Category: Uncategorized

A Shift in Focus: Becoming the First Superhero Wargame in the World

Okay, the title is a liiiitle clickbaity, but it is for good reason: this aims to be a Free-To-Play Wargame for anyone with any minis, figures, dolls, or whatever: it aims to enter the wargaming space with a significantly lower entry cost than its competition: free!

This means that over the next week or so, there are going to be some serious changes to how this system works, but (hopefully) no reduction of depth of Character Creation or significant hike in difficulty of play.

Thank you for your patience, and I hope you enjoy the game 😀

Duo: Trickshot and Brute

This duo is not properly built in-game yet, but their story is too compelling for me to avoid telling it.

Unlike most characters, Trickshot and Brute are inexorably linked: when one goes down, the other does as well. They tend to the ambiguous side, as Brute lives up to his name by crushing anyone that ruffles his proverbial feathers.

To truly understand Trickshot and Brute, you have to go back. Way, way back. Back to Brute’s days as an enforcer for a penny ante gang in The City. Despite the relative ineffectiveness of the gang Brute was a member of, he did his job very well. Even though Brute could have flattened every member of the gang and taken over it, he decided not to because of his deeply embedded sense of loyalty to the boss, who had kept him safe through his darkest days.

Alas, disaster would strike. During the Underworld King’s War, Brute’s gang would get caught in the crossfire between Naraka and Ghenna, and everyone except for Brute would perish.

Brute, and the Boss’s only child, a girl of eight years of age. As a way to repay Boss, Brute took the child in and taught her everything he thought she should know: he even enlisted the aid of a master marksman to teach her how to shoot. Despite her rather morally decrepit guardian, however, the girl was instilled with a deep sense of right and wrong, since The Boss had wanted her to stay out of the life of a criminal.

Fast forward fifteen years, and Trickshot is a complicated individual: raised by a monster to be a normal, upstanding citizen, Trickshot and Brute are a duo that tries to save the day and usually winds up making everything worse, in a violent, explosive way. Trickshot’s intentions are good, and Brute tries to keep himself under control for her, but he’s a creature of habit, and violence is what he does best…

Are they heroes? Are they villains? Or are they…

Renegades.

Stan Lee: 1922-2018: The Legend Behind The Legends

It was… 2007. I was 10 years old and sitting in front of my TV with a Duke X-Box controller in my hand. Booting up for the first time was X-Men Dimensions, a fighting game featuring the well-known group of Mutants that are a popular culture phenomenon.

I had no idea who they were, of course: I hadn’t had much interaction with Superheroes at that point: They hadn’t truly hit their stride yet in the mainstream. But as I played that polygon-rendered Tekken-With-Mutants video game, I fell head over heels in love: I wanted more.

While I came to love DC’s comics, I felt like Marvel’s comics (and Characters) were closer to reality than the others. When I found out almost all of them were the offspring of one man, Stan Lee, I was amazed and inspired: what if I could create characters like that? Up to that point I hadn’t really made my own characters, but that sparked a creative surge in my mind: I wanted to create.

As time went on I continued watching Marvel’s projects and their comics, and when rumors of a Iron Man movie coming to the big screen began to circulate, I though “hey, that could be cool.”

It was. And so was Iron Man 2. And Captain America, Thor, AND Avengers. I loved it, and I loved seeing Stan Lee cameo across the movies.

Of course, I was still tinkering with my own Superheroes, including a lightning-powered hit man that could go toe to toe with Thor and come out ahead. When he was made, my knowledge of what all Thor was capable of was somewhat limited: I thought he was just a strong dude with lightning and a hammer.

Stan Lee inspired me to create superheroes, and that would lead to several game iterations, Fan Fiction for one, and this for another. I have my favorites of Stan’s comics: Spider-Man vs. Fancy Dan, came out in the 60s and featured a riverboat swindler with a cane and a really, painfully purple suit and his cronies stands out in my memory. My favorite character Stan would come up with is Captain America. A weak man who wanted to serve his country getting incredible powers and serving as the bumbling Private Rogers and Captain America.

If we’re honest, we owe the Superhero as we know it today to Stan Lee. People with power, but just people: they’re not perfect, but they’re doing the best they can. Without Stan Lee, the superhero would have faded into obscurity after the close of World War Two. Stan Lee getting tired of writing Cowboy, Detective and Romance comics would lead to the creation of Spider Man, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, the rebirth of Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, and The Avengers (featuring Ant Man and The Wasp.) But without the catalyst of Stan Lee’s comics, others would not have come forward with their own superheroes as well.

