Entropy City: Making a Wargame

I started my wave by wave play testing development almost 2 years ago now, to start with the original test was pure and simple. I had a d10 blackjack mechanic but was it fun? Well thankfully the answer to that question was yes, Im not going to lie I kinda felt like I stumbled into some succes early on. Even the turning templates were originally created as a guess for what would work for the intended scale.

From there testing slowly introduced new stuff here and there constantly right up until around this time last year when I felt like I hit the wall. The issue I reached was I got to a point where until I went all the way things only felt half done in certain aspecs of the game.

I’ve always intended the game to introduce some form of stats beyond weapons target numbers and stuff, ideally Id love to add skills at some point as well, I even have some listed in the ruleset of ideas for the future. But it was time to work out WHAT the rider stats should be.

Strength: Assists your rider in recovering from a crash.

Dodge: Assists your rider dodging an incoming attack.

Protection: Essentially intended as a armour save, your biker gear maybe saving you from the incoming wound.

Max Stress: The maximum stress you rider can handle. Should you reach this any test requires 21 to pass. Forcing you to reduce your stress if youve been taking too many risks.

Wounds: How much damage can you take?

It took a while to put together a reason for everything, I always knew I wanted protection to be a thing and yes part of that is because I am a rider myself and Im someone who believes you should wear the gear.

Strength was a hard one because at first it started as an addition to an attack, but then that didnt work because maybe I didnt want to add that result so it becomes optional, it was just stupid… And then I realised it could be used elsewhere.

Its probably not even fair to call Max Stress and Wounds stats but I mean they are, theyre just used differently.

Adding these in to playtesting finally allows me to test how the game works as intended in my head, especially with those questions answered. Give each faction a base stat to test with and then work on their balance before moving to more individual stats for each rider.

I thought I would share the placeholder cards for the Komodo and Hades factions. More than happy to also share Mutiny and the RFPD cards at a later date but I dont currently have them finished. And the RFPD are completely untested on the table at this time..

Images on the cards are all placeholder and or miniatures from other worlds I have repurposed for the sake of playtesting.

I’ve given throught to adding a stat for riding skill, within the law its acknowledged that not everyone has spent a lot of time on bikes. And this in theory would assist with cornering or make it harder.. At this stage I havent implimented everyting as I am unsure if its a good idea or not. If I feel the need to up the difficulty of cornering then it may come into play then.

So the Police force in the earliest days of the game started as a simple idea, ironically an idea that many years ago I was told would never work. That idea was simple, what is randomly the police interfered in the gang war. At the time I thought it was a really clever idea but Id never done this before so I listened to my friends. A few years later Frostgrave happened and Id never been happier to discover I was right to think the idea had merit.

Truth be told it didnt take me long to realise that there would likely be poeple that would rather play as the law as opposed to a gang regardless of the background of the gang in question, shades of grey is all well and good but sometimes people just want to play the “good guys”.

It wasnt until this project re-started that the true fleshing out start with the RFPD, hell at that point the city didn’t even have its true name yet. Before I could realistically make a true faction out of a simple idea I had to work out what on earth to bring a city into the state needed for the game in my head to exist. When the assasination took place the chief of police made it his personal mission to see the gang responsible saw justice but there was one problem, Hades claimed it wasnt them and fought back this is ultimately what led to the fall of the city.

Truth be told the RFPD today is nothing of what it once was and that fact of is those that claim superiority within the forces now were mostly juniors at the time and not all of those that joined since are as clean as they make out to be. The idea behind this is allowing players to theme their forces around their own personal idea’s. Maybe they want to play the true heroes or maybe theyd rather play some crooked cops, either way the city is big enough to allow it.

I’m not going to lie, although all of the logos have been intended as placeholder for now theres none of them I hated more that the original version of the RFPD logo. I’ve mentioned before that Im not an artist and as much as I try to sound playful I actual mean it, its never been a strength of mine to draw, painting I can do but not draw its just not a skill that that I’ve ever had. And thats where this rough idea came from, it was me tracing over something and it didnt matter because it was temporary. That was atleast 12 months ago and I dont think this change could have gone any better… Its still placeholder but to me atleast this is probably the visual update I am the most proud of and the one I consider the biggest improvement overall.

Dirt bikes were the one bike style that didnt really have a HELPFUL sterotype surroundind then, besides either farming or motorcross neither of which I found inspiration in (except for wouldnt jumps be cool). But this is where its fun to have a pop culture background, see one of the first suggestions Id had back in the day was that it should have a Mad Max vibe and whilst I didnt want that entirely over the game lord knows those games exist already. Its much like although I didnt touch on it in the previous entry racing itself wasnt the focus on this game so many sports bikes specirfically a racing thing didnt fit.

My earliest thoughts were around a cult that was attempting to portray itself as something less dangerous, as most of them generally do. Perhaps filled with emmewbrs that dont entirely realise what theyre a part of, some that do and revel in it whilst others and somewhat nieve, less of a choice and more brainwashing. I liked the idea of mixing in punk and goth scenes as its so very different so what the other groups represented, the city has failed them and so theyre seeking a lifestyle they see saving them from what the city has done, its the victims of the cities fall being used by som pretty unsavoury people, the reasons why they cant be trusted I feel is something Id like to reveal at a later stage. Their main overaching leader is a rather charismatic man named Jeremiah, kind’ve has the way of making anyone smile, if it wasnt for his charm he’d almost make your skin crawl.

The original vision for the logo was somewhat thrown together from a few idea’s.
I mean theyre like anarchists and theyre trying to be pirates, oh and they ride dirt bikes, what if that was thier logo.

I thought it was so clever, ironically probably the logo I did the most orginal work on (especially as someone who cant draw) but the more time has past the more I HATE this image. It just doesnt feel like a faction logo, it feels like a logo drawn by a kid, no other groups are centred around the types of bikes they ride its just silly. What if I throw some more anarchist ideas in there?

Its the black and grey divide what a cool idea but its the city skyline.. God this felt like i was trying hard, way too hard this was the point where I completely scrapped the entire idea and went back to scratch for an entirely new concept for their logo.. I mean their a cult right it should be some symbology they can twist into meaning something it doesnt right?

So we’ve gone back to borrowed assets until i can get a paid artists here but I feel much happier with the black rose as a symbol of the group, black roses are famously a sign of mourning especially in pop culture, come join us in your mourning we will help you survive after what the city did to you and your family.. Join us..

But you know what else the black rose is famously hatred and anarchism, this is where I feel the vision fits with the cult itself, granted its not perfect but Im very happy with the symbology itself.

From a pop culture perspective when you see a sports bike being used in a gang sense it tends to be tied to one of two groups, fictionalised versions of either The Triad or the Yakuza and whilst I have made a very concieted effort to avoid real world groups being inspired from their fictionalised counterparts worked for Hades so why not for the sportsbikes as well. The Komodo Dragon is just an awesome and fierce looking creatures plus I thought the name sounded cool without being something you could easilly point and say “hey thats just x or z”

The power of The Komodo comes from their anonymity, members will very rarely reveal themselves outside of private in house meetings and are quite often dressed in full leathers with full face helmets anytime they leave their compounds. The only exception to this is the occasional leader who’s ego convinced them theyre untouchable. Members are often highly successful financially and owe their comfortable lives quite literally to the Komodo. If their identity was to be revealed its likely that would quickly change. The organisation itself had actualy started to infiltrate Entropy City some years before the fall but its hard to tie down the exact point where it started because of the nature of how they operate however by the time the fall took place The Komodo had their hands in pretty much everything and no-one truly understood this until much later.

Recruitment into The Komodo can be varied depending on who you are the role they wish for you to fill, needless to say until you’re deep you wont know who exactly have been drawing you in but rumour has it that once you are a member of The Komodo, the only way you leave is in a coffin.

The original logo was quite literally traced from a photograph of a real Komodo Dragon, just to see if it could work visually, as I was fleshing out the various placeholder inspirations I wanted to add a little more flavour, for the final version of this Id very much like it to look like actual tattoo art, thats the vision I have in my head, inked on the skin rather than a decorative patch, and using some swirling mist and smoke that looked unnatural felt like the right move to me. Hence where the logo currently stands..

Needless to say I feel Im on the right track but more than any other I expect this is the logo that will change the most before its final version.

When someone says the words “motorcycle gang” theres a very specific group type that most people will think of and with shows like Son’s of Anarchy & Mayans M.C let alone seeing them in movies such as The Terminator has solidified the vision in pop culture and somewhat in immortality even if their influence on the world isnt as large today as it may have been in the 80’s & 90’s.

Well from a pop culture sterotype perspective thats what Hades is based on, the group itself evolved from that sterotype to a full on unique faction of their own. Hades are a group that started as friends feeling rejected by society following time in the service, overtime it grew to gather outcasts of all kinds, a real sense of family and belonging and pride comes from its “true” members, and atleast in their early days new recruits were chosen and put through a very thorough and rigoris trial to earn their place among the ‘family’.

Hades certainly hasnt been an innocent group but theres been plenty of moments in history theyve been blamed for that they claim to have taken no part in. In the case of the moment that caused the downfall of the city there was evidence of them not being involved but at that point those in charge reacted rashly and the warfare that folowed led to the city being in the state it is today..

The logo itself has evolved since the game was started a few years ago, especially as someone working full time and never having done this before Ive tried to keep updating things as often as I could but as proud as I was of the original placeholder idea which was the single fist it always felt like it was missing something and so I spent time trying to create something that felt like it could belong in the back of a riders leather kacket and thats where the 3rd image comes from.

Its worth noting that I myself am not an artist, its never been something Ive been comfortable doing and long term the plans would be for everything you’re seeing to be replaced hence why I call it ‘placeholder’. This particular image is something I started by tracing, the second fist is the first flipped around and edited and the fire comes from a tonne of difference sources simple because its intended to inspire.. Hopefully.

In the coming days I hope to give you an update on each of the current fleshed out factions, and yes I should give an update on the rules at somepoint as well.

