Hairy Squirmuss! It’s the most volatile time of the year! Learn about a new card that was just released! Hear about a bunch of really good sales! Learn about what is contained within the Squirmish Arcade Cabinet of Curiosities! And more! CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL EMAIL BLAST!
Hiya, Pal!
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| Thanks for joining the Squirmish Email Club! I’m Steven Stwalley, the game designer and cartoonist behind Squirmish, The Card Game of Brawling Beasties. It has been a while since I have sent anything out to this list. How have you been? Still hanging out at the same bus stop? Did you ever finish that enormous pile of mashed potatoes you were working on? Is that rash doing any better? Well, I hope all is well with you. |
| I’m going to start sending news out this way on a more regular basis, so tell your pals! Or, if this sounds awful, unsubscribe! I do hope you’ll stay with me, though, as I enjoy your refined digital company, your wit, and the many impressive ways in which you can imitate the sounds of flatulence. |
| I have a lot of wondrous Squirmish updates to share with you. Like this: |
| The first and most exciting update is that the Squirmish Videogame is almost ready to be released! It will be out this May on Steam. It is designed for single player or two-player PVP play. There are a bunch of new characters of varying degrees of brain-smartses for you to do battle against. |
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Squirmish Discord Server
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| Squirmish now has a Discord Server! Come and talk with your fellow card-brawlers about the ins, outs and intricacies of the game of Squirmish. Debate the merits of The Wee Admiral of the Sea! Discuss advanced strategies! Post fan art! Share your Killgor the Conqueror fan fic! Report game bugs! I hope to hang out with you there! |
| I thought some of you may enjoy seeing some production art in these emails. I still do most of my initial work on paper like some weird Victorian, if you can believe that. I have a pretty esoteric and probably overly-complicated process for creating most of my Squirmish art. It usually goes like this: |
| 1: I scribble on paper. Then I let the scribbles inform some rough pencils that I draw. Then I tighten the pencils just enough to feel comfortable for the inking. |
| 2. I ink on paper, usually using a Pentel Pocket Brush Pen, the single greatest drawing tool ever invented. |
| 3. I do a 600 DPI greyscale scan the black and white art. |
| 4. I convert the scan to vector art in Adobe Illustrator, |
| 5. I paste that vector art into Adobe Animate and clean it up. Then I create three layers. The top layer I leave as black and white line art. The middle layer I color with flat color. The bottom layer I take the shape of all the lines and filled color and make all black to block any potential gaps in the artwork. On the color layer, I generally expand the shape of the color fills by 2 pixels to nest the edges of the color under the lines on the top layer. |
| 6. Once I’m happy with the flat coloring in Adobe Animate, I export the three layers as three separate .svg files. |
| 7. I import my .svg files into three layers in an Adobe Photoshop document. The nice thing about this is that it leaves all my color and line art as vector art, which is infinitely scalable if I ever want to change the size for different purposes. |
| 8. Then I start toning in Photoshop using a stylus on a Huion Kamvas Drawing Tablet. I usually start with the darks. I create a layer between the color and line art and work with black, usually at around 25% opacity. Once I’m happy with the toning, I usually convert the layer to a multiply layer. |
| 9. Then I start with the lights, adding another layer on top of the darks layer. I usually draw with white at around 25% opacity, and then usually apply a blending mode (often overlay at the end. |
| 10. Next, I usually another layer on top of that for highlights. For that I use white at 100% opacity. |
| 11. I sometimes add other layers of other colors, lights and tones to get it looking snappy. |
| 12. After that, I generally add a simple background behind everything with shadows and light of its own. |
| Here is some rough art on paper I used in creating the Squirmish Email Club header at the top of this email. |
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Squirmish: The Videogame of Brawling Beasties is coming very soon… so soon that there is now a store page for it on Steam here.
We enlisted the help of Carl the Steam Wishlist Fairy to automatically add Squirmish to your Steam wishlist so you will know when it becomes available to download and play… but that did not work out so well. Please help Carl out by going to the Squirmish Steam Store and clicking “Add to Your Wishlist.”
Carl means well.
Squirmish: The Videogame of Brawling Beasties is a hilarious turn-based card-battling game based on the critically-acclaimed tabletop game of the same name. Battle bizarre and ridiculous cards in both single-player and online PVP multiplayer modes. Rumble against a horde of ridiculous opponents created just for the videogame, such as Tutufly, Picklepuss and Beatknock. Easy to learn how to play… but the strange strategies and interactions of the wildly-varying cards create a unique, unpredictable and infinitely-playable game!
