The Great Northern Expo Award For Games Design 2108

Big Congratulations go to our nominees for Games Design in the
'The Great Northern Creative Expo' awards 2018.
Peter Dimitrov,
James Moorby and
Jakob MacDonald were nominated for their creative excellence and passion for their subject.

AND......really well done to Jakob MacDonald, the final winner.

Also see the video of the award ceremony in the link below.

Battle For Boulder Badge

After the devastating loss of Rascal, I went back to training out on Route 2 with Lucky. There was no way a mere Metapod was going to stand up to Gym Leader Brock. I had confidence that Rascal, Nibbles and Kiwi would help me earn the Boulder Badge, but without Rascal my confidence faltered. It took us a few days, but eventually Lucky sprouted wings and evolved into Butterfree, a significant improvement over the lovably little lump of a Pokémon he was as Metapod. I did not neglect Kiwi and Nibbles during this time, either, but their progress was a bit less important.
Once Lucky had evolved, I spent what little money I had on a couple of potions at the PokéMart. Although they were expensive, I would not let another Pokémon fall in the Pewter City Gym. I absolutely would not. My nerves were shot as I stepped into the gym for the second time. I remember I was sweating and shaking just thinking about facing Brock. I saw the Junior Trainer who had bested my poor Rascal. He gave me an approving nod, but it did little to improve my disposition. Brock stood at the far end of the gym and beckoned me forward. He had seen my fight with the Junior Trainer several days ago and was eager to face me.

I clenched my jaw tightly as I threw out my first Pokémon. Kiwi met Brock's Geodude face-to-face in the gym's arena. We wasted no time kicking up as much dust as possible to obscure Geodude's vision. Brock had Geodude spend most of its time curling up into a defensive ball, but every now and then it lashed out with a tackle that it simply couldn't land on Kiwi. When I felt it's accuracy was sufficiently incapacitated, I withdrew Kiwi and used Nibble to wear down the Geodude slowly but surely. The Geodude was powerless in the dust Kiwi's sand-attack had kicked up and against Nibbles relentless tackling.
Then Brock threw out his champion, the Onix. I tossed Kiwi back into the ring hoping to repeat our earlier performance on Geodude. Kiwi kicked up as much sand as he could, but Onix still managed to land a lucky strike on him. It hurt Kiwi enough to discourage me from keeping Kiwi on the field any longer. Nibbles was sent out while Onix merely bided his time. I knew immediately that any attacks on Onix while in this defensive state would be unleashed twofold onto its attacker. Your only choices are to crush it swiftly, which is difficult against a rock hard Pokémon like Onix, or to wait it out.
Nibbles began to stare down his opponent while it remained in its defensive posture. Slowly this would lower the Onix's defenses and leave it vulnerable to a massive strike. Eventually, Nibbles was exchanged for Lucky who covered the Onix in its string shot while it continued to wait for our attacks. Feeling safer, Kiwi returned to the battle to continue whipping up sand into Onix's face. Then as soon as Onix released its defensive posturing, Kiwi slammed it with a gust from his wings and knocked the Onix to the floor.
That was how I won my first badge in the great region of Kanto.

Brock was impressed and clasped me firmly on the back with a great slap of his hand. He knew about Rascal, of course, and was pleased at my stance on training. He liked how patient and defensive I was and as a reward not only gave me a handsome sum of PokéDollars, but a Technical Machine that would teach certain eligible Pokémon his Onix's signature technique of biding time and waiting for the counter strike. This strategy didn't really work out well for Brock that day, so I wasn't sure how I would incorporate it on to a team that I intended to take as few hits as possible. I didn't want to be rude, though, so I graciously accepted the TM #34 and the Boulder Badge.
I was now officially on the road to challenge the Indigo Plateau League. I really hadn't come to Kanto expecting to do something quite that dramatic, but I was slowly being pushed in that direction. Professor Oak had prompted me to take this journey and running into Wolf made me question what the journey really meant to me personally. The encounter with the snarky trainer in Viridian City helped me shape my personal goals and encouraged me to challenge the gyms to seek reputation and understanding in the world of Pokémon training. Now, I had my first badge pinned proudly to my backpack and I was on my way to the next adventure — with considerably more money to spend thanks to my winnings.

Current Team:
Attacks in Blue are recently learned.

Mind Sports South Africa Produces Rankings For Paladins.

With the esports title 'Paladins' having been introduced into Mind Sports South Africa's provincial and national championships in 2019, official rankings are now being produced for such  esports title.

The rankings allow Mind Sports South Africa (MSSA) to run championships to the Swiss System. MSSA prefers using the Swiss System, as such system is instrumental in the development of those who participating. Whereas other systems tend to favour the more experienced teams, the Swiss System benefits all equally, as teams of equal strength are paired against each other in order to determine the victor.

Such system is also time efficient and less open to abuse and manipulation, which means that the results are fairer.

