Aileen Cudmore – Page 4 – Tiny Wooden Pieces

No Sleep ’till Eradication

30/12/2016 Aileen Cudmore 7 Comments

New Comics Resume Next Week!

No new comic this week! After two great guest comics and a Christmas special, we are taking one week off before throwing ourselves once more into the unforgiving arms of a weekly comic update schedule. Unforgiving, but nonetheless rewarding, challenging, creative & fun. As ever, the guest comics and the time off has allowed us to recharge our creative batteries, and we do feel that this allows us to make better comics. It also allows us time to play more games, which we think is pretty great as well.

We also now have an Instagram account! Our account is twpcomic – just a couple of posts so far while we figure it out, but we would really appreciate it if you could give us a follow. You can also find us on twitter via the same handle – @twpcomic. The Tiny Wooden Pieces New Year’s Resolution is in fact to do a lot more on social media this year, so you will find a lot of our ramblings, thoughts, unsolicited opinions, sketches, games we’re playing and pictures of dogs we think look like famous people on Twitter, Instagram & Facebook this year.

So, until next week, we hope you all had some lovely time off, and got to spent some time with friends & loved ones. And if that time was spent playing board games with them, then all the better. As far as we are concerned, there is no better way to spend your time than playing games with good friends, and our own personal New Year’s Resolution is to spend more of our time doing exactly that.

Happy New Year!

Guest week

The last of this year’s guest comics bring the return of Dave and Roselyn, as they continue to discover the wonders, or dangers, of board games. The comic was illustrated by the brilliant Damien Duncan, and, of course, written by Dave himself. And Dave was also kind enough to contribute a blog post this week as well.

Next week we are actually taking a week off. I gotta put my hand up and say we messed up our scheduling and guest comics, and realised too late that we didn’t have a comic ready for next week, and most of our week will be spent visiting my folks at home in Kerry. Rather than do a rush job on a comic, we decided to take the week off, as putting up a half-ass comic is the only thing I can think of that is worse than missing a week of updates.

So I apologise in advance, but we will return in earnest in 2017, full of renewed energy and enthusiasm. Thanks for sticking with us for another year, and if you would be so kind as to join us again in 2017, we would consider it an honour.

Guest Blog!

Hi everyone, happy holidays! Firstly, thank you to Colin and Aileen for letting me loose on their comic again, and thank you to Damian for doing such an awesome job with this strip.

This is, in fact, a true story. I agonised for a long time over changing the ending to make it funnier, but in the end I had to go with what really happened. My lovely, chilled out, completely uncompetitive wife discovered we could lose against a board game and something inside her snapped. Suddenly she needed to win more than a Russian Olympian. I suppose I should be grateful we only took three attempts to win and cure the world. Otherwise, we could still be there!

My wife is not crazy, she would like you all to know that, apparently. However, if you would like to see her proven wrong, tell Colin you would like to hear about our recent attempt at the new board game, Labyrinth.

Ultimate One Night Santa

23/12/2016 Aileen Cudmore 25 Comments

It’s Christmas Time; There’s No Need To Be Afraid

Obviously, this game idea is a no-brainer, so Bezier Games, if you are reading this, you can email us to discuss development and terms.

You’re welcome.

Happy Holidays to all our readers, whatever you celebrate, or don’t – be it Christmas, Hanukkah, Yule, the inexorable encroachment of the Elder gods into our world through chanting and sacrifice, or just plain, good ol’ fashioned, getting presents from other people. The important thing is you celebrate with board games and good biscuits. Good ones now, mind you. That nice tin you’ve been saving.

We have one guest comic next week, featuring the return of now-frequent contributor Dave McNally, as he chronicles his continuing descent into the world of board games, along with his wife Roselyn. Expect chaos! But in a fun way, obviously. Before next week’s comic, you can catch up on their earlier exploits here, here, and here. Read together, it all forms a loose story arc that continues next week.

See you all then!

Oh, one more thing – obligatory end of year question – post your favourite game of the year in the comments. We would love to hear from as many people as possible!

