Kelvin’s Piecepack Adventures 2022, Part 2

A month ago, I had started expanding my piecepack by adding in Hexpack and Piecepack Matchstick components. They cost a pretty penny in both stickering and obtaining pieces to match the existing aesthetic, but after a month, all of the assembly has been completed. (Also: don’t do what I did in getting these parts. Cheaper alternatives exist.) So I should explain what goes into my piecepack.

My piecepack dimensions are based off of the Mesomorph piecepack dimensions, though this is not an exact science due to various factors. Now, for those of you not aware, a standard piecepack consists of four suits, and each suit contains a set of tiles, coins, a die, and a pawn. The minimal requirements are as follows:

• One side of each tile must display their suit and rank, and have something to denote their orientation. The ranks are called “null”, “ace”, “2”, “3”, “4”, and “5”. Aces are typically represented by a spiral, while nulls are blank. The reverse side of each tile must be divided into quadrants.
• One side of each coin must display the suit, along with the orientation. The opposite side of the coin must show the rank, along with the orientation. The orientation marks on each side should line up. The ranks should not have any indication of what suit it may belong to. Coins must be sized so that they fit in one quadrant of a tile.
• The die should have the six ranks as each of the six faces. The suit of the die should be identifiable – this can either be from using the suit in place of a spiral as the ace face, or having the suit present on all six faces.
• The pawn may be any shape, but the suit of the pawn should be identifiable. The base of a pawn should fit on one quadrant of a tile.

My piecepack set is primarily inspired by the JCD piecepack, and has the following additions:

• As with the Mesomorph reference piecepack dimensions, the tiles are two inches square, made from ¼” thick acrylic squares. On the obverse side, the rank is shown in its suit color, and the suit is marked on all four corners, though one has its colors inverted (white symbol on colored background) to denote orientation. The reverse side contains a spiral in the center reminiscent of a “spinner”. The four quadrants are not in a checkerboard pattern, contrary to many piecepack sets you may find elsewhere.
• The coins are made from ¾” diameter acrylic circles that are ⅛” thick.
• The die is made from ½” acrylic cubes. Note that these are considerably smaller than standard 16mm board gaming dice. Each face depicts both the suit and rank, as well as having an orientation mark as some games use it. The faces of the die are arranged so that the null, ace, and 2 have right-handed chirality (traditional dice in the west have 1, 2, and 3 have right-handed chirality, while traditional Asian dice have 1, 2, and 3 have left-handed chirality). The null and 5 are on opposite faces, the ace and 4 are on opposite faces, and the 2 and 5 are on opposite faces. The orientation markers are such that the ace through 4 are oriented in the same direction, the null’s orientation marker faces the orientation marker of the 3, and the 5’s orientation marker points to the 2.
• The pawn is a simple acrylic cylinder ⅝” in diameter and 1⅛” tall. A “belt” is affixed onto the cylinder to denote suit, and an orientation sticker is also attached to the top. Note that pawns are not required to have an orientation; this is strictly so that pawn saucers, an add-on piece to a Mesomorph piecepack, would not be needed in games where pawns are required to have an orientation.

Of the piecepack additions I made, here is the minimal requirements of a Hexpack:

• Hexes are such that the inscribed circle has a diameter the same as that of the length of one tile. (That is, the length from flat side to flat side, not corner to corner, is the same as one tile.). Like tiles, they display suit, rank, and orientation one one side, and on the reverse side the hex is divided into six triangular sectors.
• There are two sets of triangular “coins”. (Piecepack coins do not fit into the triangular sectors, hence why alternate coins are needed.) One set are exactly like piecepack coins: rank on one side, suit on the other, and both sides having orientation markers that line up. The other set, said to be “experimental”, has one side containing rank, suit, and orientation, leaving the other side blank.

These are the specifics of my set:

• Although the intent was also having the hexes be ¼” thick, due to the supplier they are instead 6mm thick, which means that my tiles are 0.35mm ticker than the hexes. With the addition of the stickering of different thicknesses, there is some noticeable differences. For the obverse side, only alternate corners have suit markings, and all three of them have inverted colors. Though the orientation of ace through 5 can easily be inferred, due to a design oversight a dot needed to be added to the nulls for orientation. (Had I redesigned it, only one corner would have inverted colors, like the tiles.)
• Although the intent was to have the triangular coins fit perfectly into a sector, due to a custom ordering snafu I received triangles that were 1 inch in side length instead of 1 inch in height. These coins are using 3mm acrylic, which mirrors piecepack coins (albeit with the same error that 3mm is not ⅛” inch)

Finally, the minimal requirements of the Piecepack matchsticks:

• Each suit contains 6 pieces of each rank. Each rank is represented by sticks of different lengths.
• Piecepack matchsticks have a “2-D” or “3-D” specification. The “3-D” specification requires that sticks have a square cross-section, and that the null piece be a cube that is twice the thickness of the square.
• The null piece is marked with the suit on one side only.
• For the other pieces, two opposite long sides must be marked with the suit on one end and the rank in the middle.
• The length of the ace pieces must be the half the length of one tile, less the size of the null piece. The length of the 2 pieces must fit the diagonal from the center of a tile to a corner, less the size of the null piece, while the length of the 3 pieces must be the length of a tile, less the size of the null piece. The length of the 4 pieces is the distance from the corner of a tile to the middle of the side of a tile (a “knight’s move” in quadrants), again less the size of the null piece, while the 5 pieces is the length of a full diagonal of a tile, less the size of the null piece.

The specifics of my set:

• The nulls are ⅜” cubes, making the sticks 3/16” square acrylic rods. Due to the rough cuts from the supplier causing non-uniform lengths, they are completely unsuited to games where you have to place a stick on its end.
• The aces are 13/16” in length, the 2s are 1 3/16” in length, the 3s are 1 13/16” in length, the 4s are 2 1/16” in length, and the 5s are 2⅝” in length. Due to a sticker design snafu, the stickering on the 5 pieces are longer than intended, further making them unsuited to games where the sticks are placed on their end.
• The suit takes up a square portion of one end. To match the matchstick aesthetic, all suit symbols on the aces through 5s are inverted colors. The opposite end has a number of circles corresponding to the rank, matching the design found that on early reference prototypes.

Finally, while a standard piecepack has only 4 suits, my set has 12 suits. This is due to the fact that my set is based on the JCD piecepack, which consists of three subsets – one with traditional piecepack suits of “arms”, “crowns”, “suns”, and “moons”, one with French suits, and one with the four seasons. (Note that the “arms” are represented by anchors in JCD sets, which is repeated in my set here. Additionally, crowns are represented as green instead of the traditional yellow of Mesomorph piecepacks; JCD sets are intended to be monochrome due to their use in laser-engraved wooden sets.)

At this point, I’m not too sure whether I will also make any additional add-ons, including the piecepack pyramids that I have been so desperately trying to build for who knows how long.

Again, unfortunately, due to borrowing the JCD designs too closely (they are not public domain or have a free license), I am unable to distribute pictures of my set. (There are public domain designs that could possibly be used as a substitute, though; after all, piecepack itself is public domain.) I wouldn’t recommend using the exact construction of my set, either, as there are very obvious drawbacks of the construction of my set. However, this should be a guide in helping you build your own set.

Diary: Kelvin’s Continuing Piecepack Adventures

Back in 2013, I built my own piecepack, with a design based on the JCD piecepack, but with my own design twists. (Unfortunately, I did crib some JCD designs, so unfortunately I can’t distribute its design; this makes my set one-of-a-kind in a sense). At the time, I printed my designs on label paper, and then mounted them onto acrylic pieces. (I built three piecepacks for all twelve JCD suit designs, and it was a bit too expensive in retrospect…)

If you recall, I had considerable trouble building my own set of piecepack pyramids, and now, nine years later, that is still the case. In the meantime, I did recently add to my piecepack by building a set of hexes for an add-on known as Hexpack, as well as plans for a set of piecepack matchsticks. I should explain a bit about them here.

Hexpack is a generalization of the square piecepack, but for hexes. They consists of hexagonal tiles and triangular coins, while retaining the dice and pawn from a standard piecepack. The specs of the hexpack are no longer online, but are available from the Internet Archive here. In short, each of the tiles are hexes that are two inches from flat side to flat side, and therefore the triangular coins are equilateral triangles one inch in height. In most other aspects, these are generalized from the tiles and coins.

