Massive Pocket-Tactics Updates + Instructional Video

How massive can the update be for a game that fits into your pocket?  Well, pretty damn big if we do say so ourselves.  First of all, we've revamped the Pocket-Tactics page here on our site, so now it's easy to find the core rules and all the factions in one easy to navigate location.  Cool, right?

Wait...  All the factions?  Yes, there are TONS of them now.  The team has been designing and printing and we'll be posting the new ones as they're introduced.  Remember that new factions likely haven't been played much when they're posted, so if you play 'em, send us an email to let us know how it went.  Then you can consider yourself an official Ill Gotten Game playtester.  Sorry - no tee shirts... yet.



Been playing Pocket-Tactics and still have questions?  Or are you new to 3D printing and the very first thing you downloaded and printed was a set of PT (as it should be) and you have no idea how to play the game?  Well, per fan request, we've created our first in what we hope will be a series of instructional videos to help with some of the questions that have come up.  Board set up, dice mechanic, stat sheets - it's all explained right here.

We're working on a big Pocket-Tactics campaign, one that our team will be playing over the course of the next few weeks.  We'd love to hear how all of you players are tackling unusual PT play - four player games?  Campaigns?  Tournaments?  (Congrats to Ben Toomey for winning our 2014 tournament last month.)

We'd also love to hear what you think our next video should include.  Drop us an email or post a comment.  Happy gaming!

Another new game...

Yep, Arian and his creativity have been at it again.  We're excited to announce another new table top game, completely unique and printed on the faithful MakerBot Replicator.  Once play-tested and perfected, we'll have copies available through the Etsy shop, but for now...

Coming soon from Ill Gotten Games: Hover Derby, a fast-paced, hyper-competitive game in which two to four players race hover cars through the futuristic city of Cosmopolis!

The splash page, as well as all the components for the game, were created in TinkerCad.  Check back soon for some pics!

Wired Magazine Features Pocket-Tactics. YAY!

It happens really, really rarely.  All three of us tend to be pretty verbose.  But we're humbled and speechless to be featured on Wired Magazine's website today.  Wow.

Huge thank you to Joseph Flaherty for writing such an awesome article and promoting Ill Gotten Games, Pocket-Tactics, and 3D printing.

Wow.

Hey Turkeys! We Won the Black Dynamite Design Contest!

So, Arian happened upon something epic on the Thingiverse.  One of our favorite things to do at Ill Gotten Games, when we're not playing or designing games, is to watch movies or TV shows - the more independent, obscure, or cult-y the better.  So yes, we'd seen and enjoyed Black Dynamite before.  We recite quotes from it frequently.  For the Thingiverse to announce a contest to create the a 3D model that represented the cult classic was uncanny.

As many of you know, Arian has been designing like crazy, specifically working on Pocket-Tactics.  So what better way for him to enter the contest than to create a few larger than life versions of Black Dynamite, some of his enemies, and New York themed tiles and turn Black Dynamite into Pocket-Tactics.  In 2 days. And so Black Dynamite: Throwdown Showdown was born.

He didn't do it alone, mind you.  Jeremy has been busy working on the models for another Pocket-Tactics faction for future release and Laurel has been coordinating schedules for our Kickstarter video, which we recorded this weekend.  But Black Dynamite was Arian's focus, so he enlisted the brilliant help of his little brother, Cameron, to create some 2D art (in MS Paint!!) to accompany his contest submission.
    

Talented family, right??

So, all those long, manic hours of designing, printing, and painting paid off yesterday when the MakerBot blog announced their big winner, complete with a footnoted disclaimer that they're really and truly not in cahoots with Arian somehow - their last two posts have been about his work on Pocket-Tactics.

We're looking forward to some swag, but really just more recognition about our little game is the best part of the win.  Stay tuned for more news soon - about our Pocket-Tactics contest winner and the upcoming Kickstarter campaign.

Introducing Pocket-Tactics!

So, without further adieu, we'd like to introduce Ill Gotten Games' first fully-realized board game: Pocket-Tactics! 

 Pocket-Tactics is a tile-based strategy game in which fantasy forces battle for control of the world. The game is fast-paced (most games lasting between 20-45 minutes) and is so small that it all fits in a little felt bag and the play area rarely takes up more than a square foot of table space. The system is dynamic though resolution is quick and there aren't a ton of rules to track or memorize, making it ideal for advanced and casual gamers alike. 

Gotta give mad props to Makerbot Industries and Tinkercad for allowing us to turn this fun little game into a reality, especially in such a short time. Arian conceived the game on a Tuesday and by that Friday morning had a working, fully painted copy. Now that's rapid prototyping! 