#squirmish #squirmishgame #videogame #videogames #cardgame #cardgames #tcg #ccg #cardfighting #cardbattler #cardbattling #steam #earlyaccess #comingsoon #game #games #funny #monsters #beasts #lunatics #comic #comics #cartoons
Just in time for Halloween, Squirmish has been reviewed at dadsuggests.com as one of “The Best Monster Board Games for the Family!” Read it here.
“Squirmish is a very original card-battle game with the most incredibly imaginative monsters. I can’t stress enough how funny the creatures are in this game. From their pictures, to their descriptions, to their powers – it’s all so creative and hilarious.” -Ryan Billingsley at dadsuggests.com
The other day I was feeling overwhelmed and helpless reading about coronavirus.
In one article I ran across (I can’t find it now, unfortunately) a mother mentioned that there were no good resources she knew of for teaching kids not to touch their faces to avoid getting sick. Well, that seemed like a problem I could take a crack at helping with.
Over the last week, I put together a free print-and-play game on the subject, appropriately named “DON’T TOUCH YOUR FACE!” It makes the surprisingly difficult task of not touching your face into a fun, competitive challenge. I hope it gives some families out there some help and some laughs in these difficult times of itchy noses that must stay itchy.
Download DON’T TOUCH YOUR FACE 1.0 (color version)
Download DON’T TOUCH YOUR FACE 1.0 (B&W version)
Please feel free to share and distribute.
#coronavirus #pandemic #games #printandplay #kids #kidsgames #kidsactivities #activities #educationalgames #educational #handwashing #safety
UPDATE: It has been pointed out to me that you can read the full review in English at the DeskoveHry site here. Check it out!
Squirmish just received its first Czech review at DeskoveHry.com!
“Squirmish je elegantní karetní řežba, při které všichni bojují se všemi a při tom mohou využívat řadu bláznivých schopností. Právě humor a lehkost je tím nejvýraznějším, čím dokáže novinka bodovat a to opravdu úspěšně.”
Google translate claims this means:
“Squirmish is an elegant card game where everyone struggles with everyone and can use a variety of crazy skills. It is the humor and lightness that is the most striking, so the new one can score and it is really successful.”
Elegantní!
Then there is:
“Po řadě partií můžeme svědomitě prohlásit, že je pro nás tahle hra ohromným překvapením. Ze všech stran z ní totiž čiší hratelnost, kterou vlastně nelze vysvětlit jednotlivými částmi. Povedlo se je totiž poskládat tak dobře, že si prostě budete partie jednoduše užívat. A nevadí vůbec, jestli je hra náhodná nebo chaotická. To se děje především zásluhou řady schopností.”
Which google translate claims means:
“After a number of games, we can make a conscious statement that this game is a great surprise for us. From all sides, it’s a gameplay that can not be explained by individual parts. It has been so easy to put together that you simply enjoy the game. And it does not matter if the game is accidental or chaotic. This is mainly due to a number of capabilities.”
Ohromným překvapením!
And don’t miss:
“Squirmish je nádherně bláznivou karetní hrou, kterou se vám chce hrát pořád dokola. To proto, že je od začátku do konce plná akce a hráči jsou do bitvy neustále zapojení. K tomu ještě přidejte vynikající grafické provedení a dostanete lahůdku, která se stane oblíbencem všech. Squirmish by se rozhodně měla stát adeptem pro lokalizaci, protože nám svojí bláznivostí připomíná extrémně úspěšného Munchkina. Tak snad její přijetí u hráčů bude podobně výtečné.”
Which google translate interprets as:
“Squirmish is a gorgeously crazy card game you want to play around all the time. This is because there is full action from start to finish and players are constantly involved in the battle. Add a great graphic design and get a treat that will become the favorite of all. Squirmish should definitely become an adept for localization because of our crazy reminders of an extremely successful Munchkin. So her admission to the players will be similarly excellent.”
You can read the full review here! Thanks much for the review, @DeskoveHryCom !
#gamewright #game #games #gaming #cardgame #cardgames #cardgaming #tcg #ccg #gamereview #gamereviews #squirmishgame
Squirmish was recently mentioned on the excellent Nice Games Club podcast by my pal Mark LaCroix… go give it a listen! https://nicegames.club/2019/01/nicest-of-2018/
“We’ve played a lot of card battle games over the years. While the theme generally varies from one to the next, the mechanics of these games are very similar… Seldom do I open a card battle game box and go, “Hmmm. That’s a cool component.” But that’s what happened when I opened Squirmish from Gamewright.” – Sahm Reviews
