Wild Card Creator

The Home Stretch

Written by admin on May 3, 2013 in Wild Card Creator - Comments Off

It’s high time for an update on Wild Card Creator development! First, I’d like to show you a bit of what I’ve been working on lately.

Homebrewing is an important part of Savage Worlds (I’ve created two homebrew settings myself), and one of my big priorities is to have Wild Card Creator support homebrewing material from the get go. Also, I think it’s very important for the process of homebrewing material to be as easy as possible, and not something that requires mucking around with markup language. Instead, you’ll be able to homebrew content like this:

Simple, graphical, and easy to understand. The idea is to make it so that you can create your own material in the same way that you would write it down on paper in a homebrew document.

You’ll notice that the bottom part is labeled “mechanical effects”. This is for identifying how the Edge or other character content affects the character mechanically. You’ll note that this is a change from what I had been planning for a text parser that can interpret the meaning of a description. Despite a lot of effort, this parser I have developed has been consistently at about the 90% accuracy mark and, although it’s good, it’s not to my satisfaction. Improving it beyond that has taken a lot of time that is better spent on making more important features work in order to get Wild Card Creator released to you sooner. This also means that I have changed the way that character content is imported; it is now “unlocked” rather than truly parsed.

To make sure that there’s no misunderstanding, I’d like to reiterate that Wild Card Creator will still import supplemental PDFs and will still let you add homebrew content. It just isn’t going to be smart enough to automatically determine the meaning of Edges and such; you have to tell it what it means (and I’ll be telling Wild Card Creator how all published settings are supposed to behave). This change is somewhat late in the game, but it certainly hasn’t been a waste of time because having a parser that has about 90% accuracy means that I can add support for published settings more quickly. And at some point I believe that I can improve the parser to a point that I believe it’s ready for users to use to interpret any Edge you write a description for; it’s just not going to happen during the initial release.

There is a bit of bad news. One of the stretch goals for Wild Card Creator was to be able to make the program “skinnable” with themes that are reminiscent of many of the Savage Worlds books. Unfortunately, my attempts to make this happen haven’t produced results that I am happy with. Furthermore, this is something that I’ve realized is rather a gray area with Mac OS X and iOS because Apple requires all products sold through their official app stores to have a look and feel that matches that of default programs for the operating system. So unfortunately, this is not going to happen and I’m working on something better that will be able to replace this stretch goal.

Now that that’s out of the way, on to some fantastic news! The backer only beta will be released to you all this month! It will be feature complete and will allow you to:

Create and save characters
Access all material from Savage Worlds Deluxe
Import a number of additional settings, including the Super Powers Companion/Necessary Evil
Add your own homebrew content using a simple, powerful graphical interface
Export characters in RTF, Plain Text, HTML, BBCode, Wiki Markup, Form-fillable PDFs, and Customized XML character sheets

I’ll be providing you all with download instructions for the backer-only beta when it is ready. All backers will be able to download copies for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux.

We’re in the home stretch now! I hope that you’re all as excited to use Wild Card Creator as I am to complete this and let you play around with it!

Right on Track, Right Now

Written by admin on March 27, 2013 in Wild Card Creator - Comments Off

It’s high time for a progress update to Wild Card Creator! Things are still right on track for a “plenty of time to make characters for Origins” release date, but I figured I’d give you a bit more information about where things are.

I recently shipped Beta 3 to testers. The big feature this time was character saving, which couldn’t be completed until recently because the actual character contents hadn’t been finalized. I fixed a couple dozen bugs reported in Beta 2 and now the bugs have become less prevalent. Beta 4 should be due out in about two weeks and will have some character exporting features in it, as well as several settings supported.

PDF importing is going very smoothly, although I’m discovering that every PDF seems to have at least one weird quirk that keeps it from being a breeze. Last night I was starting to support Hell on Earth Reloaded and found out that whenever I extracted text, all periods were bizarrely converted to the Unicode backspace character (basically, a text representation of when you type the backspace key, but without actually performing the backspace). Fortunately I’ve been able to figure out the problems like these and keep things going.

