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

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

Free Map - The Video Pyramid

Phew... it's been a long time since I have previewed something new. Have no fear, I have a lot of stuff in the pipeline to start showing you. To start off a new round of maps for the site, I thought I'd go and release a new free map for download.

The Video Maze I posted last year was a big hit and I wanted to revisit that particular genre. The new elevation rules in the 2011 rulebook opened up another favorite classic video game for me. By adding multiple elevations, I now could map everyone's favorite 80's pyramid game.

The original game itself showed the pyramid on an angle. This couldn't easily be translated into a square grid map that was at even angles. The solution was to create two game pyramids and butt them up against each other. So while this map isn't as faithful to its source as the Video Maze was, it really pays homage to the original game.

The new elevation rules also removed the necessity of needing stairs or ladders to represent the area where you could change elevations. This is for me as a mapmaker the best part of the 2011 rules update as it opens up creatively what you can design.

When you first see all these elevation triangles your immediate response should be "@!#?@!" In the original game our hero could jump from any platform to the next elevated platform. To keep that spirit alive, I decided that each square was a point where a character could change elevations. This did create a herculean job of placing all those triangles but I think staying faithful to the source was worth the trouble.

One other neat feature of the original video game was the floating platform you could jump onto to immediately and safely take yourself to the top of the pyramid. This mechanic had to be incorporated into my map. So for this map, the following special rule applies.

When a character is given a movement action, squares inside the border of an orange line are considered adjacent to Elevation Level 8 squares for movement purposes only.

You can download the map here, and if you anyone gets this map printed please email me the pictures and I'll showcase them here.

See you in a few days and thanks for reading!

Happy New Year: Ball Dropping Danger! Free Map!

Well, I may be late with a free Christmas map, but I'm barely early with a New Year's Eve map!

Again I want to thank you for a great 2010. This blog and my maps, would not be what they are without all of you supporting me. Thank you so much for a great 2010!

And here's to all of us that we have a flawless 2011. I'm still a few Dark Alley map sales away from hitting the numbers I need to produce a second map. But if we reach that goal, I've got a few big surprises for everyone for 2011.

I've always wanted to experience New Year's Eve at Times Square. And since I can't convince myself to endure that level of madness... I felt mapping it would be the next best thing!

For you New Yorkers, hopefully this map adequate captures the feel of Time Square. I'm in New York for business often enough that I was OK with watering down One Times Square to its bare essence. Ok New Yorkers, I know that Broadway comes in on an angle and isn't at a perfect 90 degree, but square grid maps lead themselves to right angles.

I also cut out the Police Station and the Recruiting Center. I have nothing against either structure, I just couldn't get them into the map without losing the side elements I wanted.

Those of you that remember my Martian Clockwork map know that I'm a fan of balls and this map has both a Dick and a Ball! That's right! That's our old, old, old pal Dick Clark on the side of that building. And that's a 12 foot diameter ball! Look out Dr. Manhattan.

Also, unlike the North Pole, this map contains very little hindering terrain. So look out Clown Prince of Crime, odds say that the Caped Crusader is in that mailbox!

If you want to rock your battles on this Rocking New Year's Eve Map, you can find it here.

Happy New Year! I'll see you in 2011.

-CL

Merry Christmas: North Pole Nightmare Free Map!

Yo Ho Ho! or just Ho Ho Ho!
It's Christmas and who doesn't like free gifts!?! This has been a wild 2010 for me. I started this personal challenge to design 26 maps in 52 weeks. With your encouragement and your kind words, this has blossomed from what was really just a pipe dream to my mass producing one of my maps for the public. Last February, I had no idea that my work would be so appreciated. Thank you!

Way back on December 10th, I previewed this map over at HCRealms. I was hoping to finish it two weeks ago, but with barely a few hours left before Christmas, it's done and ready to download.

I actually started this map a few years back and it was originally intended for a horror game and was riddled with dead elves, dead reindeer and a dead Santa. In the end I decided to clean this one up a bit and use it for more friendly battles.

Santa's workshop is a Stealth player's heaven. There are tons of workbook benches, ornaments and trees to hide in. Looks like Batman has been a good boy this year.

