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

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!