What is everyone up to?

[Waspman]

Come fall, you're not going to have any free time at all.
Well, I hope things get better at work!

[Fayde]

INDEED! I am going to go nuts, cause I love my free time. I LOVE it. -_- Oh well, at least it is a field I am pretty into. I think the fact that it will be a REAL class room will also help. I like learning, so it should be fun.

Things will once they settle down, but it'll be at least a few months before everyone gets settled in to the new way the program is run, as well as new flex staff coming in and out.

[Fayde]

I have currently been putting my time into developing a cardstock based wargame (Board game). I found a few places that actually sell indy Cardstock games that people develop. Sadly, they all are really typical fantasy based, RPG-ish sets that are really uninspired. SO I have taken it upon myself to develop a printable wargame that is unlike many of the indy junk that is out there, and in the mean time, put my "designer" skills to the test, and make it look all shinny and whatever after the beta...

It's basically a hex-based game with individual hex pieces and so on. The fun catch (I think) is that all the recording is actually done ON the piece it's self. Basically, I printed out a bunch of hex pieces (Units), and glued them firmly to color-coordinated silly foam sheets. Then put clear tape on them, making them dry-erasable. Here is a sample of the BETA unit pieces: (shininess to come MUCH later)



Anyway, everything is recorded ON the unit pieces, so you don't need to keep checking cards or record sheets or anything. Everything is pretty compacted onto a little 1 inch hex, but I've tested it out a bit and it feels pretty quick and easy.

Anyway, the actual system is something that I have always wanted to see in board games and never did, and that is army building via resources and economy (Think RTS), which is basically how this game works. Anyway, here is a list of all the developed unit types and the limit of those units in-game. I also included the features developed so far as well. I hope to get this sold eventually, as I think it's a pretty solid system, and people buy indy PDFs all the time, so yay!
PS: I really didn't want to mess with naming every single unit, at least not for now. So bear with the unoriginal names, lol. I also hope to make more units (Like Naval, and special Faction-specific units as well)

98 units per faction.

Air Units

7 Escort Planes
7 Fighter Jets
5 Recon Planes
4 Light Bombers
4 Heavy Bombers

Infantry Units

8 Rifle Infantry
8 Laser Infantry
6 Armored Infantry
4 Mechanized Infantry

Artilery

8 Light Artilery
4 Heavy Artilery

Armor and Placement Units

8 Light Tanks
8 Meduim Tanks
5 Heavy Tanks
6 Armored Transport Vehicles
6 Anti-air Placements

1 H.Q.

Structures (Non faction):

20 Industrial Cities
20 Normal Cities

Modular Hex-Based Terrain system with hills, rivers, bridges, and forests (more terrain to come)

Plus Command Cards, Research Cards, several game types, 5 unique factions, and
economy based army building.

[Fayde]

Scratch that. I just played a 'demo' of it and it looks like I will be taking a lot of those units out of the game. Reason being that they really have no purpose and just add to many choices and pieces for what they are worth. I improved a few things as well, but they're a bunch of rules and what not.

[Fayde]

Reformatted my computer! Yay! I am finally really getting my old stuff back up and running. I still have no games installed though. I soaked in, what little i was home, my computer at bare minimum. It feels great to only have a few programs on my Programs menu, and my computer starts within seconds, not minutes. It's good to be back online and running.

I'm still working on my game with the little time I have, and Meli and I (I'm still in the process) made bleached t-shirts today, with some custom designs. All you do is put some stencils down and spray bleach over the shirt and it comes out looking pretty neat. I'll post pictures of finished products when I can and when they're dry.

[itsallgood]

Scott and I are going camping this weekend with some friends of mine. Nana and Justin will be home alone and I am praying for them both. LOL Our cell phones won't work up there, but you can try to call Justin on the land line if you want. We are leaving early Sat morn and will be back Sun afternoon. Hope all is well with you guys. Love you! ;D

[Fayde]

Sounds awesome! I hope you guys had fun!
I got sunburned today at a BBQ we had after church... It is pretty painful lol. I called you a couple times today, did you not get the message?

[itsallgood]

Yes, I got the message. No, the weekend was not fun, it was miserable! Two hours before we were to leave, I woke up, ran to the bathroom and had it coming out of both ends the rest of Saturday !!!!!! High fever, chills, etc. It was horrible. Nana had it too, but not as bad, thank God. Poor Scott and Cheri (a friend that we were traveling with and bunking with). You have no idea how much we needed to get away. Van was packed. Scott bought worms for fishing, everything. I was soooooooooo mad!!!!!! Hopefully Scott, Cheri and I can go up to Mt. Lemon this weekend though. This other trip was a bday party and many people were there, one person had a boat, jet ski's, etc. Not, that MY fat, decrepid rear was getting on the ski's, but maybe Scott would have. I guess this group of friends have decided to do that trip once a month all summer, so hopefully we will be able to do it soon.

Sorry you got burned! Ever heard of sunscreen? It's this wonderful stuff you rub into your skin about 1/2 hour before going in the sun and every now and then while you are there. I heard it helps to keep you from getting sunburned and helps prevent CANCER! Try aloe for your skin. Cold washclothes help also. Hope you feel better soon.

