boardgame and charactersheets

Good news Ricketeers! I'm in the process of making my new Boardgame! I give you:
It's about the perilous road to stardom and the objective is to take your character all the way from the Rock Bottom Bar to the Tippity Top Theatre before anyone else does! Some things will help you on your way like getting sponsorship and or having a "private meeting" with a director, while other things will impede your path, such as acquiring skeletons in the closet. And if your skeletons get found out, it's back to Rock Bottom, or worse!

The game features the main characters of the Animation as playable pieces: Rickety, Roofie, Dolly, Digby, Rascals, and Stumbles, plus the inclusion of Blusto the Bull and Donna Daisy the waitress making it up to 8 players. The game board comes in multiple pieces that can be switched around to make any number of customizable board combinations. Here are a couple of sample pieces I sketched up:
One possibly Combination:
The game idea has gotten fairly good reception since I've pitched it to multiple people, so I'm pretty excited. I'm going to make the entire game a free downloadable PDF that people can print out and play, similar to tabletop roleplaying games. I also plan on making a deluxe version which has more game pieces, more board pieces, different versions of the playable characters, and even new game mechanics that aren't necesarily needed for the game, but make it slightly more interesting to play. I'll probably sell it for like five bucksish.

And if you think I'm not working on the animation anymore, you sir are wrong! I'm in the middle of doing character sheets. I did naked versions of the characters first(which was slightly odd) so I could place multiple clothing pieces over them easily. Check out a few:
I'm having an interesting time providing textures for al of the characters' clothing. I should have more character sheets next week along with some player pieces and card examples.

Keep your eyes peeled and your ears to the floor Ricketeers!

Rickety Rat Boardgame

Hmmm, not for you this week Ricketeers, I had my priorities wrestled elsewhere. Although I did recently think about creating a Rickety Rat papercraft print-out board game in the vein those fancy tabletop games that's all the craze with kids these days. I think it would be significantly easier to design and simpler to make a PDF game doc than creating one of the computer game ideas I wanted(not that you'll never see one of those). Also it would give me a chance to stretch my game design muscles which have been getting pretty soft these days let me tell you. And if I was really crafty, I'd make a simple version that's free and then a super fancier version with more stuff for a small price. How does that all sound?

scenes from the animatic

Hey there Ricketeers! I've finished the animatic! Now I just have to watch it several times and see what needs to be cut or changed. I can't upload the whole thing because a) It's way too big, and b) I really don't want to spoil anything. BUT I can give you a taste of it! Here's a scene at the Rodential Bar and Jazz Club:


And also, here's an alternate version:

I'm still experimenting with camera angles and such. I like the shot of the messenger running up, but I feel it may be unneeded. Thoughts? Thoughts on the story/characters/pace/voices so far?

Also, the music and lounge singer voice was Richard Cheese, who is awesome, and who you can check out here.

Credits:
Rickety/Announcer: Lucas Ciarlante
Rascals/Stumbles: Sean Faye
Digby: Joshua Daniel
Donna: Alanna Dukes

rodential concept art

Wow, I have not done a post in awhile. Well, I have been working on it, but I don't always have stuff to post. Been working on the animatic, but I can't show too much, don't want to spoil any of the story. Also, I've started character sheets for each of the characters and concept art for the settings. Here's a quick sketch of The Rodential: Bar and Jazz Club:

A little jazz bar where Rickety works and drinks. Mostly drinks.

I'm always on the look out for sites and books that have references to interiors and exteriors of 1920's buildings (especially bars and night clubs) so if you find anything or know of any, drop me a line.

I recently saw Assassination of a High School President and while I wouldn't outright call it a noir, it does have noir elements. I can't help feeling it's trying to be Brick but it's just not that stylish.

It's almost Brick's opposite or counterpoint; instead of a noir wrapped in a high-school drama, it's really a high-school coming of age story wrapped in a noir. But, it's still really funny and even though it's obviously a coming of age story, it's still enjoyable to see the main character go from downtrodden miserable nervous teen to confident badass man. And Bruce Willis is exceedingly funny as the War veteran principal. I'd highly recommend picking it up for a viewing.

Until next time ricketeers!