Some of you may be wondering about Savage Worlds Showdown support. As a huge fan myself, I would love to see a way to more easily make armies than the Excel spreadsheet. As the stretch goal states, support will be added after the initial release of Wild Card Creator. I’m debating right now whether or not to spin off Savage Worlds Showdown support into a standalone program, but either way it will be free for all backers. There will also be some nice interoperability, such as a “Convert to Showdown” option so you can convert a Savage Worlds character you made into a Savage Worlds Showdown character.

Oh, and I found a group of gamers to play Deadlands with. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a chance to do that, so that’s a huge help as it gives me a face to face gaming table that can test out Wild Card Creator.

The Pyramid Keeps on Building

Written by admin on February 15, 2013 in Wild Card Creator - Comments Off

Development of Wild Card Creator has been going much faster lately, now that much of the underlying work has been completed. I compare development of Wild Card Creator to building a pyramid: on the base levels you have to lay a lot of bricks and it doesn’t look much like a pyramid. But the more you build and the higher up you go, the fewer bricks you have to place and it becomes more and more recognizably like a pyramid.

One way that this has become evident is the sort of things that beta testers have been reporting. At first it was bugs like “Wild Card Creator imports PDFs on Mac OS X and Linux, but not Windows”, which was a big bug that was promptly fixed. Lately I’ve been getting more minor bug reports such as “the Elderly Hindrance doesn’t add all the things it says it adds.” Granted, there have still been a few large bugs, but overall the bugs have progressively been getting smaller and smaller, as well as less frequent.

Importing content from a PDF is probably 75% done. Deadlands Reloaded is fully supported (with the exception of two things: becoming Harrowed and the Supernatural Trait Edge), and since that’s one of the most complicated settings out there, I’m finding that adding some of the lesser settings has been fairly trivial. It’s almost to the point where if a setting doesn’t add anything too different and they kept things in a straightforward layout format, I can get a setting fully supported in one sitting.

Currently I’m in the middle of implementing character saving. I had to make this one of the later things I did because I can’t very well save a character if the way that a character is made isn’t finalized. One thing I realized about saving a character is that you don’t need to save all that much information. Basically, you just save the things you get at character creation and the things you get for advances and you’re done. Loading a character basically encompasses creating a new character and then applying the steps that the user took to make the character in the first place. Bottom line: this has turned out to be a fairly simple process and it should be ready in the next beta.

Character output has been the last big thing that I’ve decided to tackle and thus far it has had the least amount of time devoted to it. From the very beginning, Wild Card Creator has been able to display characters in the standard Savage Worlds statblock that you find in the books. Next on the docket will probably be the “expanded” stat block that is like the normal stat block, but includes descriptions for Edges, Hindrances, Powers, etc. at the expense of compactness. This is especially great for con games where new players don’t know what certain Edges do. Finally, work on the XML character sheets and form-fillable PDFs will be done simultaneously since they work on pretty much the same principle (take a part of the character and put it in a designated spot).

Cheyenne Wright has been continuing to work on the commissioned character portraits. He’s sending them to me in bulk when they’re done, so I don’t have more to show you (besides, I’d like to leave a bit of surprise for the first time you open Wild Card Creator).

For those of you who pledged at a level where a character of your creation would be included as a pregen, but you hadn’t submitted your character yet, your procrastination is going to pay off. If you’re one of those people, you’ll just create your character in the Wild Card Creator backer beta (see below), then submit it to me. The only catch is that if you’re making your character for a setting that isn’t support it yet, you’ll have to still make it by hand. And for all of you that already have submitted a character, I’ll do the work for adding it into Wild Card Creator! Relax, you don’t need to do anything more!

Now the big question: when is it going to be released? I’ve decided to take my cue from Pinnacle and reply “when it’s done” until I am 100% sure of when it will be done. That said, I’m going to commit to saying that Wild Card Creator will be released with plenty of time to make characters for any Savage Worlds games running at Origins Game Fair. So if you’re planning on running Savage Worlds games (and going for the Pinnacle GM Event Pack), you can create your characters with Wild Card Creator, making beautiful character sheets and saving time that you can use to prep some really stellar games!

