When playtesting Cretacea, we've used dinosaur models (painted by Arthur, a professional miniature painter)

When playtesting Cretacea, we've used dinosaur models (painted by Arthur, a professional miniature painter) however, we recognise that not everyone will have dinosaur miniatures at home, and some people will just want to pick up the book and play. For those people we include dinosaur tokens at the back of the book.

This will be a few pages you can print, and they'll have top-down pictures of dinosaurs that you can cut out and play with them as substitutes for models. So to give you the best possible play experience, we decided to outsource creating these tokens to an artist, Naizu.

Here's a picture from the brief we handed Naizu:

And here's a draft of what she produced:

Interesting note: observe the Compsognathus at the far left. For visual consistency, ​Naizu used the same brush for all the dinosaurs, but the difference in the dinosaurs' relative sizes meant that the Compsognathus would end up just a blob, so she'll increase its size a tiny bit to maintain design consistency and showcase the art and colours.

Although it sacrifices historicity, the game gains visual beauty. We often discuss balancing the game this way for things like realism, fun, speed, ease, beauty, etc.

If you like her work, click here for her instagram, Naizu's art is mixed and whimsical but she is working to a specific brief so that we cna bring you some serious and wonderful tokens!

More news soon. 

Hey everyone, Charles here to update you on Cretacea and tell you more about our dinosaurs.

Hey Charles, what's going on with Cretacea?

Well, as mentioned in the post on our Facebook Group, we've decided to relax the focus on Cretacea to allow more time to focus on our two other games, The Momentous Issue of War and Kingdom and Command. To put it simply: those two games are much smaller and easier to create, so even though we've been working on Cretacea for longer, we think we should focus on releasing something sooner to the patient public.

Okay, so is any progress being made on it?

Yes, we've run a few playtests for new dinosaurs, and we've outsourced some work to a hired artist. More on this to come in an upcoming blog post. As mentioned, our main focus has however been on our other games.

Cool! Stuff is happening. What can you tell me for now?

To start, let's talk about what everyone wants to know: the dinosaurs. Which ones are we adding? Well, to speed up the release, we're adding four new dinosaurs to begin with, and the rest will be stretch goals. This will ultimately increase quality by allowing us to work harder on each dinosaur individually.

Let's start with a new dinosaur:

​As mentioned in our last post on the blog and on Facebook, we've revamped the combat system to include more dice, and this will be one of the biggies.

Most of the time, it rolls three attack dice. This is one of the highest rolling dinosaurs in the game. It means that in most instances it could roll in the 3-18 range, whereas some small dinosaurs might only roll 1-6.

Specials are where a dinosaur gets to shine, and we went for a narrative approach with this one, focusing on its supposed amphibian lifestyle, and the strong bite and powerful tail... but you're going to have to wait for release to find out what they do!

Next up, we have fan-favourite:

​We've worked a lot on game balancing, and personally I'm a big fan of tactical and strategic games, which is why the stegosaurus is one of the most interesting dinosaurs to me.

Its attacks are varied, with a deadly tail on one side and an iddy-biddy head on the other (albeit with a powerfully sharp beak). Its attacks reflect this, meaning that you have to play well to use its best attacks, or else be caught out-manoeuvred!

And, of course, it's just an iconic dinosaur. Writing the specials for this one was fun, especially the Flush Plates rule, which was a Wicked Wargames hypothesis regarding intimidating tactics. The special lets it intimidate hostile dinosaurs.

Lastly, I want to tell you about a personal favourite, and one that comes a little bit out of the left field:

Yes, it's not technically a dinosaur, but it's too cool to omit, and we are mixing dinosaurs from different paleontological eras, after all. Also, if your imagination is running wild right now regarding ways the game could expand, imagine what ours has been doing! (We've been thinking an Ice Age expansion!)

This dinosaur will be a stretch goal, so I won't show the stat card, as it's still open for editing, even though it's been through some playtesting.

I just want to say that I love where this creature fits into the game design: a slow, sneaky boi that bites hard when he gets you, giving a sense of approaching danger. It was hard to decide on a special for the sail-fin, but ultimately we decided to go for a camouflage effect.

Okay that's cool, but -

Yes, it is cool.

