Here’s a list of changes:

- Added support for Pathfinder. Touch AC, Flat-Footed AC and CMD can now be entered for combatants.

- Reactivated the heal / wound buttons from v0.4. Back by popular demand!

- Fixed a bug that prevented negative values for most statistics.

- Fixed a bug that would cause the program to crash if negative values were entered for Listen / Spot skills.

- Fixed a bug with the random number generator that would set the maximum value for a random roll to be one less than the actual maximum (so a d20 would be 1-19).

- Made some of the checkbox descriptions clearer.

- Few other miscellaneous tweaks and UI improvements.

Download TrackWork v0.53

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Certain recent events threw a giant spanner in the works for all Zafehouse-related activity. I can’t 100% say that I’m in the clear, but at the moment it looks like I’ll be able to continue working on the game. Sorry for not being able to provide anything more conclusive than that (or sooner than today). :(

I can let you know of a few changes I did make before “the news“:

• Rewrote the event system. It’s more flexible now and uses tokens and delegates to deliver more dynamic text. Very modular and much needed given the increasing scope of the game.
• Focus is now very much on the survivors. I’ve always been quite adamant about the state of zombie games these days being about shooting and looting rather than the characters. Zafehouse 2 is very much a story about people, not the undead they slaughter. That, and a particular Flash game that reinforced my desire to move away from the “Civilization: Zombies” gameplay.
• Don’t worry, you still have to barricade and scavenge for supplies, and the systems behind these are robust. But managing the emotional and physical needs of your survivors will be just as important (if not more so).
• Time was too granular. The game now has 6 phases, with shorter, more frequent “activity blocks” during the night and longer ones during the day. For example: 6am-12pm, 12pm-6pm, 6pm-9pm, etc. The distribution / length of these phases has yet to be finalised. I wanted to bring back the feeling of dread one gets as day transitions to night. I thought it was a highlight of the first game and Zafehouse 2 wasn’t really replicating that. It also removes the oddity of “if I’d had one minute extra I’d have finished that barricade” which was extremely jarring.
• I think the Direct3D renderer might have issues on some newer mobile GFX chips, in particular Intel / GeForce configurations using Optimus. But I can’t confirm it. I guess that’s what the beta will be for!

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He’s published his work on the Zafehouse forums so if you feel like playing the game in Russian, or translating it into a language more compatible with your brain, please check it out!

Link: Zafehouse (multilingual) [Zafehouse forums]

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Well, except when I use native GDI calls to paint instead. Actually, now that I think about it, GDI+ doesn’t do a heck of a lot for Zafehouse 2 anymore.

Now, this change raises a number of questions: Why not use Direct3D for the entire process? Why change APIs in the first place? Isn’t the Direct2D API in DirectX 10+ basically what you’re describing?

These are all fair questions, and I’m going to try to answer them.

Why not use Direct3D for the whole shebang?
Because I’ve already done a lot of groundwork for image rendering that replacing the engine wholesale would add a lot of time to the development process. Considering the game is already years overdue, I doubt anyone would be excited about the news of me delaying the game just to rewrite a chunk of code that doesn’t need to be rewritten. It all works fine, I just needed something more powerful than GDI+ to get the heavy lifting done.

Why move to Direct3D in the first place?
Primarily, it was a question of speed. Secondarily, I wanted to improve my knowledge of the DirectX API, having already implemented my own xWMA audio engine, which relies on the XAudio2 API. So the game already depended on DirectX, through the managed SlimDX wrapper.

Isn’t what you’ve described basically Direct2D?
It kind of is, and I could have just used the Direct2D API to quickly accomplish the GDI/GDI+/Direct3D fusion. Except Direct2D is a god-awful API. That, and Direct2D requires a DirectX 10-compliant graphics card to run, as well as Vista or Windows 7. It’s bad enough Z2 needs a DirectX 9.0c-compliant card now, and I didn’t want the make the situation worse. By writing my own routines, Z2 remains compatible with Windows XP and graphics cards circa 2005. Which is pretty good, all things considered.

How does it work?
In technical terms, Zafehouse 2 generates a couple of D3D-compatible textures from PNGs for compositing purposes at startup. This takes a couple of milliseconds. We also create some device independent bitmaps for direct blitting, but we don’t have to worry about that.

Whenever compositing is required, the game sends the textures to the D3D renderer, paints them to an off-screen surface, downloads the data into system memory, and then blits it directly to the GDI+ graphics object using GDI calls. In the case of Intel chips, we lock the surface and perform the blit directly. In the case of NVIDIA/AMD cards (which use dedicated video RAM), we copy the surface to another surface in system RAM using GetRenderTargetData, and then blit directly from that surface.