But wait, what about that backer beta I mentioned earlier? Yup, that’s going to happen. I’ve decided that when Wild Card Creator is nearing release, all backers will be part of a backer-only beta of Wild Card Creator, allowing you to use the program before anybody else and help spot any more issues that occur before it goes public. So the final release should give you plenty of time before Origins, and the backer beta will give you even more time. Good news all around!

I’d like to thank you all for your continued excitement in the project! I’ll continue to keep you all informed about developments as they continue. And there may be some surprises not too far on the horizon as well!

Cheyenne Wright’s First Character Portrait!

Written by admin on January 17, 2013 in Wild Card Creator - Comments Off

Wild Card Creator beta testing has begun and it’s moving along steadily. I’ve already gotten some great feedback and fixed some issues (in particular, some challenges in getting Wild Card Creator to work equally well on Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux).

In other news, Cheyenne Wright has begun working on the commissioned portraits for the Heroic and Legendary tier backers. The first one he sent me was of “Buck”, which the backer had described as a “Colonial Ranger Stallion Aerospace Pilot” for Hell on Earth/Lost Colony. And it turned out really well!

Incredible work and some great attention to detail! I especially like the stylized Deadlands Marshal’s star on the shoulder pad. I’m really looking forward to more of Cheyenne Wright’s work as I’m sure all of you are!

The portrait of Buck, and all the others, will come with Wild Card Creator in a library of artwork by Cheyenne Wright and Storn Cook that you can use for your own characters! (You can add your own pictures too). And each of them will also have a pregen attached to it, so you can play the character that inspired each piece of art!

Progress Update, brought to you by Hofstadter’s Law

Written by admin on October 18, 2012 in Wild Card Creator - Comments Off

Hey backers! I’ve made a lot of great progress on Wild Card Creator, both on the part you’ll see and on the parts under the hood. All of the big rules from Savage Worlds Deluxe have been implemented, but there’s still some minor stuff I need to do like adding support for skill specializations. Also, there’s a lot of stuff that still needs to be polished up to allow for all those corner cases.

One thing you have to keep in mind is that computers are stupid and they don’t understand things we take for granted. Consider the Scholar Edge. The requirements for it are “Novice, d8+ in affected skill” and taking it gives you a +2 to two Knowledge skills. To a human it makes perfect sense: you pick two Knowledge skills that are at d8 or higher and you get a +2 in those skills.

The trouble is, a computer doesn’t think that way. Right now, Wild Card Creator is looking for a skill called “in affected skill” and, seeing that the character doesn’t have a skill by that name at a d8, declares that the character can’t take the Edge. Basically, I have to write extra code to allow the user to specify two skills, then tell Wild Card Creator to check if there is a d8 in those two specified skills. It’s not impossible by any means, but it is time consuming to track down and account for all of these sorts of situations.

I’ve done a lot of work under the hood with importing PDFs and you can now import just about everything from Deadlands Reloaded. Part of the fun with reading the text is that, again, computers are stupid. I have to tell it that “A character with this Edge adds +2 to all Tracking rolls” means the same thing as “The character gains +2 Tracking.” I’ve already found half a dozen basic sentence structures, plus a bunch of variations among them (e.g. “+2 to Tracking rolls” vs. “+2 to Tracking checks”), all to say that you get a +2 to a skill! Regular expressions have been both my best friend and my mortal enemy!

What does all this mean for Wild Card Creator development? Bottom line, it’s going to be a little while longer before it’s ready. Programmers often refer to Hofstadter’s Law which states: “It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.” The estimated release date noted on Kickstarter was November because I had hoped to get Wild Card Creator released by November 16th, the deadline for submitting products for consideration in the Origins Awards. Although I could do a rush job and still get Wild Card Creator released by then, I don’t want to have it be a half-baked program and I’m guessing neither do you.

I imagine some of you are wanting another release date estimate, but naturally, I won’t give one 🙂 I’ll be sure to give you constant updates on the progress of Wild Card Creator, but I won’t give a release date until I am quite sure I can reach it.