I owe Stan Lee for Legends of Albadyn, for Project Champions and for Fan Fiction The Game. I owe Stan Lee for bringing my creativity forward to the point that I would create Characters of my own.

I’ll miss you, Stan The Man. Excelsior!

 

Looking Deeper: Styles of Play

Project Champions is a game that has a LOT of variety. There are more character builds than you can count without a statistics calculator, and even more on the way!

However, even with all of this in mind, there is still a certain gravitation in the builds I’ve seen so far.

The first type I’ve seen is what I affectionately refer to as The Average Avenger. Normal type characters with a focus on defense AND attack. They’re very well balanced BUT aren’t EXCEPTIONAL in any particular area.

The second type is the Controller. The Controller is focused on setting the stage for a cataclysmic finale. Granted, this one requires a TON of forethought to avoid missing a step. They’re also VERY vulnerable to Knockback…

The final type we’ll look at is one that needs a ton of HP to go off properly: the Reckless. The Reckless rushes into the fight and throws their might at whoever is handy. The Reckless is vulnerable to Summoners, but even then a saavy player can brawl their way out.

Cheers! Jacob Snow

Update 1.0: Enhances, EXP, AND Elites.

Okay, this is a bit of a doozy. First off, a ton of Skills, Spells, Powers AND Augments are not Enhanceable. When you level up, you can get a new Skill, Spell, Power OR Augment, OR you can enhance one of your existing powers. It’s awesome, but was REALLY complicated. Some of the Character Options are inconceivably overpowered when enhanced far enough.

EXP is going to be added in the Modes section as well as into the How To Play section (which was also updated featuring Knockback and CRITs.)

Elite gear… we’ll get to that later. Just look for the ELITE tab on the menu, and you’ll find out more. It isn’t up yet, but it will be soon.

Cheers!

Jacob snow

 

 

Patch Notes Update 0.4: Rule Patches

Costs have been added to ALL applicable Skills. Beta test play saw a REALLY salty player keep trying to exploit loopholes. I’ve never been happier to play with a salty player: the data was worth a million bucks. Updated the rules for additional clarity including how Ultimates work.

Oh, and I added a Healing Factor to the Empowered Character creator. Have fun with that.

The Journey Begins… Again

This is the second time I have created a website here on WordPress: the first was to put my beloved game Legends of Albadyn into the wild.

This time, we’re uploading a new game, one that is similar, yet different. We’re uploading Project: Champions: The Game. This game is now and always shall be free to play: it’s designed by the people for the people, and I intend to keep it free to play for those who wish to play it.

But first, some background. There are some video games I can’t go near with a ten foot pole: my hands start twitching and I get a headache for three days. While it is not as severe as it is for many people (there are still loads of games I can play), I wrestle with a tinge of epilepsy.

A good friend of mine, however, is not so lucky. An old injury to the nerves in her hands makes it impossible for her to play video games for any amount of time without getting intense twitching and pain in her hands. As she’s an artist, this is devastating and scary for her.

Additionally, another friend of mine lives in constant concern of epileptic fits: anything from prolonged exposure to fluorescent lights to a commercial on TV can set it off, and its very painful and very disruptive to his life and the lives of those around him.

These two people, and many, many others, cannot play Video Games. Whether because of physical injuries or biological incompatibilities, the medium of entertainment known as video games are eternally sealed off to them.

So, three years ago, I decided to do something about it. I love Dungeon Crawlers, and wanted to make one that my friends, all my friends, could play. Legends of Albadyn was born. It has changed over the years, and grown into an amazing game, and it is playable by anyone from a kid in a dentist’s waiting room to a elementary school teacher on the verge of retirement. Those are actual people I have played it with: I’m not just saying that.

Recently, my friend with the hand injury gave video games a shot to see if she could handle it. She had a lot of fun, but immediately after she stopped playing her hands began shaking and hurting quite badly. She was very upset and wished that a game existed like the one we had been playing, which was Soulcalibur VI.

Project Champions is my answer to both MMOs and 3D Arena Fighters. You create a Character, give them all the powers their Level 1 Build can take, and throw them into the fray against mobs of minions or player characters of the opposing faction.

This is the early access form: there are some rough edges, some recklessly OP abilities, and some abilities that may or may not have an overarching purpose in the grand scheme of things. But it’s growing, it’s fun, and its free!

So dive on in, enjoy, and step boldly into a world of Heroes and Villains, a world completely our own!