The reason for the two different paths is because it’s faster to copy directly on Intel GPUs as they don’t have dedicated video RAM so, essentially, locking the rendering surface is like locking another chunk of system RAM and doing a direct copy which, as you can imagine, is faster than copying it to another surface in system RAM and copying from that.

For cards with dedicated RAM, locking the video surface directly is actually slower. GetRenderTargetData is heavily optimised for these chips, so doing a surface to surface copy followed by a blit is actually pretty fast, even on crappy low-end NVIDIA/AMD cards.

The result is a GDI/GDI+ based graphics engine that offloads compositing (so alpha-blending and overlays) to video hardware. This means we can make use of hardware acceleration, as GDI+ is completely software driven.

It’s true that copying data from video RAM to system RAM is a bit of a performance hog (and I’m sure there are more than a few coders out there shaking their heads), but in practice it’s much, much faster than even the most heavily-optimised GDI+ routines.

What is GDI+ good for then?
Rendering text. My god, it’s great at that. I actually implemented text rendering via D3D in my renderer, but it looked like garbage. GDI+, on the other hand, looks amazing, as it supports a number of quality features D3D’s Font class does not (hinting, gamma correction, etc). So, I’m happy to take a minor performance hit to keep text rendering in software.

GDI+ also makes alpha-blending images easy, but the performance hit is quite nasty, even with double-buffering and razor-accurate dirty rectangles. Credit where credit’s due – it’s simple to use but not at all a great performer.

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The “I” shaped objects represent doors, while the “O”s with the funny curves are windows. A window is currently selected by the player (the red circle) and a little image shows you how fortified it is. Red arrows mark entry vectors. Oh, and survivors can’t walk through barricaded doors or windows… so keep that in mind!

Still lots to come, so hang tight!

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Development is ongoing and I’m getting closer to an alpha release – much closer than the previous incarnation of Zafehouse 2 ever managed. Trying to hit dates, but it really is unpredictable right now. Just know that I’m working hard on the game every chance I get. This is about 2-3 hours a day right now.

PS. Ignore the note text… it’s purely placeholder. ;)

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Welcome to the new-look Zafehouse 2, or Zafehouse 2.5 to help separate it from previous efforts. The game is based entirely around manipulation of a dynamic journal. Chapters keep locations, events, supplies and survivor information nicely contained. A special context-sensitive entry system allows you to configure events, lock them in, and then accelerate time. When something occurs, time will stop, allowing you to react however you see fit.

Survivors will report in as they return from their adventures, meaning you must rely entirely on them for information. Figure out who to trust, and you’ll do fine. Piss everyone off, and you’re all doomed.

Expect more shots and info in the coming weeks.

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It grew, exponentially, until it wasn’t what it needed to be – a successor to Zafehouse. It became its own game, a game I didn’t want to make.

Consider it the first prototype.

A little side project – a 2D map generator – I’d been working on while hacking away at Deadshed suddenly became the new Zafehouse 2. It was closer to the game’s original vision, just with more stuff. Lots of neat features were added to this generator, until it started turning into a game.

And then I got suckered into building three combat engines, which culminated in a solid tactical 2D game. I’m actually happy with the result, and I have no doubt a fun game of some description could come of this project.

But again, it wouldn’t be Zafehouse.

After spending weeks contemplating the future of the game, I decided to follow my gut. As painful as it was to do, I shelved the Zafehouse 2 codebase and accepted it as the second prototype.

I then started on Zafehouse 2.5, scavenging a couple of chunks from Zafehouse 2 – the audio engine, random name generator and a few miscellaneous bits and bobs.

Yes, I’m essentially starting Zafehouse’s sequel from scratch, again. But the clarity of thought, purity of design, experience and elegance I’m bringing from Deadshed and Z2 are worth their weight in blood-stained gold. I’m finally happy, completely, with the direction the latest incarnation is taking and, for the first time in at least a year, I’m really enjoying working on the game. The inspiration and passion have returned, and these are by far the most potent qualities a developer can bring to a title.

So there you have it – an honest assessment and lowdown of the current state of the project. For everyone who’s stayed with the game, I can’t begin to thank you for putting up with the sparodic updates and procrastination. This year’s been hard on the game industry, particularly in Australia, both emotionally and financially. It’s good to be able to once again take a firm grasp of the fundamentals, the primal drive for doing this thing, and wield like a dwarven berserker would a mangled hatchet in the face of a stalwart, somewhat insane orc army.

