Play Report: OPR Grimdark Future FTL – with my kids

 So, we started playing One Page Rules: Grimdark Future – FTL Fleets in our home. And it was quite cool. Let me tell you how it went down between me and my two sons (almost 9 and almost 4).

The Combatants

While I only had one of my projected three gamepunk-fleets finished, my older son had not been idle and had (inspired by what I was doing) made spaceships himself. His own fleet was the Blaze Fleet, consisting of four ships created from scrap parts that we had lying around the workshop. He does have an elaborate back story for his people (beaver-like aliens seeking Earth which they know from received transmissions) but let's not get too deep into the details. The fleet consisted of three heavy ships and one medium ship according to the OPR rules.

My younger son had watched me play Sword of the Stars and liked the ships of the Zuul. He asked his brother to make him some and the result was another fleet of three large and one medium ship cobbled together from stuff lying around (and lots of hot glue). The specialty of this fleet was ramming – every ship had the Reinforced Ram upgrade, which would definetly come in handy.

My own fleet was cardboard-printed. The ships were mantis ships from FTL. As I was trying to gauge, what works in the game and what doesn't (for when I need to battle real enemies, not my kids) and went for a somewhat rounded fleet composition with lots of smaller craft: One medium ship as a flagship, three light ships armed with rocket pods (which would rule against squadrons but my enemies had none ...), two light ships designed for ramming (love those!) and four squadrons of gunships (to be ready for anything).

The Battle

Our dinner table was the battlefield. In the center we placed a round container lid as a central planet. A large D20 was the moon. Some boxes and stones were an asteroid swarm. Four red D10 were objectives placed in orbit. In addition to these standard objectives according to the rules of OPR FTL, each fleet had their own-set goals for an extra victory point: The Blaze Fleet had to keep its flagship alive, the Zuul had to fire on the planet each turn, the mantis had to destroy at least one capital enemy ship.

Turn 1

As my ships were smaller than both enemies, it didn't matter to me that my older son won iniative and my younger son came in last. I split my force: The five small ships went to intercept the Blaze Fleet, firing a first volley of rockets and doing one point of damage to one of the capital ships. The gunship squadrons went ahead and charged into the smallest ship of the Zuul fleet and started harrying it with their light weaponry. My flagship made a beeline towards one of the objectives and fired its plasma cannon, the mightiest weapon in my fleet, at the Zuul formation. To no effect.

The other two fleets also split up: The Blaze Fleet sent two ships towards my formation of light ships, opening fire. Their other two ships went towards the Zuul fleet and the objectives.

The Zuul fleet attacked in two directions as well, sending one ship towards the Blaze Fleet and three ships towards my mantis fleet.

Turn 2

The two ramming ships were in ramming position! So they did their thing and dealt tremendous damage to the front ship of the Blaze Fleet coming towards them (a medium ship, the smallest of that fleet), ramming it into the ship that was following. The missile ships meanwhile swerved hard to the right in order to follow and hopefully support the embattled flag ship of the fleet that was all alone in the vicinity of a victory point.

The Blaze Fleet fired upon my ships and even sent a rocket barrage to my own rocket ships, dealing damage to one caught in the blast despite it being in cover behind an asteroid. The Blaze Fleet also engaged the foward ship of the Zuul, firing all they had. Their flagship collected a victory point

The Zuul gathered a victory point as well and fired on my flagship once again, dealing heavy damage.

Turn 3

Things were getting serious. My two ramming ships did their thing again, driving back the much larger enemy craft. My flagship broke apart when it was rammed by the slow but deadly Zuul ship that was coming towards it. The Zuul medium ship, still followed by my gunships, stopped to turn in order to get back into the fight. The clash of two of the Blaze Fleet's ships and one of the Zuul ships ended with said Zuul ship being destroyed and dropping an objective it had gathered before. My rocket ships got into the fray, hoping to regain the victory point that my destroyed flagship had lost and perhaps even conquer one from the enemy.

