February's Painting

I looked at my watch this morning and realised that it was the last day of the month. I thought about the things I've done for my Cerignola 1503 game during the past 28 days. This game will be a demo at Sheffield Triples later this year; there is a deadline. The 'to do' schedule is not that demanding but, I've surprised myself with the amount I've actually done for it in just four weeks: I've managed to break the back of the figure painting.

24 Gendarmes. 

12 crossbowmen and 18 French pike. 

72 Swiss pike. 

8 foot of 'widened ditch' to sit in front of the Spanish earthworks.
















Next on the agenda:
Two units of 8 Stradiots (actually only 15 cavalry figs).
Another three units of 8 Spanish / Italian 'gendarme types' (24 heavy cavalry).
Two buildings (already constructed - one can be seen above) to paint.
Three feet of 'town street' (sections cut) to cobble with lentils, then paint.
One foot of earthworks to make and paint.
Table cloth (15 x 6 feet) to re-spray much lighter, with tan and yellow 'rattle' cans.

Cosmoids Early Alpha is out! Funding Phase 3! PTD 2 updates!

Want to get the Shiny Starters? Shiny Zorua? Shiny legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Click here for more info.

Visit the PTD: Pokemon Center - a place to trade pokemon, get your Daily Code, adopt Pokemon, view your items and change your avatar!

Welcome to the Sam & Dan Games Developer Blog! Let's begin!

Blog updates
I want to apologize for not having blog updates the last few weeks. As my wedding get near things start to get hectic and I have less and less time to sit down and work and so by not doing blog post I saved those precious hours, however things seemed to have calmed down a bit and so I plan to continue with blog updates every week like before. There is much to talk about.

Fundraiser lives on!
The fundraiser is alive and kicking. The last few weeks I made it a point to add new ways for you to donate and the fundraiser has gained dramatically from this. If you haven't heard about the fundraiser basically we are asking you guys to help us keep making PTD2 and Cosmoids while giving out great prizes. Some of the prizes include access to the Cosmoids Early Alpha, Shiny Rayquaza and Cosmoids Starters for your PTD2 account. Instead of going over every detail here on the blog we have made a page exclusively for the funding. You can find it here. Check it out, if you feel like we deserve to stay alive making games then give us a little help.

Phase 3 of the Fundraiser
Today we start Phase 3 of the fundraiser. What does it mean? NEW PRIZES! For funding $10 or more you will receive in the near future your choice of one of the 3 starters from Cosmoids (you can check them out in the Early Alpha). You will get to pick your favorite and they will stats and move set similar to other starters in pokemon. They won't however evolve right away since we don't have the graphics done for the evolutions. You will also receive 2 of the one that you choose so that you can trade it with somebody. Lastly if you are wondering they will not be able to breed with each other or with any other pokemon.

Cosmoids Early Alpha Released
I'm super excited to announce that for those who funded us any amount now have access to the Cosmoids Early Alpha. If you don't have access and would like to check it out it is very simple. Go to the Pokemon Center's Funding Rewards page and watch a video ad to fund a few cents to us and get access.

Okay so now that you checked it out I wanted to talk about a couple of things that you might have noticed. First of a lot of the graphics are not final and some are close to final. Mostly everything is not final except for the creature units. Those are pretty close to the final graphic besides a few tweaks on size and some minor details. Another huge thing is that there is a lot missing. The UI which is always important is not set up yet.

So you might ask what is the point then? Well there are plenty of points. What I want you to check out is that you can put units in any spot on the map, units have different ranges depending on the attack they are doing. Also unit's attack speed will be based around the base speed of the creature. In PTD I always wanted to do that so that electric pokemon would attack very fast and slow pokemon like slowpoke etc would have a long time between attacks. The problem with pokemon is that attack stats are not balanced around speed since speed in pokemon only means who gets to go first. For cosmoids I do want the base speed to affect attack speed and so we will be balancing around that. In the alpha you can see that the chameleon has a high attack speed but doesn't inflict as much damage. While the koala has a lower attack speed but does more damage per hit. All the numbers still need to be tweaked so the balance is not there yet but it should show a little of what I want to accomplish for this game which is...

