The Brick Mill Games Blog
The design and development of Steel & Steam is extremely data-centric. All the stops and spaces have names and latitude and longitude coordinates. All the payoff amounts are based on shortest-path algorithms that take into account the cumulation of track mileage between the lat/long coordinate positions. All the property values are based on their ability…
Continue ReadingMETraps is a Ruby module which contains MarkingEngine traps that I use constantly in my vehicle graphics factory. If you recall, a MarkingEngine trap is a way to dynamically assemble a stream of MarkingEngine instructions dynamically. The first trap is called rdraw, or Radial Draw. This trap is used to create a path that can be…
Continue ReadingInitial work on my library of vehicle and ordnance graphics relied on a mix of SVG and embedded Ruby scripts to dynamically affect the static SVG data. As Ruby supports this type of structure through its erb class, my collection of vehicle graphics consisted of .rsvg files. Over time, I discovered that working with this…
Continue ReadingAnyone who follows me on Facebook knows about my wargame graphics work. Knowing the amount of work I was going to commit to, I decided to forego hiring an artist or relying on someone else’s vehicle and ordnance graphics portfolio. I decided to go ahead and do it myself. I’m glad I did. I’m nowhere…
Continue ReadingFor those few of you who may be tracking this site, the initial flurry of blogging activity has not waned due to disinterest. I’m simply in Japan at the moment, doing day-job things. As I’m not in a position to do any game development while I’m here, I am going to repost some technical posts…
Continue ReadingPaul Chicoine, my long-time friend and gaming and design partner, has accepted my offer to join Brick Mill Games. With Paul’s admission to the fold, Brick Mill Games will add his TOCS (Tactical and Operations Command System) wargame system to the game development pipeline. TOCS is the system that Paul and I have been working…
Continue ReadingAs I’ve written before, I’m sorta stuck on the game’s victory conditions. Saturday’s play test session drove the point home, albeit indirectly. If the victory conditions are solely based on net worth, if cash on hand is equal in importance to property values, why buy properties? This conundrum came up as four newbies started the…
Continue ReadingThe image below shows the updated player aid card. Locomotive speeds have been increased and updated locomotives have a wider range of maintenance levels, giving increased reliability when highballin’. Arrows also show the progression of maintenance levels from better to worse.
Continue ReadingYesterday was the day where I introduced four new players to Steel & Steam in the game’s first 6-player play test. It was also the day where my Canon PIXMA Pro-100 inkjet printer decided that the clogged print head was going to prevent me from printing the latest map & materials that I was going…
Continue ReadingNow that the initial energy of embarking on a new course has subsided, the real work begins: planning, product roadmaps, blogging to provide information, promotion, learning. That last bit is crucial. Product Pipeline I have five game designs which are in various stages of development: Steel & Steam :: Playtest Stage :: A board game…
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