Turn 4

The last turn was deadly. My two ramming ships sacrificed themselves, killing their opposing ship and badly damaging the capital ship that was following. The other side of the Blaze Fleet killed off their Zuul opponent and collected its victory point, upping their score to two. Two of my rocket-armed ships kamikaze'd into the badly damaged Zuul heavy ship they were facing off against, destroying it and themselves. My gunships failed to destroy the badly damaged medium ship they were engaging though – my last rocket armed light ship could not risk gathering up the two floating objectives infront of itself because it would have been rammed apart by that ship. Thus, the Zuul flagship could slowly swoop in and gather up these two victory points.

The aftermath

The Blaze Fleet lost one medium ship and won. They collected two objectives and fulfilled their secondary objective of having the flagship survive. The Zuul fleet came in second, with two victory points from objectives. They lost two heavy ships. My mantis fleet came in last with one victory point from a secondary objective. Three squadrons and one light ship were the only survivors.

What I learned

Ramming is fun and very effective. If I had played for victory, my fleet composition would have been dramatically wrong: Had I taken bombers instead of gunships for swarms and had I not taken missile volleys but more punchy weaponry on my three light cannon ships, I would have dealt a lot more damage. Positioning is something you always have to keep up with: As ships have to move half their movement before pivoting, you have to be careful not bump into your own crafts.

The game was great fun. We will do this again. Probably soon. So I'll have to get the other two fleets ready...

Tabletop Punk: Wargaming with zero budget

 When I was a teenager, being into Warhammer was really money consuming. I was never good at painting minis but I did want to build an army, and play – and thus spent several years worth of pocket money to make my Dark Elf army. Later I played BrikWars with friends, which was much more fulfilling. But all of that is in the past because it's 2023 and you no longer need money to play a tabletop strategy game. In this series of posts I will do a play-by-play on me making the recommended starting 300-point-fleets for One Page Rules: Grimdark Future FTL.

There will be three types of build to make here:

The Scrap Fleet

The Scrap Fleet made from found objects. Inspired by Ana Polanšćak and this post of hers. If you can turn a nerf gun into a spaceship, anything is possible! This is also for you if you actually enjoy painting models.

The Papercraft Fleet

The Papercraft Fleet. Papercrafting is kind of difficult at this small scale but we'll see what we can do. My son wants a Star Wars Fleet so I'll start with Star Destroyers. Leave it to some Japanese dude to make these things on the sub-3-centimeter-scale...

The Cardboard Fleet

The Cardboard Fleet. Similar to papercrafting but less 3D: I Intend to just print out dop-down-views of ships several times and then layer them on top of one another in order to give them at least some depth.

Of course, the most simple thing would be paper standies. This would also be my recommendation to anyone who wants to make an infantry-based tabletop army at zero budget. But I like to craft things so these three fleets will be my way. Also, my son wants to craft his own Scrap Fleet. I may also have to mix methods – I am as of yet unsure how to make tie fighter squadrons for that star destroyer without using beads. There is no way I can papercraft a spherical thing at that scale.

The basic rule is that I won't buy anything for any of these fleets. Only things found in my workshop/around the house/in the garbage are allowed. I can still use our printer and I can also use paints I already have. It's also possible that my friend Justin will paint some of my ships because it's something he likes doing and he is a thousand times better than me.

Anyhow: Be inspired. I doesn't cost money to get into the game. At least not necessarily.

Here's some rules. Here's some templates. Now go out there and build fleets!

Supernatural Labyrinth- and maze media

 A very specific genre of fiction that I absolutely adore is the supernatural maze or lanbyrinth. Technically, most of them are mazes – but I do like the word labyrinth more, especially in my German mother tongue, where it remains "Labyrinth" rather than "Irrgarten" (maze).