Cosmoid Creatures should feel different from one another
I think long and hard about the games that I'm making. On one hand I have PTD a game that I have already established so I don't want to add too much or remove things. Then on the other hand I have Cosmoids which is something new. I don't have anything that tells me how the stats should work or what levels and creatures I need to have. This is both a curse and a blessing. Mostly a blessing in my eyes. So I started to think about what Cosmoids is about and in the same thought what is PTD about. Is the whole point of the game to just capture all your favorite creatures? Do you just set a unit down and watch it all unfold? I thought a lot about it and came to some conclusions, but most importantly I came to the conclusions as to what I wanted the game to be about. I want the game to be about you discovering new creatures, trying them out in battle and picking the ones that suit your playstyle and taste and using them to beat the challenges that I lay in front of you. Using the combination of attack speed, attack ranges, defense, hp and attack stats to create very unique creatures that all play a little differently. I hope that the alpha can give you a little sense of how I want to make each creature feel a little different.

Pokemon Tower Defense 2 updates!
Many of you know that I've always wanted to make a Pokemon MMO but obviously I would need the copyright to make it happen. Cosmoids is a way to creature my own original creatures so that I can still make a creature MMO in my lifetime. Cosmoids is very important to the future of Sam & Dan Games cause it make it our first truly original game that we distribute to any place we want. Steam, Android, Appstore etc. So in many ways Cosmoids is going to get a lot of my attention from here on out. That doesn't mean that I'm not going to be working on PTD2. I will continue to do updates for PTD2 but with a slight change in focus.

My focus now is more on getting more attacks and more creatures into the game each week. You might have noticed I'm doing giveaways the last few weeks starting with Luvdisc and then Litwick. These particular giveaways are a sort of experiment. I'm curious to see if eventually these 2 will be common among users as more and more are breed. Luvdisc will take longer in my opinion because right now it can only breed with itself. Another way I'm adding more pokemon is by starting to allow PTD1 transfers over to PTD2. Each week I want to add at least 3 new families that will be able to transfer. Also I want to reach the mighty level 100 soft cap so that most of the attacks are added in the game and will make transferring from PTD1 and adding new creatures faster as more attacks are added. Also this week I'm adding the Dusk Stone and the Reaper's Cloth so that you can evolve your recently new Ghost Pokemon. The story mode is still very important to me and even 1v1 is important. But these take a lot of time to create, this week I won't be doing a story mode level but next week I will.

So let's look at what I will be working on this week.

Weekly Progess

PTD2 Alpha v1.36.1 Released!

• Mystery Gift (100%) 

 PTD2 Alpha v1.36.1 Released!

• Testing! (100%) - Super Important to test out things before I hand it over to you guys. 
• Bug Fixes (100%)
• Rough Skin Fix (100%)
• Flame Burst AOE Fix (100%)
• New Evolution Items (100%)
• Reaper's Cloth (100%)
• Dusk Stone (100%)
•  PTD1 to PTD2 Transfers (100%) - Pikachu, Sandshrew, Nidoran Female and Nidoran Male Families
• Soft Level Cap Increase to 25 (100%) - 37 New Moves!
• Mirror Move (100%)
• Roar (100%)
• Mega Punch (100%)
• Stockpile (100%)
• Swallow (100%)
• Spit Up (100%)
• Sweet Scent (100%)
• Horn Attack (100%)
• Thunder Fang (100%)
• Fire Fang (100%)
• Rock Blast (100%)
• Baton Pass (100%)
• Cross Poison (100%)
• Water Pulse (100%)
• Protect (100%)
• Crush Claw (100%)
• Amnesia (100%)
• Chip Away (100%)
• Assurance (100%)
• Psybeam (100%)
• Metal Sound (100%)
• Dual Chop (100%)
• Imprison (100%)
• Toxic Spikes (100%)
• Silver Wind (100%)
• FeatherDance (100%)
• Air Cutter (100%)
• Smack Down (100%)
• Bulldoze (100%)
• Steamroller (100%)
• Echoed Voice (100%)
• Refresh (100%)
• Torment (100%)
• Swagger (100%)
• Revenge (100%)
• False Swipe (100%)
• Slash (100%)
• New Pokemon (100%) - Pichu, Dusknoir, Chandelure, Aron, Beldum
• Graphics (100%)
• Stats (100%)
• New Attacks (100%)
• Electro Ball (100%)
• Nasty Plot (100%)
• ThunderBolt (100%)
• Magnet Rise (100%)
• New Abilities (100%)
• Heavy Metal (100%)
• Light Metal (100%)
• Clear Body (100%)
•  Evolutions (100%)
• Add to Breeding Center (100%)
• Add to Trading Center (100%)

That was a lot to read! Thanks for sticking with us and let's make Cosmoids the best that it can be! As always let me know what you think!