However, the Hexpack spec also adds a second set of six triangular coins per suit, where they are marked with rank, suit, and direction on one side, and are completely blank on the other. This second set is said to be optional, however; commercial Hexpack sets, if they exist, generally only include the hexes anyways.

Due to the proliferation of custom acrylic makers that sell hexes of the desired size and thickness (offically, the piecepack spec does not specify thicknesses, but my piecepack tiles are 1/4” thick, and my coins are 1/8″ thick), it was actually surprisingly easy to procure the necessary parts for the hex tiles. As for the labels, I used sticker paper instead, making it slightly inconsistent with my existing piecepack.

As for the triangular coins themselves, that has been a story in finding someone who would cut the necessary acrylic, so while I have made the stickers for them, the acrylic is still to be procured.

The more interesting story is the piecepack matchsticks. They are another add-on to the piecepack that adds six copies each of six different items per suit. The “null” piece is a 3/8” inch cube with the suit on one face only, while the “ace” through “5” pieces are 3/16” square rods of various lengths, meant to represent tile length proportions (but shortened to accommodate the null piece). The official spec specifies that two opposite sides are adorned with markings, while the other two sides are blank. (The ends of each matchstick is also blank.)

Although it’s easy for me to come up with a design (there is a reference 3D printable design), building a set that is based on acrylic bars with my JCD-inspired design is proving to be a bit costly – it’s easy to find a place that has the necessary total length of bar, but the true cost is in cutting that bar down to size to get my 72 bars of each of the six lengths. The fact that they are very small to begin with is yet another issue. At this point, I’m not sure I should go forward with making a set at this point.

As an aside, the null matchstick being 3/8” cubes makes it difficult to commission custom dice. Also, my piecepack dice are 1/2” cubes, which also make it difficult to find someone who can make custom dice to that size. (The piecepack spec does not specify a size for the dice, so there could be a way to get good-quality custom dice for your piecepack.) My piecepack pawns are also somewhat off-spec, due to wanting to incorporate an optional add-on that adds directionality to pawns.

As for what lies in the future. I’m not sure what to add to my piecepack collection; I play few enough piecepack games with these add-ons as it is…

The Start of an End

As you may have seen, I have not made a blog update for over a year, and to be fair, my present interests and day job have really not allowed me the time to keep things up to date. Therefore, as of this moment, I’m going to announce that I’m officially putting my gaming adventures on hold as of this moment, and maybe relaunch the major projects further down the line.

As of this moment, the historical Catan Guide documents have been taken down, with the rest of the Random Collection to follow in the coming days. I’m hoping to relaunch the entirety of the Random Collection in some way, if only to update people with the developments of the past five years. It has been an on-again off-again affair, and since the Random Collection has always been a labor of love, it has been very low in the list of important things in life.

I want to give my thanks to the many contributors to the Random Collection over the years for their support. Will the Random Collection appear again? I’m hoping that it can be a possibility down the line. This blog will still be up for historical purposes, but who knows when I will be able to make another update again.

Synalyze It! Grammar for Capitalism .SET files

It’s been a long time since I have worked with Synalyze It! (and its non-macOS counterpart, Hexinator). In fact, it’s been six years since I last posted on this matter, and back then, the app tended to crash a lot, and my scripting skills were not up to snuff as it relates to some of the more complicated structures that I have been finding, and the feature set for the app was a bit lacking. Six years later, a lot of it has changed, but my scripting skills and the scripting API is still hit-or-miss.

That said, let’s talk about the business simulation game, Capitalism. (Steam, GOG), and its sequels, Capitalism II (Steam, GOG) and Capitalism Lab. It’s addictive, but difficult to play with the full set of rules. These rules are largely put into .SET files that are moddable to a very limited extent.

Kelvin’s Monopoly Adventure

It’s tough times we are living in, and despite all that, I actually don’t have much free time in indulging my hobbies. This is reflected in the fact that much of what I have output so far is kind of stillborn. And today is no real exception.