One of the big untouched sections of the game for a long time has been the question of people on foot, what options will people have, in its earliest days my answer was simple “but I want this to be a bikes game” however as the actual development started in 2021 the arguments from playtesters and people following the project started to get more detailed and I began to see that if it was being asked for I should probably figure out a way and if it doesnt work then atleast I’ve crossed it.

Now for a long time thats as far as it had gotten, something for future Jason to worry about, lets get the bikes right first but Im reaching that point now where I feel if I dont start answering these questions it will become too late, I can start with some simple answers.

• If someone comes off their bike theyre removed from the game.
• If someone starts on foot then theyre an on foot miniature.

I feel too many dangers of crossing back and forth and feel they should be deliberately kept seperately, atleast for now keeping a hard line between riders and people on foot so then what is their place on the table?

The first revelation for this was actually another unanwered development step, for a long time Ive been wanting “traps” to be part of the game, spike strips and explosives make a lot of sense for the setting, molotov cocktails as well and in the case of the spike strip it certainly makes a lot more sense for this to be exclusive to your on foot troops.

The other issue I came across the moment I started putting actual thoguht into this was people on foot should never be able to keep up with the bikes, therefore whats the point of them right? I mean sure they could have guns and they can be easier to use but is that it? Well no I more see them as advance troops setting things up. So the current deployment rule shoves them closer towards the board so long as their touching a piece of terrain, this solves the problem and can be argued in world pretty easilly, certain missions may have to change this slightly.

However theres a larger mechanical problem Ive been struggling with, which is simply how they work, a large part of the games mechanics so far have been centered around the bikes feeling like bikes right? So then someone on foot should be able to react to things easier, theyre not in the middle of riding their motorbike at the same time. My plan for this is two fold, firstly they can use their actions at any point, they dont HAVE to use all at once. I have CONSIDERED going the activation token route specifically for the people on foot however my concern is whether that adds too much complication.

So thats a lot of answers, all of which still need to be tested however I think it works but the proof will be in the pudding. I also struggled for a long time with the busting mechanic, because by rights, them busting makes no sense someone on foot cannot crash, however I think the simple solution to this is just “something has gone wrong” I think this ‘problem’ was me over thinking it but again proof is in the pudding during testing.

So I mentioned the traps? What are the traps like you can’t test them without something to represent them Jason.. Okay okay well maybe I did create some stand ins using images Ive found and edited for my use. These images are just for playtesting, when the game becomes a thing I will obviously need to get real art done at some point

Below you will find both a 50mm & 70mm flame token used for the molotovs, rule is they spread a little before they disperse, pretty much like they’re designed to in real life. And finally the token for the spike strip.

Final update in today’s post is regarding status’s, theres been an addition to the existing states a rider could be effected by. So far we have had the following.

• Bleeding
• Burning (Untested)
• Max Stress
• Stunned

However in an attempt to add more depth to the game and help weapons feel different I am adding “distracted” which basically is a condition that can stack that forces your TN to become harder and harder to meet. So in theory if you were trying to roll a TN14 but you had Distracted+2 then you need to get to TN16 (remembering that if you go over 21 you crash because its blackjack but with dice).

So I guess this is where my rant comes to an end however I have a question for you, do you like the idea of my solution for the on-foot activations being able to be split up? Do you feel Im missing something? Do you have other questions? Please ask and comment away would love your feedback.

After the stress that was Pax Australia I actually found myself in a desperate need of a break, realistically I hadnt really taken one since I restarted this project 18 months or so ago and I finally reached the point where I knew I needed a break. So what has happened since then?

Lots of small tweaks and trying to plan ahead ojn how to be a smarter developer (this is me calling myself out on my own faults not having a go at developers). While hyper focusing I was doing Entropy Cityand nothing else bar the occasional game of Bushido or an rpg etc etc. But Ive actually started putting together warbands and grabbing things for mini projects inm between grinding but thats enough of my excuses.

About 3-4 months into my project I took some feedback from people that suggested they had wanted to have some characters on foot as wel as on bike, I immediately nodded and put it in the back of my mind until I felt I was ready to start pushing  new things in again, I’ve always wanted the focus of Entropy City to be the bikers but from the very very start of this feedback Ive always had a question that plagued me.. Yeah but where do they fit into the game? Why would you ever use them

People on foot would have to be slow, so theyre never going to reach the battle so how does this work. Well Ive finally started to find the answer to these questions and the first “duh” moment actually answers one of the questions I had in a previous update. The place of the on-foot miniatures is to set the traps, they start further up the board setting up the traps for when the enemy arrives, this fixes both of the major issues, then they’re there to support your bikers and help them get up in the case of a crash.

So last week we got a piece of news claiming that pirates had stolen the Kelp design and had it selling on Amazon before the Kickstarter was completed, an absolute terrifying thought, granted I’ve already been pretty careful with how much I share and Im far from finished anyway but just be careful how much you share, just to cover yourself from thieves. I’ll continue to be open about my development, I’m not a big name sure I know some people but unless people have the chance to find out about me and the game it will never be a success.