Swiss pike courtesy of Russ Dunaway

Following a blog post earlier this year, Russ Dunaway, of Old Glory, commented favourably,on TMP, about the paint job I'd done on the Old Glory figures that make up the bulk of my Italian Wars pike. That would have been enough: But no, Russ went one better and promised to donate, gratis, the figures for a new Swiss phalanx for my efforts. I picked the figures up from Big Andy C. at Vapnartak (York) in February.

Here arethe first 36 of those figures. There will be 72 figures on 12 stands of 6 figures; so the first 36 are here awaiting the other 36 figures painted with a slightly different pallet for more variation. Another 36 armoured front rankers (6 stands) are also on the painting schedule. This will bring my Swiss pike up to 216 figures, plus another 72 Foundry Swiss that I use as French should they be required (for Marignano, etc.). All pictured pike are OG; there are a couple of Foundry halberdiers and command figures (that I had lying around) mixed in. 

Thank you Russ Dunaway!

These figures, once completed, will replace the Landsknechts bulking out the Swiss pike square featured in the previous post. BTW. I'm going to go for the deep square formation - it won by a landslide.

I've already undercoated the next 36.


These will be similar, except that there will be a dark (rather than bright) green. A darker and paler blue than in the previous batch. A red brown, and a dark red. There will be no pink or yellow jackets. Striped trouser will feature yellow and green rather than white. Hats will be black, green, red, and tan.
When added into the spaces on the bases, the mix will be complete.

Unboxing videos and posts from around the web

I have a few things to cover in this post.

1)      The Forums are up Yay! The old forum suffered catastrophic failure due to my ISP changing database format without warning Boo! I suppose if I look on the bright side it means I will have a fresh start with the KS backers (I will send out invites to the private section of the forum when I have time to dedicate to game development)

2)      Updated instructions are now available in PDF format on the main product page of the website. This includes the updated Crusader instructions. You will also find them here in the bolg in the INSTRUCTIONS page (right hand column)

3)      If you are a retailer that is stocking DreamForge product, I would like to add you to my links. Please post a comment here and I will add your information. You don’t need a web presence, I am happy to add the address and phone numbers of brick and mortar locations.

I took a moment to use a little Google-fu and search for unboxing videos and builds. Here are a few that I was able to come up with so far, displayed in no particular order. I know I am missing some, I apologize if I overlooked your post; if you would like to be added, just post a comment to this story and I will update the links. And a BIG thank you for all those posting these!

 

Mordian 7th   Part1   Part 2   Part3

Reobeast    Part1  Part2   Part3

Games and life   Link

Between the Bolter and me   Link

Pick a damn army  Part1  Part2  Part3

Moon tank   Link

Warpstone pile  Link

Tabletop Online (German)   Link

A Gentalman's War   Link

Photos  Link


 And now for some YouTube action ;)

Warchild40k

 

 

 

 The Second Founding

Spikey Bits

 

Silver Skull Gamer

 

Which looks better?

At Cerignola there were about three and a half thousand Swiss pikemen. I'm currently planning on re-fighting this battle at a figure scale of about 1:20. This gives, using nice round numbers, 180 Swiss pike figures (30 stands of 6). That is a lot of figures to deploy as a block, and far more than I'm used to - so which of the following looks better?

Please note: I do know that there are 12 stands of Landsknechts in this unit - I'm in the process of painting up the 72 Swiss replacement figures.

 The two shots above show them deployed in 6 ranks of 30 files - I'll call this "Linear".

The two shots above show them deployed in 10 ranks of 18 files. I'll call this "Square".

So, which do you think is better, looks better, etc?

REVISED LEVIATHAN CRUSADER INSTRUCTIONS

All changes have been made in bold red type and noted with a red circle. Without the CAD files I was unable to add in missing component renders but I did make notations as needed.

For PDF copy click here

My first build of the plastic Leviathan Crusader

I have built several resin kits but this is my first plastic Leviathan. I had a small hiccup with the instructions; one of the components was listed with the wrong part number… I emailed all the backers and posted an update for this step on my INSTRUCTIONS page.

 

The build was what I call a service grade, I cleaned up all the major tabs but did not go into spending time filling small seams or scraping every tiny parting line. It took about eight hours to complete… You do not want to approach this kit when you are short on time or having a bad day.

