New Website and a Stone Cold Update!
Over the past week, circumstances dictated that we migrate our website to a new server. To make a long story short: Thanks to many hours of focus from our friend B.A. Umberger (a.k.a. Old Man Umby), an entirely new website, is now up-and-running. When you go to our domain stonemountain.press, the new landing page looks like the header image above! Below is a close-up of the menu bar:
You will find that the site's organization familiar with sub-pages dedicated to each game, including free downloads and video links. We are still in the process of updating some pieces, and we plan to expand the site further as we flesh out our catalog. The new site features a blog application with which we are experimenting. In fact, this is the first communique we've attempted through this application.
Hockey is Intense and Complex
Thus, it comes as no surprise that the development phase of our little hockey game has shared these qualities. We've been engaged daily with a respected and focused group of gamers for the past month. The transformation of the game engine itself has been amazing!
What started as an adaptation of Dice United to hockey has been turbocharged with ideas and depth. Stone Cold Hockey (SCH) has already become its own game. We are excited about ways that SCH will bring some nuances of hockey to the tabletop that go way beyond the scope of a quick-play game. For instance, the game features a couple of special player roles, Enforcers and Agitators. The true impact of these types of players goes beyond the stats, and they will demonstrate why penalty minutes were not always regarded as a bad thing!
Development and testing will continue through April. It looks like our travel schedule will preclude us from releasing the game ahead of the 2022 playoffs (unless inflation kills those plans!), but we will use the summer months for further testing - hopefully to include a complete season! That timeframe would allow us to offer the 21-22 season along with the launch of the core game in September or October.
In this section, we highlight some of the campaigns, leagues, tournaments, and projects that fellow SMP gamers are conducting online
In February, our friend Travis Jansen was a featured guest on Episode #49 of Tabletop SportCast with James Cast! They covered a lot of ground, such as great replays and co-op projects with PLAAY.com's line of products. Among the topics, they also give you an insider's look at development of GridZone. Check it out!
Boxing at the Summit!
(Delphi and FaceBook)
Several big boxing campaigns continue on Delphi and FaceBook. There is a lot of goodness to keep up with! Al Loschiavo, James Marshall, Geoff Rey, Gustaw Rząsiński, Bob Stokes (and more) all have active tournaments or universes in progress.
The TWFL Nearing the Conclusion of its Ninth Season
Commissioner Scot Long has done an amazing job running this GridZone league! He is the neutral conductor of the action, but don't think for a second that the owners are not actively involved in the week-to-week storylines. In addition to the draft, there are budget, free agency, and game-planning elements to the league. We've already seen a couple of short-lived dynasties, but the off-season processes of GridZone have ensured that it is indeed tough-going at the top. Scot provides a remarkable array of stats and game summaries to ensure that you have all the info you need. And for the current (2029) season, he tried one of the advanced options from the (unreleased) Translations Guide: The d-10 play-call tables. Here's how it works:
This approach keeps the basic (six-slot) table, but adds 4 more configurable slots, numbered 7 through 10. These extra slots may be changed for each opponent. The only rule is that X is limited to 5 of the 10 total slots. In these expanded tables, the first six slots represent a team's core identity, and slots 7-10 represent the game plan for a particular opponent.
Using the d10 tables, you will need two 10-sided dice to replace the two 6-sided dice normally used for offense and defense play-calls. The process remains the same with the defense rolling on the same table as the offense.
If changing play-call tables for each game is too much trouble, you could create d10 tables once (for each team) and use them for the whole season.