I’ll be back soon with some more chat on the traps, specifically Molotov cocktails

– Jason “The Bruce”

With PAX Australia now behind me and having taken a couple of days to recover from that last minute rush I felt it was time to take a look at how things went. I’ve certainly had a lot of feedback on the direction of the game that’s been constant and there’s been a few things that continue to come up that I know I need to look at but before I get to those I wanted to talk a little about how I actually got into PAX. Truth be told I didn’t initially, when I submitted my application it turned out that I (and a number of others) had been sent the wrong link and told to apply through 2022’s application.

So I paid for my own passes to pax, as I hadn’t gotten in and I was happy with that and looking forward to seeing more this year as the year before Id had an injury and struggling to get around and therefore missed most of it, less than a week before I had a message from one of the TGDA admins asking if I was interested in filling in for one of the drop outs on either Friday evening or Saturday morning, I agreed without question at the time, only realising afterwards that this means I was giving away the time I had paid to see things but I felt it was worth it.

A lot of my prep had already begun because DevCon was on Thursday which is a local game developers conference always run the day before PAX (as far as I know) so my weekend started with me leaving my tape measure behind meaning plenty of people has comments and asked but no game demos happened on Thursday night though ironically if anything I’m shocked at how much I still got from this. Most members of the TGDA are developing board games and card games at different levels of complexity, the highlight for my playtesting being “Nightshift” which was a game set in a strip club that was insanely fun.

Friday was the beginning of PAX and only one I could enjoy until 4pm because of a double booking I had made that evening and it was this day I noticed the first hiccup, long story short I spent most of Friday running around trying to organise the last few hiccups to try and ensure things went smoothly the following day, so occupied doing this that I didn’t take any time for myself at all, that evening I went to a Wrestling event for a meet and greet and a great show and then it was up early to be at the event in time the following morning.

Saturday Morning started with a hiccup Id tried to solve the day earlier, as I had been asked to fill in last minute I hadn’t received what should have been a different type of pass so security wouldn’t let me in, after a few back and forth I was inside and setting up on the smaller tables, given the table only allowed for a 2×4 setup Im somewhat amazed at how good the table looked and given I was the only tabletop miniatures game on display within their set up it helped me stand out a little, there was only a period of maybe 25-30minutes where I didn’t have at least one person in front of me, the smaller table meant action was pretty much immediate, each game starting pretty much the same way as I deliberately set myself up to be attacked by the players and then responding, giving them opportunities to get a grips with the WIP mechanics.

Of the 8 people I had that morning only 2 of them had played miniature games before and even then one of them was many years earlier, in the wee hours the night before Id rushed together a little checklist for feedback and I had every player go through and fill it out, everyone was very positive in their feedback as 3pm rolled around and my rush to pack up for the next people in time had failed I somewhat literally staggered away trying to figure out how I was going to enjoy the rest of the convention with this giant bag, my first answer was food and then I figured I would try and get it checked in at the cloakroom, running into a friend who was asking where my set up reminding me how easy it was to get lost at PAX but I reassured him how busy it was and then enjoyed my meal and then 20minutes later I shocked myself by going home and literally collapsing in exhaustion at home, the week of stress and panic had broken me. But there are two main pieces of advice I wanted to cover and now here they are.

I think you need some traps.

Now this is ironically something Ive wanted to introduce since the earliest days of starting work, its just not something Ive been ready to introduce yet for a number of reasons, I wanted to get the guns implementation done first before I introduced the next big thing but I wanted to talk a little about what I saw.. The first obvious one is a Molitov Cocktail, it’s something that could be thrown at a person or the ground to create a fire trap, explosives they must make sense but how they work is the hard thing, oil slick is another obvious one and a staple of vehicular combat, and finally a spike trap like what the police use on the highway. This is something I am 100% going to be introducing just I need to work on templates for them all and how I intend for them to work.

What about some on foot mechanics, I think you need them.

Now at first I assumed me meant as just an addition to the game which you may know was already in the plans for the future but no this is actually a piece of feedback Id had before in the earliest days of the game. When someone comes off the bike, what if you could just stay on foot and the mechanics allowed for it. In the earliest days of playtesting this was mentioned before and I’m not 100% sure who it was it might have been something Michel asked when reading my rules or it might have been one of the players themselves but my argument at the time had always been that it just wasn’t how I wanted the game to work but at the same time I’ve never been comfortable with a game that would end up requiring two minis for every one character on your army list. But I might need to start considering my options if its something players feel is a hole in the games logic.

In closing I guess I’m going to reflect on PAX, without question a very exciting opportunity to have been given and whilst I can’t say I actually enjoyed PAX in the traditional sense this year I don’t want to give the impression that’s a complain, it was a very fulfilling experience, I think its safe to say though that if Im going to do that next year it wont be at the last minute like I did this year.

Development continues for Entropy City largely as it hss from the beginning, I have a small group of friends who are willing to help me playtest on the days they have nothing else lined up but recently I had an opportunity to show off my game to the actual public for the first time. Or at least for the first time outside of those who have been reading what I am sure ia dribble half the time lol

The Nunawading Wargamers Association host an annual Games Day event where volunteers host a variety of different games as an outreach to the public, obviously trying to get new members, more people into the hobby and all of the other things a community group would desire. It was suggested by a friend (whos also involved with the club that I should try and get in on the event, with a whole bunch of nerves and doubting thoughts I filled out what would become a successful application and the ball began to roll, a ball of mad terrain painting and preparation when i realised just how much I had to paint to make my work presentable to the public.

