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!

Free Release: Dungeon Urchins

 So, i made another game, print-and-play this time. It looks like this:

Dungeon Urchins pits the players as a group of street-children against a traditional dungeon. These kids are, of course, not your soft upper-class pampered babies but hardened survivalists and fast friends who know to depend on one another. It was made quick-and-dirty for a game jam over on itch.io and I wanted to make something about characters who'd normally be in the background of a fantasy setting. My son helped me playtest and the game gets his approval – he even helped me with the logo. Anyhow, go download it – it's pay-what-you-like (thus effectively free – I've had games with that price up for seven years now and no one ever paid me a cent. But I don't mind: I don't have the nerves to set up a payment system for payouts anyways).

DUNGEON URCHINS

Crafting: Mini Kingkong 2

When I got my new smartphone (a cheap outdoor device by some unknown Chinese maker – I was adamant on having something that fits in my pocket and can be paid for with money rather than organ donations so my selection was slim), the packaging inspired me to make another board game: The box is small, black and has the device name printed on it in golden letters: Kingkong Mini 2. Awesome name for a board game that fits in a coat pocket and has you fighting the giant ape, I think.

 

Said Smart Phone Packaging really lends itself to a board game.

In the pipeline

The year had ended. I have been busy with new responsibilities at work and two kids at home. But yet there is the spark of creativity that creates needs that must be fulfilled. I have crafted some things for my older son but those are of no consequence for this blog. What is however is, what I have in the pipeline: A new video game and the third piece for my cardboard arcade.

Update: Finished the Labyrinthmaschine

So, I finally got the right size of cardboard and some free time to finish up the Labyrinthmaschine with side panels. This means the user interface part of the cardboard arcade cabinet is not facing upwards in a 45 degree angle which is much, much more comfortable to play than before. I played the game a few times since the upgrade and the pinball machine has seen some use as well recently (by both me and my older son who can't slam the trigger hard enough to get the marble over the bridge but still enjoys it). Current record for speedrunning the Labyrinthmaschine was 1 minute and 52 seconds. The one recorded for a player other than me is over four minutes. This is the final version:

Crafting: Die Labyrinthmaschine / The Labyrinth Machine

As I have mentioned earlier, this started out as my attempt to make a fully analog mechanical roguelike as well as a second machine for my cardboard arcade. I figure, I can make about one of these things per year – and this one was to be even more videogamey than the pinball I had made in 2018. I took the additional free time that a vacation of my family without me provided to craft this monstrosity:

Now, this probably doesn't tell you much yet. Let's get into the nitty-gritty details of making the Machine.

Crafting: Höhlenabenteuer/Cave Adventure

The basic idea behind this was making a kid-friendly version of We're Going On A Fucking Adventure. Not only did I want to cut out most of the violence, I also wanted to make the game much more simple so that I could play it with my son (who is four years old right now). We both do still like to explore caves and dungeons, so this game keeps the theme.

The game itself is basically a riddle and can be played by one player alone. Sometimes it's difficult to solve the cave, sometimes it's rather easy. And in very, very rare cases, it's actually impossible. Still, it's fun and children won't see the obvious solutions, instead just going for it and generating interesting situations that the four kid-protagonists have to get out of.

The four kids are basic kid-story-archetypes, each having one special ability and one weakness. It's often all about avoiding the monsters and perhaps setting up a multi-player-trap to catch them. The game is completely cooperative and I am quite pleased with it. I entered it into a game developers competition and am as of right now waiting for results. Wish me luck!

Crafting: A cardboard pinball machine

When we were on family vacation to Greece this year, the hotel had a little pinball machine that you could play to win rubber balls (and you couldn't lose. You'd eventually get your ball). I played it for my son as he wanted the ball and I wanted the play. It made me think of building my own pinball machine again. A quick search on the net told me that actual components are incredibly expensive. Then I found the large number of cardboard crafting videos on YouTube that had actually covered this topic.

I decided to make one myself. It took a while, in the end I even had to wait for a suitably large thing to be delivered to our house in order to finish the last big components. It took five or six sticks of hot glue but I think the result is quite nice:

The thing is big: 50 by 25 centimeters. And it works quite well: You can actually get the marble to run up the ramp and then come back down via the bridge. I'm quite fond of it and play it every once in a while. Make no mistake though: It took me roughly 40 hours of work to make this thing over the course of several weeks. If you don't enjoy the crafting process, there are alternatives out there.

Free Release: One Page Dungeon Contest 2016

Three years after my first entry into that prestigious contest on pen & paper adventure design, this is my second attempt to leave my mark:

The Lair of the Voidbeast - a Non-Euklidean Dungeon

It's inspired by this and the follow up. Folded into a cube that you might wanna hide behind a screen it could potentially flabbergast and bamboozle players who like to draw maps while exploring. Next up: A remake of my first One Page Dungeon, after having learned a bit more on design and legibility...

One Page Dungeon Contest 2016 - Sneak Peek

So, the One Page Dungeon Contest 2016 is around the corner. Deadline is May 1st, so there is some time left. This year I'm working on something quite special. Here's a little sneak peek of my work in progress:

It's been three years since my last entry in that competition. Back then I made several rather big mistakes I'd like to address here.

Look what I built!

Two of my friends are getting married this weekend and, being the best man (to the bride, actually), I had to come up with something clever for a gift. Went to cubeecraft and, with the help of my lovely girlfriend, built this nice little mario-themed diorama. As bride and groom have sent out their save-the-date in pixelart too, I thought it would only be fitting. Financial aid for the wedding (in the form of coins, of course) goes into the ?-Blocks. This was quite a lot of work as I have printed out everything in 300 dpi, rendering every block rather small (1" per side), making them quite a bit of precision-work to cut out and put together. Also, I really should have made the floor from one piece - but I didn't, it's eight individual cubes... Not the smartest route, I tell you.