Getting Back Into Game Design...

Ever since we settled in here at our new home in the mountains, I have had the writing bug something fierce. I had lost it for some time, the cause for which I will not discuss on this semi-public forum. But now it's back, and it's back with a vengeance.

In the last three or so months, I have done the following, rules-wise:

• Written the WWI supplement for BOB (that's short for "Battle Over Berlin", the air combat rules I've used for club and convention games for about a decade now). The BOB concepts are solid, and I think I'll try them with space fighter combat next to really see how far we can push them before they break.
  
• Written a full set of rules for the pre-painted Star Wars miniatures, allowing for much larger battles and generally more satisfying game play. They are nothing like the rules that came with the game, other than a few cosmetic issues, and they have been well received by the CGC so far. Unfortunately, they are of course not publishable due to licensing issues, but I may make them available for free here as I don't believe I can get into trouble doing that.
• I have likewise written a set of rules for spaceship combat, originally intentioned for using the pre-painted Star Wars starship minis. They will ultimately work for any space combat though, and I hope to publish them in a more generic format (i.e. - without reference to the Star Wars universe) once they are polished.
• I am 40 or so pages into a set of fantasy-genre combat rules called "Fantasy Action Game" (which results in an acronym unacceptable to the PC crowd...). The intent is to allow for fast and heroic fantasy combat in an RPG environment. It uses rules which are, at their heart, similar to HHH!, but only in basic concept. Models advance in skills, just as in HHH! and GF!, but there are many more choices of skills (and spells), resulting in much more variety of character. Every time I sit down to work on these rules, I think "There's no way this can work", but then I reread everything written to date and realize that it is all pretty solid. It's one of my more original concepts and I hope to subject the CGC gang to it soon.
• This morning I was inspired by the wonderful variety of 15mm sci-fi figures on the market and started re-writing my version of the legendary "Combat!" game. It will not be called Combat!, as I have informed my good friend Thomas that the name is his to do with as he pleases. The working title is "BSR-7", which is short for "Bit Stompy Robot 7", the words are an homage to Mike McGraw (of Arnica fame) and the number refers to the core rules concept which I have come to call the "Lucky 7" system. It is the basic concept behind the Star Wars and space combat rules listed above. It works quite well. I'm not one to muck with success and think it will work here too. The core rules are all written. Next on the to-do list is write rules for building your own units (i.e. - army lists).
• Legends of Kung-Fu is my current long-term project. I am on the second rewrite. As a life-time martial artist, I am perhaps taking this game too seriously, but I believe that the current concepts are the best to date and worth fleshing out. Plus, I just have to use that gigantic Chinese inn that Doug's folks made for me. And I've finally eaten enough pizzas to fill the thing with scale tables!
  

So, lots of playtesting and (hopefully) fun on the horizon. Remember guys, nothing can hurt as much as Starship!...

Cheers!

- Rod