As I am sure you’ve noticed in previous posts alarge number of the terrain I had been using was either not painted at all or half painted at best that was something i felt I would need to fix if anyone was going to have a reason to take me seriously and for the club not to regret approving my application. Entropy City is based within modern-ish day but obviously an alternate timeline of sorts given the state of the world. The benefit of this is that I can draw from real world aspirations and have fun with the ruined nature of the world I have created.

Although I very much do NOT want AI art to have place within the final version of my game for place holders during development I’ve explored quite a bit, some of this i used within posters and advertisements in world after all these are just for me to have a giggle at and some are fun things to see if anyone notices.

By the time of the event I had 98%of the stuff to a level I was happy with, if I am being honest with myself until this point in my hobby Id honestly not painted much terrain in my life and I honestly can’t figure out why, lord knows I’ve purchased enough of it, I guess it was always the easiest thing to justify leaving till later so I got to practise a lot of things that I knew in theory but not in practice. However I didnt just do what I have always been told thatbI should, infact when it comes to weathering I strayed off the beaten path significantly due to time restraints when instead of doing oil wsshes etc i weathered everything with regular washes and jjst controlled the pooling as it dried using the staining to get the look I wanted. Would a real oil watch look better of course but I felt this looked far better than most would believe it should.

So how did the event itself go? To start with I was extremely nervous and had reached a point of over thinking EVERYTHING. I had been advised earlier on that i should have someone to help me if i needed a break or go to the loo etc and a friend came along for the day (i secretly sent him money to cover some terrain he purchased on the day to thank him when he wouldbt accept my offer of money)

Generally this could have gone o w of two ways either because it was my first time Id feel completely overwhelmed and brain-dead by the end of the day or alternatively it would go well and I am very happy to say it went well.

One thing I probably should mention is that the night before i found out I was going to be right next to the 40k table, this didnt do my mind any favours going into the event, the self doubt was real but the event had an influx of people pretty much constantly throughout the day and my day started arguably in the best way it could which wss with someone coming to hunt me down after having stumbled across the very little information he could find he wantdd to know more. We played the only full game of the day (because i quickly realised playing full games was a terrible idea) and i had interested partoes at my table throughout the entire event right up until maybe the last hourish when the event was pretty much done.

Id had more interest at my table than the 40k folks had (I suspect because everyone already knew what 40k was) and the feedback had been incredibly helpful, the big thing from the day came from the sword weapon being used for the first time, it scared the living daylights out of everyone and needs to be brought into line with everything else, a simple fix of allowing a way to remove the bleed condition, which didnt really exist yet. The other feedback was that weapons didnt really feel different enough but as this is a fault of everything not being implimented into the game yet I wasnt overly concerned with that at this time.

This is a talking head video but is also available as a podcast down below, given it was pretty much talking head it made sense to release it as both.
Theres 2 differences.
1.) Audio has an addition of me explaining the content.

2.) Video has a short montage of some of the behind the scenes work and inspirations (as well as the unfortunate sight of my ugly mug 😉 )

Whichever way you chose to get the update Id love to hear more about what you think or what you want to know more about (because obviously theres a tonne not here.)

– Jason “The Bruce

This is going to be a nice short one today just to show the closer to final results of my weekends work and the painting up of my billboard and highway overpast (both from Knights of Dice).

The Metalwork itself was painting with Vallejo Model Air Metal paints,. a base coat of gunmetal followed by a dry drusing of steel from the same range.

And then for the rust I tried the Dirty Down rust for the first time and near fell of my chair this stuff is amazing.

Still some weathering to do on the signs but Im vbery happy with how they turned out so far.

Moving between different aspects of the project has been how Ive keept myself focused, because although the game ruleset has come a long way its still got a long way to go as well. And by improving my terrain and my miniatures Ive converted it will add to the aesthetic for those seeing it for the first time.

Its time for my regular self defamatory remark about not being an artist and only pretending to be because today is an entry all about me spending yesterday creating some art pieces for some terrain, I have two billboards I want siugns in and I have a highway overpass I want signs on.

This is something I’ve been wanting to do long before the game development had begun though my plans for the billboard has changed since, originally I was going to create a Stan Lee memorial but I ended up doing that in a different way. So in world I came up with this idea of an old sign advertising how great the city is to live in. Trying to tempt tourists to move here with some heavy “too good to be true vibes. The following are 4 versions of the idea I had so far, the photo is a stock image I cut out in the Gimp software.

Up next is actually where my day began but the first thing I had to do was ask my friend if anyone knew what font was the right one, a friends wife came to my rescue and a day of distraction began, once again I had tonnes of idea’s here including some silly signs suggesting you can go left to travel to 2 different world locations that are not in the same direction, another one was to pick my hometown from Tasmania which isnt a place you can drive to from where I live today, just crazy idea’s but in the end I pulled myself back to something more in world with some real world hints.