You will need:

A sharp Exacto knife to deal with the tab leftovers

A sprue cutter to remove the parts, but do not cut too close as the plastic will shrink back slightly; far better to trim it with the knife once it is off the sprue.

A small file will be helpful but is not required.

Model Cement; I prefer Testors orange tube (Please do not use superglue, the bond will be inferior)

 Some notes and thoughts:

The Capacitor Cooler and Excalibur sword options are permanent modifications to the base kit… You should choose what you want before gluing. You could get tricky by magnetizing for the capacitor coolers but that will take some work.

The screwdriver that comes with the kit is good for some of the areas, but the major joints, where you need a lot of tension created, you will need a larger screwdriver for better leverage.

Be careful about stripping the screw, if you over tighten you will strip the plastic part and end up with no way to add tension. Unfortunately there is no way to tell when this will happen… So use caution. I think the screws in the sword arm will be the easiest to strip, as they have the smallest teeth (threads).

Step 39: where you lock the legs into the ball joints: It is easier if you slide the cup over the ball joint and then insert the cup/ball into the leg socket. If you try to put the cup in the leg and then insert the hip ball joint you will need to use A LOT of force to get it to work ;) I tried it and decided to fish the cup out of the leg rather than attempt to force it.

As I stated earlier, there are some issues with the instructions. I will post an update ASAP but the worst of the issue is already noted on the instructions page in the link above.

Having built a few resin kits, this model was still a major departure, sure it looks the same but from an engineering and part design standpoint it is a very different kit. I spent twenty minutes just playing with poses and having fun… No way to do that with the resin kits. I was smiling ear to ear :)

Take your time, enjoy the build and I think you are going to love this kit.

 

Cheers!

Mark

Newly recruited Gendarme types

Someone once said that a wargamer could never have too many Landsknechts. Well the same goes for Gendarmes in my opinion. I have added another 6 units, each of 8 figures, to the 'heavy metal' pile. This week I painted half of them. This is a strange batch, in that it comprises several ebay purchases (hence only 5 barded horses in the mix instead of 8) rather than a chosen mix, but there is still enough variation to make them look irregularly dressed.

To speed up the painting I have not been over ambitious in the 'design' of dress. No vines and flowers in this batch, I'm afraid, just simple geometric designs. But, they look good enough for me.

Also, there is only one standard bearer. He was a spare from the re-basing of the collection. In the next batch of three units, I'll do 5 standard bearers - thus giving one for each new unit.

All figures are Foundry, but lances are by TAG. All were painted by me in Humbrol enamels, though the highlights on the metal bits is Vallejo (because Humbrol bright silver, is no longer bright!)

Anyway, here are the new additions. They still require some groundwork on the basing (as usual, LOL).

DreamForge-Games Talent Search

DreamForge-Games is a small company located in California, we produce plastic miniatures for the tabletop gaming industry.

I started DreamForge-Games about twelve years ago with an eye to do something I enjoy and break my ties to the corporate grind. It has been a slow and sometimes tumultuous process but I have always approached this career choice with a passion. It is important to me to find individuals that share the same passion for what they do. In my humble opinion, you must enjoy what you are doing or the end result will not be equal to your potential.

As we step out into the gaming community with a larger number of products and begin to fully develop Iron Core the game, it becomes essential to form new relationships and contacts with other talented individuals.

With this in mind, I wanted to reach out to those who may be interested in working with me on a wide variety of subjects and disciplines.

Miniature - Model painters: Immediate need!

Creative and Technical writers:

Game designers:

Graphics designers:

Web designers - Flash animators.

2D Artists:

3D Artist:

 

If you like our vision or products and would like to be considered, please send your contact information to submissions@dreamforge-games.com

In your email, please take a moment to introduce yourself or your company.

What experience do you have that you feel would be applicable.

Examples or links to your work.

Expected compensation; your hourly or per piece or project rate.

I would ask for your understanding and patience in regards to our vetting and response to your submissions, my plate is full with current responsibilities but I look forward to discussing the current and future projects with you at the earliest possible convenience.

All the best!

Mark Mondragon
DreamForge-Games
http://dreamforge-games.com/
http://clicksofamouse.blogspot.com/

Exploring the world of Minecraft

Around 2 and half years ago I started to hear news surrounding a small indie game development team called Mojang from Sweden. The concept of the game sprung out at me, imagine Lego + sandbox video game. This game was going to allow me to build structures just like Lego did and also let me create and tell my own story. Already Minecraft was starting to sink its teeth into me and had no intention of letting go.