Giovanni Battista Piranesi - Le Carceri d'Invenzione - Second Edition - 1761 - 14 - The Gothic Arch

Over the years I have, of course, created several pieces of transcendental maze in media – both as static dungeons on paper, procedural generation things in computer games or even that story-book-experiment I once wrote/designed. And of course my board games, of which there have been several iterations. But what about regular media? Books? Films? Board games...? Here's some I have read/watched/played over the course of the year. And no, Maze Runner doesn't count. Go home, creeps who read YA like a religion. And if you're actually a young adult: How the fuck did you end up on my blog?

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewsky

Can't have this list without that book. The story itself is, of course, a maze. As are the layers upon layers of fiction. Are we in the baseline reality of that dude researching an obscure, possibly nonexistant found-footage-film? Are we in that film? Are we the editor? The crazy old man who had been writing about the film? If they ever make this a movie, they should just go full found-footage and ignore any of the framework. But they probably wouldn't, would they? Difficult read, but it has some glimpses of mad genius shining all throughout the entire crazy thing. Love it or hate it. I love.

Maze by J.M. Mcdermott

At first glance, this is a straightforward story of people getting sucked into a mystical/magical maze. They appear to be from different epochs or worlds and fight a very bleak fight to survive in that crumbling ecosystem full of monsters where humans can just barely make themselves a niche somewhere in the middle o f the food chain. Terrifying at points and then you realize that some of the events don't link up right on a time line. I strongly suspect that if one were to draw all the story's strands on a map, it would itself form a maze with time-loops and everything. I don't have the stomach to work this book like that. It's good.

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

What a great book! As far as supernatural mazes go, this one definetly has the most stylish one, consisting of endless halls of marble statues and reliefs that are affected by tides of an ocean below. And there is an ecosystem of birds, seaweed and fish there, which allows the amnesiac main character to survive. Great world building, good main character, nice resolution. The story is straightforward and that's a good thing. Definetely a recommendation from me.

The actual art of Piranesi

Giovanni Battista Piranesi was an archaeologist and architect and combined these two skillsets into his artbook Carceri d' Invenzione in 1750. When I first saw these etchings in a gallery in downtown Hamburg when I was a teenager I was fascinated. Later I encountered them in a museum and that's when I heard the name Piranesi the first time. The places depicted are immense, small human figures are seen on some of the walkways and the architecture is recognizable as mediterranean but expanded to a size that is today echoed by high fantasy media. I love 'em and you should too.

Das verrückte Labyrinth

The favourite board game of my childhood. The fact that this design allows for a nearly limitless ways of maze generation and as it stays in constant flux throughout a game it doesn't matter if things link up or not. Each player will just make their path if need be and so new passages keep opening up while old ones get blocked. You can play this very nastily but usually it's worth to just keep your eyes on the prize and go to your next treasure. This was one of the things that inspired me to make my first maze-boardgames. I still like to play it with my kids – we have the original version from the 80s. There are even Harry Potter themed ones now and while I'm usually very much averse to that kind of cash-grab-rebranding in this case it's oddly fitting.

Dave Made A Maze

A film! And with a premise that seems tailor-made for me: Guy who can never finish his creative projects (!) likes to craft with cardboard (!) and makes a maze (!) that is walk-in (!) and much larger on the inside than on the outside (!). Exploration (!), death (!) and hilarity (!) ensue. The film is lovingly made but somehow less than the sum of its parts. This ain't no Shaun of the Dead. But it's still not a bad way to kill the 100ish minutes of its running time. Just don't expect to like most of the characters or the plot resolution too much. Dave, you're a twat.

Re-Release: Midnight at Halcyon's Coven

 I'm re-releasing my one-page-dungeon Midnight at Halcyon's Coven again, this time in order for it to be on my itch-site. It's part of my pledge to release something on there every month of 2023 – but I'll only make it something new every other month because let's face it: I'm not that productive. Anyhow, if you like paranormal investigation, go and check it out!