Of course, there is a silver lining to all this. It means that I can extend the deadline for character submissions for those of you that haven’t turned it in and it means that Cheyenne Wright will be able to complete the character portraits for Heroic and Legendary Wild Card backers. He’s currently working on art for the card game Unexploded Cow and Deadlands Noir and this break will mean he’ll have plenty of time to complete these portraits after he’s done with his own projects.

Thank you all so much for your support and patience throughout this whole process. Let me know if you have any further questions!

Savage Worlds Setting Survey Results

Written by admin on September 22, 2012 in Wild Card Creator - Comments Off

Thanks to everyone who voted in the Savage Worlds Setting Survey. There were 247 people who voted (about 60% of Kickstarter and PayPal backers combined), so we’ve got a great sample of what people are interested in using Wild Card Creator for. I’ve tabulated the results and found the following:

Pinnacle Entertainment Group Settings

Third Party Settings

So there you have it: a list of what settings people are interested in using with Wild Card Creator. This also might be a reasonable sample of what Savage Worlds players are playing as well.

I have to say that there are a few surprises. For one, I was sure that Deadlands would top the list, but it was actually the Fantasy Companion that was most in demand by a whopping 70% of respondents! And although it’s to be expected that products from the big third party companies would top the list, I hadn’t guessed that Realms of Cthulhu would be the one that over half of people are most interested in playing!

These two lists will be roughly the order that setting support will be added to Wild Card Creator, at which point you’ll be able to import their PDFs and use their character options without any issues. I’ll be adding support for as many settings as I can for the initial release with the goal being every one of these settings supported within one year of the initial release date.

Project Successful!

Written by admin on September 10, 2012 in Wild Card Creator - Comments Off

It’s been one heck of a ride through this Kickstarter campaign! From 08/08 to 09/09, 375 backers pledged on Kickstarter for a total of $10,392. In addition, 9 backers pledged through PayPal adding $185 to that for a grand total of $10,577!

This project has been more successful than I ever imagined it would be! It’s been amazing for me see people so excited about a project I’ve have worked so hard on for so long! Thank you all so much for helping to make Wild Card Creator happen!

What Happens Now?

First off, even though the Kickstarter drive is closed, I will still be accepting PayPal pledges until shortly before Wild Card Creator is released. So if you know someone who would be interested, but didn’t pledge, let them know. The price of Wild Card Creator will be higher than the $20 offered on Kickstarter once it is released.

The money pledged through Kickstarter will be delivered to me (minus a 5% cut from both Amazon Payments and Kickstarter) in two weeks. Over the next few days, all backers will be receiving a survey asking for whichever of the following applies to your pledge level:

Your name as you want it to appear in Wild Card Creator (or the names of those at your gaming table)
How you want extra money to be spent (a CD copy, extra character submissions, or a generous donation).
Your Skype username and some suggested times that I can contact you to personally thank you, if you are at a pledge level where I said I would (or you can decline)

Mailing addresses for CDs and e-mail addresses for the digital downloads will be collected closer to the release date. This saves any trouble that might come up from people moving and such.

If you are at a pledge level where you are submitting a character, you will be sent instructions on the format I would like for you to send it. The deadline for character submission is going to be Sunday, October 21st.

There will also be a survey sent to all backers at some point asking which Savage Worlds settings’ PDFs you would like to see Wild Card Creator be able to import upon release and which ones can wait to be added in a free update for the future.

After all that’s done, I’m going to be working, working, and working on Wild Card Creator! I’ll be posting Kickstarter updates whenever there is news, so you’ll be kept in the loop. The estimated release date is November 2012 and I’ll try my best to shoot for it. I may even let backers get a copy before anyone else!

Again, thank you all very much for your generous pledges to make Wild Card Creator a reality. You all are absolutely fantastic!

One More Stretch Goal!

Written by admin on September 8, 2012 in Wild Card Creator - Comments Off

One of the backers wrote the following:

At 9,500 can we has that graphical interface I had mentioned–that is, the feel of a real moleskine/adventurer’s notebook within the program itself?

