Thing-a-day.com

Wow, what a month it’s been! I’ve really discovered a love of papercraft that I didn’t even know I had. Today I was going to make a whole bunch of medieval buildings, since I bought the Vyllage-on-the-Cheep Sampler Set, hoping to use it with some eventual D&D game. But I ran out of time and only got one building done. I also made some crates that will work with my Old West game.

I also made one of those Gardner dragon optical illusions that seems to follow you around the room (see how it works here). Spooky!

I’ve also enjoyed making all the arcade papercraft models I’ve made over the course of this month. Here’s a big picture of all ten of them in my office at work!

Thing-A-Day has been a great process. I’ve loved making things every day together with Jocelyn. Let’s hope that I can keep it up! Making these papercraft models is lots of fun so I think I’ll keep doing it.

Recently I discovered an old Avalon Hill game from 1982, Gunslinger. I’ve played it a few times now with my friends and it’s been great (and I did an episode of my podcast about it). When I found out about it, I didn’t have a copy of the game, but people have helpfully scanned in all the rules, counters, and cards, and we’ve been able to simulate the all-important 108-card deck of Result Cards with computer programs –we’ve tried an Excel spreadsheet macro I got online and a Perl script that I wrote. Both work pretty well, but don’t give the same visceral thrill as drawing a card to see if you hit someone else with your shot.

So, I bought a used copy of the game from eBay, and in our last game, we used the actual result cards. These worked okay, but they’re small cards that are not particularly well-designed. I had already redesigned the action cards, the counters, and the weapon cards, so why not design replacement result cards?

So I’ve now set to out re-create all 108 result cards. Mine are in color and are easier to read than the originals. I don’t have all of them done yet, but here are some of them:

Once the full deck of 108 is complete, I’ll upload it to BoardGameGeek like I did with my action cards, and then I’ll print them all out on cardstock and cut them out for use with my gaming group.

This is the last of the 80s arcade game papercraft models from Way of the Rodent. If I want any more, I’ll have to make my own.

Today’s two arcade games are Robotron: 2084 and Gravitar. I don’t know very much about Gravitar — it was not a game I ever recall seeing or playing. Looks like it was a vector-graphics game that turned out to be the inspiration for Oids, which is an old Mac game that I did play a lot of. Robotron, on the other hand, is an old friend. It’s one of my favorites and I’d still play it today. That dual-joystick control and fast-and-furious action, plus the great sound effects, make it a classic. Thank you, Eugene Jarvis.

Both of these models were pretty simple to construct, though Gravitar has a much more complicated cabinet. I ended up gluing one part wrong and having to rip it apart and re-glue it, though it’s in a hard-to-see spot and it’s not really noticeable.

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So I’ve got a whole bunch of the Whitewash City papercraft Old West buildings constructed, but no cowboys to run around in the town for when I run my game. Enter papercraft miniatures.

There are actually several vendors of these and some free ones you can find on the web. After checking out many of them, I ended up buying the Western Set from Arion Games. The pictures are high-quality and they came out good when printed on cardstock in color.

Jocelyn has been experimenting with shrink plastic, so I thought I’d try to make a shrinky-dink miniature. They shrink to about 5/8 of their original size, so in order for it to come out at the 28mm size like the others, I drew it about 45mm tall, as well as a cross-brace. I put it between two glass plates in the oven, to keep it flat, and it shrank down perfectly. I glued the cross-brace on and now I have a nicely-scaled, but pretty crappy-looking, miniature. Clearly my Old West illustration skills need honing. Still, it was a fun exercise.

I’ll probably end up gluing or sticking these miniatures to pennies to give them some added weight, which will help them stay in place on the felt mat.

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Hi, I’m Adam, and I apparently can’t stop making papercraft arcade game models. Tonight it’s Dragon’s Lair and Tempest. Dragon’s Lair was another game I never played more than a couple of times because it looked too difficult. I liked watching expert players play it at the arcade, though. Tempest was and still is one of my favorite games. Maybe it’s the abstract vector graphics that I love about it, or the one-wheel-and-a-button simplicity of the controls.