And for the last billboard we have an in world business that somehow seems to have survived the ruin and disaster of the city itself. Where as the others will DEFINATELY be getting some wear and wear added to them I intend this to remain clean and new-ish. Needless to say this is a man taking advantage of the situation to make his fortune. Richard Hackman is not a nice businessman.

Next thing terrain wise will need to be some posters for walls and some graphiti, oh and actually fully painting it.

For a long time the mini’s were all just painted to a point of “this will do for now” because obviously that wasn’t be the most important thing at the time but as the game is beginning to reach a point of testing bigger parts I am starting to customer each mini to make them clearer and more disctionct from eachother.

The first part of this was giving the rims different colours to help them look like they belong together, the first group is becoming the official representation for Hades, the Cruiser bike gang and the next stop will be slowly customising them with the proper weapon types, I’m not a scuptor but these are not supposed to be a product, just a proper representationj as things develop to help people with emmersion.

The rims for Hades have been done with a Khorne red just because I felt it fits with their logo.

The second group has been given a bright fluoro green, this might be because I hate myself a little fluoro green is a horrible colour to paint and I cannot stress this enough lol

The Komodo are a Sportsbike gang, and although not all of these models are strictly sportsbikes theyre close enough to look distinctive, this group I’ve also been trying to give them all brighter looking colours though I dont like all of the themes they work for now. I think I like the shirtless guy.

All of this painting has been completed with Speedpaint 1.0 and the limited colour range, I do intend to invest in round 2 but I cant afford to do that right now as my own actual bike is in the shop being worked on.

The other thing Ive been working on over the past couple of days is a series of tokens to help make things easier as well, Im not the greatest of artists and this is all makeshift but for playtesting I think they work well.

These following images are being placed into a webtool to create a proper 25mm token. Below we have the following in this order

Bleeding, Burning, Overwatch, Stopped, Max Stress, Stunned, Complex Action

So after 11 months of work where do things stand?

Thats a very good question, to some extent I never imagined getting this far this quickly, my original goal was to have tha basics of a game by now and I’ve well and truly exceeded that long ago but the deeper I get the more i begin to realise that I have left to do. 90% of the hobby i do is Entropy City focused at this point because as much as i love gaming if i so t work on this how will i ever get it done?

I have a 32 page document that is my current living ruleset, currently in its beta v0.28.4 and will be v0.28.5 by the end of the day, I started labelling every version as people were finding it hard to tell which was the version they had..

I have a tonne of terrain, plenty of which still needs to be primed let alone painted, I have enough bikes for 3 teams maybe 4 (would need to check on that.) I have developed a card to be used to keep track of individual bike stats, this was always a plan but these are very much for play testing, not intended as an actual prototype for the product. I feel that i could start testing the actual faction rules now the only real delay has been me not having transport of my own at this stage.

In an extremely nerve racking decision I submitted Entropy City to be considered for playtesting at PAX Australia, theres obviously no guarantees that it will be accepted but if it is then clearly its a big deal for me. Id also like to build an actual proper table if I can as well but then how I would get it there would be an unknown at this time but I need goals and something to work towards.

Truth be told I’ver been asked this question directly during playtesting a couple of times and my answer had been that it would be treated like everything else but as the game develops honestly, Im thinking that people have a point and I’m now very seriously considering adding a critical fail but before we get there I should probably provide some context fopr those coming across this for the first time.

The basic dice mechanic from my game essentially works like blackjack/21 you roll 2d10 to begin with and add the result together, the 1 is either a 1 or an 11, you will have a target number to reach for a success and your aim is to get as close to 21 as you can without going over. If you don’t roll high enough you have the option to add a further d10 into the test but theres obviously risks involved because if you do go over 21 your rider will crash out of the game. This is the core basics of how the dice  mechanics work and in this context if you do roll snake eyes at this stage in theory you either have 2, 12 or 22 (you would obviously never choose 22).

So obviously the question in the past is whether snake eyes is an automatic failure and it hadnt been as at the time I always wanted someone to feel like they had a chance, that if they push their luck too far they have no-one to blame but themselves. My thought was that snake eyes always becomes 2 without the option any longer, meaning it makes it harder but at the same time if you bust its not an auto fail and its still only your fault for pushing your luck too far.

So thats the thought behind this new rule I have just finished adding (which will obviously need to be tested.

Snake Eyes:

• During any test should your initial 2d10 roll result in double one’s that result is 2, this is the only occasion where you would not have the option to make one of them 11. Your rider instantly gains 1 stress to represent a moment of panic, you may then choose to push your luck as normal
  but for every dice you add to your test your rider takes an additional 1 stress.

  Thoughts: So where as normally a 1 could be either a 1 or an 11 in this case they’re forced to both be 1’s. Adding that extra stress means it becomes a minimum of 3 (maybe more if you already have stress prior to this). If you chose to push your luck then each dice added adds an extra 1 to that stress. I personally don’t like an auto fail which is why I’m trying to find something else that feels similar but without ever really being able to blame the dice for the risks the player took.

