Octopus Overlords

Shinjin wrote:Me! Pick me!

I haven't played this game for probably 10 years and remembering having a blast with this. Going to have to review the ruleset. Maybe dig out my own copy of the game + Armed & Dangerous...

Welcome to the party. We are now full.

At present, I will be out of pocket in the evenings for tonight and (hopefully) tomorrow. Thursday will be for me to comb the rules again and determine the setup. As before, I'm looking at a 4 flag game with a 2*2 setup and a crossing pattern to ensure someone just doesn't run off with it.

Look for a Friday night first hand with a Monday night deadline. My thought at this moment are to have turn deadlines initially set for Monday, Wednesday, Friday nights. Again, as options are awarded for alternate weapons and run-time options, this will slow the phase execution.

I will accept pre-turn/conditional orders at turn beginning if you wish to determine what alternate weapons you may wish to use. This is not required, but may help speed the game along. Do not feel any pressure to make this a requirement. It is to be used solely as you see fit.
"I will use the tractor beam instead of the main laser for this turn."
"I will use the scrambler beam if these players are my targets, main laser for the rest..."

This thread can be used for rules questions/clarifications and the inevitable smack talk.

Can I be Spinbot?

Are you going to chose characters randomly?
What about boards, random?

Certainly. I'll see about getting top-down pics of all the figures and see about labelling them with initials for easy ID. You can either use those, submit your own graphic, or your current avatar. Close to square with a definite top to it for orientation purposes.

Here's a pic of the new figures. The bot names are the same as the old, but the figures had been redesigned.



For board selection, I was thinking of random d6 to determine the four in use, 1d4 to determine orientation, 2d12 to determine (within the rules) the flag placement.

Sounds like a good plan on the board selection. I like how they added a more distinct pointer to the bot direction on the new bases. Are those plastic or metal?

The new ones are plastic. The old ones were pewter. I have to check, but I recall painting the bases in a port/starboard (red/green) configuration for easier recognition and orientation. Depending on the pic quality, I may add a prow line to help distinguish front from back as well.

I want hulkx90!

The last 5 pages here have more accurate artistic representations of the old bots as well as some of their backgrounds. This is also the full original manual and will serve as my reference material.

Here is a base of links from the included Materials. Links 3 and 4 (Factory Floor Guide) are the quick reference sheets from the original game.

The bases on the pewter ones I have are indeed painted port/starboard for orientation.

The movement card priorities are confirmed: 3 > 2 > 1 > Back Up. This comes in handy when attempting to anticipate who's going to get the first move for issues of pushing and bumping.

I wanna be HammerBot.

Bots are being added to the OP list.

Twitch is perfect for me.

Isgrimnur wrote:The last 5 pages here have more accurate artistic representations of the old bots as well as some of their backgrounds.

Actually, all of the backgrounds are represented. There are 2 bots/page,even though only one is named in the link. If you don't see the one you want, you'll just have to click all the pages until you find them.

Edit: I have reading comprehension problems.

Is there actually any difference, game mechanic-wise, to the different bots?

Not a one, but feel free to RP it. Hulk X-90 has always been my favorite, since he thinks he's a lot bigger than he actually is. *STOMP ... STOMP ... STOMP *

Isgrimnur wrote:Not a one, but feel free to RP it. Hulk X-90 has always been my favorite, since he thinks he's a lot bigger than he actually is. *STOMP ... STOMP ... STOMP *

Dibs on Squash-bot then.

I see Twonky has yet to be claimed...

I looked last night and apparently I only painted 4 of my old pewter ones and I'm actually missing one. argh...

Click to embiggen. The start is where the arrow is, since my text didn't come out big enough. I will move to single board snaps for the detail work since the numbered elements are impossible to see at that level.

All of the flags are accessible from at least 3 directions.

Isgrimnur wrote:

Uhm... Maybe turn down the gamma a bit on those? Or perhaps use these:

The pewter ones won't work because we won't be able to tell if they are facing away or left and away. I like the over head shots but agree you need to tweak the gamma.