Minecraft is a sandbox game, when you are first dropped into its “blocky” world your first task is to find/build shelter. With no materials to hand you have to gather wood by running up to trees and punching them until its drops a block. This block can be picked up by the player and then crafted into tools, say an axe. Use the axe to then gather more wood quickly and then you can create more tools such as a spade, pickaxe or a sword. This all sounds quite surreal, so just below is a video of me playing the first 20 minutes.

(Sorry about the quality and fps. The quality of the videos will improve soon)

Minecraft has come a long way since I first started playing its early Alpha/Beta stages. Hundreds of new features have been added over the years to keep the game fresh and appealing. This is why I have a love for Minecraft and its eager and committed community. Updates for the game arrive every month which include new features and bug fixing. The community is always growing and with over 9 million copies of the game sold to date and it looks like it’s not stopping anytime soon. As Minecraft got bigger and bigger more people started to look at what it had to offer. As part of the Redbridge Games Network, I was interested to see how Minecraft could play a part in the classroom. Just over a year ago I stumbled across Joel Levin better known as MinecraftTeacher on Twitter and Tumblr. He began his own Minecraft club at his school in New York. I started looking at the work he and his pupils were creating and instantly I wanted to follow in his footsteps. His idea was to create a self-built community by the children whilst looking at different aspects of learning. They were covering Literacy, Numeracy, PSHCE (Citizenship) and even Design and Technology.

In September 2011 I started my first Minecraft club; it was aimed at low achieving boys in year 4. It was going to be a creative writing club. I had 8 boys in the club and we started to play Minecraft together. I had bought 4 Minecraft accounts so we could all play on the same server (one account per pair) and play together in the same world. I had already edited this world so when the game started we all began on a beach with a sunken ship just off the coast. I told them they were all miners travelling to South America by boat when they had been hit by a storm and woken up on this island. What should we do? Where should we go? What are our priorities?
Over the course of the 6 week unit we created Wordles, diary accounts and audio logs of our time on the island. They had all really enjoyed the experience and word spread around the school that I was using Minecraft in lessons. Some excellent work was produced and I have posted some of this in the post. As word spread of Minecraft club more and more pupils wanted to join. I decided to change the clubs name to Creative Worlds in January 2012 and took the club in a different direction. My aim was to take children from years 4, 5 and 6 who didn’t really know each other and create a community around Minecraft. The club was more about working together and building cohesion between the pupils who had never really spoken to each other before in school.
I was going to be blogging about this club but I just never got around to recording all the wonderful things the pupils had created. I have a few of the worlds saved and it was amazing to watch their world come to life with more buildings, shops, swimming pools and rocket ships. 

Starting this week I have new club of 16 children and together we are going to write about our experiences once a week. The children will be contributing to the posts and explain what they are getting from using Minecraft in the classroom. In these blog posts I will be going into more detail about how to set-up servers and creating multiplayer games. I will also talk about how to use the excellent tool from Minecraftedu which allows the teacher full control of the world and the players to give the lesson more focus when needed. I’m very excited to start a new journey in Minecraft, it is a brilliant multi-purpose learning tool and I hope to show what it has to offer over the coming weeks.

Simon

@The_ALT_Teacher

What our customers think of the new DreamForge kits

This project is far from over and not without oversights and mistakes. There are a few things I wish we would have done differently and a few processes that I need to implement before we move to the next stage. Such are the realities for a small company building a relationship and process with another company a world away.

The Kickstarter orders are starting to make it into the hands of the backers, and the question is what do our customers have to say?

 

(Quotes pulled from Dakka Dakka, Facebook and the DreamForge Kickstarter page).

 “They are without a doubt the best plastic miniatures I have ever looked at or handled in my entire life of 32 years.

The level of detail is crazy. The level of customization is insane. The Leviathan just is absurdly amazing. A marvelous feat of engineering. Also retail is $120 on it. They will be available for preorder soon but only will ship after all KS backers have received theirs.

Dreamforge and Wargames Factory have absolutely conquered the plastic miniatures market. Renedra and Citadel look like crap compared to these kits.”

 

“As for future kickstarters, as long as Mark makes pretty models he will continue to receive my paychecks.”

