Monday 1 August 2011

Make: 3D Dungeon Tiles Pt 1 - The Design

One of the aspects of Roleplaying that I've always loved is the craft element, be it painting miniatures or making maps, it satisfies the modeller in me. In particular I've always wanted to have an impressive 3D dungeon setup, so when I stumbled upon Eredrian's Warhammer Quest Tiles I decided that I'd give it a go.

I've designed and built plenty of 2D tiles before, but never in 3D with walls and doors. The biggest change has been to scale everything up to a 1.5" grid as a 1" grid became too cramped and play broke down. Another inspiration was the fantastic drakkon boardgame which has a couple of fun actions like the Rotate a Room and Floating Room which I thought would be nice to have in a dungeon.


This all percolated into an embryonic design of a 6" square standard tile with a 4x4 grid 1 inch high walls with removable wall/door/feature sections which I drew out in sketchup.

In Part Two I'll be pulling out the foamcore and starting to cut.

Monday 25 July 2011

Movie Watch: Eyeborgs

Adrian Paul (Highlander TV Series) and Danny Trejo (Machete) star in this cautionary tale of technology gone too far set in a near future Chicago.  

The eyeborgs of the title are mobile surveillance cameras tasked with the surveillance of society for the Department of Homeland Security, but have they been compromised and if so, by whom?  Gunner Reynolds (Adrian Paul) a DHS agent discovers the truth about the real nature of the eyeborgs design.



If you can get past the distinctly "TV Movie" CGI eyeborgs which are nicely modeled but poorly composited, there's a good plot in there and certainly something that hasn't been seen before. The characters, and perhaps Paul's acting, are a little one dimensional but passable and Danny Trejo has the most lines I've ever heard him speak in one movie.

A solid 4 out of 5 for the story and a 3 out of 5 for the CGI.

Friday 22 July 2011

Beast of the Week: Hydrothermal Worm

Nature proves yet again that it can evolve animals which would fit quite nicely into any RPG scenario.  Meet... 

The Hydro Thermal Worm

This photo was taken by Philippe Crassous at FEI (makers of Electron Scanning Microscopes).

Hydrothermal Worm

I think that this is a suitable image for my 100th post

Thursday 21 July 2011

...meet Leonard of Quirm

Although it has been pretty quiet for blogging here at roleplay-geek HQ, I'm very busy; running my C&C campaign The Lands of Dual with my regular friday group; designing and building a foamcard pirate galleon; designing a new "Deluxe PDF" approach to Item Cards which will debut soon with the release of RGP004 - Armour and Shields and preparing a Star Blazer Adventures one nighter as a birthday treat for my buddy Paul Stebles, to name just a few.  I'm also working on v5.0 of my post apocalyptic car combat game which I hope to be able to release as a Print 'n' Play PDF in the very near future.
I'm beginning to feel a bit like Leonard of Quirm, too many projects and not enough time to finish them...

Wednesday 29 June 2011

Legendary Locations: Mud Maid of The Lost Gardens of Helligan

A very evocative image of a sleeping giantess which inhabits a glade at The Lost Gardens of Helligan in St Austell, Cornwall, England.  This beautiful image was taken by flickr photographer Colin Boylett.

The Mud Maid