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

Worst Map Ever! - Square Earth

Well, we're about 20 hours away from Hurricane Irene hitting Pennsylvania and my hometown goes under a state of emergency in 18 hours. Normal folks are on a milk, bread and battery spree. I, on the other hand, spent my night finishing the worst map ever!

With a new expansion due out in a few weeks for big blue, I wanted to pay homage to one of my favorite Silver Age concepts, a cube-shaped earth. Here on Square Earth everything is backwards.

The inherent problem of designing maps on a square grid system is that the grid forces your art into a restrictive 90 degree left-right mindset. You tend to start lining up everything on right angles and parallels. This map was so fun to design because every element forced me to get out of that 90 degree mindset. Of course the terrain coding brings it back from being too non-linear.


It was a fun to represent the three visible sides of the square earth as well and the following rotated images will help you see each respective side, right-side-up.




The map had three levels of elevation. Elevation 1 is the sides of the buildings on the left of the earth cube. Elevation 2 is the ground level on the topside of the earth cube and Elevation 3 is the tops of the buildings on the topside of the earth cube.

The special terrain will have the following rules. "Special Terrain is considered adjacent to any elevation level it borders. All successful attack rolls to a target occupying Special Terrain cause knockback. " The logic behind this is that space should be void of elevation and I like the idea of permanent knockback representing the lack of gravity.

As always, thank you for reading and stay tuned to this site as we have a huge announcement coming up!

Stay safe!

-CL

Map Preview: The Evil Scientist's Lair

Comic Bookdom has no drought of awesome evil super geniuses and they always get equally awesome super lairs. Laser trips, poison gas traps, buzz saws, crocodile pits: there are multiple ways to pick your doom in one of their hideouts. With the Superman expansion around the corner, I wanted to pay homage to all those great mad labs we've read about in old pulp comics and watched in James Bond movies.

I wanted to create a map where each side could pick which corridor they took to reach their opponent and each of the corridors had its own specific drawbacks.

With this map our heroes have three options to choose from: the flamethrower hall, the buzz saw hall and the shark pit hall.

The buzz saw hall lacks any hindering or water terrain; there are no obstructions to movement. But the hall is only one square wide and the blocking maze cuts off any chance of long-ranged combat. You take this path and you can get thru at full speed but you need to be wary of what bruisers your opponent could send your way.

The shark pit hall is very open for ranged combat however without any fliers, it will take a few rounds to get from one side of this hall to the other.

The same idea applies to the flamethrower hall. It will take some time to traverse the hall, and you'll get a slight defense bonus but your opponent will also benefit.

The evil scientist's lair also sports the ubiquitous death ray, lab gorilla, nuclear bomb and defunct robot that you'd expect from your standard issue evil lair. All in all, I can't wait to print this guy and give it a try. I've already got one being sent to me from PosterBrain.com.

Also I'm putting the final touches on the next professionally printed map for sale, so keep checking the website.

Thanks for reading!

Work in Progress - Exploding Planet (Part II)

Here's a quick update with terrain lines.

Check out this thread for a discussion on scenario rules.... Link!!!

Work in Progress - Exploding Planet

Had some free time to kill and hanging out at Clixathon with the Maryland crew got me in the mapping mood. Normally I plot out the map first on paper and plan where the terrain features will land.

With Superman around the bed, I wanted to paint this image in my head. Not too sold on the rocket... I could take it or leave it.


Wondering about the center planet... blocking??? Who knows. Kind of bland play wise. But its the first time I painted something purely for imagery and then plopped a grid on afterward.

Looking for terrain marker suggestions! I'll probably make this available for everyone once it's finished so make sure you comment!

Thanks for reading and stay tuned as there will be a huge announcement in the next few weeks.

An Interesting Graph

Me... I'm a numbers junkie. I like seeing every fact and figure plotted out and regurgitated. And when given the chance, I'm using a pie chart.


In case you haven't heard, I'm selling copies of my first mass produced custom map. One side features my "Dark Alley" map and the other features the Nightclub. The map first went on sale back in November and we're rounding the corner of it being available for nearly three months.

I wanted to take a peek at where the sales have been coming from, so I generated this quick graphic. This represents the maps I sold thru this website and does not reflect any maps that were purchased straight from me at my venue in Delaware. Couple of things jumped out at me.

• First off, my home state of Pennsylvania. You guys are rocking in the lead with the most maps purchased.
• Maryland and my Clix for the Cure buddies are coming in strong in second place!
• New York & New Jersey, beyond being fairly populated, are strangely missing from my sales ledger. What do I need to do to win you fine folks over?
• All of New England... where are you my friends?
• Tennessee and Missouri, you guys rock as well!
  

What's next after this map? I've got the next map primed and ready for the printers. We just need right around 100 more copies of the Dark Alley map sold and I'll have the next one printed .


Thank you all for your support!

-CL

Map 19 of 26: Atlantean Throne Room

If your Atlantis has risen for more than four hours... consult a doctor.

I couldn't resist that joke. I told myself not to post it, but I did anyway.

You're probably shocked. I know I am. After months of whoring out my awesome Dark Alley map (which is still available... buy it!), I'm back to displaying maps of my favorite public domain locations. That's right, nobody owns the concept of "Atlantis". Take that, lawyers! Ha!


Everybody knows one thing about Atlanteans. They like the color blue. They can't get enough of it. Blue buildings, blue roads, blue pavement, blue thrones, blue shields. And when their water changes from blue to sewagey brown/green or oily black, they get super miffed and go after us surface dwellers. You know, I've never seen a story where Atlanteans dump their waste on our lands and we invade their territory. Geoff Johns, if you're reading this, make that story happen.
I've been told I don't have "the right shade of blue" and this map was inspired by that comment. I actually did play around with the RGB on the blue water terrain lines for awhile on this. I wanted a blue that could stand out from the other side of the map and didn't blend in with the actual water terrain.

Most of my maps show a transition from one location to another. This map is no exception to this. It's tough to depict an underwater city top down without showing some underwater parts. This leads to an interest dilemma. What mechanic do you use to simulate the line between domed city and underwater space? For me the answer was simple, ignore it. You can see here that water terrain leads right into clear terrain. Yes. there is a purple energy to stylize the force field or dome protecting the city but there isn't an associated mechanic attached to it.
Lastly, I threw a prehistoric beastie under the water. Originally I had planned to put a small personal sub in the starting area however the inclusion of something that hi-tech really threw off the feel of the map. The addition of the plesiosaur is an homage to my first map. This seemed fitting as last February I embarked on a personal challenge to produce 26 maps in 52 weeks. The first map completed had dinosaurs and if you count the 3 full sized map pieces of the giant Airship I made for the Maryland Clix for the Cure as three maps, then this map is #26.

Circles in circles.

Well, thanks for reading and thank you for your continued support and interest as we approach year two here at Curious Lurkings.

-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

Maps now available for sale!

That's right! After hundreds of your emails and private messages goading me into mass printing maps, I am officially selling one of my maps. Well... actually two. Now available is the Dark Alley and The Nightclub printed as one double-sided map.

These will start to ship out on Thursday and the price will be $15.00 USD for one shipped in the US and as a break to all those judges trying to stock up for their venues you can get three copies for $35.00 USD. Right now these are just available in the United States however in a week or so, I'll have pricing up for international customers.

If you want to see these maps up close, check here and here.

The Dark Alley

The Nightclub

And guys, I'm not sure this will be a regular thing. I have no real plans to start a business out of this. As my blog followers are aware, this has always been a personal challenge to design twenty six maps in one year. This time last year I would have never thought my dining room would be filled with copies of my work. Thank you to everyone who has supported me over the past nine months!

What are you waiting for??? Get buying!

Clix for the Cure Maps: Terrain Lines Added

I thought so more images of the map was in order. Here we can see what all three maps look like lined up and what just using the top and bottom sections get you!

Just using two sections
Using all three sections...

Clix for a Cure Maps: Up Close!

Evening folks!

I thought I'd post some close-up images of some of the details from the Clix for the Cure Maryland map. I hope you enjoy.

Call Mom!
Very Interesting!

Warning: Objects in Mirror appear closer than expected.

Is that Pacman???

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!

Map 18 of 26: The Ray Ship

Phew... Still on schedule!

Sure, every hero gets a map. Everybody is rushing to do an Arctic fortress, gadgety cave or chartreuse planetary defense post. Heck, even the villainous clown gets a factory map here and there. But can the coolest underwater mutha, get a map? For eight years the answer has been no.

Until today.



That's right the legions of evil get a cool new submersible ride. This aint no seahorse.

This map had me up for days. Most miniature game mechanics lack a fluid way to show the transition from underwater openness to inside an underwater layer. I bounced around a lot of ideas with my fellow gaming friends and in the end I decided to ignore the minutia and went with the broad stroke method of just simplifying the map down to Water and Indoor terrain.



The starting areas I felt also needed to be tweaked. The standard left side meets right side method of mapping I felt didn't work in the visual space I had to work with. The nice thing about not being fettered with corporate ties means that I don't need to worry about the metagame. I liked the idea of the heroes being able to pick and choose from what side they could mount the offensive against the defensive position of the ship's crew.



Anyway, I'm off to finish that mancave I showed you last week.

Thanks for reading!

Work in Progress: Plain Manor with Mancave (Part 2)

Here is a quick draft of how the terrain markers would look if we went with the first 12 columns being elevated.



For the sake of disclosure, this is a quick, sloppy, inexact marking. The true grid would be much thinner and more precise. I just wanted to slosh some color on the reduced blog image for a reference.

Work in Progress: Plain Manor with Mancave

I mentioned in a previous post that there are a few iconic locales every map maker needs to take a swing at and this is one of them.

Most of the custom maps I see attempt to only map the cave. This, I feel, is disrespectful to the thousands of faithful butlers out there that defend their employer with great zeal. I also am a fan of showing transition in a map so I wanted to show outside the manor, the manor, and into the cave.

Traditionally the cave is lower than the house, this is an interesting dilemma as that would force the manor and outside the manor into being elevated terrain. Technically the first 12 columns (all of the grass and manor interior) should be surrounded by a red line. Then the 6 manor columns and the 12 cave columns should have a yellow line.


I could end the dilemma by removing the two sets of stairs into the cave on the top and bottom of the map, but I feel the stairs are visually necessary. We all have that image of a certain butler carrying down a tray of vittles to his master.

Anyway this map is easily 10 man hours away from completion. The bathroom needs to be fleshed out and I need to paint in wall shadows, clean up some viscous transitions and add terrain lines. So I wanted to let everyone see the work -in-progress and give me a shout out as to whether I should bag the steps and lose the elevated terrain dilemma or keep them and roll with the big 12 columns of elevated terrain.

Post your thoughts here or on HCRealms at http://www.hcrealms.com/forum/showthread.php?t=290394

Thanks for reading.

Map 17 of 26: Pizza-Loving, Martial Artist Sewer

The goal is twenty six maps in fifty weeks. To be on schedule, Map 17, this map, needed to be posted by September 24th. I'm doing a happy dance as for the first time in months, I'm on schedule.

What can I say... this map was begging to be made. Everybody wants a certain select four reptilian ninjas. The "Man" has the license already. I have the cash in my wallet to give to the "Man" for them. Is the "Man" man enough to step up to the plate and take my money?

Sure, some of you are on the wheaty side and want comic based miniatures while the others are on the frosted side and want cartoon based miniatures. You can say I'm not being a purist with this map, but come on people, they're just pillows.

Heck, I just realized I was making a shredded wheat analogy up there and the major villain of these guys is called... hey now, that's crazy and completely unplanned.

Me personally, I'm an Italian guy and I'm playing into a stereotype, but I like pizza. The map needed it.

All in all, a fun map to make and I can't wait to play on it.

Thank you for reading and the next map I post will pay homage to my favorite villain.

Map 16 of 26: Paradise City

I will apologize in advance for the cornball Guns N Roses joke that is about to happen. Last Monday I posted the toughest working environment in the cosmos to commemorate Labor Day. This week I take you up to Paradise City where the grass is green and the gaming is pretty.

Yeah, I couldn't resist that.

It's tough to visually represent a floating city without showing the ground below. Top down maps utilizing a square grid system have some inherent issues with a lot of locations I want to represent. Those typical bubble cities, like Atlantis or Gorilla City are difficult to pull off. Get to close to the city interior and you don't get to see the city boundaries which is where the magic happens. The same thing applies to your floating cities. Without seeing the transition from air to ground, you just can't tell its above the earth.

This leads to game mechanic issues. How do you represent an area where clearly no non-flier can exist? I've opted for the easy way out with the poor man's fix... the orange terrain line.


In the last post I mentioned my hatred of blocking terrain and yet here I'm showcasing it. The five sculptural monuments are blocking terrain. I jumped between the idea of either making them hindering or blocking but in the end like the tight spaces they create.


This map has a lot of different terrain elements crammed in a very tight space. I can't wait to print this bad bear and try it out. In the meantime, send me your thoughts on what the special rulings should be for the orange area.
Thanks for reading and I'll see you guys again in the next few days.

Map 15 of 26: Doomtown

Oh no, not Latveria. We have a passable Latveria map already.

One of my biggest pet peeves is that lack of non-terrestrial maps that have been put out. Comic Books have spanned the galaxy and stretched from the beginning of creation to the end of time. Yet somehow a lot of the maps produced these days tend to follow the town, park, office, rinse and repeat pattern. I've even annoyed myself with my own generic town maps.

I started reading comics in the 70's and as a kid I was always blown away by Jack Kirby's artwork. You cannot pick up one of his books and not immediately recognize his particular style. This map has been on the burners for a while. And seeing how today is Labor Day, I felt it was time to finally finish the map the signifies probably the worst place in the galaxy to work.

This map has gone thru a few developmental stages over the years. However what kept me from releasing this image was that I was never comfortable with the realism one can get on a map and how that realism blended with some natural Kirby-esque imagery I wanted to use. So today I hunkered down and practiced my Kirby dots.


As I flip thru those old comic books, I love how Kirby would dot up everything and add these bizarre geometric lines and circles. Hopefully I've captured that feel here. As far as the rules go from the fire pits, I was torn. I hate blocking terrain as I have never been a fan of any feature stopping Superman or Thor. So I decided to mark them as Special. As the player, you can determine if they're blocking, have special rules or, heck, maybe they're just hindering.

I was particularly happy with the slave wheels as well as they were cobbled together from numerous sources including an item from the original Dundjinni set.

And this is a map that lines up nicely with itself! Here you can see nine of them put together in three rows of three.

Next map will be around the corner in a few days. We saw Doom town, so next I'll be showing off Paradise City. After that, the next map may be having you say, "Kowabunga, dude!".

As always. Thanks for reading.