While vectoring the green lines around all those tables, I started thinking about Snow as a game element. One would expect Arctic snow to be deep and hence able to be submerged in. And it's made out of water... so with that I thought, "Eureka! Snow is water terrain!" Merry Christmas, Aquaman! All that snow becoming water terrain lead to some unique and intricate map areas. You need to really watch and plan out exactly where you're stepping and where you want to go.

I hope you like it and you can download this map here.

Thank you again for reading and Merry Christmas!

-CL

Free Map: The Video Maze

Well, it has been a wild November. My first mass-printed maps were ordered and delivered and I've started selling these maps online. This has been an interesting and intense month. From hyper-analyzing each printed copy I've mailed out to learning the in's and out's of Paypal, every day has been busy.

I want to get back to where this journey began... designing maps. I've got a few beauties in the pipeline and I think everyone will be please for what's in store for December and January. Occasionally, I want to have a few maps available free for download. These maps will tend to be either a bit more simplistic than my normal maps and the maps that I will eventually make available for sale.

The Video Maze may be texture light but it's far from simplistic. Since I got in to miniature gaming I've wanted to see a playing field like this one with lots of turns and blocked lines of fire.

Of course, I can't take credit for the genius who initially designed this board but hopefully I've packed enough classic imagery to satisfy the inner geek in all my followers. And yup, more orange lines, however this time I can't imagine that there isn't someone who can't figure out how to house rule that one.

Click here to download!

Thanks for looking and if you haven't purchased my Dark Alley / Nightclub map... well what are you waiting for!!!

-CL

Happy Halloween: The Occult House

Yo ho ho and Happy Halloween. Let me just get this right out of the way now. I have the worst stomach ache from eating Paydays and Dots and Pumpkin Cupcakes with cream cheese icing.
Doubled-over from the sugar pains and I decided to squeak this map in between bouts of nausea and the start of The Walking Dead on AMC.

The three biggest requests I see weekly are for maps of Hell,  horror gaming maps, and free downloadable maps. Two of those three requests come often from ProfessorShenanigans over at HCRealms. However, I'm not sure if he plays Horrorclix.

With Halloween in the air and the weight of the Horrorclix community coming down on me, I feel it's time to give them a properly scary map. The type of map that makes you want to start going to church on the weekend. And with that I give you... The Occult House.

Is it a haunted house? Is it a gateway to Hell? You can decide that for yourselves.

Now I haven't played that horror game since the game came out. I kept buying figures, just never got the time to play. So Horror fans, chime in and tell me where to put the victim blood stains and I will do so over the next week.

Personally, I'm a big fan of special terrain. There is no way the vast tapestry of every location imaginable can be pigeonholed into either blocking or hindering terrain. So I am going to use the orange line at any given chance. I'm not going to come up with the rulings. That's for you to decide. In the end, you can just rule the orange line is hindering or you can come up with your own scenario rules.

Yup, and this map... it's free to download. Let me know if the google document feature doesn't work. This is the first time I'm using it.
You can get the map here at:
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B8a_xUHzVDadOGZiYmY3YTYtMTAwMC00OTBmLTg2ZTktZTYzMWU4Mjc3Yjcy&hl=en&authkey=CIqEt80P
Heck, if you print and play this, and don't mind taking a picture, send it to me and I'll post it here!
Also, next post, I'll be showing you the finalized Clix for the Cure Map. And later this week we'll talk about my first map pack which will be available for sale in November.
Happy Hauntings!

Maryland Clix for the Cure Map

Yo ho ho!

I'm very happy and honored to be able to donate a few custom maps for the Savage, Maryland Clix for the Cure event.

I wanted to do something special for the event and so in chatting with tom730 from HCRealms we were able to work out my doing an exclusive map just for Clix for the Cure.

Well in typical lurker madness what started out as one map quickly spiraled into three maps. I'm not sure if tom730 plans to use these as prize support or auction. I still have some touch-ups to make and I need to add the terrain lines in.





Also if anyone wants to chime in custom rules for the open sky area, feel free to comment!

So I hope you enjoy seeing these maps and I hope to see you at The Family Game Store on November 7th.