I Misunderstood What I Was Meant to Be Doing

16/12/2016 Aileen Cudmore 13 Comments

The Story of a Christmas Web Comic

I think this might be my favourite comic that we have ever run on the site. The strip nearly wasn’t made, as I initially rejected the idea. Neither Shane Ormond (Writer) nor Charlie Aabo (Artist) will ever let me forget this fact. I’ll get back to that, but first of all I wanted to introduce you to the creators:

I met Shane Ormond through the local comic creator meet-up. I did some lettering for him on a short-lived three-panel gag strip in a local magazine. After that, I edited a couple of short scripts of his that were published in local comic anthologies. Later down the line, I ended up editing “The Guards”, a 48-page comic book he wrote, which was published earlier this year. You can buy a physical copy online here. To date, The Guards is probably the comic I am most proud of making.

You can follow Shane on twitter: @horkerspade

Having edited most of Shane’s recent comic work, I like to take full credit for all of his writing successes, including any and all in the future. Charlie Aabo on the other hand, is someone I have learnt a lot from, so no doubt he will be taking credit for my success, whenever that happens. He studied, and later taught at the Joe Kubert school, and probably has more years of experience in making comics than I have reading them. His work has energy, comedy, and character that you rarely see individually, let alone all poured together into one page from the pen of a single creator. Having him on the site is an honour.

You can find his creator-owned work on Comixology here, and I suggest you have a look, and a purchase. When you’re through reading those, you can encourage him to make more by hounding him on Facebook and Twitter:

https://www.facebook.com/JonPayPI

@CharlieAabo

And if you’re really into it, you can visit his website and embarrass him into updating it:

http://www.cobb-city.com/

So anyway, about two months before Christmas last year, I emailed a few friends whose work I admire, asking them to help out on the site over Christmas. Shane got back to me just before deadline with a really unusual script. It had absolutely nothing to do with board games, and was entirely the most bizarre pitch I received.

I turned it down, but it wouldn’t leave my head. After turning it over in my head for a week, I realised I had turned it down for all the wrong reasons. “It didn’t suit the site”, “it wasn’t what the readers would want”, “the audience might not like it or get it”. All terrible, terrible reasons to have broken Shane’s poor, delicate, writer’s heart. I was second-guessing the audience, and afraid to take a risk. The script really made me laugh, and it was completely ridiculous. That was all that should have mattered. By trying to second-guess the audience, I was doing them (you) a disservice.

After changing my mind about running the comic, I discussed it with Aileen, and we decided it would really need the right artist to work. It would not even be worth attempting without someone who could match perfectly its wonderfully absurd tone. There was only one name that fit that bill, and I decided if I couldn’t get Charlie I wouldn’t run the comic – that’s not an exaggeration to flatter, it’s just the truth of the matter.

By the time we had zeroed in on Charlie as our pick for artist, it was too late to use the comic for Christmas. But I liked it enough asked Charlie to have it in for this year, and as luck would have it, 12 months was just about enough time for him to find the time.

Maybe you will love it, maybe you will hate it, maybe you will scratch your head and wonder at the lack of dice and meeples. Either way, I feel I made the right call, but would nonetheless love to hear your thoughts on it.

Hide the Wizard

08/12/2016 Aileen Cudmore 3 Comments

Christmas is Coming

If you live in, around, near, or even just in the general landmass that supports the city of Cork, you should come along to the Tabletop Cafe pop-up this Sunday. It’s upstairs in the Roundy Bar on Castle St. If you come along say hello! I’ll be helping out all day, and would be delighted to meet some readers, and if it’s not too busy, maybe even play some games as well. I am even willing to play a wizardy game, if you ask really nice. Maybe.

Next week we begin our now-annual tradition of Guest Week. This is where we get our excellent friends and collaborators to make some comics for the site, putting some variety into proceeds, and allowing us a break over Christmas. Well, I say us, but really, I mean Aileen. While I can knock out a script in about an hour, in between writerly naps on the couch, it can then take Aileen the better part of two days to pencil, ink, and colour it. Guest Week also allows us to recharge our batteries, and I always feel we come out of the break making better comics.

The plan as it stands now is to have two ‘guest comics’ over the next three weeks, and also include our own Christmas special (yes, Guest Week runs for three weeks, it’s a thing). I am not yet 100% when our comic will run in that three-week period, but obviously, I would encourage you all to come and check out the guest comics as well.

