This Is Completely Off-Topic

I mention on my bio page that I sometimes make video games with my old friend/ former blog- and room-mate Paul, and that we start a lot of projects but never really finish them. We work in fits and starts, thanks to the fact that we both have jobs and girlfriends and other hobbies, and frequently enough time will elapse between brainstorming sessions that we completely lose the thread, or rethink what we want to accomplish or something – it’s very sad, I know.

Anyway, it happened again not too long ago. Boarding Party, the game that we’d been noodling along on for more than a year and a half, died a quiet death. This time, though, I’d created a lot more art and story than usual and though it is comforting to know that I’ll never need to make a message board avatar again if I don't want to, I reckon that I might as well put them up here as store them in a series of hard drives until I accidentally delete them in a fit of misplaced spring cleaning.

Here's the setting, as pitched to the friends that I like to run ideas by to make sure that they're not completely stupid: "It's the far, far future. Like, way far. Humanity has spread across the stars in a mass, unified diaspora, contacting aliens and terraforming and settling and so forth. And then maybe there was a war or a plague or a lapse into decadence, but whatever Empire or Republic or what have you was keeping everything together fell apart and all of the human worlds were mostly on their own. Some reverted to barbarism and some kept on in pretty much the same fashion but most ended up somewhere in between.

The game takes place some time later - solar systems are now akin to island nations trading with each other across the void of space. There are coalitions and warlords and colonies and the beginning of a spaceborne version of the British Empire sending ships back and forth and so of course there are privateers and pirates preying upon them. Technology is drawn from a multitude of worlds and is jury-rigged and kept up with spit and luck and kind of evens out into a high-tech steampunk kind of aesthetic."

The players each would have controlled a pirate captain and their crew in a turn-based battle, drawing units from a wide variety of worlds with an enormous diversity of cultures. And here they are!

I'm going to just put up the images - no sense in making this vanity post too long. Hover your mouse over the little guys if you want to learn more about what I consider to be fascinating backstory.

FLAMBEAUX

 

THE SCOUT

KNIFEMURDERER

FATBOY and BOXHEADS

VACUUMBOY

BEASTMASTER

 

... AND FRIENDS 

BOARDING PARTIER

CAPTAIN FAT

ENGINEER

COMBAT BLOB

CAPTAIN DEVASTATION

AUTOMANTID

MOUSTACHE SOLDIER

And that is that. I guess that I should mention that all of this is (c) Johnathan Munroe, 2010, in the unlikely event that we get around to using it somewhere, someday. Because it is!

Thanks for validating me!