Honestly I’ve never written a battle report before but given that during every episode of the XLBS that OnTableTop do Gerry eventually makes a sly remark about how more people should write them I am giving into this imaginary peer pressure, potentially embarrassing myself and I am trying to write a battle report. Is this an exercise in writing Entropy? If so its appropriate, welcome to Entropy City’s first Battle report.

Firstly for those that are not aware Entropy City is a miniatures game I started developing in June last year, a game I’d been planning to develop for at least 9 years prior to that, Entropy City is a motorcycle gang wargame where the criminal element have gained control over the city, currently in its 2nd phase of testing we begin with 5 bikes per side, teams that are completely even, this game is taking place on the streets, most test games are remaining on city streets at this stage but future testing will push the game into other environments on the city limits.

We started the game by each player rolling for deployment and team 2 wins out with a 8 vs 4, our second role was a 9 vs a 1 and team 2 chose to go first, the very first move that team 2 makes is to set up their shotgun rider in front of the overpass, taking a stop action and choosing to put them into overwatch in the hope that someone takes the chance for the shortcut to pay off. Team 1 sends their knuckleduster rider out to the left trying to set up an attack in turn 2 if someone can get close to her within turn 1 then she will attack back if possible. From here the next movement is from the rider with the lead pipe from team 2 who comes along on the same side but isn’t close enough for an attack, team 1 is back and this time it’s their shotgun rider who comes around on the left side, they choose not to stop however and take the risk with an shot at speed 2 and the rider holding the lead pipe is within range. Sadly with only a 16 he wasn’t able to hit the rider however with the experimental rule the shot is close enough to give the rider stress 2. Up next is the knuckle duster rider from team two who stops just infront of his shot gun wheeling friend and then team 1 brings their hammer rider around on the right hand side of the board to try and set something up in turn 2. The chain riders from both teams and a hammer rider joining her on that side keeping everything generally safe team two and team 1 joining her and we finish with the hammer rider on that side of the field to end turn 1. The very last movement of turn 1 however is where team one decides to take a risk, hoping that the partial cover from a car will give them enough luck to pull off a risky move down the centre hoping to steal the first activation in turn 2 to smack their opponent up the side of the head with their lead pipe. Needing a 17 to hit and succeeding on a 21 he gets a lethal shot and the 20 from the lead pipe biker isn’t enough to save it, take risk of pushing their luck one more time and crash out of the game with a final score of 26 to end turn 1 with one rider down.

Turn 2 begins with team 1 scoring first turn with 6 vs 4, the first activation brings team 1’s shot gun rider around the corner to take a shot at the opposing rider’s gun hoping to take it out before it causes any further damage but he misses, needing an 18 and not getting enough to make any impact. From here I starting keeping track of the game at the end of the road instead of every activation, at the end of turn 2 team two had lost another rider and it was their hammer however they had also managed to take out one of their opponents rider as well leaving the current forces at 4 vs 3 in team 2’s favour, that wasn’t all however as team 1’s chain rider was stunned and at risk of crashing out at the very start of turn 3 if things didn’t go well.

The very first activation of turn 3 brought things to a more even keel as the stunned rider shook off their condition and then hit one of their opposing riders from behind for a surprise attack, this pushed the opposing rider to max stress and they failed their dodge to crash out of the game. During turn 3 team 2’s shotgun rider had reloaded his weapon the overpass in the centre of the board was a danger zone at this point with 1 bike from each team having been taking out underneath it, the right hand side of the board was in a similar situation by the end of turn 3 with 3 bikes littering the road and as we moved into turn 3 one rider on team 1 was going to be facing off against two from the opposing team and team 2 had the first activation, one rider had just focused to reduce their stress and brought their knuckleduster rider around to join their friend but team 1’s shotgun rider came from behind attempting to hit their opposing shotgun rider with the butt of their gun (as he was out of ammo) however the attack failed meaning it only stress the rider and was not enough to take them out, from there the shotgun from team 2 came to a stop, focused their shot and pulled the trigger. The final roll from team 2 was a 19 giving them a lethal shot if successful, team 1 rolling a 16 was not going to be enough so they pushed one last time and busted taking themselves out of the game. The battle that had started with 10 bikes ended with only 2, two friends riding off into the streets together having defended their territory from the invading rival gang.

Once the attacks had started they really didn’t stop in this game but from the very moment their rider was taken out early on it felt like team 1 was on the backfoot and was taking a few risks, they almost turned it around a couple of times but ultimately the dice never really was enough to take control of the game leaving team 2 with the victory.

And that’s the game, its fast paced back and forth action with your most almost always on the move, stopping isn’t something you do often as it leaves you vulnerable if someone can get to you while its happening. A fun game at home inbetween other things it went well but theres a lot more testing to get done, phase 3 will be giving the forces their skills and then getting them to balance but we’re not quite ready for that yet.

I’ve been a roleplayer at heart ever since my early teens, in the early days of the internet I enjoyed experimenting with trying to make DnD work online, I ventured into the wrestling e-fed scene and a lot of different things, there was even a time when I had hosted my own roleplaying forum with a number of games running at the same time.