We have some returning guest creators with Damien Duncan and Dave McNally, and a couple of exciting new faces as well. Everyone involved in Guest Week is someone I have worked with before on other comic projects. They are all people I trust to deliver great work. They are as good as, and in some cases, clearly better than, our own work. I will also continue to include a blog post with each comic, so while we get to take a break, you don’t actually get to take a break from me.

Soz. LOLZ.

Also by this time next week, I will have seen Rogue One, so I will likely be unable to think about anything else at that point – so expect a blog post about it. I am so excited! Is everyone else not this excited as well?

HO HO HO Star Wars!

The Realm of the Rat King

02/12/2016 Aileen Cudmore 2 Comments

King Rat of the Undercouch

King Rat of the Undercouch is, I would like to presume, a fictional character. But as I am never ever going to lift up the couch to check, it will remain a presumption. It’s for the best that way. If dice rolled under the couch disappear forever, and if we need to continue leaving out food tributes every full moon so he doesn’t annex any more territory in our home, then that’s just what we will do. Best not to think of the alternatives. Best never to even imagine the crude throne of dice he is constructing. I mean, he’s fictional, and that’s what we will continue to say quietly to ourselves every night so we can sleep soundly.

He’s fictional.

I want to thank everyone who responded to our call last week for suggestions for ‘essential’ board games for a board game cafe. We were looking to help our friends at Tabletop Cork, and they are super-grateful to everyone who pitched in. Their pop-up board game cafe starts in just a couple of weeks, and I probably don’t need to tell anyone here how excited we are to have a board game cafe in Cork. This is a big deal for us, and we really want it to succeed, so I will be mentioning it again here a whole bunch. We have no financial investment or interest, and there is no sponsorship involved, it’s just that the idea of the pop-up leading to a full-time board game cafe on our doorstep is far too exciting an opportunity for us to not talk about all the time.

I finally picked up a copy of Games Workshop’s Blood Bowl during the week. This is super-exciting for me, as it’s a game I have been looking forward to for literally more than a year. Not even spending a week’s worth of evenings carefully scraping mould lines off plastic miniatures before assembly has dampened my enthusiasm.

Once this preparatory work is done, I am looking forward to finding out how well the game has aged. My understanding is that the new edition only makes minor changes to the rules, so I will essentially be playing the same game I used to enjoy more than 10 years ago now. For those unfamiliar, Blood Bowl is essentially a joke on the term ‘fantasy football’ in that it’s American football played with elves, dwarves, orcs, etc. And it’s just as gratuitously, gloriously over the top and violent as that would suggest. If you play as orcs, literally pounding the other team into the ground is your best path to victory, but of course, elves and rat-men prefer to run (or indeed, scurry) across the pitch scoring touchdowns to win in a more traditional manner.

And then there’s dwarves. Lacking the agility of other races, and the brute force of orcs, dwarves tend towards outlandish technology and weaponry in order to cheat their way to the end zone. This includes the infamous ‘death-roller’, which is basically a one-man spikey steamroller. It’s guaranteed to get the player sent off the pitch, but not before he manages to score, and maybe level the playing field a little as well. I remember it as a quick-paced game that was always a lot of fun – I hope to report back in a week or two as to whether or not it remains the game I remember.

In the meantime, we are fast approaching that jolly, red, bearded time of the year again, so what’s the number one game on everyone’s list this Christmas?

Flight of Dracula

25/11/2016 Aileen Cudmore 26 Comments

Count and Games

A stake is the only way to kill a Gary, as conventional means have no lasting effect on him. Well, I say conventional, but the reality is that he has had some pretty unconventional deaths in his time.

Poor guy, he should really stop beating me at X-Wing.

We don’t actually own ‘Fury of Dracula’, but it’s pretty high on our want list. And now that Fantasy Flight Games will no longer be working with Games Workshop, it is a game that could become very difficult to get in the near future, as the game is a product of this licensing agreement. We have heard nothing but great things since the new edition came out, and in typical FF fashion, it looks gorgeous. Perhaps Christmas will be kind. By which I mean perhaps we will be kind to ourselves over Christmas, as we are grown-ups who Santa has long since abandoned.

The %$£*.