No, listen, I have a ques-

Did you see the dinosaurs?

Yes, but about Cretacea and upd-

DINOSAURS!

​

Okay, seriously though... We know we've been quiet, but we have been working. More updates are coming. We remain focused on The Momentous Issue of War and Kingdom & Command as our higher priorities, but Cretacea is still happening.

​For example, we're outsourcing creating some dinosaur artwork for tokens to a professional artist, playtesting continuing when it can, Arthur continues to compile miniatures, and lots, lots more. Stay tuned for more on that.

Warmly,
​Charles

The irony of producing a really nice and polished product is that it's hard to call it done. I (Arthur) figure we could work on this for the next ten years and still mull over certain questions and equations; where possible we take a mathematical approach to rules writing and balancing, to maintain a fair and fun probability of success in the game.

This being said, we recently announced the game "finished" and then set a release date, one that we are sure to now postpone. Of course we're a little miffed because we want to release it as soon as possible, and we're grateful for the patience of those who are waiting for the game, but we think it's the right decision.

The game is finished insofar that it's a working system in a streamline and pretty rulebook, but we recently decided that it needs work to add new content to distinguish it as a second edition, rather than as a detailed reskin and update of the first.

Therefore, our project aims going ahead are the following upgrades to Cretacea:

 As of today Cretacea second edition (firrst draft) is finaly finished! we placed the final pages into the book and although there are still test prints and some editing to do the book is officially finished and the first complete final format is done. It's been a long and exciting road, as we approached the end we couldn't wait to get to this stage for the gratifying sense of it, the work that's been done and the final product. We're so close to having test prints in our hands now. 

Below is a four page print screen of the book spread out so that you can get a slightly closer glance at the layout and colors, images and artwork that is going into this beautiful tome. It's truly going to be a beautiful book to have on your gaming shelf. 

Lots is going on at Wicked Wargames. The gradual growth of the company and the games (now several in development!), and the approach to release for more than one game is very exciting.

Because of this and the increasing workload, it's becoming harder to put up regular updates, so we thought we'd throw one up this week and confess also that we didn't send out the newsletter last week! This isn't because of a general lack of information, it just slipped our minds amongst our work. We'll get back on track and send it out next week.

As Charles puts the finishing touches on the final page for Cretacea (the quick-play sheet) we turn our attention to expanding the system. The obvious direction is to cover as many dinosaurs as we can, which we will, rest assured.

The system is strong, reliable and very well-designed now. As such, we think it's time to throw a spanner in the works and see how it handles it... what spanner is that you may ask? How about some pesky little humans!

We purchased an order of Copplestone Castings cavemen and will soon be fielding units of three as little compiled units on the table, as opposed to single "edible" miniatures for those big dino's.

The Kickstarter will likely feature them as a stretch goal. Yes, we are aware that cavemen never crossed paths with dinosaurs, but we challenge anyone willing in the first place to play a dinosaur game to not also think "What if I could play dinosaurs against cavemen?" I mean -- we definitely did. 

We've thrown an hour or two into the initial stat composition and card design of the models, and are excited to announce that they will herald the introduction of ranged combat in Cretacea, something the game lacks due to it essentially being a close combat brawler.

The idea of cavemen desperately attempting to scare, manoeuvre and berate a giant Tyrannosaurus rex, or dart and dodge the horns of a Triceratops brings us great joy, and we're sure it will you as well.

As a lead-up to the Cretacea update, below is an almost complete zoomed out preview of the book.

This kind of zoomed-out preview is an Arthur favourite, as we can fully see the scope of the book, the colour, the contents, and the aspiring nature of it compared to the first edition. The file is so thick and large, largely with high-quality images, that even zooming in and out slows down the computer. 

The game's random event cards have undergone a lot of change already, and we simplified the system to focus on a Hollywood style of lookin' good over realism. For example, we won't get bogged down in the differences between a WW2 German Spandau versus the Bren Gun. We have heavy and light machine guns for everyone and let the players do the story telling.

The unit stats have been similarly universalised, which allows you to come up with stats for any type of model. We've also given an allowance for various weapon strengths by classing them in a three-tiered system, which again gives more agency to the player in their story telling and imagination. It's a universal system, so our aim here is balance and application to any model a player might have.

