A few more shots of the Factory Pyramid in action

Here are a few more shots of the Pyramid Factory in action. Tomorrow we start a new ongoing battle royale tournament league using this map.

If you are interested in ordering a copy of this 4ft x 4ft vinyl map for your venue, click here. 

-good gaming. 

The Factory Pyramid

Frankly, I am tired of 2 ft x 3 ft, rectangular, two player maps. Those 384 squares of space just do not cut it for me anymore.

Our gaming group has slowly evolved into a group that prefers a good battle royale. The weekly two player tournaments can get tedious after a while. A multi-player battle royale adds a social dynamic that is missing in a two player miniature game. It is no longer a game of dice, positioning and numbers. It becomes a game of social dynamics. Not only do you need to hope for good rolls, you need to hope your fellow teammates can be trusted. Alliances are formed and broken. Trust is earned and destroyed. A good battle royale becomes a wicked social experiment and the more players you can fit into the game, the more complex and fun it becomes.

For more fun, you need more gaming room.

The genesis of this map started back in the days of LOTR. My players were looking to play large LOTR battles and there was not a map that could easily accommodate this. At that time I had already designed and printed a gigantic 2 ft x14 ft urban city map. So my sites were set on medieval fantasy.

I also wanted to move away from rectangular maps and move back into symmetrical square maps. I drew a half-dozen walled city and castle keep maps of which none I was happy with but I did one day doodle a Mayan pyramid layout that I was particularly fond of.

Flash forward a few years, and I hadn't finished a single map due to time and energy restraints with my day job. Well it is now 2015 and I have a new job with less responsibility and a new computer with enough memory to easily tackle large designs. Age of Ultron is happening and it was time for me to get back to map making again.

Now with Age of Ultron adding a sci-fi / robot theme to every big event, I wanted to create a battle royale map that fit that theme. However I still had this Mayan temple layout I was really partial to. The Factory Pyramid is the blend of that old Mayan Design with a Sci-Fi feel that could accommodate any modern villain.



I wanted strong , striking colors. I wanted heavy purples, oranges and reds. Gone were the grass fields and stone temple with rivers of blood. Now we had steel and lava.

The map itself is 4 ft by 4 ft which comprises 1024 gaming squares (266% more space than the 2 ft by 3ft maps), six levels of elevation, and twenty starting areas. It is a big map.

There are 124 squares of hindering terrain. So there is plenty of space to hide in. There are also blocking terrain features between each of the twenty starting areas to help protect your forces at the start of the map.



Oh yeah and there is lava... lots of lava. In fact that lava stretches across all six elevation levels. Now no rules for this special terrain are printed on this map. I like each gaming group having the freedom to develop their own rules and scenarios and not be dictated by what it is printed. Though you can always ask me for suggestions.



If you decide to get a copy of this map for yourself, I would suggest you limit the number of figures allowed in each player's force to one or two figures. That way a 20 man match doesn't bog down to a crawling pace.

This map is available for purchase on vinyl here...

Well... that is it for now. I appreciate everyone who keeps checking back here from time to time. I've got more up my sleeve or in a cardboard tube for the summer.

Good gaming!

-CL

Great Neptune! We're having a sale!

That's right! We're having a sale... while supplies last, if you buy one Atlantis map, I will send you one additional copy free.

It's an under-the-sea-by-one-get-one-free. That rhymes and brings more bang to your buck.

The hope is to get some space free in the old house to fill right back up with a new map

So hit those Paypal buttons.

The reports of my death... blah, blah, blah.

Evening!

So right off the bat... I am still alive and you can still buy maps. We're down to a couple dozen strip club maps left but there are still plenty of Atlantis maps.

Now time for excuses... my day job became entirely too oppressive between 2012 and 2014. I ended up working 12 hours days and weekends. No time for me... no time for my family... no time for maps. But that has changed as I recently started a new job with traditional hours and ample free time.

I also bought a new computer which can handle the conversion of a 24 x 36 200 DPI multi-layered image into a .pdf to send to the printer.

I have also been toying with a few different sales models and have a journal of sketches that need to be mapped out. Plus now that Facebook is the strongest way to reach new gamers. The only online community that doesn't allow talk of maps other than its own isn't the only way of reaching new gamers.

Over the next few weeks, I will be getting used to Windows 8 and getting ready to send a new map to the printers.

The hope is to be viable again by the summer.

Until then, let's figure what this doodle will look like and check out the next post.

