Friday, August 31, 2018

Star Crawl Space Battlefield


I took a break from proofreading Star Crawl to make a starfield battlemat for space battles (completely unnecessary for play, but I think it'll add something to con games & demos). I sent the image above to the printer  for a test run (it'll be 2'x3'). If it comes out nice, I'll get a couple more made for sale.

As briefly mentioned in a earlier post, ship combat will take place in the round area to the left- each line marks off a sector (used for range & movement: most weapons have range of 1 & a ship can freely move 1 sector in a turn). At the top of each turn, all ships make maneuvering rolls (using the ship's maneuvering die type) and move their ships in ascending order of the rolls (highest roll goes last, so they have a significant tactical advantage: facing is important when shooting). Ships then fire weapons in reverse, with the last ship placed firing first (this should be familiar to X-Wing players).

If a ship attempts to flee, they move to the Pursuit Tracker. Here, maneuverability is shelved for speed: ships move forward or back based on relative speed rolls. If the fleeing ship moves off the front of the track, they successfully escape;if the pursuer catches the fleeing ship, both return to the combat field.

*Update* I got the test mat back from the printer & it looks great! I went through Banners on the Cheap, using the image linked below. I used it for games at GaryCon & it was perfect.
Space Mat Image

Tuesday, August 7, 2018

Star Crawl Status Update

Star Crawl is getting ever closer: based on my current estimates, it should be complete & ready for sale by October. Later than I hoped, but I think it'll be worth the delay.

A few updates on progress the past few weeks:
  • The cover art has been changed to the image above. I love my space bug, but that skull's just so much more striking.
  • I've gotten preliminary approval from Joseph Goodman. I'll be sending him a final version before I send it to the printers, but we're pretty much set. And this may be the first 3rd party product to bear both the "Compatible with DCC" and "Compatible with MCC" logos!
  • The book will be full size (8"x11") and about 120 pages. I'll determine the cover price once I have a final cost from the printer, but I'm thinking $15-20. 
  • I've started work on two follow up books: an adventure and a hex-crawl supplement. Based on the response to Star Crawl, I may try to push those through for completion by March so I can bring one (or both) to GaryCon.