Still working out some kinks, though in the meantime you can see (and download!) the beta version of the game on the Thingiverse here. We're going to be marketing the game, though in the spirit of the maker community we'd like to keep it free to our fellow 3D printing enthusiasts. 

Legion of the High King

The first set, Legion of the High King against the Tribes of the Dark Forest, is hopefully just the first in an ever-expanding universe of fantastic characters from genres ranging from fantasy to science fiction. We've started with fantasy (the origins of Arian's nerdly obsessions and similar to the setting in his novel) and we'll start with a good smattering of common sword-and-sorcery concepts (thanks to Misters Tolkien, E. Howard and Leiber). 

Tribes of the Dark Forest

There's a lot of excitement over here at Ill Gotten Games and we know this game is going places. We're eager to hear from anyone who's played or is interested in playing, so if you have any questions or feedback drop us a line. 

For those of you who don't have your own 3D printer and Arian's painting skills, the full game will be available on the Etsy account soon. Check back regularly for expansions, new versions, and, of course, more (brilliant) games.

Look What Else We Made!

One of the most recent modeling endeavors Ill Gotten Games has undertaken is to design 3D models through computer aided design programs like Tinkercad.  The next step in that process is to actually send these designs through our Shapeways store into production.  For those of us that have been working with (and admiring the detail on) gaming models for years, this is a dream come true.


Shapeways allows us to order the figures in a number of different materials, but to start out we ordered in their base product - a white, strong, flexible plastic material.  Not only was this an inexpensive way to test things out, but our models are also going to be painted anyway.  

Here is our own sprue that Arian designed to modify some 15mm models for the game.  The sprue contains both left and right arms and they totally technoed out our Splintered Light ghoul models perfectly:






But why aim for a couple of arms when we can build whole models?  From scratch?  Without glue??  The Servitor Mech was one of the most complex models that we've yet designed on the computer.

So imagine how stoked we were to discover just how cool the actual model turned out!  We ordered two of these, with differing detail, and both were totally tabletop worthy (in our humble opinion).    

 

But why stop at a single small model when we can build a whole ship?  A whole ship with it's own docking stand, built and ordered separately?  And so, our latest creation is the Roosevelt:

 

 Stay tuned for lots, lots more of these to come.  And check back to our Tinkercad link regularly...  We're very excited about some of the creatures we're creating.  We are rolling random creatures through the Continuum generator, then able to build these beings in 3D the next day, order them through Shapeways, and game with them within a week or so.  It's so cool living in the future.  

Look What We Made This Week!

Our little community in the Pacific Northwest is known for being environmentally friendly.  There is a huge community of artists locally, and many of them celebrate our love of reuse by incorporating recycled bits into their creations.  We like to think that we're a part of that movement in the way we're developing our new terrain pieces and models.  Some people may call us hoarders, but we prefer "environmentalists."


Granted, we're lucky to have family and friends who wash and save random bits of plastic and metal for us.  And we're exceptionally lucky to live in a place that has organizations like RE Store and the newly-opened Allied Arts recycled art supply store, AARTS.  However, most of the parts we used in our new pieces came from the gaming group's kitchens and workshops.  


Because this is a gaming blog, we're going to present these pieces, of which we are exceptionally proud, in reverse order - after and before, as it were.  Take a close look at the pics and then scroll down to see how much you are able to decipher. 

So, that's how the pieces turned out after being sprayed with a new shade of grey-green texture spray paint. 

Here's what they looked like before we sprayed:

Scroll down to see the recipe we used to create our futuristic little world...

We intend to play our first Continuum Mini game with this new terrain in mere moments, so stay tuned for that play-by-play and more pics including our fantastic little 15mm models in action.  Meantime, start collecting pieces and make your own terrain.  We'd love to see photos in the comments for this post!

Continuum Mini

We didn't actually forget about Continuum Mini.  It's like Continuum's feisty little brother, after all, so it wasn't something we were purposely neglecting.  It just kind of happened.  Until this week...

This week we revamped the system.  It's called Mini for two reasons - it's a much simpler game than Continuum and it's a mini game, using 15mm models to enact epic battles.  The biggest similarity to Continuum is that we maintain the modular aspect of the game, meaning that the ruleset is a toolkit that allows you to use any model, any genre, any back story.  So after writing for the last few days, simplifying things even further and cleaning up the last version of the Continuum Mini codex, tonight we had our first game test in months.  Here's how it went:

Initial Setup

The opposing forces were made up of the Circle-tech Incursionary Force on one side and the Midgardian Hill Tribes on the other.  The set up process took a minute, as we reviewed our character sheets for these new squads, but once we got on a roll the game ran surprisingly smoothly.  