Sorry I missed your call, I was napping, and still didn't feel up to chatting yesterday. Love you

[Fayde]

Aw man, that stinks! Meli had something like that happen once, only she got sunburned so badly that she got sick and had to go home.
Sounds like a good idea to have a get-a-way though, especially in Tucson. Things get so hot down there, it's hard to muster the courage to go outside and have some fun. Camping near water is great. ^^ Speaking of fishing, Meli got her fishing license the other day and caught a whole bunch of fish over the weekend (while I was at work!). Fun stuff. I actually have pics of that... I'll have to upload some of those.

It's alright, I got even more burned today. Meli and I went for a two mile walk this morning, and normally there is a lot of shade where we go, but there wasn't today. Crap.

Hope you feel better soon!

[Fayde]

Finally finished the basic unit counters for my game I'm making. They're vastly different as I had to make some major changes after playing a couple demos. With the original counters a single skirmish between a few units took half an hour, which would make the game last about 6-8 hours... NOT what I was looking for. SO I dumbed down some of the rules, including unit strengths (sadly), and Micheal and I were able to get a 30 point game done in 45 minutes (not using building or research).
Here's the old counters before I changed them:

And the new ( Which are MUCH easier to cut out)

[Fayde]

WORK IS SO FREAKING STUPID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I swear I am getting my hands tied behind my back while they chop them off.
BOTH of my main staff members are quitting because of our population and the lack of help we get from anyone higher-up. Our child population consists of mostly mental health kids, which is NOT what we are meant to be doing. Not only do they require almost 1 on 1 attention, but they are much harder to control even on 1 on 1 interaction. We have about 10 mental health kids, 6 behavioral kids, and only 4 staff to do everything. We have to keep close observation on at LEAST 6 of them at all times, which means we have to write down what they are doing, when they are doing it and how they are doing it every 5 minutes (Literally). We have a metal health kid that is bigger than most adult men, and he is OF COURSE extremely violent and gets the cops called on him ALL the time, which OF COURSE freaks out all the other mental health kids causing a huge and very long disruption that takes hours to clean up. On top of all of this, we are all being assaulted several times a day by several different kids, violently, not just punched. I alone am restraining 3-5 kids a day, meaning I have 3-5 Special Reports to fill out (2-3 pages each), PLUS my Team Leader responsibilities, PLUS an over barring manager who is freaking out about over time, yet will give no one the tools to get out on time.
Our kids are very VERY difficult, and it will be more so once my two staff leave, I will then be stuck with training TWO more staff on top of ALL the other stuff above.
As far as anyone doing ANYTHING about it from higher ups, I am told to feel better about our close obs forms, that we don't have to fill them out as often, but we will still be stuck with 8 of them, which defeats the purpose of keeping the kids on close obs. I am also stuck with an already stressful job of which I am extremely burnt out on, but I of course am unable to take an extra mental health day.
To make things better, I have 20+ hours of training on top of my normal 50 hour weeks this month, which will make for a better paycheck, but will burn me out even more when I am desperately needing an extra day off or 2. I am told "things will get better", however, I was told this about 6 months ago as well and... well... Things just keep getting worse.
To top if ALLLLLLLLLLLL off, I need the insurance, and I need the money... So I am stuck. Period. Even if I could quit, not only are there no jobs that offer anywhere near enough pay and hours, but they also do not offer insurance for a long time, if at all.

Very... very... very stressed out... -_-

[Waspman]

Holy crap, what a mess. What you need is a vacation, once everything is sorted out.
Also, it helps to look at the positive side - like you said, you will be earning a bigger paycheck with your increase in hours and at least you still have your insurance coverage. Where as a lot of other people are loosing jobs or getting hours cut back. Like myself for example, have a much more easy going job but at the same time I'm sick and have no insurance and have crap pay and crap hours. Not to mention have a child to support aka my mother.

[Waspman]

Anyway, it might not seem like it but I think things will get better.

[Fayde]

Indeed. I have been very negative as of late due to my job mostly, but my debt as well. However, Meli is helping a lot with keeping me on a more positive light. It could easily be worse and I am grateful for what I've been given. I have just been SO burnt out lately and I needed to vent lol.

I hope things start to get better. It seems like we are feeling more of the aftermath or shock wave of our bad economy. It seems like there was a massive blow and no one really noticed until recently. Now it seems to be getting better, but we probably won't feel it for a long time. I hope things don't get worse though...

I hope things get better in your own situation as well. We have my in-laws living with us again (this time because the house they lived in sucked) and MAN it's stressful. So I hope your situation, not only with your job, but your mom, gets better.

[Fayde]

Coming close to finishing my board game! I had taken a bit of a break from it before I started working on the finer details and final design work. Here are my final (or about as close to final as they will get) unit designs. These are the pieces that will actually be cut out and used. There will be a varying amount of each for all the factions, but each faction will have between 50 and 60 units total.
Here is the preview of all of the New American Republic unit types.
I also have a page on Boardgamegeek.com, which is the biggest board game community site in the US. Here's the page: www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/42723
Here's the almost final unit design: