Quiet but not idle

Haven't made any updates for a little while, but I've hardly been idle.

One of the things I do when tinkering with boardgames is throw a lot of detail in, revise, cut down content, revisit systems, and then go ahead again with a full range of drafts. Then I repeat.

Then I repeat again.

And again.

And sometimes again.

In between I search for useful figures or scenery or other bits and pieces, sometimes order some promising ones, and in between it all, watch some inspirational movie source material in the background.

And so it goes with Xenoform.

The Alien faction is pretty much all assembled - some painting needed for some bits and pieces. The Marines faction is all assembled, but unpainted. The Predator faction is mostly together (though there's a set of figs I'm pondering buying) and a little painting is required.

System-wise I've been to-ing and fro-ing. I started out with the Doom boardgame rules, but it's travelled a fair distance since then and bears only the most vestigial resemblance now.

Each figure in the game will have a unit card with their stats on it. I've been trying to make them as simple and straightforward as possible.

All the board pieces are printed out, I just need to xyron them onto some card. Sidebar: get a xyron machine. If you tinker with making your own boardgames, xyrons are fekking awesome. Print what you need, run through the roller, stick down onto card. Easy-peasy. I first met the mighty xyron in an ad agency I worked for - a giant A1 or A2 sized beastie. A4 ones for the scrapbooking crowd can sometimes be sourced from crafting stores, at a much lower price.

A sample campaign of 9 Missions is about 3/4 written. 6x 2-player Missions, and 3x 3-player Missions.

A bit more writing, some painting, xyron-ing, sticking, cutting and internet shopping, and I will be done with Phase: 1 and ready to get into some serious testing. Meaning I'll probably be done with Phase: 1 as the summer months start rolling around, which is I think perfect timing to playtest with a cider to hand.

I've decided that Phase: 2 is going to be corporate-themed, with some double-crossing, betrayal and intrigue. The three factions of Phase: 2 will be Weyland-Yutani and their Private Military Contractors, the cyborgs and robots of OCP, and the war machines of Cyberdyne. I watched the largely awful Robocop III recently, and despite it being entirely naff, I am tempted by the idea of including Kanemitsu Otomo androids and Urban Rehabilitator goons to the OCP faction, because despite making for dreadful drama, they could be handy kickass units for a boardgame.

I made some PMC's with bits from Maxmini and Mad Robot - cool online conversion stores worth checking out. Terminators have come from Reaper, Copplestone and EM-4 - differences in size and appearance being handy excuses for different generations of Terminator machine. Lastly some souped-up and chunky Robocops have been made with bits from Anvil Industry and Puppetswar - also good places to buy conversion bits.

As seen here I've been making up, redrawing or pinching corporate logos. I was pondering adding some kind of 'Sponsorship' system to Phase: 2, where deals made with different companies give some factions a small advantage, but I'll see how that goes.

This project definitely has a finite span - there's only so many movies within a certain feel or ambience I can strip-mine concepts from, but in the meantime I'm enjoying it, and re-watching some old cheesy classics along the way. Given that the game is set in a time period beyond that of some of the source films, I am of course taking some liberties, so figures for some factions are more suggestive than strictly representational, but eh, what can ya do?