You may have heard of the project that is known as Ultimate Monopoly. If you haven’t, it’s a fairly old project that serves to combine the standard (pre-2008 rebalance) Monopoly board, but add the board of Monopoly Mega Edition around it, and then add on its interior, the unlicensed Super Add-Ons, and throw in the semi-licensed Stock Exchange add-on. This results in a monstrous board of 80 properties over 20 color groups, with 8 utilities, 4 railroads, and 4 cab companies (a new concept of this game), with four massive decks of action cards (Chance, Community Chest, and the two decks native to Super Add-Ons: Roll 3 and Travel Vouchers, the latter of which being merged with the concept of Bus Tickets).

Of course, all of this by itself does not make for a good game (since the outer Mega Edition board requires significant modification to make it even playable in the first place), and simply combining the parts from all of the games make for a messy experience. Fortunately, that project has made available a custom board and almost all of its assets under a free license, so people can try to print and play by only requiring minimal borrowing of equipment from other games.

Now, if you want to professionally print the title deeds and action cards, or the board for that matter, you are going to need to find someone who can do custom sizing. Monopoly cards have, for the most part, never been of any size resembling standard cards, while the board is understandably huge (at roughly 27.5 inches square; by comparison a Mega Edition board is 25 inches square; even taking into consideration that the outer board in Ultimate is one space longer on each side, board spaces are bigger to accommodate the inner boards).

To that end, I’ve been trying to work on creating my own set of cards so that they fit on standard-sized cards but have similar aesthetics to pre-2008 Monopoly cards, but using freely available lookalike fonts. Not much luck with the board, since while the board design is available freely, it contains design elements from Monopoly or Super Add-Ons that are still copyrighted by their copyright holders. Moreover, I haven’t been able to find a place that can print boards that big without dividing them into multiple pieces, and even then, the board has a few lingering design issues (no spaces to place train depots from Mega Edition and cab stands, the original counterparts to train depots, unlike the dedicated spaces for them in Mega Edition) that should probably be addressed.

To be honest, I’m not totally confident that I would print this at this point, given the state of the world we live in. But it’s definitely a print and play project that is worth some of my time investment. Perhaps I’ll post what I have for free someday.

Guide Update – March 2020

It’s been a while since I have uploaded something to my collection, and with the recent things making the news that has caused me to work from home in my day job (which I still love very much) instead of the office, it has given me a bit more time to work on my side projects, like updating the Guide for a new year.

Kelvin’s New Adventure

I’ve been on a tear writing on my “glossary”, now with a decent level of content for Struggle for Catan and Catan: Milk Chocolate Edition, though there is still a decent backlog of Catan Card Game content to deal with. I’ve also obtained the (international version, as the English version is still not announced) Cities & Knights 20th anniversary edition (working title: Legend of the Conquerors) and the promotional scenario The Cologne Cathedral (it’s a World Championship scenario – German on one side and English on the other). So I’d like to take the opportunity to remind people that I probably won’t have the Guide up to date for a while longer.

It reminds me – I still need to find a way to reuse my chocolate pieces after I’ve eaten the chocolates in a game of Catan: Milk Chocolate Edition. Not sure how to do that right now, though I need to think of something before the chocolate goes bad.

This and other things related to computing, board games, and life’s necessities have really stretched my budget of late. Plus, I have a giant backlog of stuff that I have yet to break open. Working on this project is actually helping in uncovering the hidden treasure from my collection, but it’s also taking time away from properly organizing it and cleaning up my place. But enough excuse-mongering: let’s see what time I can spare to post updates as I dig through the depths of my game collection.

Also, I do have certain items in my collection for sale – harder to find promos and the like. I’ve yet to find a taker for a first edition Kingdom Builder with three of the four expansions and a select number of Queenies (I also own a second edition copy with all four expansions and all the Queenies). Sometimes I think I need to hook myself up with some resource to help me sell some of my possessions, but I’m not really sure who to turn to at this point.

Cards Galore

If you are a playing card aficionado, then you are probably aware of the United States Playing Card Company, and if you aren’t, chances are, you already own a deck made by them; many of the most recognizable brand names in playing cards, whether it be for playing games, cardistry, magic tricks, or cartomancy (that’s the fancy term for fortune telling using cards) are owned by them, and the company also does custom decks for many large clients. Their flagship brand is Bicycle, and their Rider backs in red and blue are considered to be the standard in which all other playing cards are considered against.

