So I had this idea for my next batch of business cards; something to make them a little unique, give them a bit more value, and encourage people to look at them more than twice.

Basically, on the front of each card there will be a character and some stats, while on the back, along with my contact info, will be the (very brief) rules for the game.
The line art I did in ink with my favorite Hunt bowl-pointed nib,  at about twice the printed size, then scanned the drawings and vectorized them in Inkscape.
My original intent for the art style was to emulate Victorian children’s card games, this is where I got my colour palate. Then I stumbled across some old bubblegum trading cards, and adopted some ideas there. I used the pencil tool to rather haphazardly trace out areas of colour, then I shifted them a little, to emulate cheap colour separation when done by a chainsmoking little old lady during the 1930s.

I’ve only got three coloured now. the rest I’ll colour eventually, as well as adding a few more characters. The old paper texture is just for effect. The final print image will be printed on antique style cardstock.

For the record, these characters BASICALLY have no relation to any of my current storylines. Most of them are just random people (things) that’ve popped into my head over the past few years, except the Cait Gypsie, from a dead storyline; the wandering Mad Scientist, an ancestor of another of my characters; The Metal Snail, my mascot; and the Aer Pyrate, who is so painfully genaric it makes my head hurt. Yes they all look pretty threatening, and maybe that is undesirable on a business card, but this is to be a combat-based card game. So, yeah

Once I’m done I’ll put all the cards here for download, along with some alternate rules, (I’m keeping the stats nice and ambiguous) full size SVGS of the lineart, and blank card templates. Because of my current kick, the whole thing will be released under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, meaning: do with it whatever you want as long as what you want doesn’t include making money or removing my name and website. You can even use this image if you want, but the full size SVGs might be more use…

Gotta go to bed soon, gonna make it quick…

Today I started, (for the third time) work on my experimental Passive Space Unshooter, Crez. Basically the idea was to go back to the classic space shooters of the Taito era, and remove the essential game play concept, IE, “Dodge and Shoot”. This demo represents about a solid half-day of work…

This is just a quick demo. The graphics suck, there’s no scoring or menu, and the game play is poorly executed, but the gist is there. Use your mouse to direct the crez and deflect the green bursts to defend the sphyres. If all the sphyres are destroyed, you lose. If you destroy all the aliens, another, faster wave takes their place.

Download Crez Demo 1 (382Kb, Windows Exe)

(I figure if I put a play-by-play of my development process on my website I might actually get the thing done. Hah, I know right? But it’s a nice thought anyway… That said, I’m off to work and won’t be able to touch this for two weeks.)

Click here to download the PDF in a zip file (2.28 mb)

Anyone wondering what I’ve been doing over the holidays can rest assured now… I WASN’T slacking off. Well, okay, I WAS, but I still managed to create a cool board game. 

Recycler is a bit of a spin on the concept of programming a robot, as seen in Robo Rally (and as my brother points out, a really annoying puzzle in ‘The Island of Doctor Brain’) Instead of a single robot, you play three, linked together via wifi to form a robotic meta-brain. You have to predetermine the moves to be made, but you can decide which robot makes the move on your turn. The robots have a simple directive, find garbage and dump it in the recycler; But things are going haywire, and the People In Charge of Things Council are threatening to shut down the project. Only the most productive robots will survive. All others receive a one-way ticket to… The Recycler!

Yay! I got some creative time in today… I’m probably the world’s slowest comic artist; It took me a whole 8-hour workday to finish this ONE PANEL! *Sigh*

Alright, so picture this: You’re sitting on a plane/boat/backseat of a car/train, and you say to yourself,

“Self, this is kinda boring. I’d really like to play Tetris.”

But then you realize that you left you left your iPod/DS/PSP/Blackberry/PDA/Cellphone/Gameboy Classic at home, or even worse, that you don’t even own a iPod/DS/PSP/Blackberry/PDA/Cellphone/Gameboy Classic! What do you do now?

Well, you pull the Analog Tetris set you painstakingly printed on white cardstock, cut out and remembered to bring with you, out of your pocket! I know it sounds too good to be true, but here it is, free of charge!

Analog Tetris – Greyscale, For an oldschool LCD reality

Analog Tetris – Colour, For those of you with VGA-Vision

Until next time, this is Robin “Starflier” Gibson, saying “I don’t even own a iPod/DS/PSP/Blackberry/PDA/Cellphone/Gameboy Classic!”

Okay, so this is my new comic project. it is told in a series of moments, seemingly (and sometimes legitimately) non-sequitir. There is a plot to be had, I’m just asking a little more in the closure department than cartoonists usually do. This Issue is mostly setting and character introductions.