We also made the decision to use measuring dowels instead of tape measures, the first decision of its kind for the company. They smooth gameplay right out and speed it up too. It's an exciting concept for us, and although it is not new to the industry, it's done less so these days, so in it's own way it's a quaint addition to the game. 

The graphic design of the rule set looks basic presently, so we have a fun idea to theme every page differently: swashbucklers on one, Napoleonics on another, sci-fi on another, etc. Until then, instead of sharing a zoomed-out shot of the plain black and white pages, we share the character creation examples that we currently have:

This post was beginning to get a little long, so check back tomorrow afternoon (UK time) for more info on a new game in development, and also updates on our correspondence roleplay game Kingdom & Command, for which we have some new artwork being worked on by a very talented artist, a brand new layout, and a big addition to the character creation guide.

As the process of formatting Cretacea closes in on its end, we now come to the meticulous part of the work, such as compiling attributions and final formatting so the book looks lovely and neat, but that's not what we're here to tell you about...

Today we want to talk about the starter set stat cards. Every backer of the Kickstarter campaign will get a set of starter cards, and we'll be selling them separately, in herbivore and predator packs, and hopefully individually, as per people's needs and printing practicality.

We'll print them on shiny and hopefully drywipe plastic., and if our third party printer can't do that (though we're sure they can) then we'll also sell card sleeves in the appropriate size. 

We'll soon be sending the book off for a test print, and we can't wait! It's so exciting to be this close to having books in our hands after months of work!

Keep your eyes peeled on the blog for more info and make sure to fill in the newsletter form on the home page for fortnightly updates!

We are extremely close to our test prints for Cretacea. The process has been long and exciting and we are now close to finishing.

As a finishing touch, we purchased some amazing illustrated imagery for our cover and to upgrade some images in the book. Note the new cover image: iconic and memorable for sure. (The actual layout of the cover is pending.)

Our main obstacle at this late stage is exporting the Word file to PDF. Although we have it saved in high-res. Word won't let us export it and we are working to find a solution. The file is massive, over a few gigabytes, comically large for a book. We are however on the cusp of achieving this. 

As mentioned in some blog posts, the new version of the book is more of a re-molding than a re-write, although we've implemented many big changes and revamped some sections completely, we've strived to retain the look and feel of The Game of Gargantuan Survival.

These last few weeks have been a meticulous attention to detail and layout. For example, the new background of pretty salmon pink sand adds a soft touch, and the newly-coloured rules boxes to go along with it now match the gradient direction of the designers' notes; it's all coming along, and we're really excited to show you!

The new clarification pictures are gorgeous. They add so much flavour, detail and streamlining to the originally questionable rules in many sections of the 1st edition. In the 2nd edition, simple but effective graphics line its pages. 

We've cut down on vector art. Although we enjoy it thoroughly, we ended up leaning into a more finessed art style, as seen on the cover. Regardless, we kept a few, such as this awesome Theropod roaring over our turn phases page. Just beautiful. 

Some of the new rules in the book, though simple, add much to the game in way of depth and narrative, such as the entrapment rule, given life with this exciting graphic. 

The new stat cards, one of the longest and most detailed updates for the book, are now finished in their entirety.

This allows us to get a breather on that very long process and look toward new dinosaurs. It's our aim to provide stretch goals for some of the most iconic dinosaurs that we didn't get room to feature in the book. The original 11 dinosaurs from the first book make a revamped return but on the horizon we have Spinosaurus, Stegosaurus and more!

We've upgraded and added to the painting section (although the page on the right requires final lighting and colour adjustments.)

The crafting section of the book is extensive, with almost as many pages as the actual rules. It's hefty, crafty, and full of fantastic content. 

At the moment we're stuck in a wrestle with technology. We want Cretacea released as soon as possible and we've done the majority of the work. There is no new writing to be completed, just a render/export of the book and a test print.

We're very close and we aim to get more news in the next week or two. We simply can't wait to hold the finished version in our hands. It's a very exciting time. 

Check back for more soon.

Last week we had many interesting tasks, one of which was making a new terrain matt. This is a simple but extremely fun craft.

