Card of the Week: Extend-O-Glove!

Remember a few weeks back when we featured the Boxing Glove? Well here is his mechanical, stronger brother, the Extend-O-Glove!

The Extend-O-Glove is the first stretch goal for the Pixel Lincoln: Re-Election Kickstarter campaign, and in a way, not really even a stretch goal. The project funding goal is $1000 and if we reach that, Extend-O-Glove is unlocked. So if the game gets made, you get the glove. We all win!

You might be able to tell from the image already, but the sprite originated as an extension of the Chicken Cannon. In the video game, Pixel Lincoln has a boxing glove as a base melee attack, but loses that when his arm is covered by a log-firing cannon. So, while the ranged attacks were covered, he still needed a quick and fast way to attack enemies that are right in his pixelated face. And then the Extend-O-Glove was born. It just made sense that way.

The card is neat because we decided to go with 100% unique card abilities. Every single item and enemy in PL:RE has an ability that you've never seen before, and one that you wind see again in this expansion. The Extend-O-Glove has Push: Also damages an additional enemy, if it is directly behind the target enemy (the wording isn't final).

So, if there are two enemies in a row, each takes damage. 

You could say that the first enemy was punched INTO the second, but I prefer to think the second enemy was punched THROUGH the first.

At the time of this writing, we are $505 away from unlocking the Extend-O-Glove. Check it out: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gamesalute/pixel-lincoln-re-election-expansion

Card of the Week: Laser Shark

Let's talk about Laser Sharks.

This was another character originally created by Luke Milton and later re-imagined by the Pixel Lincoln video game team, and specifically by Long Nguy*.

Here's the original:

It's a shark with laser beams! Not much more needs to be said after that. But I will still say stuff.

The Laser Sharks in Pixel Lincoln: The Deckbuilding Game feature the classic ability "Drop". When you defeat these enemies, they may or may not drop an item. It's a great bonus to get, when you are lucky enough to get it. Odds are a little over 40% at the start of the game, so you might get a free item by blasting the Laser Shark. You'll also get 3 points, which is currently* the most points you can receive when defeating a standard enemy.

A Laser Shark mixed with a Clock / Time Travel Suit Ability can be pretty sweet.

"Hmmmm. I could discard a Clock icon to rearrange the deck so the expensive Muttonstar is on top, then defeat the Laser Shark and get it for free. OR I can pay 5 coins for it later?"

Enjoy your Laser Sharks.

* Long made another version of the Laser Shark that is absolutely ridiculous.

**this record is about to be smashed in Pixel Lincoln Re-Election (coming to a Kickstarter near you THIS MONTH!).

Card of the Week: Boxing Glove

This week's Card of the Week is... the Boxing Glove!

The Boxing Glove is the first of the Melee weapons. These only allow Pixel Lincoln to attack an adjacent enemy. Because of the limitation, they're a little cheaper to purchase than the ranged projectile weapons, but these can also pack quite the punch.

If the Beardarang were Lincoln's left hand (face?) weapon, then his right hand is the Boxing Glove. In the video game it's always there when you need it, but in the deckbuilding game you'll need to purchase it for a whopping two coins! It also has a value of two coins, so Boxing Gloves allow you to buy other Boxing Gloves! That card-cloning can be pretty fun.

And finally, where did it come from? Well, originally it was a karate chop. It wasn't flashy enough for the video game, so we game him the glove. I still have artwork of the chop and originally was going to include it in the deckbuilding game as a 1/1 melee weapon with a cost of 1.

Also, here's one of the first images of Lincoln wearing the Boxing Glove! It was illustrated forever ago by our Illustrator Jon Fisher.

Next week: LASER SHARKS!

Card of the Week: Puking Turtle!

This week we're going to look at one of the enemy cards in the base game Pixel Lincoln: The Deckbuilding Game, and it's the enemy that started it all off. The Puking Turtle!

The Puking Turtle was created by my good friend (and co-creator of Fruitless Pursuits), Luke Milton. It was made for the original Pixel Lincoln card game years ago. I was looking for some crazy enemies and because MINE WERE AWFUL, I reached out to some friends. Luke came up with the Puking Turtle and it all went downhill from there... in a very, very good way.

When it came time for the deckbulding game, the Puking Turtle was one of the main enemies that I wanted in there, but he needed a special ability.

With each game being very randomized, the flying ability needed to work in all scenarios. I wanted to make it like a super jump, of sorts. Since Pixel Lincoln had to reach up really high to reach flying enemies, I wanted to reward him for the super jump. So that is where the Fly ability came from. After a player defeats an enemy with flying, he/she is rewarded with a free jump that must be used immediately.

Combining this with last week's card, the Beardarang, you can come up with some great combinations. While the Puking Turtle is very weak, if you throw the Beardarang from across the board, you will basically get a free jump. Then you can use your jump cards for their coin value to make other purchases, or even more jumps if you need them. So you can get big, big turns by using your Beardarangs and the Puking Turtles together.

As far as the character goes... ever since Luke created it, it has been the flagship model of the Pixel Lincoln enemies. It's right up there with the light gross out humor that isn't too gross or offensive. It's a turtle puking, not a person puking. Huge difference! But it's right up there with the tone of silliness, quirkiness, and the vibe of everything that I loved when I was younger and at my video game playing prime. 8-Bit games when I was a kid had very silly themes, and the toys that accompanied them like M.U.S.C.L.E and Madballs shaped my childhood.

So that is where the character came from. Originally created by Luke Milton, and then expanded into the base model for everything from then on out. The Puking Turtle made it onto the cover of the game, the back of every standard card, the "seal" on the back of our Bicycle Card deck, and much more to come. This isn't the last you'll see of the Puking Turtle.

Definitely one of my favorites.

Next week: Pixel Lincoln's famous Boxing Glove

Card of the Week: Beardarang!

We're going to start a new feature here called "Card of the Week". We'll show one off every Friday. I'll talk a little bit about the card, the art, the ability, and how it works in the game.

The first card I wanted to start out with is the Beardarang.

The Beardarang is Lincoln's base attack, and you start out with 5 of them in your deck. What's interesting about the Beardarang is that you are starting out with a decent weapon… and by "decent" I mean a projectile weapon. So Lincoln can hit anyone in front of him in the level. As you play you may pick up Melee weapons that may be more powerful, but they can only damage the enemy that you are directly in front of.

A projectile weapon is great because your turn is not limited to just the enemies you can reach with your meeple, it also allows you to reach any of the enemies further down the level.

Now, the Beardarang only has a power of 1, but you are starting out with a solid base. If you get more projectile weapons, you can pile them on top of each other and take out higher level enemies further down the level.

Looking back at the creation of the Beardarang, it came out of the work we were doing on Pixel Lincoln: The Video Game. Lincoln would rip his beard off, throw it at enemies and then it would come back to him. This was his base attack there as well.

The Beardarang was always a challenge because there are frames in the animation where he doesn't have a beard, or it's partially grown back, and those frames need to match up with his current walk or jump frame. So it was always a little tricky for the programmers to sync up his frame depending on whether he had a beard or not.

I took one of my favorite frames to use for this card, but since the animation has been updated to include a really awesome frame of the pain Lincoln suffers every time he rips his beard off. I'd like to eventually make that into it's own card.

You'll also notice the Beardarang gives you 0 points, 0 suits and 0 coins. It can be a little bit of a deck clog later in the game, but you have the opportunity at each Checkpoint to get rid of them. Make sure you choose wisely!

And that's just about everything about the Beardarang. A light, ranged weapon that while painful to use, it can be super helpful in your early journeys.

Next week we learn about: Puking Turtle!