIT/CREDIT. How can you run a business that does not take credit cards? To make matters worse I probably screwed him up royally with the $50 bill. It nearly cleared him out of change. I offered to go hit the atm for something smaller but he would nto let me do it for fear I would not return to grab my $12 worth of paper.

I expect the next time I go back ( it has been over 2 months since the last trip ) the place will be closed, but how can I feel bad for them, they failed on every aspect. Heck their back issues of their comics were in boxes on the floor. Pretty damn hard to browse for anything hunched over on the freakin floor. Oh and did I mention next to no game supplies at all? Can’t sell what you don’t have.

Photo of Jesse Williams and Lois Markle in The Sandbox © Jaisen Crockett/Art Meets Commerce.

In todays computer games, one of the popular genres is the Sandbox. The hallmark of this type of game is nonlinear gameplay and it can be incredibly fun. In my opinion, these games got their popular start in home RPG games like Dungeons and Dragons.  DnD campaigns in and of them selves are not by nature sandbox affairs, but with the right setup and agreement of the players and DM they can go this route. I’ve recently found an excellent series of posts describing an example of this type of game. It reminded me of a similar game our group played in back at the height of playing. John ran the campaign and the players were myself, Mike, Rick, Dave, his brothers, with a couple of other folks making small cameo appearances if I remember correctly. The details are fuzzy, but the fun we had was not.

The closest thing to a group experience like this in computers today is the MMORPG, but these fall short to varrying degrees because they are not true sandbox enviroments. Things you do in the world have no lasting impact. There are often world changing events but they only provide a passing illusion of impact. They are really just a hugely shared linear experience as they are often tied to game updates shared by all worlds tied to expansions. They are quite fun, but fleeting.

Sandbox games offer the player a sense of real impact, but in the case of the crop we have now, nothing is shared. Oblivion, Fallout, Grand Theft Auto, etc all offer rich worlds to explore but you do it solo. Maybe someday someoen will figure out how to offer the experience of a sandbox with room for more than one.