As for tangibles, expect screenshots and gameplay details in the New Year. Until then, enjoy the holidays. :)

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Beserker
Conductor
Dark Swordmage
Elementalist

More custom 4e classes can be found here.

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A centralised location for the application. A single, online database that can be updated quickly and the changes reflected instantly to all users. A cloud-based storage system so all your characters are available no matter where you are. Support for multiple platforms. These are the things the new CB promised.

Sadly for Wizards, not only was the reception to this news overwhelmingly negative, the launch itself did not go smoothly. Not at all.

According to feedback from users on Wizards’ forums, the online builder is slow, crashes constantly, delivers character sheets 100s of megabytes in size and has less homebrew support than the old CB. Commentary suggests that users of the new CB don’t feel like customers, but beta testers.

Perhaps the most controversial change is that you must have an active D&D Insider subscription to use the online CB. So unless you pay every month, you can’t use the Builder. Essentially, it’s a big F-U to transient subscribers.

It would be fair to ask then, given the relative maturity of the old Character Builder, why Wizards felt the need to move it all online? Why go through the agony of yet another product launch, complete with teething issues, bugs, missing features and the wrath of customers?

To cash up.

Sure, the new approach has benefits for players, but the strongest arguments for the online CB favour the business. No piracy and assured funds via subscriptions.

So, what if I like the old Character Builder?
You’re in luck, actually. For the time being, anyway. First, some background.

Silverlight runs on .NET. The Character Builder also uses .NET. In addition, both use Windows Presentation Foundation (or WPF) for their user interfaces. WPF is an alternative and pseudo-replacement for Windows Forms, the default UI library for .NET Windows applications.

What this means is that a majority, if not all, of the backend code – the stuff that does the heavy lifting and is the most time-consuming to implement – could be ported to a Silverlight app. Heck, as both platforms can utilise WPF, some of the frontend could be ported too.

Say what you will about Silverlight, .NET and C#, these tools can be used to build responsive apps. Microsoft’s XNA Framework, which is used for games development on PC and Xbox 360, has C# as its favoured language. A game is probably one of the most demanding applications you can write, requiring constant optimisation and an eye of time-sensitivity.

I’m not saying .NET is perfect, but it’s not junk either. As the saying goes: Don’t blame the tools.

I should also mention Microsoft is not abandoning Silverlight – it’s hogwash. (Bad) Journalists love to quote out of context, and that’s what happened at PDC. Here’s a blog post from Microsoft addressing the confusion:

The purpose of Silverlight has never been to replace HTML, but rather to do the things that HTML (and other technologies) can’t, and to do so in a way that’s easy for developers to use. Silverlight enables great client app and media experiences. It’s now installed on two-thirds of the world’s computers, and more than 600,000 developers currently build software using it. Make no mistake; we’ll continue to invest in Silverlight and enable developers to build great apps and experiences with it in the future.

The post admits the company’s strategy has “shifted”, but all this means is that it’s recognised that HTML5 is gaining momentum, and a lot of major players are supporting it. Go against this would be silly.

So… why Silverlight
Along with being the path of least resistance, going online-only with the CB and using Silverlight as a frontend addressed two significant issues in Wizards’ online and software strategy. The first was the lack of multiplatform support; Silverlight runs just as well on Windows and Mac.

The second, and likely what sealed the deal for Hasbro, Wizards’ parent company, was eliminating piracy. As long as the CB could exist offline and fully-functional, there was little either company could do to prevent users from copying the hell out of it.

And, eventually, adding our own content.

Sticking with the offline Character Builder
The CB’s assemblies are obsfucated with a commercial app called {smartassembly}. While this makes it incredibly difficult to discern the inner workings of the application, it didn’t stop one enthusiastic user from prying apart its innards. The result? CBLoader, an application that not only extracts the raw ruleset as XML, but can inject a custom ruleset into the program when it starts.

The silly thing is that CBLoader uses the CB’s own exposed routines to accomplish this – specifically those from a satellite library called ApplicationUpdate.Client.dll. Such is the insecurity of .NET. At least offline.

Now that Wizards has stopped updating (and I’m guessing supporting) the offline CB, CBLoader should work from now until forever. Already people have started putting together unofficial updates. Last time I checked, Dark Sun, Essentials and a couple of the latest Dragon mags are available. How long this community effort continues is dependent on a number of things; the offline CB has extensive modularity in its rules database, but major new features, such as Essentials and Dark Sun themes, will be difficult to replicate faithfully as the executable remains off-limits. Fortunately, a degree of support for these was included in the last official update (October, 2010).