In this post, we'll talk about how we did it and, by extension, how you could do it! Arthur has been crafting for well-over a decade, so if you have questions, let us know either on our Facebook page or on the contact form on our Home page.

PLAYTEST 1

In our research recently we found that the Ankylosaurus was much smaller than we originally thought, so we scaled it down from large to a medium size class. Consequently, we had to playtest two of them together to see if their high points cost was still justified based on their armour, if not their size.

(The history nerds among you might note that the Ankylosaurus armour was roughly equivalent to that of a Sherman tank!)

In this game we learned that the extra strong Ankylosaurus is more balanced than we thought.

We played a T-rex and a pack of Deinonychus vs two Ankylosaurus and had a blast. It was a really fun game and the Ankylosaurus held up, so we decided on a small points cost reduction.

Lessons learned:

• The Ankylosaurus' armour makes it a tank that can stand up to the strongest attacks.

Changes made:

• Small reduction in points cost for the Ankylosaurus, based on the size reduction.

PLAYTEST 2

This was an ambush scenario where four herbivores started in the centre of the map, vs a Suchomimus, a T-rex, and a Carcharodontosaurus, spread out across three board edges.
​​
The T-rex and the Suchomimus made good use of the sneak rule to get as close to the herbivores as possible without triggering the herbivores' spot checks. Meanwhile, the herbivores meandered randomly, and subsequently split their movements between grazing and moving away from the approaching predators.

There were a few close calls when the herbivores randomly meandered toward the predators, but the spot check only triggers if the predator moves, which simulates the predator / prey relationship of the former using terrain to sneak close up on the latter.

The T-rex and Suchomimus got caught up in sneaking for the most of the game, while the heavy Carcharodontosaurus moving around terrain was too slow to catch the herbivores fleeing directly away from it.

As the game neared its fourth and final turn, the herbivores were approaching a grazing victory (winning the game by grazing enough times) and the T-rex and the Suchomimus pounced, attempting to kill as many herbivores as possible before the game closed. Sadly, they left it too late and the herbivores won by grazing.
​
Lessons learned:

• Sneaking can effectively hide predator movement, but it requires tactical play to convert this advantage to a victory.
• The spot check mechanic works and effectively simulates a predator / prey relationship.
• The meander mechanic is an effective game tool for simulating random animal grazing behaviour.

Changes made:

• None; good play from both sides demonstrated a working game system.

PLAYTEST 3

In this game the predators were a pack of Deinonychus and a Carcharodontasaurus. As in the ambush playtest, the Carcho set up a bit too far away and spent the game trudging across the board, which we accepted as a lesson to learn from.

The Deinonychus on the other hand, with their spritely 20" move, whipped across the board and engaged in combat right away. The game immediately became a rapid and sharp combat with the Brachiosaurus coming to aid the overwhelmed Parasaurolophus and smashing up the Parasaurolophus they charged.

We called this game early due to other commitments. The Deinonychus were close to felling the Parasaurolophus, but ultimately failed after a Triceratops charge. After they were wiped out the outcome was clear and Charles resigned as the predators.

Ultimately it was a fun game that showcased the brutality of dinosaur combat.

Lessons learned:

• The size class system works by allowing area attacks against smaller dinosaurs and creating high damage when there's a massive size difference: the gargantuan Brachiosaurus vs the small Deinonychus
• The Deinonychus are vicious ambushers: their numbers and speed let them pick the battleground and fight quickly, but their small size makes them weak to counterattacks and much larger dinosaurs.

Changes made:

• Reaffirmed decision to change board to a rectangular shape, going for 60"x40". Players should start on the long edges (bringing them nearer each other at set-up).
• Recent rebalancing of all dinosaurs stats was effective, evidenced by a close-run fight.

PLAYTEST 4
The last crucial playtest was our game with the river terrain. The two rivers heavily influenced movements by forcing dinosaurs to either jump where they chose or pass at the fords.

The Carcharodontasaurus was the first to attempt this, and failed its jump. Nevertheless, it still reached combat later on, which is a good sign because it means the river functions as an obstacle to the player rather than a total obstruction to a plan.