Fourteen Feet of Map (I said "fourteen")

One thing everyone hates... a lazy mapmaker. What excuse can I have for nothing new? Getting old... everybody gets old.  Aging eyesight... computers are killing all of our vision. Work keeping me down... welcome to adulthood.

I have no excuses.

But what I do have is a 14 foot by 2 foot map and I feel that more than makes up for it.

My corner of the world had two venues about a mile apart from each other: one a dark, dusty bookstore that dripped nostalgia, the other one was bright and modern and ran by the local hipsters. I am the judge at the hipster venue.

We had a good thing going, I ran a 10:30 AM Saturday morning game with a great group of regulars. We then all went to the 1:30 PM game at the dusty bookstore. We had it good. 

That bookstore lost its lease after 33 1/3 years of operations and double game Saturdays with a quick lunch at the Chinese buffet looked like history. I didn't want to break up the group so I added an occasionally second game to my Saturday lineup to help keep the camaraderie going.

What I wanted to do was add a special value for that second game and early on I felt giant battle royales would be the way to go.

So I hit the Excel in the spring. Yup most of my maps start in Excel. I print them (I printed this on a bad ink day) and hang on to the design for a few weeks. Eventually inspiration hits and I flesh out the full map.

Work and life got in the way but I really hunkered down in late June and started working on this 14 feet gaming beast.

Thanks to eSigns, they turned this leviathan into reality and it was delivered today.

We're taking the test run this Saturday at 1:30 PM. Over the next few days, I will keep you posted on how the game went and provide better pictures of each section.

Thank you for reading!

-CL

Maps on sale on eBay

That's right there is a small quantity of maps half-off on eBay right now.

Strip Club Map half off here.

Atlantis Map half off here

Go get them!

The New Map in Action

I have had a few request from fans for in game photos of the Atlantean Throne Room / Rayship map. Check these out below!

And make sure you buy your copy today!

-CL

Free Map: The Wandering Undead

Happy October! I love October with its warm days, cool nights, falling leaves and horror movies. A friend of mine asked me to quickly rustle up an image paying homage to the promo poster for his favorite zombie television show which begins airing season two this Sunday.

The promo poster really doesn't give you a lot to work with. One side is abandoned cars, the other side is an empty highway. The whole poster is washed in the putrid grey/green color scheme.

This map itself in nearly 100% Dundjinni. The cars and the road textures are straight out of Dundjinni. The grey/green saturation, terrain lines, and grids were done in Paintshop.

Since the map was made by request specifically to mirror the poster, we don't really have much here other than hindering terrain.

Because this was a quick and breezy map, and with everyone's favorite show starting in a day or so, I felt this was the perfect time to make this map available for free download here.

Enjoy!

-CL

NEW MAP FOR SALE!

Oh that's right! You asked for it. Wait, you demanded it. Another map has been professionally printed and we're all about to get soaking wet!

Break out your blue skinned mermen and regal fish-boys. The Atlantean Throne Room and The Rayship have been printed on a double-sided machine folded map.

There have been a few tweaks since these designs were first previewed. These two maps were playtested and from feedback I have made some minor changes.

On the Atlantean Throne Room, the side room with the weapon's table has been replaced with another water chamber to mirror the opposite side of the map.

On The Rayship, two internal walls have been added to break up the line of fire between the left side of the map and the right side.

The water terrain lines on the finished product came out a bit more purple than blue but you can still definitely tell what's water on these maps.

With two maps available, I had to change the pricing structure so that both maps could be purchased together with multiple quantity options. It basically works out that one to three maps costs the same as it did before.

This map is already in hand and ready to print. So order one today. Don't forget to order a Dark Alley map as well and save on shipping!

Thank you for your support!

-CL

Free Map: Gear Factory!

Hello!

Over the past few weeks I received numerous requests for a map suitable for futuristic video game properties. Being the obliging sort that I am, I wanted to quickly create a map for this genre and make it available for download for everyone.

Everybody knows I carefully avoid copyright issues. That being said check out the gears on this factory. I love gears, they make big machinery move, and frankly I'd never go to war with gears. They are just that important.  Wouldn't you want to have a war with your miniatures on this factory with gears?

I also wanted to design a map with every conceivable terrain feature: indoor, hindering, water, and elevated so this map gave me that opportunity.  One nice feature of this map is that it lines up with itself on any side so you can create huge battles with multiple copies.

And did I mention those gears??? Check them out below...

So make sure you download a copy of this map and if you or your gaming group prints and plays on this map, send me the photos and I'll upload them here.

Thanks for reading and check back next week when we find out what maps just went to printer!

-CL