There’s nothing stopping someone from coding a new offline frontend, however, if this situation eventuates.

Tracking down CBLoader and the unofficial updates is trivial. If you’ve been disenfranchised by Wizards’ new software strategy, you don’t have to stop using the offline CB just yet.

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One word: Work. Real life has kind of gobbled my time, just as I was making headway on Z2. It could be argued that I should be able to make time for the game, and that’s true, to a point. But Z2 needs large blocks of time spent on it for system implementation; chipping away at this sort of thing will only result in a “bitsy” game. It needs elegance, and that can only come from a holistic approach.

I will say that I’m seriously considering redoing combat. Again. The current system, while neat, takes away from what Zafehouse is all about. The game right now is about combat, and Zafehouse was never a combat simulator. I won’t be working on combat though once I get back to Z2. I’m keen to get the relationship systems up and running, as well as the survivor and safehouse stuff.

Combat will once again take the form of an event log, like the first game, but it will have a little more depth and interaction to it. But I want to stress that strategy and preparation are key in Zafehouse, not tactics. The current combat system does nothing to support this.

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Actually, I’m just going to point you in the general direction.

Disclaimer: I, in no way, condone or support reverse-engineering the Character Builder or its associated libraries. I also cannot condone redistribution of any Wizards-owned IP or content.

The greatest failing of the official 4e Character Builder from Wizards is its weak support for homebrew and custom content. For such a powerful and mature tool, it’s an incredible shortcoming. In addition, the recent (and second) delay to the September refresh of the CB highlighted the fact that players are at the mercy of Wizards for rules updates. Without WotC’s regular software support, the CB quickly falls out-of-sync with new books and Dragon/Dungeon magazines. For those on the cutting edge of the game, it’s fairly crippling.

Recently I came across a Google Code project called cbloader. It’s a fairly simple C# application that decrypts the “combined.dnd40.encrypted” file, extracts the rules database from it and writes it out as XML. You can then use the app to instruct the CB to use the XML instead of the encrypted file for its ruleset. This XML is completely editable. At any time you can redirect the CB back to the encrypted file, so you can have a modified database and the original running in parallel.

In essence, it allows you to update the CB yourself, or put in proper custom rules fully supported by the application. With colours and bonuses and all.

Obviously, if players could add their own content to the CB (including the official stuff) there would be little reason for them to purchase the monthly updates, except for major rule changes (such as with Essentials and the September CB refresh). That, and saving yourself the hassle of typing in all the new content, which is significant.

I’d like to clarify that I am not at all associated with cbloader – it’s just something I came across. If you’d like to take a look at it, go right ahead. I can tell you now, out of the box, it won’t work, and I don’t feel comfortable explaining how to fix it.

I will say that anyone with reasonable experience with programming, particularly C#, and some familiarity with reading and writing to process memory should be able to get it operational quickly, after which it will do exactly what it says on the tin. As for manipulating the XML itself, well, that’s another can of worms entirely.

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A few things, though:

1) It’s a demo! There’s probably 10 minutes of gameplay in this thing, tops. It’s just a taster, a sample. It’s not meant to be a whole game. I desperately wanted to let people know that yes, the game is still in development. The demo is also a platform to deliver feedback on the general feel and direction. Try not to nitpick, but don’t hesitate to offer a comment or two.

2) Read the readme! It contains a list of requirements. Before you start posting that you can’t get it working, make sure you’ve installed all the necessary software and are running the correct operating system. It should go without saying I can’t provide support for anyone running the game under emulation (WINE, VMWare, Mono, etc).

3) Speaking of reading, look at the demo tutorial! If you just jump into the game and are completely lost, be it on your own head. If you read the tutorial and still can’t make heads or tails of things, go ahead and fire some questions.

4) The download is around 8.5MB… just in case that’s going to bust your download limit for the month.

5) Performance. It’s not as fast as it could be, especially when you have a lot of overlapping awareness arcs. Optimising comes much later when the rest of the game is solid.

All I can think of for now. Will probably update this post as I remember stuff.

Download: Zafehouse 2 combat demo

FAQ

When I run Zafehouse 2.exe I get an error about reading game values
Download this replacement executable: http://downloads.zafehouse.com/zafehouse2/z2fix.zip. It should fix the problem.