As I’ve mentioned before, some friends of ours are planning a pop-up board game cafe in December, as a proof of concept for an actual board game cafe. The success of the pop-up will help determine the viability of a cafe further down the line. Obviously, we’re more than a little excited about this, and we’re doing as much as we can to help out.

Right now, I’m working on a list of board games for inclusion in the cafe, and I am trying to make a list of games that would be considered ‘essential’ for a board game cafe. If you wanted to help, you can do so by leaving a comment listing 3-5 games (or more, if you’re inclined) that you would consider ‘essential’ for a board game cafe. Whether they are personal preference, games with wide appeal – whatever criteria you wish to apply.

All suggestions gratefully received!

Another Wizard Did It

18/11/2016 Aileen Cudmore 27 Comments

The Importance of Rolling Dice

If you’re a newer reader, here is a reminder of how I feel about wizards.

I think I just find it hard to move past that old stereotype of the pointed hat, white beard, and purple robes. Having never played D&D growing up, that stereotype was never challenged. And by the time the Wizard’s Guild hired publicist JK Rowling to radically transform their image, it might have already been too late for me. I have seen a couple of the films, and while I did think they were fun, they failed to really captivate me. Although I will admit that having never attempted to read the novels, I am likely to be missing the real magic.

However, I’m not a completely heartless monster, and I will admit to being charmed by the look of the trailer for Fantastic Beasts. Potter-verse aside, it looks like it could be a really fun, colourful adventure. Exactly the kind of film that would make for a good cinema trip in a cold winter month.

While this week’s comic might not be based on real events, it is certainly true and faithful in spirit. If Aileen, or indeed some person more nefarious than her, did ever need to lure me unwittingly into a trap, dice would work 100% of the time. I crave dice in my games like others seem to crave miniatures in theirs. And it’s not for the random element. I much prefer the balance of a game to swing on planning, strategy, scheming – any one of these wonderful things. It is the tactile nature of dice that appeals so much.

Whenever a new game comes into our possession (oh, what a glorious thing!), its unboxing will follow a by-now standard procedure. Once the shrink comes off, Aileen will occupy herself with the olfactory delights contained within. Nothing makes her happier than the smell of new board game, and she could easily lose hours to this pursuit.

Meanwhile, I will be digging around in the box for the dice. Once in my hand, I will assess their heft, feeling their weight, design, quality, and colour. And of course, test them. In the parlance of a younger generation, see ‘how they roll’. Do they make a satisfying noise as they collide in my hand, and then hit the table? Are they clunky, or clacky? Do they bounce, spin, or stop disappointingly? Will the test rolls produce a good omens, or ill?

For my birthday this year, Aileen got me the Pathfinder box set, a brilliantly packed box full of manuals, maps, cardboard, and a lovely-looking set of dice – a full complement of those required for roleplaying, in fact. Although reasonable looking, they felt a little light, and didn’t roll very much when cast into the box lid. My very first rolls produced three ones in a row on the D20, followed by a two. The D6 then rolled two ones in a row. I can’t speak for the other dice, as I immediately re-bagged them, and hid them at the very back of our gaming shelf, never to be spoken of again. The very next day, I bought a replacement set at the gaming store (after spending close to half an hour testing and rolling various sets at the counter, obviously).

Games Stop

11/11/2016 Aileen Cudmore 11 Comments

The importance of games

Writing an accompanying blog post for this week’s comic was difficult. It felt wrong to be attempting humour under the circumstances – as I write this, the election results have been called, appointments are being made, and a new era is beginning.

But humour is important. Aileen reminded me of that this morning, and it’s true. I know maintaining a sense of humour has helped me through some challenging and dark times in my life. Humour is, perhaps, more important now than ever.

Something we talked about a lot when we started Tiny Wooden Pieces was that there were far too many people who took board gaming far too seriously, and found no humour, or silliness in the hobby. And what’s life without some silliness? Everyone needs to laugh and act out and just do something ridiculous every now and then. Little things can help. A fun evening of gaming with friends was the best distraction I’ve had all day, and it left me feeling a lot better.