This game was 200 points each, our biggest game yet, and we set it up like this:

HERBIVORES

• Kosmoceratops
• Parasaurolophus
• Edmontosaurus
• Ankylosaurus

PREDATORS

• Suchomimus
• Deinonychus x3
• Carcharodontasaurus

The Parasaurolophus was quickly cut down after being snuck upon by the Deinonychus gang, toppling after attempting to jump over the river, and then attempting to disengage only to be torn down with disengagement attacks of opportunity - one for each Deinonychus.

The hero of the match was the Kosmoceratops, who went down fighting in a corner against almost all the predators at once. One of its Special rules is to redirect an enemy to attack its own armoured head. This worked, but came at the cost of getting trapped. This is a good sign because the outcome of combat was based largely on player choices rather than game designer choices (even if we are the same at the moment.)

Lessons learned:

• The river terrain and jump mechanic works well, as shown in this playtest by varied results when dinosaurs tried it, and not completely hindering player goals.
• Disengagement attacks are too strong to simulate the quick snap at a fleeing dinosaur.

Changes made:

• Nerfed disengagement attacks a bit.

Summary
We learned a lot this last week. It was a intense and crazy-busy, but we definitely learned some good lessons and have edits to make, and can gladly say the game is really getting there and it feels streamlined and smooth. 

We can't wait to update you further and look forward to sharing the book mechanics with you in detail soon!

~ ​Wicked Wargames

We hypothesised that we could use wood varnish for the gloss element, and it worked a treat, as can be seen on the test pieces above.

The final pieces ended up undergoing a different painting process than the test pieces but that's the beauty of test pieces: they allow one to re-align the process.

The main colour of the water is an aqua blue emulsion paint. It's a common misconception that you have to use acrylic for terrain, but most house paints will work fine as long as you allow them to dry properly. 

The final rivers came out great and added a beautiful element to gameplay. They help us playtest river scenarios and looked fantastic. They brought the board to life, adding colour and almost cinematic feel.

This is the sort of terrain we'll bring to wargames conventions, which is where you'll get to test Cretacea, alongside playing the demo at home.

Charles remarked (and stands by it) that they look so good you can hear the water flowing!

We placed terrain carefully and made sure that it and dinosaurs were placed appropriately for each example shot.

This means we can make the book thick with a beautiful gallery and how-to sections at the back, while reading the ruleset itself will be quick, clear, and visually appealing with example pictures.

We took meticulous care with the last shot of the book (the back cover) as we really wanted to make an impact with that one. We used props, a mix of professional studio lights and make-shift light reflectors, and smoke from two e-cigs to create the perfect effect.

​We can't share the picture itself yet but you can gleam a little preview from the picture below. 

This entire process took around six hours. The back cover image sets the tone for the game and expectations for the quality of photography in the rule book, so we walked away proud of this work and eager to share it with yourselves.

Our recent work started with building and painting terrain and painting CollectA dinosaur models for the upcoming playtests.

​Arthur has over over a decade of experience building in this field, and it shows, so let's start with the finished product and walk you through the steps.

The base is made of reclaimed scrapwood. After liberally applying spray paint, brushed-on paint, and glue, we had the following base:

The collecta models that we bought arrived and they look awesome. This feathered T-Rex is fantastic and our favorite sculpt we'eve seen to date. The base was quite chunky and we wanted to remove it to put it on a "cretacea" friendly base. This was quickly done with a dremel tool (it was messy work, if you're ever dremeling soft plastic be careful to wear the correct protective equipment). 

As you can see, the work pays off so much. Anyone who has been to a wargames convention can tell you that the boards with beautiful terrain stand out.

Terrain on a game board is like a salad: you want all the food groups and all the colours, and our game board is a beautiful salad if there ever was one. 

More to come 
​Charles

Hey all, posting to let you know that we've been so busy that we haven't had time to write a proper blog post showing our work.

We've been:
- Preparing a terrain/battle map (for playtesting on a larger map)
- Making and painting terrain
- Painting dinosaur models
- Lots of photography
- Playtesting (satisfying to see that the mechanics continue to hold up and that at this point we're just tweaking stats and modifiers)
- Redrafting, modifying and adding to stats
- Modifying rules (even removing some dead weight, streamlining the game)

​We have more blog posts coming up later this week. Thanks for bearing with us.