What she’s describing is a look and feel similar to that found in the Savage Worlds books in which the page background looks somewhat worn from use. This compliments well with the white headers in a red box and other visual elements in the book. Basically, what this backer is asking for is a prettier user interface than the very utilitarian default user interface used now.

And you know what? Making Wild Card Creator have the same level of aesthetic quality as the Savage Worlds books is a really good goal. Art has never been my specialty, so I will probably need to hire some help on this.

So one last stretch goal will be offered: at $9,500, Wild Card Creator will have an interface overhaul, adding a look and feel that is reminiscent of the Savage Worlds books.

Ideally, I’d like to make this look and feel customizable so that you can change it with the setting. Perhaps there would be one that looks more like the Deadlands Reloaded books and another that looks more like the Space 1889 books, for instance.

So one last stretch goal. If we get $500 more, this gets added on.

And then after that, there really will be no more stretch goals!

Home Stretch Surprise

Written by admin on September 7, 2012 in Wild Card Creator - Comments Off

First off, we reached our $8,250 stretch goal, meaning that Wild Card Creator will be able to export to Fantasy Ground II format! Now in addition to all of the formats you can print your character, you’ll also be able to use it on a virtual tabletop!

The final stretch goal is at $9,000 in which Cheyenne Wright will provide most of his previous artwork to be used as character portraits. This is going to include:

Much of the character art on his online photo album
Several pieces that have never been published
Upcoming character art for Deadlands Noir and Hell on Earth Reloaded

In addition, Cheyenne offered me a very special surprise! He has agreed to do a commissioned piece of art for every backer at the Heroic and Legendary tiers! That’s right! Your character will not only be featured in Wild Card Creator, but it will be drawn by the three time Hugo award winner himself! How incredible is that!

You may also be interested to know that I’ve decided to open up five more slots of the Heroic Wild Card level, allowing one of ten characters to be used in all tutorials, screenshots, and other materials. This will give me much more flexibility in finding the right characters for the right situations and allow more people to be able to afford a once in a lifetime opportunity to have the chance to get art done by a professional artist. These are offered on a first come, first served basis, so once those five slots are gone, they’re gone. (Note if you’ve already pledged at a lower tier, you can change your pledge level to a higher tier).

The catch is that for all of this to happen, we have to make it to the $9,000 stretch goal. Let’s see if we can do it in the two days this Kickstarter drive has left!

EDIT: All of the Heroic Wild Card tier slots are now filled. Thanks to everyone who filled them and sorry to everyone that missed out. There will not be any more slots opening up.

iPad/Android Tablet Version is Funded!

Written by admin on September 7, 2012 in Wild Card Creator - Comments Off

We’ve hit exactly $8,000, meaning that work will begin on the iPad and Android tablet versions immediately after the desktop version ships AND everyone will receive half off coupons for both versions.

It’s a bit early to say what special features these versions will have and how they will differ from their desktop counterpart. The user interface will certainly look different because of the smaller screen and touch interface. I would very much like to implement cloud synchronization between the different versions so that you can transfer characters and character options between devices, but how that will work is still yet to be determined. Also, I imagine that there will be a simple “gaming table mode” to display character sheets at the gaming table (this won’t be on the desktop version because it’s my belief that laptops get in the way of the social interaction).

What’s next? Well, KickTraq, an online Kickstarter projection tool, projects that this Kickstarter will reach $8,800 by the end of its funding period. I’d like to challenge this and see if we can hit $9,000. So here’s two more stretch goals to get you motivated:

$8,250 — Wild Card Creator will be able to export into Fantasy Grounds II format, so you’ll be able to send your characters directly to the popular virtual tabletop program.

$9,000 — All copies of Wild Card Creator will include art from Cheyenne Wright, three time Hugo award winning artist for Deadlands Noir, 50 Fathoms, Necessary Evil, and other Pinnacle settings, which you can use as character portraits.

So there you go! Just a few days left, but I think that we can make it to $9,000!