But this is the first time I’ve genuinel;y tried to focus that ‘writing’ into something that I could look at as a complete work and something I could share and might actually become a “real” thing. So my city of Redemption Falls is actually a rework of an older universe I had running back in the day, a universe Im fleshing out now with things more appropriate for the setting and of course with intended depth from lessons I’ve learned over the years.

So with that in mind I’m playing with layouts for map creation, this is not in any way intended to be a final product even really a first draft but its an experiment and something to build on.

• Redemption Falls, the actual name of the city itself, Entropy City might have sounded like a cool city name when I was 19 but I”m a 40 year old man now, Entropy City is the name of the game and likely an insult outsiders use to describe it.
• Vultures Cradle, I’ve always been proud of this name, its the place of birth for one of my oldest characters that is being reworked to be a character within the game, exploring his younger years before he cleaned himself up.
• Island Hills, now this was part of today’s experiment and I like it, this sounds like a name cooked up by a committee trying way too hard to make this area of the city sound rich 😛  This is actuially based on a study of rich area names and average income within them.
• Cliffs Edge, sometimes names of areas within a city or even city themselves are based on some pretty obvious things, so yeah guess what this area borders on.
• The Docks, kinda generic, needs to be updated but then again maybe generic is okay.
• Marina’s Edge, kinda just an experiment I thought it sounded fun, kinda the newer docks that got finished just before ‘the fall’, but I dont want two “edge” names.

So yeah its all about the experiment and the building, I ahve a lot of pictures on my head and as time passes I want to have this fleshed out and then begin layout where everyone is based. I can confirm that the main base of Hades is Vultures Cradle.

Although I’ve been working on this document since June last year and briefly discussed on on an episode of the XLBS this is the first time I am sharing it outside of a very small circle of friends & podcast supports.

From the very start of this project getting worked on I’ve been trying to keep my ‘rules document’ in a readable format, its been through 4 different variations on that format since June. I’ve tried to keep it looking at much like a rulebook as I can to make it right now but there will always be changes as the developement continues.

Its worth noting that a very large part of this document is still yet to be tested, at the time of writing I am in the middle of phase 2 of playtesting which introduced gunplay, wounds and a larger full sized 4×4 table. The next phase would begin to test the actual differences in the factions. Once that feels right I would finally begin to impliment individual stats etc etc.

I still hope this will ultimately become a product but theres a lot of work that needs to happen before I can get to that point and my hope remains high, honestly I’m proud of what has been achieved so far, despite essentially being a nobody I feel like I ahgve something here, its just a matter of getting it right.

So I printed my test cards out at work today, and was disappointed to find that they just didn’t come out looking very clear, I guess that hjust shows my inexperiance with graphic design, most of my experiance has always been with web banners and so forth (unprofessionally) so the fact they wouldnt print as intended hadnt even occured to me but I instantly realised what was wrong.

So it was back to the drawing board and so I simplified my simple design even further and stopped trying to be clever and just stuck with standard text for now, I can make things  look pretty later.

I also changed it to a landscape card design, just because it helped the layout a little, this is about clear easy to follow text, not a final product so I forced myself to keep it simple

Edit: It’s probably worth noting that the painting on these miniatures are quick cheap and nasty its not supposed to be impressing you.

Testing moved into its second phase a couple of weeks ago, this began with a couple of important things.

• The game moved from 3×3 to 4×4.
• Model count went from 3 to 5 each.
• Guns have been introduced.
• Wounds have begun to be implimented.

I had made the decision to move to a 4 foot by 4 foot table some time ago but while I was purely testing the core mechanics it made more sense to help the action come faster because there wasn’t enough in place for full on strategy quite yet. As for the miniatures count well until this point I really wasn’t sure how many models the table was going to be able to handle until things just became too messy and hard to keep up with, I was very happy to see that if anything I could have easily gone 2 more a side which is good as it allows for more room for strategy as the game testing goes through its phases.

The downside I found this time however was keeping track of things, Id realised when leaving home that I didnt have enough counters to keep track of both stress and wounds (without dice literally being everywhere) so I made what I thought was the clever decision to have everyone on 1 wound and one model each side with 2..  Problem was this made the weapons all feel the same because most bikes only had 1 wound anyway.

I’ve kind’ve always likes unit cards in games I know not everyone does but for me it was always a nice touch, and whilst I had played around with ideas I certainly didnt have anything I could just go with at the time but after tossing up a couple of ideas I decided ‘screw it’ and I created some temporary cards purely for testing only. Theyre certainly not pretty but I didnt think they were ugly, they will serve their purpose which is all I needed for now.

It’s worth noting that this is currently labelled as “Team A”.

So basically the larger numbers are to keep track of the speed the bike is moving, you have a picture of the mini to prevent dodgy business, the weapons are the same mix for each team.
Check boxes for wounds and stress, I’ve purposely made these the right size for card sleeves so that whiteboard markers can be used.

Like I said this isnt pretty or supposed to look like a product yet but I felt it works for the purpose. Its a prototype afterall.