Community Credits

The Gaslands Beta rules v4 are released today and I wanted to take a moment to personally give credit to, and thank, some of the playtesters who have helped make this version the best and most fun version of the game yet!

I’m aware that the open beta process I have chosen to run puts me at risk of accusations of “design by committee”, but let me assure you that I retain an IRON GRIP on what does or does not go into my first published game.  ;P  Having said that, I have been totally blown-away by the level of enthusiasm and engagement from the playtesting community, both on the forums, and on Twitter. (By the way, if you wargame and aren’t on Twitter, I suggest you rectify that immediately.  Search for #warmongers and follow a bunch of people using that hashtag). 

The forums are overflowing with discussion and ideas about how to make the game clearer, cleaner, bigger, bolder or more fun. The simple truth is that if an idea is good, I’m not going to reject it simple because I didn’t think of it!

So, The Honour Roll. In no particular order:

  • James Hall, for his fantastic battle reports, involvement on the forums, and his obsession with murder-tractors…
  • The Battlehammer boys, for all their hard work promoting the game on their awesome videos. It’s been incredibly valuable just watching how they interpret the game, and helping me understand what sort of assumptions experienced gamer will bring to the game that I will need to be mindful of. They will claim the war rig movement was theirs, but it was coincidental at best. 😉
  • MicroHammer Will, for a ton of really fantastic editing ideas, which help me reconsider the structure and flow of the current draft.
  • Tom Wiggins, Glen and the others at the Mersey Mammoths, for lots of challenging ideas about the basic structure and flow of the game, and for the Capture The Flag scenario.
  • Glenn, our local power-gamer (whom we love dearly!) and indispensable source of game breaking ideas. The War Rig articulation rules were his idea, as was the magnificent “slide exit” mechanic. He was the first player to run a Bus.
  • Darren Malin, for his great battle reports and suggestions for trikes and HMGs.
  • Phil Blake, for his suggestions around tanks & rams, and a ton of wording tweaks.
  • Phil Blake, Bestia & Microhammer Will for pushing the issue on giving players access to all the upgrade and skill that they want from the get-go.
  • Aidan Kirk, for his suggestions towards the traps and handicap system
  • Ben Crowe from Isle Of Faux, for routinely attempting to break the game with six buggies.
  • Josh Fletcher, for suggesting the upscale in the template size.
  • Chronos Twelve, Gregory Peatey, Matthew Adlard, Bestia & Microhammer, for just a ton of great discussion in the forums and ideas and suggestions around all kinds of areas.
  • Andy Hemming, for loaning me a copy of Battlecars.
  • Gav Thorpe, for the general encouragement and support, and loaning me his copy of Dark Future!
  • Mike Marshall, for organising Daffcon, and given us such a fantastic platform to promote the game.
  • The fine people of Daffcon, too many to name, for helping us make the Death Race scenario as fun as it could be, and spontaneously introducing the rules that if you touch the wrong template your opponent gets to drive you into a wall!

The purpose of running an open beta process for Gaslands is to give the game the best chance of being great, by combining the experience and creativity of a whole community of gamers to make it so.  This process would have been a complete failure but for the enthusiasm and generosity of all the folks above, and all the other fantastic people on Twitter and the forums that I have neglected to mention.

To anyone that I have forgotten (and they’re will definitely be someone I remember as soon as I hit “publish”…), SORRY! To everyone that has got involved with Gaslands so far: THANK YOU!  You have made this process a total joy. 😀

— Mike