Rankings produced by MSSA are as follows:

• Senior Ancients Wargames
• Senior Checkers
• Senior CounterStrike: GO
• Senior DotA 2
• Senior FIFA '18
• Senior HearthStone
• Senior Injustice 2
• Senior League of Legends (female)
• Senior League of Legends
• Senior Morabaraba
• Senior Mortal Kombat X
• Senior Pro Evolution Soccer (PES)
• Senior StarCraft II
• Senior Street Fighter V
• Senior Tekken 7 (female)
• Senior Tekken 7
• High Schools Clash Royale
• High Schools CounterStrike: GO
• High Schools DotA 2
• High Schools FIFA
• High Schools HearthStone
• High Schools League of Legends
• High Schools Paladins
• High Schools Street Fighter V

Also read:

• The new national team selection criteria.
• Why schools and universities should invest in esports.

• 2019 Calendar of Events
• Esports: MSSA's 23rd Western Cape Championships - 23 & 24 March 2019

Prototype Feast Or Famine

Ever since Corbin was born (last summer), I have felt like I've been in a relative famine with regards to playtesting (and gaming in general). I have tried to make up for that with online play at BoardGameArena.com, Boiteajeux.net, Yucata.de, etc.

In October, Michael was in town for Rincon, and I manages to get a couple of plays in with him. Then I sent 4 of my prototypes to Utah with him in hopes that they would get played in the TMG office.

Finally, after 8 or 9 months off, my playtesting group is back up and running again! This was great news, and it came just in time to finish up last minute development on Eminent Domain Origins, the reboot of my first game, Terra Prime.

Now that that's done however, I've run into a problem. All my prototypes are in Utah, what do I test next? Fortunately, I had something. TMG is doing a Deluxified version of Emperor's Choice (I'm in charge of the art direction and rules updating, like I did for Yokohama), and someone suggested we add a 2 player variant to that 3-5 player auction game. So I came up with something, and the last couple of weeks we've been testing that.

Yesterday, I came home to a box at my door containing my prototypes! They appear to be in fine condition, and now I've got the opposite problem: which of these should I test next?

* Crusaders: Divine Influence (expansion)
* Deities and Demigods (now Olympus on the Serengeti)
* Eminent Domain: Chaos Theory (dice game)
* Alter Ego
* Sails and Sorcery (Michael's mash-up of EmDo and El Grande)

In addition to that, pretty soon I'll have a version of Worker Learning to test as well!

Crusaders: Divine Influence (expansion)

Since Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done arrived a couple of months ago, it seems to be very well received. This makes a perfect window for a Deluxified expansion to go on Kickstarter, along with the opportunity to get the Deluxified base game again, later this year. In anticipation of this, I designed an expansion before my playtesting haiatus, and I'm pretty happy with it so far.
Divine Influence adds 4 new building tracks (16 more buildings per player), a revamped (more involved) Influence action, and a few new knight orders to go with them.

Olympus on the Serengeti (fka Deities and Demigods)

I posted before about the theme of Deities and Demigods changing to re-imagine Greek mythology in an animals of Africa setting. Art is underway on this one, and I'm a little worried how it will turn out. I think that, like Eminent Domain's title, when players see everything in context, it will work well.

This one doesn't really need more testing, unless I want to add that Hades module to the game.

Eminent Domain: Chaos Theory

Last I checked, with the final tweak to 5p (and maybe 4p) games (everyone starts with 1 tech advance), I think this one is ready to go. It is in line to get art done after the more pressing Divine Influence, which will start as soon as we wrap up art for Eminent Domain Origins which is happening right now (about a month late, which means it probably won't make GenCon, unfortunately).

Alter Ego

I finally hired an artist and a graphic designer for this age old prototype, though I haven't seen anything from them yet. The game could use some finishing touches, but nothing that would change the major art pieces, so I figured starting art would be ok. There's no deadlude for this one at the moment per se, so maybe starting art now will mean when it comes time, I'll actually make it for once!

Sails and Sorcery

Michael impressed me with the thoroughness he was putting into his mash-up of EmDo and El Grande when he talked about it on the TMG podcast. He didn't really have a title, so I made this one up for now. He didn't want to let me in on the game until he'd gotten it far enough along - perhaps for fear I'd sort of take over the design (that's kind if my MO). In October, he brought the game with him and we played a few times. I think it was an excellent start! He was ready to let me start doing my thing...

Right away I had a few course grained suggestions, some of which we implemented on the spot. Others Michael didn't necessarily agree with. He left the game with me to work on, but my testing was on hiatus at the time, so beyond editing the rules to include what I wanted to try, I wasn't able to do anything.

Come December, Michael was in town again for the holidays, and I sent his prototype back with him, with my rules edit inside, so they could try it in Utah. I don't think they ever got to it though.

Now that I'm playtesting again, I asked for this prototype back, so we could give it some plays.

Worker Learning

I think I've mentioned that I recruited my friend Rick to help co-design one of my more promising ideas. After some good discussion back and forth, some solo testing on his part, and a couple revisions of the prototype, Rick tells me this game just got its first live playtest! Sounds like it went well, and generated good feedback. Rick will be bringing an updated version to Gamestorm next weekend, and after incorporating that feedback, I'll make a prototype and bring it to my group.

I'm excited to see this game in action! But some of the others have a little higher priority, so it might be several weeks before I get to try this one.

Suzy Cube, Available NOW!

#SuzyCube #gamedev #indiedev #madewithunity @NoodlecakeGames 

The wait is finally over! Suzy Cube is now available! I want to take this opportunity to extend my most sincere thanks to everyone who helped make this possible.

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