Making money

After posting last week, I managed to get the map for Citywise printed out. It was really good to see it full size and in glorious Technicolor. Of course when I got it home and had a good look at it, I realised that the artwork (bane of my life) was wrong. Basically the map shows an overhead shot of a city, with various blocks drawn in a simple but colourful style, but I’d got the false perspective wrong so that the board looks best if you view it upside down. It’s only a minor problem and doesn’t interfere with the game. It’s still a pain, but I suppose that’s what these prototypes are for!

Another important lesson I learned this weekend was not to store card next to the radiator. I bought some card on Friday evening and stored it behind the sofa next to the radiator, when I got it out on Sunday morning to paste my board onto it looked like a giant prawn cracker.

I decided to press ahead with my board regardless. I had decided that the board was going to be a quarter folding board, so that it folds in half and then folds again, I needed to do this as the board was a bit too big to get away with a single fold. After a lot of messing about with knives, tape, PVA glue and heavy text books I got the board done. It now sits flat and folds away nicely, the only problem is bubbles under the paper, but they’re not too bad.

The objective of the Citywise game is to collect as much money as possible within a set time period so I had to get some play money to use. I though that this would be a lot easier than it turned out to be. Play money (for kids) comes only in UK denominations (5,10,20 and 50 Pounds) which isn’t much use in a game where people are collecting thousands. After a bit of web-searching I chanced upon the Cheapass Games website, who provide ‘Cheapass Money’ a pack of bills in denominations up to 1000, for a mere $6, fantastic! The only problem was postage; by ordering from the US, the price was almost tripled making it impractical. I found a German website (who I won’t name) who said they stocked them, but after placing an order I didn’t receive an invoice for the money. I decided to knock some up myself on the computer, which I did over the weekend just using wordart, and various basic shapes. After printing them out on coloured paper and cutting to size, I was quite impressed!

On the subject of game accessories, I must heartily recommend EM4 Miniatures. I ordered some game tokens from them one day last weeks and 24 hours later they arrived. Excellent service!

All this cutting and pasting this weekend left me with little time for further playtesting, but I mean to remedy that this week.

On other projects, I’ve had a bit more of a look at Steam Car Racers but it hasn’t progressed that much. I’ve had a couple of ideas for other games as well, but they will stay hidden for a while…

Bye for now…