Free Release: Nano Dungeon

After Christmas celebrations were over I had a tiny box and decided to craft a roguelike dungeoncrawler into it. It turned out so well that I decided to make a print-and-play-version of it:

Nano Dungeon is a board game for one or two players. It's been play-tested with friends, family members and children aged 3 to 42 so I can say with confidence that it is both easy to learn and fun to play. Give it a shot – it's pay-what-you-like starting at the ultra-cometitive pricing of 0 Dollars/Euros/Baht/RMB/Yen/Tugrik/Pesos/Whatever. Have fun!

2022 in Review

 A bit late to the party, as usual, but here's some nerdier stuff from 2022 that I still remember now that the year is over:

TV Series

The Good:

I didn't watch that many shows this year, besides the many obligatory stream-reruns of Ninjago that our household lives on. What remains memorable is Giri/Haji, a show about a Japanese cop going to London undercover in order to catch his long-lost brother, who is a yakuza killer. I rather enjoyed the humor and the clash of cultures as well as genres. Also: Roy - best character ever, portrayed by the subtly great Tony Way.

Also just about as good ad the hype was (which, as usual, kept me away from it for a while): League of Legends. The only thing I would criticize on this one is the stark tonal shift from the beginning to the end of the show – a friend asked me, after I had seen the thing, if the show would be alright for her daughter to watch. The first episode might give that impression, I said, but after that it gets a bit hefty. Awesome thing as a whole though.

The Bad:

Boy did that Cyberpunk-anime show on Netflix suck. Yeah, it looks cool, but that's about it.

Books

I did get a nice amount of reading done this year – both for my book club and for myself. I re-read a few books, going through our library in order to fill a few evenings in bed. But I also have a new book strongly contending as my favourite book of all time – and it isn't even genre (unless you count the extremely unlikely string of happenstances as fantasy): Grand Tour oder die Nacht der großen Complication by Steffen Kopetzky is an awesome mix of Bildungsroman, comedy, farce, road movie and heist-story. I loved every bit of it – the adventure, the mishaps, the villains, the sex, the weirdo-characters that pepper the road when you're travelling Europe by night-train only, the moments where I feld quite directly singled out with all my personal flaws... I don't think the book was ever translated into any other language, but if you read German, read that book.

I also reread a lot of Dan Simmons because I have his books in my library and he is an awesome writer. The Terror is one of my favourite books of all time and it did hold up on a second read. Of course, since you know most of the end from the very start (it is a book about a doomed arctic expedition that failed in real life after all), the amount of possible spoilers is not that large. Everyone's gonna end up dead/missing. Just how we get there and how nautical the descriptions get is very well executed.

I did read quite a few more books but none stood out like those two. I'm not gonna do a good and bad here as I don't think I read any books that are objectively bad - just ones that didn't fit my taste.

Video Games

There were games I played when I had larger amounts of time and those that had to fill in gaps, comfort-food-style. Sometimes, as the members of my favourite podcast once said, you gotta eat a 20-box of chicken mcnuggets. So: Comfort-Food-Games were Streets of Rogue (once again), FTL and (new in the mix) the awesome and hypermasculine BroForce. Since we got those out of the way, let's get to games I took more seriously as, you know, Games as an Art Form:

Style as well as substance and quite a lot of room for interpretation of the story (sorry I don't agree with the interpretations I found online and I'm going with my own head-canon here: We're playing in the mind of a heavily traumatized woman) is Othercide (please read that with a whisper!). The art style, the music, the general feeling and the brutality of the action makes this my personal favourite when it comes to squad-based tactical games. I can only play it when I'm feeling good because when I'm down this game will drag me even lower but it's quite the piece of art.

The other game that really got me into its atmosphere was Far: Lone Sails. The genre of Sad Boy Walking was never that much my cup of tea but I like sailing and the locomotive that you're sailing in that game is very nicely realized. I feld really distressed and dismayed when it broke towards the end. A nice gaming experience with a clear beginning and ending and lots of lonely adventuring in between. Loved it.

