Entropy City: Making a Wargame

So I printed my test cards out at work today, and was disappointed to find that they just didn’t come out looking very clear, I guess that hjust shows my inexperiance with graphic design, most of my experiance has always been with web banners and so forth (unprofessionally) so the fact they wouldnt print as intended hadnt even occured to me but I instantly realised what was wrong.

So it was back to the drawing board and so I simplified my simple design even further and stopped trying to be clever and just stuck with standard text for now, I can make things  look pretty later.

I also changed it to a landscape card design, just because it helped the layout a little, this is about clear easy to follow text, not a final product so I forced myself to keep it simple

Edit: It’s probably worth noting that the painting on these miniatures are quick cheap and nasty its not supposed to be impressing you.

Testing moved into its second phase a couple of weeks ago, this began with a couple of important things.

• The game moved from 3×3 to 4×4.
• Model count went from 3 to 5 each.
• Guns have been introduced.
• Wounds have begun to be implimented.

I had made the decision to move to a 4 foot by 4 foot table some time ago but while I was purely testing the core mechanics it made more sense to help the action come faster because there wasn’t enough in place for full on strategy quite yet. As for the miniatures count well until this point I really wasn’t sure how many models the table was going to be able to handle until things just became too messy and hard to keep up with, I was very happy to see that if anything I could have easily gone 2 more a side which is good as it allows for more room for strategy as the game testing goes through its phases.

The downside I found this time however was keeping track of things, Id realised when leaving home that I didnt have enough counters to keep track of both stress and wounds (without dice literally being everywhere) so I made what I thought was the clever decision to have everyone on 1 wound and one model each side with 2..  Problem was this made the weapons all feel the same because most bikes only had 1 wound anyway.

I’ve kind’ve always likes unit cards in games I know not everyone does but for me it was always a nice touch, and whilst I had played around with ideas I certainly didnt have anything I could just go with at the time but after tossing up a couple of ideas I decided ‘screw it’ and I created some temporary cards purely for testing only. Theyre certainly not pretty but I didnt think they were ugly, they will serve their purpose which is all I needed for now.

It’s worth noting that this is currently labelled as “Team A”.

So basically the larger numbers are to keep track of the speed the bike is moving, you have a picture of the mini to prevent dodgy business, the weapons are the same mix for each team.
Check boxes for wounds and stress, I’ve purposely made these the right size for card sleeves so that whiteboard markers can be used.

Like I said this isnt pretty or supposed to look like a product yet but I felt it works for the purpose. Its a prototype afterall.

I’m the furthest thing from an artist when it comes to drawing but when your a single person who doesnt have a huge financial backing to pay artists with you have to atleast try and get things rolling by yourself. To date a lot of this is all “proof of concept” to be prettied up later but when it comes to the faction symbols I decided it was time to do a little bit of that. And I started with something simple to add more flavour to each of them, a unique font chosen for each.

So who are these factions? I mentioned that each of them are based extremely losely on real world equilivents but that doesn’t mean theyre all based on specific gangs at all, more how they tend to be represented in media or how they generally tend to be seen.

Hades: The Cruiser Gang.
Hades are a motorcycle gang as you would immediately think of them, large loud Cruiser style bikes (so Harleys for example). They’re certainly not clean, and involved in a lot of shady activities but some members of the group are genuinely trying to help make things better, there’s been a bit of a split within the gang of late between those wanting to “get back to the old ways” and those that want to make a difference in a more positive way.
Generally speaking their top speeds tend to be faster but theyre slower off the line, they also dont turn as well as the other two.

The Komodo: The Sportsbike gang.
There’s not really a “sportsbike gang” equilivent in real life that I could name but as far as the culture of the Komodo its based very losely on the likes of Yakuza/Triad but only from a cultural perspective none of these gangs are intended to be drawn on racial lines, quite the opposite. Sportsbikes are far better in a corner than a Cruiser, theyre off the line a little faster but can’t quite maintain the same highest speed that a cruiser would.

Mutiny: The Trailbike Gang
Mutiny are perhaps the most varied of all of the gangs, based on a number of sources this is very much a gang you could flavour easilly. They’re a group of anarchists that live off grid, the leader of Mutiny is very much a man of rock star charisma, he’s not entirely honest with his followers and somewhat tells them what they want to hear, it really is only the upper echelon that truly understand the groups anarchist intent. Trailbikes are designed for a mixture of on road and off road, they can move through non sealed roads without hinderence and ruins without it being dangerous terrain.
So if you want a mad max style crew, a punk rocker crew this is where a lot of that comes from.

RFPD: The Police
Redemption Falls once had a very proud police department, had they known how corrupt its higher ups were perhaps they could have prevented the incident that led to the marshall law the city is left in. What is left of the Police Department are almost obsessed with it, some of those people will do whatever it takes to clean up the city, others go by the book to prevent the city getting worse. Again another chance to flavour your crew with either corrupt police or genuinely good intent, this is also the faction that the NPC interference will come from.

There would be more coming, some of which I already know some that are kind’ve “fun idea’s”, there will definately be opportunities to mix certain bikes together.