If playing board games can make a difference in my life, they can make a difference for others as well. A highlight of the past week has been some great content coming from the board game community on making the hobby more inclusive. This is how you can make a difference. Little changes can make a difference, and change can start at your gaming table. It SHOULD start at your gaming table. Follow @425suzanne on twitter, and start by reading these points on helping our hobby to be more inclusive. Then watch this Board Game Breakfast, which talks about the issue as well. If you are feeling down this week, look at all of these things and understand how you can make a difference. It helps. You can help. If life is going to be more difficult for some people from now on, we should all do our best to let them know that not everyone feels the same way.

Tiny Wooden Pieces isn’t going to change the world, but we hope it makes your world that little bit brighter. I know that hearing your feedback and getting to talk to you all in the comments brightens our own world, and remains our favourite thing about making the comic. So join the conversation. Say hello, and have a chat with us. We’re all in this together, and we would love to hear from you. Join us at the table.

Careful What You Wish For

04/11/2016 Aileen Cudmore 4 Comments

Keep on playin’ games

Firstly, for those who care about such things (and I believe our audience numbers a few of you) there is another great value word game on KS right now. This one seems to have an extraordinarily simple rule set, so much so that I was put off a little at first, but it’s possible it is one of those games that works well, not in spite of, but because of, a simple rule set. At only 23 dollars including shipping, it’s quite likely I will find out. And the KS is still live as this comic is posted.

Halloween came and went with little in the way of opportunity for playing seasonal games. We did manage a solitary game of Werewolf (I won, and must say the villagers were delightfully tasty), but Mysterium, or Ghost Stories, or Dead of Winter all failed to haunt our gaming group with their presence.

Still, if Disney movies have taught me anything, it’s that Halloween was, and still is, in our hearts all along, and so can be celebrated right up to Christmas, at which point the carved pumpkins are likely to be no more than orange mushy puddles by your doorstep, and should be removed. The point being, spooky games are good all year round, so we shall try our best to get some in at a later date. In fact, we have been meaning to get back to Fiasco, and there are plenty of appropriately themed scenarios for a night of horror gaming. Our first game was an ordinary crime-themed bloodbath, so now we want to try a bloodbath of a more supernatural nature – zombies, monsters, politicians, accountants etc.

I have an X-Wing tournament this weekend, but after that there is no more competitive X-Wing (at least locally) until the new year, so I will be playing a broader spectrum of games in general. Having said that, it is also looking more and more likely that GW’s Blood Bowl will release this month, which means I will just be swapping an X-Wing obsession for a Blood Bowl obsession … Anyone else as excited about Blood Bowl as I am? (on a scale of 1 to pretty darn excited I would rate myself as being ‘pretty darn excited’)

Backer Beware

28/10/2016 Aileen Cudmore 11 Comments

Project Update!

I was just about to do my ‘yoga flame’ as well. It would have been so impressive.

To be clear, this comic is NOT aimed at the ‘Heroes of Normandie’ Kickstarter. I needed a current Kickstarter project for the comic, and this one genuinely piqued my interest. Heroes is a game I’ve always wanted to try, but could never quite figure out how to justify another war game in my collection when the ones I have don’t see enough table time as it is.

The companies and Kickstarters that it is aimed at will remain anonymous, but I am certain that most reading this comic will know exactly what we are talking about. I think even Bob from Marketing would be ashamed at the way in which some companies spam your inbox after you’ve backed their campaign. Sure, if I’ve backed a game that means I’m excited enough to want to hear updates on it, but within reason. A couple of updates about how the project is shaping up, and definitely a shipping notification.

In the handful of Kickstarter projects I have backed, I have seen this handled well, and handled poorly. And worse than that are the companies who take it as permission to add you to a general mailing list/newsletter. That’s infuriating, not to mind legally dubious. A mailing list is a separate opt-in, simple as that. Backing your Kickstarter is not an excuse to email every week long after your project has been delivered. That is not acceptable.

In better Kickstarter news, I backed Moveable Type, a great-looking little card game from an Irish designer. Not only am I supporting local talent, but it means reasonable shipping for once. But I didn’t back it because it was locally produced, I backed it because not only is it a great-looking card game, but it’s a great-looking word-based card game. And we have nowhere near enough word-based games, and I do love words. Unfortunately, by the time the comic is posted, the KS will have ended, but I should have it before Christmas, and if it’s any good you’ll be hearing about it here.

Word games! I am excited.

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