Once again: No "bad" section here. I don't have time or money for bad games.

Board Games

As often, I mostly played stuff I made myself with my older son (and also, towards the end of the year, involving the younger one who is slowly getting old enough to join us at the table/on the carpet). But when it comes to commercial releases, the older 75% of our family has been playing The Adventures of Robin Hood this year. I really enjoy the design of the thing: Its use of a book to bring multiple different adventures on the same map to life, the flipping of bits of said map and the versatility of its tile-less movement system – all great bits that form a very nice whole. Also: Two difficulty settings are very good for a cooperative game like this. We just want to have a good time with the family so usually take the easy way, as this leaves more room for roleplaying and less temptation for one player (me) to try and take command over everyone else.

Crafting

I did do some crafting this year, like started working on a new Labyrinthmaschine and did a lot of smallish projects for the kids. The coolest thing I made was an adapter to connect my smartphone to a 1960s vintage collapsible camera tripod for making YouTube-videos with my son. I've been working with more wood this year and am considering getting a laser cutter in order to make plywood-machines instead of cardboard machines as those would be a lot more long-lasting and could possibly even be repicated/sold.

Podcasts

Two things come to mind regarding podcasts this year: First of all I still listen to The Crate and Crowbar, which by this point is like having old friends in your ear, even though none of the guys (and one gal) are ever going to know I exist, which makes internet-fandom so weird. Deep talk about games by mature people is a genre that I enjoy a lot, I guess.

The other thing that I totally binged was the Archive 81 podcast. It took a sharp turn from season 1 to season 2 but I enjoyed it and stayed aboard for that shift in story-mode. What I don't like is that the makers went dark about their new project which was supposed to hit early 2022 but didn't materialize. No idea what happened behind the scenes but an update would be welcome.

Music

What a year it was as I discovered Mind.In.A.Box for myself. You gotta admire the dedication to make a retro-synthrock band and then, over the course of two decades, keep telling the same long-running story in the form of concept albums. The Broken Legacies album is my personal favourite as it evokes the end of the world, Bladerunner-style, while being musically on point.

Film

The Good

We finally got to watch Parasite and it was at least thought-provoking. As I've watched about half of the rest of Bong Joon-ho's oevre I must say I like the man's style. Also a good movie and old-school murder-mystery was Knives Out, which shows how funny James Bond can be. Bladerunner 2049 was amazing, even though I feared for our walls when the base really kicked in on the soundtrack. Also amazing was Dune – which means that Denis Villeneuve amazed me twice this year.

The Bad

Netflix seems to be unable to make decent mid-tier action movies. The Old Guard was a few years ago, this year we watched Grey Man, Yaksha: Ruthless Operations and Lou. They are all plagued by the same issues: First of all there is the invincible main character (in The Old Guard quite literally), which makes the stakes pathetic. Then there is the very dubious morality: There is usually a character who initially feels that wanton muder isn't cool but by the end these doubts are forgotten and hey, shooting people is fun! And then there is the ending (every. single. time.): The shows love their mains too much and don't dare to let them die a heroe's death. Each of these four movies would have benefited by a heroic sacrifice at the end but pussied out and pulled back at the last second, preventing the films from becoming a well-rounded story. Hated them all, still waiting for Netflix to make a decent one.

Making things

I released Dungeon Urchins (as a game jam entry) and The Swine Pit this year. The latter is the most complex video game I ever made (and I "coded" it myself!), the former one is the first game I ever made that someone paid money for (two dollars - whoever you are: Thank You!). I'll go even more into print-and-play this year, I feel. That's where the money is. Even if it's just a few bucks. I'm currently working on something in that regard. My playtesters (aged 3 to 42) liked it. Just wait for it.

And that's it for 2022. Let 2023 be a better year for mankind.