Second attempt at writing this I need to stop trying to upload too many pictures at the same time.

So another two models to add to the test model collection but this time I wanted to start with some bases that were more in line with the picture I had in my head, prototypes for how Id like to make them down the line if this ever gets far enough.

And with that in mind I recently got in an AK Interactive Ashphalt, now granted theres a tonne of ways you can do roads and a tonne of those almost cost you nothing, I’ve already done the “glue down fine sand and paint it” technique before but I wanted to try this and much to my shock not only did it look good but better than I expected, the cracks int he roads I’m not 100% sure if its  because of how I applied it or part of its design but either way I was delighted.

And then I tried to use regular masking tape to get the lines done despite knowing how often this goes poorly but it turned out even more horrid that I expected it would. My initial intent was to sponge this on for a broken worn look but I quickly realised doing that afterwards with black would likely turn out better, this decition also made it easier to fix it

Owners of the Nazarova Twins from Infinity maye look at the images below and pull out their keyboards to tell me I built them wrong but trust me, I know. I have 3 versions of this kit and it was a deliberate arrempt to change them up a bit, does it work? Well no not really but they’re only for tests.

I really really shouldnt be buying any more bikes at this point I’m really not sure I need them. I have 6 Infinity mini’s completed (if you include these) 3 of which need to be painted, one more that is a conversion as I try to remove all of the Christmas themed stuff from a special edition miniature to make him look more general.

I also have a box of the bikes from the Genestealer cults but with different heads, and the other two boxes of the female haqqislam on the way. I really think I have enough now but sometimes its nice to add to them.

I wasn’t quite as nervous this time as I was the first time around, I set up the table in a slightly different way this time around, still sticking with the standard streets, this terrain isn’t exactly the perfect representation, it should like a modern city, worn down but still something we would recognise as a somewhat modernish city but I made do with what I had access to, including some lovely ruined cars I found in my Mars Attacks box last night.

Although the end game at this stage is intended to be played on a 4×4 foot table I am hosting all of the demo’s at this stage on 3×3 tables, because its about the core rules and getting down and dirty, all of the bikes are the same with the same weapons for the exact same reason. So no super bonus’s for anything yet, everyone is holding lead pipes, which is kinda brutal but to me its been about testing HOW the game actually works and if the core idea is fun. I’d still like to get it infront of atleast 2 more people before I move into the next test.

With 3 riders a piece the table at this size with the dense terrain gets busy quite quickly so it gets into the action quickly which is what I wanted.

I had made an adjustment to the rules following the last playtest as we had felt the stress involved with taking a turn “too sharply” wasnt serious enough but that led to this game feeling like it was a little too harsh so I will be moving that back to where it was for now as it felt better where it was previously in comparison to how it was tested today.

Feedback was promising, my friend hadn’t played it before just heard me talking about my idea’s its actually the friend that helped me design the turning templated I had in mind for the game so I was excited to get him of all people to see where his work went.

I’m actually a little more serious with the title than it probably seems I am honestly because if theres one thing I’ve realised throughout these last few moments is that both of these things genuinely have a place, I’m certainly not a professional in this, whilst I am hoping that in time this might become a published and real actual game thats a dream right now but if you’ve never actually sat down to do anything like this I honestly reccomend to write down anything and everything that comes to your mind if it feels right but it also does come with a warning here too..

Not all of your idea’s are going to be good ones, sometimes you can get very very excited about an idea because it sounds cool. A moment of lore that makes sense in your custom armies background that realistically just doesn’t make sense or the giant digression into what at first was a simple idea only to realise a month later it doesnt actually make sense.

My game is set within an urban environment, a worn down city thats better days are behind it, sure the rich side of down might look incredible but the lower end, where the real civiliation is the streets are worn, the cafe’s havent been open in years, huge populations of people live in temporary accomodation assuming they still live here at all.

So why does everything have to be an obstacle to avoid? This is a game about movement right where the rule of cool should be encouraged? So if theres a chair on the ground why could I try and hit it with my bike and send it flying into the enemies face.

This is an example of an idea I had rather randomly that MIGHT sound fun and hey maybe it will work but its also insanely silly and something that might just need to be said no to.

I’ve sat down a tonne of times trying to get this idea to work in a way that added something to the game and only because I loved the idea so much, the idea of using a jump to reach something out of sight, a broken highway getting an almost clear run somewhere, games with levels tend to have a real depth to them but when I went through the entire document a few weeks ago I deleted a tonne of this simply because the more I looked at it all I saw was that it allowed you to do things because you can but it didnt really seem to ADD anything to the game at this point..

I’d love to revisit this but jumps for now are returned to the initial intent, a way to get an advantage on an attack. Jumps also added what I felt was a complication rules wise because theres no gauruntee you would land before your turn was over, so do I just people get that movement for free? Do I add a rule for being in the air? At this stage I have the latter because I can see too many ways to exploit the bonus distance. Im still reworking this right now, adding SOME extra distance makes some sense but obvious its not going to be Evel Knievel levels of stuntwork, unless I can get the ruling right.