 

 “Just some first impressions when opening up the boxes:

1) The box is awesome. Great printing and high quality cardboard. Not cheap and flimsy.
2) All the sprues were stacked then sealed in a plastic bag. I liked that touch as nothing is flying around.
3) holy crap that detail. I may have to buy a new sprue cutter because I feel dirty if I touch these models with my tainted pair (used to cut GW)
4) The instructions for the stormtroopers is kind of difficult to understand at first.” (Note: The revised instruction insert did not make it in time for the Kickstarter orders)

 “Braved the snows of Eastern PA to pick up my package of plastic goodness this morning, and I had high hopes for thing, almost too high. But there were the kits, nestled under a crumpled copy of the Deseret News, and all I can say is my hopes were not too high, and Judgedoug  (the first feedback posted) was not overselling things at all.

I literally said "wow" when I opened up my accessory kit: the number of bits is staggering, I mean, I knew on some level the number of items, but to actually see them, as opposed to just numbers, almost incredible! The detail on the models is better than I have ever seen on plastic models, better then I even thought possible.”

 “Mark, just want to give you and WGF kudos for these models and how excellent they fit together! Damn nice miniatures indeed - can't wait to get my Morty.”

 “This afternoon, I received my Leviathan Crusader model kit with Kickstarter bonuses. Very high quality kit with very crisp moldings and sharp detail - easily superior to GW's Gargant. I'm very impressed with DFG's design and WGF's execution & production.”


"I just got my Eisenkern Troopers in today, and I must say; WOW!! These are some of the best molded figures Ive seen in a long, long, time! Clean, crisp detail, flawless join edges, absolutely no warping at all! Just terrific! I had some concern about mold quality, since my Greatcoat Troopers from Wargames Factory were quite disappointing, but these are just stellar! I should have pledged for more sets!!!"

 

All very high praise; I am more than aware that these are the first glance reviews and that there is a certain amount of excitement in holding something new. I will take the compliment and say thank you again to all the backers who made these kits a reality.

All the best!

Mark Mondragon

DreamForge-Game

Note on assembly:
Please don't use any kind of Superglue... You will simply frustrate yourself on a multi part mini and end up with an inferior build. It does not bond well and it dries too fast to allow you to tweak the pose.

Use Testors model cement, the stuff in the orange tube. Trust me.... You will thank me for it.

 

Endless ramblings of a cluttered mind

 

Mark from the Second Founding podcast, kindly asked if I would be willing to do an interview. Little did he know that I have a rather poor habit of going off on tangents ;) This seems to be a side effect of being stuck behind a computer monitor for twelve hours a day.

We discussed many aspects of the current line, future plans and the Iron Core game system. Please excuse the sound quality, Skype was a little sketchy.

You can listen to the podcast here

 

Friendship and Happiness! Evolution Stones, Unown Problem and more!

Want to get the Shiny Starters? Shiny Zorua? Shiny legendary dogs? Shiny Mew? or any other shiny pokemon in the game? Adopt them today using SnD coins! Click here for more info.

Visit the PTD: Pokemon Center - a place to trade pokemon, get your Daily Code, adopt Pokemon, view your items and change your avatar!

Welcome to the Sam & Dan Games Developer Blog! Let's begin!

Fundraiser Continues!
The fundraiser continues on this week, the first 1% took a loooong time but the second % took only 3 days, maybe things are picking up, only 98 more to go! Let's look at more information for the fundraiser, if you already read it then feel free to skip ahead since I didn't add anything new this week. This is mainly for those who haven't read anything on it and to remind you that we are still doing this. :)

Sam & Dan Games: Fundraiser! Phase 2
Our Goal: $50,000
Raised so far: $2,700.84
Percentage so far: 5.401%
Total Funders so far: 2834 (Number drastically increased due to new ways to donate!)
Last updated: 2/20/13 (5:44 PM EST)

What is this fundraiser about?

Dan and I love making games and we want to continue to make them. If you are reading this then I suspect you have enjoyed PTD and PTD2 quite a bit. Right now Dan has another full time job since we don't make enough to support him. I work full time on the games, relying heavily on ad revenue from the trading center/blog and a part of the SnD coin sales. While those sources provide some help they are far from steady. If ads and sales go down it could potentially lead to me having to stop making games or spend considerably less time working on them. Meaning less updates for you guys. We really don't want it to get to that point so we decided to humble ourselves and ask you, the fans, for help.

