Managing Game Elements: Revisited
October 17, 2009
Last time, I showed you a mockup of a UI for managing in-game resources. Since then, I’ve been working on an implementation of that mockup, and I’d like to get your feedback on a couple screenshots. Read more
EpicTable Hits the Jackpot
September 22, 2009
Woohoo! EpicTable is unexpectedly awash in pieces of eight!
Along the way to finishing the “Arrange” (i.e., z-order) context menu for the tabletop, I introduced a short-lived but extravagant bug. One of the things you can do with objects on the tabletop is duplicate them. Last night, you could duplicate them…a lot. Imagine my surprise to see pieces of eight spilling out across the tabletop. By the time I stopped it, I had more than 9,000 coins on the tabletop! They were multiplying like tribbles.
Now, if I could just figure out how to do this on my physical tabletop….
Here’s a shot of the current context menu for Arrange with a sufficiently tamed Duplicate function. To the folks from the forum who have weighed in on this, let me know what you think. I’ve not forever ruled out something more elaborate, but my thinking is that this is sufficient for version 1.
Credits and Sources: Background texture and Pieces of eight from iStockphoto.
Stackable Surface Objects
September 16, 2009
Added proper stacking (i.e., “z-order” tracking and rendering) to EpicTable surfaces. This means that if you put one object down on top of another, it’ll look that way and not “slide under” the other object. Not a huge deal, just something that needed to be knocked off the list.
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Tabletop Surface Integration, Dice Panel, etc.
June 4, 2009
Just a couple quick updates on development status. There’s been a good bit of work done since the demos during FUMcon. My focus continues to be integrating and testing. I’m working hard at getting an alpha release ready with a beta to follow shortly, and I wanted to give you an update on what’s been happening. Special thanks goes to Brennen Reece for design advice on some of the visual improvements since the demo.
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Dice and Dogs in the Vineyard
November 30, 2008
Last time, I discussed EpicTable’s support for game pieces on a tabletop surface. This post is similar in that it too involves moving objects around on the tabletop—only this time, the objects are dice. Dogs in the Vineyard is a prime example of a game that involves doing more with dice than just rolling them. Lets look at how EpicTable supports this functionality. Read more
Virtual Tabletop Game Pieces
November 17, 2008
I’ve been talking about dice an awful lot lately, so here’s something a little different. Recently, I’ve been playing Primetime Adventures and reading a lot of other Indie games, and these games have an interesting set of needs. Often, instead of maps, the players need to be able to move game pieces around on a surface. For instance, Primetime Adventures has fanmail tokens, Universalis and Don’t Rest Your Head use coins, and so on. Read more
Fudge Dice in the Chat Window
October 29, 2008
A quick addendum to my last post, about dice rolls in the chat window: I’ve got Fudge dice working.
In case you’re not familiar with Fudge dice, they’re six-sided dice with two “+”, two “-”, and two blank sides. Rolling four Fudge dice gives you a range from -4 to +4. Fudge is a “rules-light” game system originating in the 1990s. A number of game systems draw upon Fudge in one way or another. For instance, Spirit of the Century, a popular pulp RPG, traces its lineage back to Fudge via FATE.
Dice Rolls in the Chat Window
October 27, 2008
Recently, I discussed EpicTable’s Dice Cup Designer. Since that post, I’ve integrated a lot of technology from the Dice Cup Designer into the chat window. Dice rolls have been working in the chat window for a long time, but the chat window used to use a canned set of dice I’d shot with a digital camera. Functional, but not very pretty. It also used to lack support for some of the more interesting dice rolls that the Dice Cup Designer can create. Now, the chat window uses Brennen’s oh-so-much-prettier dice, it preserves the color scheme of the dice, and it visualizes features of the dice cup, such as summing the dice and dropping dice. Read more
EpicTable Dice Cup Designer
October 13, 2008
One of my goals for EpicTable is to support many different roleplaying games. In a previous post, I discussed my efforts to implement dice rolls found in a wide variety of RPGs. In this post, I examine dice rolls from a slightly different angle—that of composing complicated dice rolls—and I’ll give you a preview of EpicTable’s “Dice Cup Designer“.
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Roleplay-Centric Chat
August 31, 2008
In this post, I’m going to introduce you to EpicTable’s “Roleplay-Centric Chat” features. I call EpicTable’s text chat “roleplay centric” because it has features like an integrated dice roller, support for multiple personas, and many other features that tailor it to the roleplaying experience.
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