When I run the game, I get an error about the audio subsystem
To fix this, you’ll need to install the following files:

SlimDX runtime
The latest DirectX 9.0c runtime (note that Windows Vista and Windows 7 do not come with DX9 by default, and having DX10 is not enough!). You can also try the end-user runtime
Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 runtime
Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 runtime

I’m still getting errors!
We can track down the exact problem using Dependency Walker. If you’re not afraid of a little techiness, download DW, run it and then drag the SlimDX.dll in the Zafehouse 2 directory into the program’s open window. It’ll tell you straight away what’s missing!

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So, if you’d like to keep abreast of developments, sign up to the Zafehouse Twitter feed: http://twitter.com/Zafehouse. For major features or changes, however, I’ll be writing them up here on the blog where there’s more than 140 characters to play with.

For those who haven’t been following Twitter, I’ve finished implementing the new, saner firing code and am charging ahead with the tutorials and general polish.

Not long now…

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The code also did something unexpected but extremely neat – zombies fade into view as they move adjacent to a survivor, so it looks like they’re coming out of a fog to attack you. It’s quite terrifying.

I know a lot of this sounds like gobbledygook as combat has changed so much since the initial video, but I wanted to let everyone know ZH2 is definitely alive. Well, as alive as a zombie game can be. Once you play the combat demo, it’ll all make sense. Trust me!

I’m moving onto the firing code tonight, because it’s been bugging me for a while now. I’m trying to figure out an elegant solution to adding bursts into the existing system, but I’m concerned I’ll need to rewrite it. Which would suck, as I’ve already rewritten it once.

Ah, to refactor or not refactor… that is the question!

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Fiddling around with the firing logic too. At the moment, survivors try to guess how many shots it’ll take to kill each zombie in their line of sight, starting with the weakest. I thought it was cool until someone pointed out that it’s not realistic. At all. It’s also annoying when a survivor guesses a zombie should take two shots to kill, they fire those two shots and… one of them misses. Cue unexpected flesh-munching.

What (trained) people usually do when they fire a gun is use bursts. The new firing logic will go “Okay, I’m going to fire x rounds at the closest, weakest zombie I can see. If it dies, move onto something else. Otherwise, fire another burst”. The x is determined by the weapon and experience level of the survivor.

Once the combat demo is out, I’ll be curious to hear how people find the auto target selection/shooting done by survivors. I wanted to add more control, without entirely sacrificing the feel of the first game.

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Seriously though, the idea of going back to journalism is appealing. But, I know I’ve found my home in the games industry. It’s more fun to make ‘em than write about ‘em. At least for me – I think a few people get hooked on the freebies and junkets and lose sight of what being a journo (let alone a games journo) is all about.

It’s great when you accept that you want to move on; it’s even better when you actually do. That’s the hard part.

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Once you’ve gone through the recommended setups, you’ll hunger for a random draw of kingdom cards. Now, you can shuffle and use the included template cards to come up with a fresh combination… or you can jump online and have a website do it for you in seconds.

Sure enough, more than a few people have constructed online Dominion card randomisers and, inevitably, not all turned out equal. I’ve written a couple of short reviews of the ones I’ve found, and ranked them from worst to best.

So, if you’re curious as to which randomiser you should be using, hit the jump!

#5: Card Picker – Dominion
Website: www.irkeninvader.com/cardpicker/dominion

Going to have to mark this one down immediately for only providing the base set, Intrigue and a few of the promo cards and options. Without Seaside, it’s a little useless for those with all of the currently released sets.

It’s definitely phone-friendly, in terms of bandwidth and presentation, but on a proper PC it’s spartan. The text-only presentation is alright, but the images on other sites makes recognition that much quicker. I do appreciate the small icons to the left of the cards that identify attack, victory and normal kingdom cards; at a glance you can see what the general mix is and reshuffle if necessary.

If you scroll down, you can select the type of randomisation and whether reaction cards should be picked if an attack card is chosen. There’s also an option not found on other sites – making sure cards with costs of 2, 3, 4 and 5 are available for a good distribution of prices.

Sadly, that’s about all it has going for it and, as I said, the lack of a Seaside checkbox hampers it severely.

#4: Dominion: Random Card Selector
Website: www.craftycoder.com/randomDominion.htm

Well, it should look great on a phone but, otherwise, this one ain’t so hot. While all the current expansions are included, you can’t combine more than two. This means it’s either the base set plus Intrigue or Seaside, or Intrigue plus Seaside. Yes, those are “ors”; the randomiser won’t let you combine the base set, Seaside and Intrigue together.