Though there be many book related updates to post today (and so we shall) we thought it pertinent to announce that Charles is in the house! He's popped up from his city and we're working on the book all week. Pictured above is the desk we've set up for him and below is some of the photos from the work currently going on! 

We have all the current models we've got painted laid out (including some not in the core book, which we will playtest if we find extra time). An effort to paint the rest (and some more as they arrive) is underway this week also. 

The existing terrain we have is laid out neatly ready to go, we're also making a second and larger gaming mat this week. Lot's going on and just enough time (hopefuly) to do it all. 

Check back later for more updates on the big writing week! 

A wargames company always needs more terrain and the space to make it, so a large undertaking has been in process this week regarding the making of "rock piles" (for rough ground) and river segments. We'll make these as generically as possible so we can use them for more future publications but at the moment we're building them primarily for use in Cretacea.

We forgot to log the rock piles building process but it was similar to the river segments process, discussed later in the blog post.

While growing up, Arthur made many sections of terrain without tools (only corrugated card and hardcore willpower!), so he was happy to take the lead on this task (this time with tools). Strong plywood and his experience has added a professional element to this process.

​Cutting the sections at 4" each and then shaping them into waves and bends, he bevelled them out with a sander. 

He used mixed levels of aggregate to texture the pieces, and we bought clay for the river banks. Before building the river banks, it's important to texture the river water with layers; water is neither a flat nor uncomplicated texture in real life, but rather a flowing and changing thing, and layers helps to emulate this.

Arthur used some polyfilla with water and a large brush to flick, dab, and drag the water texture onto the bases. 

On the cross section and the ford, he placed large rocks, followed by smaller rocks, and then sanded with a top layer of PVA glue. Although this will take a while to dry the patience is worth the wait; the final pieces will shine with a realistic quality and will be ready for next week's photoshoot and playtesting!

More to come on this soon.

​Wicked Wargames 

The fields of vision in the book are a really interesting and fun aspect of the game. Each dinosaur has three fields of vision: frontal, peripheral, and rear. Dinosaurs can make target various areas and make various attacks, depending on which field the enemy is in.

This is a large part of the "predator / prey" relationship, that we aim to emulate in the book. We demonstrated the way this works with visual diagrams in the book (seen below in a screen snap) but we have been discussing how to explain this to players in a physical context at the games table.

Players can for the most part work these areas out by eye, but we feel it important to explain it where possible with photographic examples, perhaps in a few ways. Failing that, we considered providing a paper template but because people will be using variable collections of dinosaurs, some larger than others, it's difficult to give people a "catch all" template.

Much development time was put into this template idea, and eventually it was scrapped, mainly because it just wasn't very "multi-use" and it seemed people would have to download and re-size one for their own force.

One of our key aims with Cretacea is to keep it simple, so we had a serious think about the template and went back a few steps...at which point we realised something very basic: by simply placing a straight edge between the back-corner of a base and the diagonally-across front-corner, one can easily determine the areas of vision, so long as players are being fair with their basing allowances. 

More updates on this will come. As with most rules writing issues, when you're working with a book inspired by documentaries as opposed to older and established games, we do our best to keep things simple, fun and quick to grasp.

​Wicked Wargames 

This week Arthur finished the principle photography for Cretacea over a few days. The book, now a splendour of colourful photographic examples, is much closer to completion than ever before. This is also the primary reason for our silence this week as we followed up this large photo session with a series of long formatting days (arranging the book).

See below some (uncoloured/unedited) examples. 

The book is now looking marvellous, and although the process is always evolving, the meat of the book, the rules and the formatting, is now in place. 

We have also arranged a big visit for Charles to come up to Manchester and get a full week of physical playtesting in. We've play-tested the game extensively online using tabletop simulators, and are confident the game is in a great state, but there is much left to discuss, videos to record, and other things to sort.

Doubtless there will be many updates from that week's work and there are many yet to come from this week's work, we just need to catch up on posting them on the blog!

Until then - stay tuned for more. 

Wicked Wargames

We also sourced some great images (this one is from Pixabay) and now each card has a fancy picture showing off the dinosaur in question. ​