The 50k amount might seem like a lot but in reality it is the bare minimum we need to be able to keep working on games for the rest of this year.

Do I get anything for funding?

Yes! Absolutely! We always want to reward our fans when they give to us. Like I mentioned before on a previous blog we will have many prizes for those that donate to us. Some of the prizes include:

• Cosmoids Creatures for your PTD2 account
• Shiny Legendary Pokemon only available to people who help us fund
• Special Exclusive Creature for Cosmoids
• Special Titles for your Trading Account
• Access to the early Alpha version of Cosmoids

The current announced prizes are the following:

• Donate any amount - Access to the Early Alpha Version of Cosmoids with Sam's Graphics
• Just for donating you will get a code that will let you play Cosmoids and give feedback on the game before anybody else. Note: The Early Alpha Version is not released yet.
• Donate $5 or more - Shiny Legendary Rayquaza for your PTD2 account + Previous Prize
• You will get 2 Shiny Rayquaza for your ptd2 account. Note: These will be given out next week.

What is are the Phases?
Since we are constantly working on updates for you guys we have to take everything we do little by little. So the funding will have different phases.

Each phase will come when new prizes are announced. Regardless of when you donate if you have donated enough to qualify for a prize you will receive it once the prize is available.

Sounds good! I want to support you guys, how do I do it?
Thank you! To support us just click on the donate amount below and enter the amount you wish to donate. We will send you the activation code for your donation in an email.

Is there a way to donate without needing a credit credit card?
Yes! You can now watch a short video to donate a few cents and get access to the rewards. You can also complete free offers and surveys to donate. Go to the Pokemon Center's Funding Rewards page to watch the video or complete the offers.

Questions?
If you have any questions at all, email me at support@sndgames.com

Common Questions:

• What if my paypal email is different from my PTD2 email? How will I get the prizes to my PTD2 account?
• Easy! When you make a donation we will reply with a code to your paypal email. On your PTD2 email you can use the code in the near future to activate your prizes. So the paypal email does NOT need to match your ptd email since you will just need the code itself.
• It has been more than 24 hours since my donation but I haven't received any emails?
• First check your Junk Folder for any emails from us. Second if you have nothing on your Junk Folder or you accidentally deleted it then email us at sam@sndgames.com with your paypal email and we will get you your code.

Please allow us up to 24 Hours to process your donation. Cosmoids Early Alpha will begin next week. Hold on to your codes until then. If you haven't received your code and it has been more than 24 hours then check your Junk Folder for the email. Also add orders@sndgames.com to your contacts so that it won't enter your junk folder.

Friendship and Happiness!
One of the most requested things to add to the game is a way to evolve pokemon that need a high friendship value to evolve. This week I hope to bring that into the game.The way I will implement it is that you can buy a friendship item in the pokemon center using snd coins or daily coins to increase their happiness. Once their happiness is high enough you can evolve that pokemon without having to level up!


Evolution Stones
Just like happiness it's time to add in Evolution Stones. These will also be acquired using daily coins or snd coins.


New Daily Coin Activity
Because we are adding new items to buy with daily coins we will be adding at least one new daily coin activity that you can do to earn your daily coins. I don't have the exact details of it figured out yet but I will talk about it more as the week progresses.


An Unown Problem and a Hidden Power Solution
So Story wise on PTD2 the next spot is the Ruins of Alph which feature the mysterious Unown pokemon. In the original games you would have an Unown for every letter in the alphabet and for ! and ?. The way PTD2 is coded does not support having these different forms so I run into the problem of how I'm going to do it. Unown also learn only one attack called Hidden Power. This move changes depending on the Individual Values of your Pokemon. IV is something that I don't have in PTD2 either. So here I am with two things that don't really fit what I have here. One solution is to add these features into the game but that will take a long time and it's not something I had planned to do. So instead I came up with my own solution. Many might not like it but it is how it's going to be.


So basically the solution is that your Unown will not have a specific form. His form will be randomize every time you play the game. So when you log in the Unown will pick a random letter and become that form while you are playing. Next time you log in it will again randomly pick which form. The same thing will happen with the move Hidden Power. It will change it's type and attack power randomly when you start a battle. So every battle you could get a different type and power but once the battle is going it will stay the same.

Mystery Gift Shelmet
Last week you guys choose Karrablast as your Bug Mystery Gift but as many of you know and mentioned you need Shelmet to make Karrablast evolve. So this week we will get Shelmet and evolutions will be possible! All rejoice!