It’s fast to generate cards, and there’s a text summary followed by the card images. But the lack of configuration options kills it as a realistic choice.

#3 Dominion Deck Builder
Website: www.dominiondeck.com

Here’s a site dedicated to Dominion decks. Sweet, I say, but how’s your random generator?

Presentation is good, as good as other sites which provide image results. All the sets are available for inclusion, as are card types. It’s confusing at first glance – am I selecting card types to include or exclude? Playing around with these checkboxes determined it’s the former, so only selecting say, reaction cards, results in an unplayable set of two cards. Not the best default behaviour.

There’s a save button if you’re willing to register, and hitting back on your browser gives you the previous set, but the actual card generation feels sluggish. It’s not painful really, but compared to the other sites, it’s slow. There’s also no way to apply rules to set generation, so you can’t depend on reaction cards being available for attacks or trash cards for disposing of curses.

A nifty, but not amazing feature found here is the ability to hover over cards and get a clear text description of the card in question.

Conclusion? Competent, but not snappy enough if you want to charge through random sets. The lack of filtering options and the silly combos you can produce on initial usage put it behind Zack’s generator and the Dominion Card Picker.

#2: Dominion Card Picker
Website: www.chrisdouglas.ca/games/dominion

This randomiser is of similar appearance to Zack’s; in fact, the page says Hiwiller’s effort was an inspiration. Functionally though it’s a bit different, but not wildly so.

The most notable addition is the pre-generated set dropdown, which throws up a selection of cards that should play well together. It even includes the recommended sets from the manuals. I’m not sure where the rest are sourced from (some are from BoardGameGeek), but there’s an extensive range of excellent choices.

While it allows you to select which sets to include in the random generation, the only specific condition you can set is whether reaction cards should be included if at least one attack card is chosen. It’s better than Zack’s generator, in that it allows for reactions other than Moat, but Moat is probably the strongest reaction in that it prevents the effects of an attack completely. So it’s more of a side-grade in terms of features.

The outputted card images are a little on the small side, but it’s not like you’re playing with them. The resolution is more than good enough to see what cards have been selected, so it’s a minor complaint, if one at all. What I love is that it’s by far the snappiest generator – once all the images have been cached results appear straight away when you request a reshuffle.

Overall, it’s nice, slick and quick. I’d like more options to filter the cards, but I’m sure there are players that will appreciate the simplicity.

#1: Dominion Card Randomizer
Website: www.hiwiller.com/dominion

Zack Hiwiller (or more accurately, his blog) introduced me to Dominion, and for that I am massively thankful. It should come as no surprise then, that his Dominion Card Randomizer was the first kingdom card selector I came across and used.

It’s served our group well and for a while, we thought it was the only selector that existed. It was only disappointment with a few of its capabilities that made us search for a better one.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself. Zack’s randomiser has a lot going for it. You can select any combination of sets, including the unreleased Prosperity expansion and the promo cards. Cards can be ordered by cost or alphabetically, with the former handy for quickly placing cards on the table sensibly. Low-bandwidth or image-averse users can choose to display titles only in the final result, and if you’re after a playable set, you can make sure cards with extra buys, actions and attacks are available. There’s also a checkbox to make sure Moat is included if one or more attack cards are.

The output produced is to the point, with images displayed for all the cards. A nice touch is coloured borders so you can easily see which sets the cards are from. Buttons allow you to deal another ten cards, or start over with new options.

The randomiser is also phone-friendly, but I’ve only read this anecdotally.

What lets the randomiser down is the inability to use the back button to review a previous selection, a side-effect of using code to update the page without refreshing. The “provide a trash card” option also doesn’t guarantee a card that trashes other cards, just one that has trashing as part of its functionality (like Feast or Mining Village).

Besides these niggles, it’s great. Implementing a “save set” option, or at least the ability to hit the back button to see the previous set of generated cards, and an option to have a trash card that can get rid of unwanted cards would make it perfect. As it stands, it’s still the best of the lot.

Conclusion: I’m going to go with Zack’s generator (#1) for creating random sets. However, if you’re after a compiled list of custom-made sets that play well, check out the Dominion Card Picker (#2).

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This series of interactive YouTube videos straight from New Zealand puts you in the shoes of a pizza delivery dude stuck in a zombie-infested city. I’ve seen it described as “Zombieland meets Beached As” and, having watched a few clips, it’s a darn accurate assessment.

Could my homeland be any more awesome? Probably, but not by much.

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