The Tempest model was a more complicated shape, but it was pretty straightforward to put together and I constructed it without any problems. The Dragon’s Lair model was more problematic, and I ended up having to modify it in order to get the 3-sided marquee to look right (some more material had to be removed from the roof of the cabinet in order for the sides to fold back properly).

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Today, 2 more papercraft standup arcade games from the 80s — this time, it’s Donkey Kong and Pac-Man. I used to like Donkey Kong quite a bit back in the 80s. Pac-Man wasn’t as interesting to me at the time and I wasn’t very good at it. I liked it a lot once we got the Atari 800 version of it, though.

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Now that all my Old West buildings from Whitewash City are done, I’m moving on to other papercraft projects. Today I was busy with a gaming session all day and was pretty tired when I came home, so I did something easy — more of the 80s arcade game standups from Way of the Rodent that I had printed out earlier. Today’s two games are Galaga and Gauntlet. I chose Galaga in honor of Jocelyn, because it was her favorite game, and I chose the 4-player Gauntlet game because it had an interesting-shaped cabinet. I remember dropping many, many quarters into Gauntlet (and Gauntlet II) — the fact that you could continue indefinitely if you had enough quarters was very addictive.

These two models were pretty easy to cut out and put together, but I don’t think I did the Galaga model right. That front joystick section should project outwards, not tilt inwards. I’ll have to print out another one and see if I can do it right.

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Today was the final model in the Whitewash City Pioneer Set — The Grand Hotel. This was the most complicated model yet, which is why I saved it for last.

It starts out with a two-story rectangular building. Then there’s a side addition, with a roof, that gets attached. Then there are two bay windows in the front, two back-door roofs, a staircase that goes into a second-story side door, and the most fiddly part of all, the front balcony. The balcony is really what makes this model look great, but getting it in place and put together so that the whole model still came out straight was the most difficult part of this model, and I still don’t think I got it on there exactly straight. A chimney and two stovepipes complete the model.

After putting this together, I got out all of the other Whitewash City buildings that I’ve made over the course of this month and put them all together for a group shot. Here’s one picture, with a bunch more after the break. I think the whole town came out pretty good! Now I can’t wait to run a game using these models — probably it will be Gutshot, which I recently picked up a copy of.

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Finally, the good citizens of Whitewash City have a place to put their valuables, and finally, the bandits have a place to rob. Today’s model was the Whitewash City Bank, which is the 10th model from this collection that I’ve put together.

This model was mostly pretty easy — a simple rectangular (but 2-story) building with a front covered walkway, chimney, and stovepipe. The only part that was new to me was the back-door roof, which had two posts holding it up which had to be inserted into tiny slots on the back of the model. The other back-door roofs have all attached to a small wooden walkway in the back, so this one was a little more difficult to make.

Tomorrow is the most complicated model of the set, and then I’ll post a big town scene with all the models I’ve completed so far.

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I’m continuing to work my way through the Pioneer Set from Eric Hotz’s Whitewash City. Today’s model is the Sheriff’s Office and Town Jail.

This is another rectangular building with an add-on, but this time the add-on is the actual jail part — the sheriff’s office itself is a standard wooden building, but the jail is made of brick. The model is completed with a front awning and walkway, a back-door roof, a front sign, and a stovepipe.

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The boomtown of Whitewash City spreads across the prairie like a stampeding herd of cattle, and the J. C. Forester Hardware Store opens up.

This model was nothing I haven’t done before — a simple rectangle with a sloped roof, with a front awning, back-door roof, chimney, and one stovepipe. I’m getting faster and faster at putting these together.

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The citizens of Whitewash City now have a place to buy boots and shoes, with the addition of the McSweeny Dry Goods store to the town. This model was pretty easy to build — just a simple rectangle with no add-ons. The false front, back-door roof, front hitching posts, and two stovepipes complete the model.