Funder's prize Shiny Rayquaza
So Rayquaza won the poll and this week I will work on giving those out at the end of the week. Stay tuned! 

Cosmoids Evolution
Cosmoids is still under development, I think when I say something like that a lot of you might imagine me and our artist putting many hours into it but the reality is that there aren't enough hours in the day to really give each project a lot of time. The development that is happening for Cosmoids are different conversations about how the game should play. What changes do we want to make from the PTD formula? How should we present changing moves during a battle? Talking to artist about needing a specific designs, getting updates about their progress. The actual work going on is me making some graphics and starting to put together the basic programming for the game that will be the foundation for the project. There is so much to do but so little time, especially when I'm working on PTD2.

Other ways to donate
UPDATE: You can now donate by watching a short video ad or completing free offers and surveys. You get access to the Cosmoids Alpha once that is released and you can eventually accumulate enough to earn other rewards.Go the the Pokemon Center's Funding Rewards page to watch them or complete the offers.


So let's look at the specifics for this week!


Weekly Progress
My Status: Not Working.

PTD 2 Alpha v1.34.1 Released!

• Mystery Gift- Shelmet!
• Added Shelmet and Karrablast Evolution when traded for eachother

PTD2 v1.34 Released!

• New Pokemon
• Graphics
• Stats
• Move List
• Evolutions
• Add to Breeding Center
• Add to Trading Center
• New Attacks
• Dark Pulse
• Detect
• Metal Claw
• Bone Rush
• DoubleSlap
• Bide
• Struggle Bug
• Mega Drain
• Hidden Power
• Acid Spray
• Double Team
• Quick Guard
• Twister
• Crunch
• Hyper Voice
• New Abilities
• Justified
• Hydration
• Overcoat
• Sticky Hold
• Air Lock
• Fixed 1v1 Ekans Battle
• New Story Level
• New Map
• Ruins Of Alph Outside
• Ruins Of Alph Inside
• Battle Layout
• Unown Map
• Police Map
• Battle Waves
• Unown Map
• Police Map
• Testing New Moves and Pokemon
• New Daily Activity - Breed a pokemon!
• Friendship
• Implementing item in-game
• Implementing in Pokemon Center - Item Store
• Evolution Stones
• Implementing item in-game
• Implementing in Pokemon Center - Item Store

Cosmoids PreAlpha v0.01 Progress

•  Level 1 (0%)
• Graphics (0%)
• Backgrounds (60%) 
• Title Screen (100%)
• Authentication Screen (0%)
• Room (100%) - Movie Scene
• Island (100%) - Movie Scene
• Level 1 (0%) - Island Path Area
• Units (100%)
• Boy (100%)
• Caterpillar (100%)
• Moth (100%)
• Man (100%)
• Attacks (0%)
• Bug Repellant Bomb (0%)
• Programming (30%)
• Framework (100%) - Basic code that handles changing screens, adding popups, mouse clicks, keyboard input and running the game.
• Title Screen (100%)
• Authentication Screen (0%)
• Movie Scenes (100%)
• Tutorial (0%)
• Level 1 (0%)
• Attacks (0%)
• Bug Repellant Bomb (0%)
• Tiny Bites (0%)
• Waves (0%)
• Win Screen (0%)
• Lose Screen (0%)
• Pre-Level Information screen (0%)

So that's what we have coming this week! Keep checking back to see how I'm doing during the week! Thanks for coming! As always let me know what you think!

Pre-Orders for the Crusader and Eisenkern troopers

Some stores have opened up pre-orders for the new release kits!

Some retailers that have offered pre-orders at significant discounts from MSRP.

USA
Cool Mini or Not
Bell of Lost Souls Market
Spiky Bits
The Warstore
Front Line Gaming
Paizo
The Combat Company
Michigan Toy Company

Germany
Fantasylanden
Radaddel
Tabletop online shop

Russia
Sky shop Лавочка Ская

UK
Caliver Books
North Star

Taiwan
Mini Shoppa

Spain
Goblintrader
Uimera
E-Minis

Not me... I have not had time to update my website, in fact I am looking at new cart software to better manage the back end.

If you are a retailer that will be carrying our line, please feel free to send me an email with your website or physical address and I will add you to my list of retailers and distributors so that my customers know where to find our kits.

I would love to help out the FLGS with a bit of free advertising.

Very exciting to see all this come together! Thank you all for the support.