And hey, if this does reach the dream then I always have expansions to add things right?

When I actually started sitting down to work on this seriously I had myself a goal, to have the game in a testable state within the next 12 months, within 6 you could argue that I have achieved that, theres been a number of tests of the Core Mechanics now and the feedback I’ve gotten is solid, each time I see something that could be adjusted slightly but so far nothing is broken… yet.

Ash and  I had a game last night at the FLGS as part of our regular Friday night meet, first one I’ve been able to make recently due to some rather frustrating bike problems. He’d been waiting for someone to be ready to play Kill Team and I was waiting for the person I was playing with to finish their Marvel Champions game, neither of which happened ultimately but the theory was we were just going to have a go while we waited.

Its nerve racking taking someone through a game for the first time at the best of times, let alone something your personally involved in but he took it in and had positive things to say, he won the demo (because thats how you run these things haha)

I’m a big fan of the stress mechanics when it comes to the game it really does give the game a different feel that so far I’m quite proud of, having to balance that throughout the game knowing it will eventually make achieving things harder.

Testing of phase one is likely to continue through January before I impliment the differences between the factions and bike types to see where the flaws are there, this is where I expect I will need the most tweaking when it comes to balance and feel but that will come in time.

Keeping this so “secret”  hasnt entirely been an easy thing, given that when your working on something you find exciting its hard not to talk about it but until I had something I felt could genuinely BE something I didn’t want to say too much. A lot of the WIP documentation has been available to the Patreon for Getting Tabled, not because it was a promised goal or anything but because I felt our patreon members would be good people to question things given I know theyre all very experianced. But theyre not the only ones by any means, friends have had access (few have read it though which is fine) Lewis Clarke (formally of TTCombat game development) is reading the ruleset right now and will come back with some feedback some of which I expect will be “harsh” (his words not mine). So thats why I also joke about it being the worst kept secret but I am starting to feel like I have the makings of something my own now, its taking shape and I can see the pieces of what I wanted it to be slowly coming together, will the ruleset be finalised by the end of 2023? I doubt it but then I also dounted I’d be this far already. I don’t want to rush this I want it to be right. Especially when if this is to become a thing I have other pieces of the puzzle to work out as well, some of which are outside of my personal budget to achieve but would like to.

2023 should also be the year I try to learn how to use Blender.

Weapons: Whilst not all riders have weapons, those that do are not shy to use them. The aim in this game will be for all weapons to have their place in the game, ideally this will lead to a game that supports a wide range of player meta’s and a wide range of gameplay choices. Certain weapons have the ability to cause a rider to enter a dangerous state such as bleeding, stunned etc. Likewise there are also some weapons that have the ability to counteract protection. I have a bigger list but at this stage I am only showing the one I am using for phase 1 testing.

• Leadpipe: 1inch reach, TN 13, 3 stress, stun or sabotage. (Currently being used in phase one testing)

Traits: Traits are certain skills and abilities that will passively assist or hinder certain characters, these will be used to help vary the gameplay and give options for riders within teams, in theory most of these will be general enough to fit within any factions, inspiration here comes from a number of different places Malifaux & Bushido come to mind. None of these are being tested at this time and I have a lot more than just the 3 I am showing.

• Stealth (Melee/Ranged): This character cannot be the target of a melee/ranged attack when it was not within line of sight at the start of the activation. (intended to be one or the other depending on the character)
• Rage Filled: This character may never choose to fail a test, it must always continue until either it is successful or it busts.
• Strategist (x): X times per game, when performing a test this character rolls 3D10 instead of 2D10 and then discards one D10 of choice. The rest of the test then continues as normal.

The last thing I want to tease is the design as a proof of concept card I have been playing with, all very much WIP and just a representation. Its worth noting that a tonne of this uses assets through google, it includes assets that might have been advertised as free but are not, this is NOT a final design and a final design would OBVIOUSLY not be using anything stolen. This only applies to this image nothing else (as the rest I drew myself or had an AI create)

Further developments is that the game will ultimately become a 4×4 board instead of the initial 3×3 simply because 3×3 feels too small for the game to work the way I want it to. I’ve spent some time writing up terrain suggestionsm theres even some lose lore I have that will develop more as time goes on to help justify the existance of how the city ended up in this kind of state. The actual “rulebook” document is also formatted in a way to help make it look and feel as much like a rulebook as I can to help make it easier to read.

And now… is the point where I will finally edit this blog to become public again to hopefully draw more eyes to the project. I won’t be sharing EVERYTHING here thats being kept where its at for now but I do hope the blog will help draw interest from people

For weeks I’ve been listening to everyone talking about this AI generated art but then Warren had to go and show his created artwork on the weekend didn’t he. He had to go and show me how good it can look, how dare he inspire me down the rabbit hole..

Help I’m stick in the rabbit hole and I can’t get out..
The following is the last few hours of experiments before i ran out of credits

Needless to say I was both amazed at what I could achieve and what I couldnt achieve, it became clear very quickly that I need to learn how to speak to the bot. How much of my free credit I wasted rephrasing things is probably not small.