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The town of Whitewash City continues to grow. Today, the Whitewash City Cafe opened up. This model was pretty easy to put together — a simple rectangle, with an add-on kitchen shed on the back like the Pioneer Hotel model. This kitchen shed has a little roof over the back door on this model. Two stovepipes and a front hitching post complete the model.

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That’s right, bacon-wrapped hot dogs. I’ve grilled hot dogs on the grill before, and of course everyone likes bacon, but it had never occurred to me to combine the two until I read this article in LA Weekly about busts on people illegally selling bacon-wrapped hot dogs from unlicensed carts in Los Angeles. Ours didn’t come out exactly like this or this, because all we had to go on was the phrase “bacon-wrapped hot dogs”. One trip to the store later — to buy bacon and hot dogs — and we were ready to go. I got thick-cut bacon, which, judging by those photos, was perhaps not the best choice. They still came out great though!

I used half-toothpicks to hold the bacon on on each end, which I removed after grilling. We had gotten out the usual condiments but these came out so good that we ended up not using any at all. I’ve of course had fried bacon lots of times, but grilled bacon is something entirely different. Is there anything that bacon can’t improve?

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Another storekeeper moves into Whitewash City — this time it’s the bakery. This model was pretty easy to make — just a simple rectangle with a roof. The only part that was a little more difficult was the chimney, which is assembled in two parts and then the cap is placed on top of the body of the chimney. I also like that this building has a sign sticking out in front of it.

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Now that yesterday’s cooking is over, it’s back to working on Whitewash City. Today’s model is the Pioneer Hotel, which is based on an actual historical building from Mosquito Creek, British Columbia in 1868.

Like many of the Whitewash City buildings, this one has a sort of small add-on shed in the back, as was common at the time. The add-on here is the kitchen of the hotel. And this model has three of the dreaded stovepipes. Actually, I am getting pretty good at making these by rolling them around a toothpick and gluing, then cutting off the bottom at an angle and gluing it to the roof. One of them didn’t come out exactly straight, but I think it makes it look more real.

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This was something I’ve been meaning to make for a while. I finally made it last night and while it came out good, it didn’t come out quite as I anticipated.

Peanut Butter Popcorn Cake

Ingredients:

• 3/4 of a stick of butter
• about 3 or 4 quarts of popped, unbuttered popcorn
• 1 lb. marshmallows (feel free to throw in some leftover Peeps if you have them sitting around)
• about half a jar of smooth, unsweetened peanut butter (the kind that is just peanuts and salt)
• about half a can of salted “party peanuts”

1. Pop all the popcorn and set it aside in a very large metal mixing bowl.
2. Melt the stick of butter in a large non-stick pot.
3. When the butter is melted, throw in all the marshmallows. Stir them all around until they’re all melted.
4. When they do melt, add about half a jar of the peanut butter (I used the remainder of a half-used jar). Stir it all around until the melted mass appears to be fully melted and fully mixed.
5. When it’s all done melting and mixing, turn off the heat and pour the molten mass over the popcorn in the large bowl.
6. Mix the melted mixture with the popcorn. It will be extremely hot at first, so you will have to use a wooden spoon or other implement. As it cools a bit, you can use your hands. (Lube up your hands with some vegetable oil first so that the gooey mixture doesn’t stick.) While you’re mixing the melted stuff with the popcorn, add in as much of the party peanuts as you want, and try to get them evenly distributed throughout the mixture.
7. Now you’ve got a giant popcorn ball. While it’s still soft, move it to a non-stick bundt pan and stuff it down in there so that it gets into all the ridges and crannies. The mixture will probably be starting to harden by this point, so get it in there while it’s still soft enough to work with.
8. Cover the bundt pan with plastic wrap, and put it in the fridge for a few hours (overnight if possible.)
9. The next day, run hot water over the underside of the bundt pan until the cake loosens. Put it on a plate and carve off slices of it with a big bread knife or an electric knife. It will probably be quite hard.