Click a quadrant to embiggen from 400x400 to 1180x1180

Remus West wrote:The pewter ones won't work because we won't be able to tell if they are facing away or left and away.

How does the presence of the player's name typed on only one side of four not give us the orientation?

Grundbegriff wrote:

Remus West wrote:The pewter ones won't work because we won't be able to tell if they are facing away or left and away.

How does the presence of the player's name typed on only one side of four not give us the orientation?

The presence of the players name when I am sleepy and tired means nothing and is therefore of no help what so ever. Yeah, that's the ticket. That's it.

-30 Brightness, +45 Contrast

Maybe something like this, and the edge with the name counts as the face?

I think the directionals would still be confusing with those. There's always the archive chips that I can scan. I'll throw those up tomorrow.

Isgrimnur wrote:I think the directionals would still be confusing with those.

You and Remus -- bemusing....

I'm going to be the StarWars helmet. W00t! I need to refamiliarize myself with this game. It's been a long time.

Can anyone explain what I have done that has caused all of Grund's pics to show us as the Baroque Potion image? It's a little disturbing to see that so big and repeated so often...

stessier wrote:Can anyone explain what I have done that has caused all of Grund's pics to show us as the Baroque Potion image? It's a little disturbing to see that so big and repeated so often...

Are you linking to octopusoverlords.com through its ip address rather than its domain name? That's my hotlink prevention image.

I hope everyone else is seeing the cool icons, not the fat drunk guy!

Let's make it a poll/vote. Pick your preferred method of ID. I will recuse myself.

Isgrimnur wrote:

I like those.

stessier wrote:Can anyone explain what I have done that has caused all of Grund's pics to show us as the Baroque Potion image? It's a little disturbing to see that so big and repeated so often...

This turned out to be stessier's proxy. If anyone else is getting the fat guy instead of Robo Rally stuff, please let me know!

Isgrimnur wrote:

Let's make it a poll/vote. Pick your preferred method of ID. I will recuse myself.

Aye.

srdaniel wrote:

Isgrimnur wrote:

Aye

+1 (and not just because they don't show up as a Naked Fat Man )

srdaniel wrote:

Isgrimnur wrote:

Aye

Yes. And if we need the actual Archive markers, could just plop a big "A" on it somewhere.

Grundbegriff wrote:

stessier wrote:Can anyone explain what I have done that has caused all of Grund's pics to show us as the Baroque Potion image? It's a little disturbing to see that so big and repeated so often...

This turned out to be stessier's proxy. If anyone else is getting the fat guy instead of Robo Rally stuff, please let me know!

I get the fat guy at work but that is because I have to backdoor in. Here at home everything is fine.

That's 4 votes for the standard chits. I'll get those scanned and posted tomorrow evening.

Assuming no other issues, expect the cards to come out tomorrow evening with a Monday evening deadline.

Since Grund's boards have the best view, I'll be pilfering those for the masters and dropping the graphics over top of them. The start location will be the double wrench on Cannery Row (board 2 of his presentation) at the location of the center column, 4 spaces down from the top.

Current thoughts are that I will post the boards after each phase for a snapshot of the action. Again, to start, we can expect full turns to occur quickly. After that, there will be pauses, say, 24 hours, for any conditional weapons, run-time decisions. The phase results will help visualize when these will be appropriate.

For the first turn, I will need your preferred starting orientation as well. N, E, S, W will work as well as up, right, down, left.

If you have any other questions, please let me know.

Grund, Mortis, any preference on the bots?

Isgrimnur wrote:Since Grund's boards have the best view, I'll be pilfering those for the masters and dropping the graphics over top of them.

FWIW, I snagged those from the gallery at boardgamegeek, so if we go again with other boards, odds are good that you'll find 'em there.

Isgrimnur wrote:Grund, Mortis, any preference on the bots?

I put my name on Trundle in the example tokens. If LM's ok with Zoom, I'll use Trundle.