Of course, standard Bicycle playing cards are the standard variety: 52 cards in French suits (10 numbered cards and 3 face cards), 2 jokers (differentiated from each other), and 2 advertisement cards round out a pack. (Of course, there are many specialty playing cards that bear the Bicycle name, and the Bicycle name extends well beyond the standard Rider back.) And they are cheap and plentiful in that, if you need a game that requires multiple decks and/or stripped decks (games that use only a portion of the deck, not to be confused with stripper decks, which are a type of cards used in magic tricks), assembling a deck that is ready to go (as opposed to preparing a deck before every game) isn’t too expensive, and many companies sell pre-stripped decks so you won’t have to leave cards unused. The USPCC even mass-produces Pinochle decks (48 cards in French suits, 9 through A in each suit twice over, plus two advertisement cards, four Pinochle instruction cards, and two blank cards) so that people don’t have to take apart two decks of cards for the occasion. (The USPCC also publishes specialty Canasta and Euchre decks under the Bicycle brand, but with different backs.)

Of course, in the world of traditional card games, that still leaves out a good selection of games. Most games today use French suits, but there are also Latin suits (Spanish suits and Italian suits) and Germanic suits (German suits and Swiss suits), as well as (to a lesser extent) Chinese money suits that fit the traditional “rank and suit” formula (although possibly with varying numbers of ranks and face cards), as well as various tarot and tarock decks (“ranks and suits”, along with a separate “trump suit” that may or may not have the same set of ranks).

For Spanish suits, the reputable makers of those cards is arguably Fournier, a Spanish “sibling” of USPCC. They produce traditional 40-card (10 ranks) and 50-card (12 ranks and 2 jokers) decks in the Spanish suits. I’ve also been able to procure a 78-card French tarot deck (10 numbered ranks and 4 face cards in each suit, plus 21 trump cards, one “excuse”, and two advertisement cards) under that brand name, but I don’t actually know if they make them anymore. (Most tarot decks manufactured today use Latin, and more specifically, Italian suits, for the purposes of cartomancy; tarot and tarock decks with a gameplay focus still exist, however.) I do know, however, that other brands do sell French tarot decks and are still reasonably affordable.

The leading German suited manufacturer appears to be ASS Alternburger, a part of Belgium-based Cartamundi Group, the parent company to both USPCC and Fournier. (The Cartamundi Group owns brands such as Copag, better known for their use in cardistry and magic than games; their card business also extends into printing cards for board games and collectible card games as well).

Given that games like Skat are played with both French suits and German suits, there is also a “tournament Skat” deck that is basically French suits but with two of the suits (spades and diamonds) recolored to more closely resemble German suits (leaves and bells); these are used in competitive Skat settings. A more informal hybrid deck using both French and German suits, where half the pips on each card are French and the other half German, are sold by a number of companies. Similar to this, Swiss card maker AGM AGMuller has a deck where each card has half its pips in French suits and the other half in Swiss suits.

The leading Italian suited manufacturer is Trieste-based Modiano. Most of their decks are 40 cards, but there are some 52-card packs available. They also offer Italian 54-card tarock decks (4 numbered cards and 4 face cards in 4 suits, plus one “excuse” and 21 trump cards; true to older card ordering, the red suits have only 1-4 and the black suits have 7-10) as well.

As for Chinese money suits, the most famous Chinese money suit game is Mahjong, and although for authenticity it should be played with tiles, Mahjong decks (including American Mahjong decks) are not that hard to come by, and available from a number of manufacturers. Problem is, actual money suited cards (for example, Dongguan Cards used in Quan Dui or Hakka Cards used in Luk Fu) are hard to come by in China, let alone the west, and it’s difficult to find a reputable manufacturer of traditional slim cards, let alone westernized variants, due to the fact that Chinese money suits were, as the name implied, somewhat associated with gambling and largely exist “underground”. Similarly, Chess suits (a different type of Chinese card deck, where the ranks are Xiangqi pieces and the suits are colors) have been hard to find. What isn’t hard to find are decks for the Filipino game Cuajo, which is a game inspired by Chess suits, but played with a specialized Spanish suited deck.

For completion, Japanese hanafuda and kabufuda cards are not that uncommon, given that the most well-known manufacturer is Nintendo, a brand well-known around the world for video games; it’s just that they don’t sell decks internationally and generally have to be imported. I have little insight on Indian Ganjifa decks, but I did hear that they exist as more art pieces than anything useful for gameplay today.