Popcorn cake is a treat that my mother used to make every year for Christmas. She didn’t put peanut butter in it, but she did use marshmallows and butter, and added mixed nuts and gumdrops. I always liked it (except for the gumdrops) and only started making my own this year. It’s kind of like Rice Krispies treats, except with popcorn instead of puffed rice. I guess it’s basically popcorn balls in a bundt pan, though we never had a tradition of popcorn balls in our house, just popcorn cake.

For this version, I thought adding peanut butter and peanuts would make for a peanutty version of the same thing. It didn’t quite come out that way, but it is still good. While melting the marshmallows, I decided to add some leftover red Peeps that had been sitting around for a while. They took a while to melt, and in the added cooking time for the marshmallow/butter mixture, it got darker and darker. I think I ended up accidentally making peanut butter caramel. The resulting mixture was very dark and aromatic, and tasted almost like chocolate. I actually thought it tasted like toffee or that almost-but-not-quite-chocolate taste of Tootsie Rolls.

After sitting overnight in the refrigerator, the cake was rock-hard. I got out the bread knife and tried to slice through it, but ended up breaking(!) it in half. I managed to cut off some slices and chunks, and Jocelyn and I had some with our breakfast. Wow! It turned out great, but very hard and chewy. I think it basically is a dark caramel or toffee with peanuts and popcorn in it. I don’t know anything about candy making, so this was a lucky result. Now I kind of want to make this same recipe, but without the popcorn — just to make this hard, chewy candy!

A few pictures of this giant mass of popcorn-filled caramel/toffee:

Today we went to a show right after work, and didn’t get back home until late, so I didn’t have the energy to make another papercraft building, even though I’ve got a whole bunch printed out and ready to go. Instead, I made something easy.

For my upcoming skirmish-level Old West game, I’d of course like to have some painted cowboy and gunslinger miniatures, like these ones from Foundry. But that involves a lot of painting, which I haven’t gotten very good or fast at yet. So, I thought I’d try out some paper replacements for miniatures. It turns out that there are quite a few of them out there. A good line is produced by Arion Games, and they have a free sample set that I printed out and assembled a few of, just to see how they’d look and how they scaled with the buildings in the Whitewash City set. The miniatures come in both flat and trigonal shapes, and I made a few of both.

In general, they’re not too bad and I could see using them in a game. The scale is right for the Whitewash City buildings. If I go with the flat ones, I’d probably glue them to a penny or something to give them a little more weight. And I’d kind of like to see a top on the trigonal ones, just so I can put an identifying number or letter on each one. So, if I do go with these, I’ll pick up the Western Set from RPGNow and then I’ll have tons of cowboys to use.

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Today it wasn’t just one more papercraft Old West building, but six of them! These actually are all in one PDF file and are sold as a set in Eric Hotz’s Whitewash City. This is Outbuilding Set #1, and contains six small outbuildings: two outhouses, two sheds, a square log cabin, and a bath house. These small outbuildings should add some character to the town once it’s complete, as well as give the gunfighters a few more things to hide behind. Here’s a picture of the six small outbuildings, with a close-up and a picture of the whole town so far after the break.

These were pretty easy to put together. The hardest one was the bath house, which had that front hitching post to carefully cut out and fold over.

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Today’s papercraft project was not a building, but a couple of arcade games from the 80s. I found these papercraft arcade-game models a couple of years ago at Way of the Rodent, and made two of them for a friend (and I think he still has them on display in his office). So, when I was thinking about papercraft models for this month, I thought that it would be fun to make a few more of them.

The Ms. Pac-Man machine was pretty easy to make, though the insides should really be painted black instead of the white of the cardstock. I’ll have to go back over it with a black marker or something. The Defender machine was much harder to assemble due to a more complicated shape. They did come out pretty good, though. I love that 80s arcade-game side artwork. Of these two games, I played Ms. Pac-Man quite a bit back in the 80s. I was always afraid to play Defender — look at all those buttons! (I did like the Atari 2600 version though — maybe because it had just 1 button.)
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