Turn 1 - the Combat Mechs moved out to flank the Viking forces, but the Viking force positioned their archers on a hill (thank you Ikea) and moved their Hillfolk spearman and Jotun to intercept the Mechs. Meanwhile, the Circle-tech troopers made a slow advance.

Turn 2 - The Jotuns advanced further while the Hillfolk spearmen charged up a hill.  The combat mechs shot their rail rifles at the Jotun but missed.  The rocket launcher and heavy machine gun trooper made an advance, as did the axe-armed Vikings.

Turn 3 - The Jotuns charged against the Mechs, activating two skill-pushes and destroying them in melee combat. The Circle-Tech troopers charged themselves, cutting the the Jotun down in a hail of assault rifle fire. The Jotun Huntress rushed across to the safety of the hills, ordering the Hillfolk spearmen to advance to occupy a hill of their own. Advancing from the troopers aft, the heavy machine gun-armed troopers cut down half of the Hillfolk, who stood their ground despite the terrible losses. The Viking swordsmen moved forward, hoping to get closer to the action.

Turn 4 - The Jotun Huntress rushed to eliminate the Circle-Tech commander who, despite attempting an interrupt to bring her down with gun fire, fell to her axe. The surviving Hillfolk spearmen rallied atop the hill just before the heavy machine gunners cut down a large portion of the Viking swordsmen, who routed immediately. The Viking axemen made their way through the cover of the hills, suffering minor casualties to rocket launcher fire. 

Turn 5 - The rocket launcher troopers made their way up a hill, while the Hillfolk spearmen moved to the base of the hill to take cover.  The Circle-tech troopers cut down about half of the Viking axe-men.  Meanwhile, the Hillfolk archers also sought shelter at the base of a hill.  

Turn 6 - The Circle-tech troopers wiped out the remaining Viking axemen and the Hillfolk archers suffered minor casualties from the rocket launcher fire.  The Huntress rallied the remaining Hillfolk and fled into the hills.  The battle ended there, with the Circle-tech incursionary force staking a claim to the site, 673 points to 944 points remaining on the field of play.


So, basically, the game was awesome.  We're quite happy with how the test ran, especially after such a recent reworking of the rules.  In total it took about 90 minutes, which was just about perfect.  Can't wait for the next one....

Another Productive Weekend

Here we are at the close of another productive weekend.  Friday a package of 15mm models arrived from Khurasan Miniatures and they were even more amazing than we'd hoped - from zombies to kick-ass women, to policemen and reptilian hunters, these little guys have crazy detail for their size.  So, that was exciting until we realized that we don't yet have the custom 15mm bases we'd ordered and that would prevent us from using the new models on Monday night.  Monday is game testing day at Ill Gotten Games, no exceptions except Halloween last year.  Our gamers know that they practically need a doctor's note to be excused from a session.


So, on Saturday afternoon a little bit of positive thinking paid off and the bases arrived just in time from Sarissa Precision.  We got to work, basing over a hundred little tiny models on little tiny rounds of MDF, the custom cuts so fresh that each little zipper top bag released the smell of a campfire.  We order our bases 3mm thick, so they're strong enough for regular use but not so thick as to overwhelm the smaller models.


While Continuum isn't a miniature-based game per se, it is helpful to have some minis laying around when the characters get into sticky situations and need to visualize their next step.  Seeing as how we also have Continuum Mini (dubbed Minium internally) in which we use models, there is never a shortage.  These new 15mm models, however, are primarily going to be used for MetaTafl.  In keeping with the elegance of the original game of Hnefatafl, the models we use for our game are painted in only one color per team, easily differentiated from the opponent.  That means that the models we based yesterday, which only arrived on Friday, are fully painted and ready to go for tomorrow.


Meanwhile, Continuum's realistic physics have allowed something new - Entropy.  Entropy is a game within a game within a story, if that makes sense.  The group has been exploring Nexus City for a while now, with jaunts around the Multiverse to keep things interesting.  Entropy, as the story goes, is the local pastime in Nexus City. So some of those 15mm bases have become pieces for the prototype Entropy board, which we'll get pictures of soon.  Meanwhile, the Entropy rules are nearly complete (productive weekend, remember?), so we'll be testing those in another few weeks, depending on how the current modules go.


Ahh...  The modules will be another post.  They're awesome, and we're eternally grateful to have such creative team members writing up the adventures for our beloved characters.


Along with the bases, by the way, we also received one of these crazy cool 15mm houses that we'll be using for Minium. It is laser cut MDF, snapped together with ease, and looks amazing.  (We got the biggest one on the bottom of the page.)  We'll be ordering more of these for sure.  


Tomorrow is play testing day, and we can't wait to see how the conclusion of this module unfolds....