January 2007 Archive

So, these are the treeware components I received as the start-up pack for the Battle of Five Armies play-by-mail game:

…[more]

illustration (detail) for The Lord of The Rings by Cor Blok

I’ve signed up for the Middle Earth PBM introductory game - The Battle of Five Armies (based on the climactic battle in JRR Tolkiens The Hobbit) - sent the £10 fee via pay-pal and am awaiting the start-up pack to arrive. Unfortunately I’m the ‘first-in’ on a new game, so will have to wait for another 4 players to join before the game can begin proper, but hopefully it will mean I’ll get my first choice of Elves or Northmen to field.

“Hmm” I hear you think “I could join up too, but what am I going to get for my tenner?” …[more]

Been looking at widening experience of interactive (game) media.

The general idea of a “Play By Mail” game is that you take a board-game, wargame or role-playing game, and instead of sittling around taking turns playing the game, the actions to be taken each turn are written down and mailed to a central moderator who then works out the result of each move and informs each player of the outcome.

Obviously, this kind of play lends itself more to slow, strategic turn based games, like scrabble or chess, rather than poker or snap. Of course PBMs are also incredibly specialist and have a definite aesthetic of their own.

illustration for The Hobbit, by Tove Jansson

One currently running game (since 1985) is the Middle Earth PBM (MEPBM) - drawing on JRR Tolkien’s works - having a significant intellectual property and license, seems to draw enough players and remain a commercially viable (?) operation… …[more]

A belated look at 3 of my favourite pieces of graphic design from 2006. These would officially receive the nightsoil awards for design excellence, if there were such a thing. Go look at them! Bask in their greatness!

Fuzzy Felt Folk

Effortlessly evoking the spooky side of 70’s childhood.
Fuzzy Felt Folk

Knife Amnesty Campaign

Incredibly graphic. the dot-pattern referencing newsprint, the inverted white-space of the knife-blade cutting into the hand and the whitespace echoing it’s absence , the cut-and-paste grunge type. Folksy, small / tabloid press 2-color - cheap and dramatic and modern. the angle and position of the hand (i.e. it’s the hand of the viewer, not an ‘other’), pulling the whole concept into a personal space.
Knife Amnesty (pdf)

Decemberists

Carson Ellis does nice things with pen and ink, creating a quirky 19th Century world of brown lines and strange characters. The UI features are kept to a minimum, eschewing a rich deeply interactive environment for a simpler, quirky treatment that simply adds charm.

The Decemberists Website