Anyways, I’ve been trying to compile a number of different ready-to-use card decks, mostly with Bicycle Rider back cards of different colors, but using other cards where appropriate. It’s not exactly a revival of GUCD (who remembers that on the blog?), but it should allow me to enjoy a greater variety of games. Maybe at a later point, I will tell you all about my efforts.

Kelvin’s Comings and Goings

Lately I haven’t been working on the Guide for a good reason; it’s one of those times where real life gets in the way. That and the fact that my spare time where I can work on projects is dedicated to two things: playing video games and working on building notes for the next big Catan-related project. It’s been six months since I started on my “glossary”, and to be honest, not a lot has been done.  Most of the work is not really on Catan itself (although I have some of the basics), though I have done quite a bit of work on entries related to the Catan Card Game and A Game of Thrones Catan: Brotherhood of the Watch.

But this post is not about any of that.  In today’s age of 4K, the sad truth is that as I upgrade my hardware, older things are going to be harder to hook up and require a bit of investment to keep in working condition. This is definitely true for my older systems that use analog output.  (Granted, that’s just my GameCube and Wii, but I grew up with a LaserDisc player and a DVD recorder, so…) As such, I’ve been spending a bit on equipment that can help me hook these two systems up.

For those of you who are out of the loop, yes, while there exists analog-to-HDMI converters out there, the main issue is that gaming systems often require precise button input, and most converters are optimized towards movies and other applications where the delay between pressing a button and seeing its result is not as important. For that reason, most of my gaming on the GameCube or Wii were games where input lag was not really that important.  (For the record, I also have a Wii U, though I’ve been told that the software scaler on the Wii U to scale up Wii games and output them over HDMI is kind of bad.)

So to have a good gaming experience, you need specialized ADC equipment. If you were lucky enough to have an early model GameCube with a digital AV port, then there exists an HDMI dongle that you can purchase that will get the GameCube to output 480p, so that’s not an issue there – but my GameCube isn’t one of those, so I have to invest in a RetroTINK 2x and a GameCube S-Video cable to get a worse-quality 480p. (I’m aware that it is possible to mod any model of GameCube to output video over HDMI, but I do not have the means or expertise to mod my system, and I honestly prefer unmodified systems.). My Wii (the early model one with full GameCube compatibility) outputs 480p over component video, so I merely need a simple ADC to get HDMI output, but I also decided to invest in an OSSC for more scaling options (after all, your TV may introduce some lag trying to scale digital signals too).  Fortunately, it is well documented that the RetroTINK 2x and an OSSC work very nicely together (though no 9x scaling to enjoy old-school 240p gaming in 4K), though doing so requires a crazy amount of analog-to-digital-to-analog-to-digital back-and-forth conversion (this being that both devices take analogue input and output HDMI).  Plus, I lack a component video switch so I would not be able to set up both consoles together, even if the intent is to have only one console on at a time. So, that journey is not over yet. (I can only pray that I don’t acquire additional analog equipment that requires me to get an analog switch of some kind.)

Whether I intend to invest further in it… well, let’s see how much time I have after continuing work on these other projects. After all, August is the German release of the C&K 20th anniversary expansion, and October is slated to be the release of the Starfarers remake. There’s a lot of work to do so that I can have the fun that I want…

Kelvin’s Review of the Chestego Game System

Lately I haven’t been in the mood for writing – partly because my full-time job makes me write a whole lot, and partly because I have other games I’m spending my time on. Recently I obtained my copy of the Chestego Game System from Icefired Games. I had obtained it from a recent Kickstarter campaign, but the game system is available from their website.

So, what is a “game system”? It’s basically a set of components without well-defined rules that you can use to play any number of games – for example, there are many games that you can play with an ordinary deck of cards, some that you play with a small number of six-sided dice, and so on.  Amongst the most famous “open source” game systems is the piecepack, which I have a homemade set made from various acrylic pieces, and amongst one of the most famous commercial systems (in that the IP and reference implementation of the components is a commercial product, but the games themselves may be distributed under a separate license) is the Looney Pyramids. Chestego, like the Looney Pyramids, is a commercial system, whose games largely lend themselves towards strategy games.