Post by quozl on Jun 12, 2012 4:02:23 GMT -5
I'm delighted to announce the official launch of the Grunt'O'Matic - an online tool for the creation of Gruntz unit cards and forces.
The Grunt'O'Matic is available at www.gruntomatic.com
I started work on this shortly before the Barrack's announcement but wanted to delay announcing it until after the Barrack's indiegogo closed - on the off chance this could have a negative impact on such an important funding drive.
Features:
Unit card support for Gruntz, Squad Attachments, Commanders, Specialists, Mecha, Tanks, GSVs and ASVs - I'll add support for any future unit types once I have their rules.
Force support - create forces, add a description, add as many units as you like. Choose whether to have one card per unit type printed, or one single card to represent all instances of that unit type. IE include one card per tank 'X' as you need to track damage seperately, but only one card total for all the gruntz squad 'Y's as you don't need cards to track their damage seperately.
In-built sharing of cards. Everybody can view everybodies' cards and include them in their own forces. If you like somebody else's force, then print the card-set!
PDF download of cards. Cards are outputed in PDF format - portable and reliable for printing. Cards are standard card dimensions and you can print up to 8 per page, 24 in total in a single PDF. The 24 card limit can be easily increased but seems sensible to me initially. We'll see what load the Grunt'O'Matic puts on my server and if there's any demand for more than 24 cards in a single force it can be increased.
Multi-unit printing outside of a force. Want up to 24 assorted cards in a single 3 page pdf? No need to make a force, just select 1-5 copies of each unit and hit the 'Multi PDF' button.
Filter unit list by owner, unit type, cost, name or manufacturer.
Order unit list by name, owner, manufacturer and cost.
Works on Windows, Mac, Linux, iPad, iPhone, Android. If you have a device with a decent screen and a modern web-browser, it should work.
Custom weapon names on cards - all weapon names including close combat, grenades, vehicle and infantry can be over-riden.
Language localisation support built in from the start - I just need volunteer translators and then to test/bug squash the implementation.
Downsides:
This is all hosted online. If you rely on the Grunt'O'Matic for your card creation needs then you're relying on me On the plus side, I am very reliable - I've run the Bloodbowl Ireland perpetual ladder site (http://www.bloodbowl-ireland.org/) for about 4 years now amongst other online projects and even if I stop playing Gruntz, I'll continue to support this project for at least a few years. Save your PDFs off-line anyway in case I get hit by a truck
Not as user friendly as the official Barracks tool (I would bet). Please buy a Barracks license. Support the official app, fund its further development and don't have to rely on some randomer (me!) as your sole Gruntz card creation option. I think the two options will complement each other very nicely. Please do try out the Grunt'O'Matic though - I really think you'll like it.
Notes:
In order to have a nice user-friendly GUI, the Grunt'O'Matic requires a javascript enabled modern web-browser. That's pretty much all of them nowadays. If you have problems please consider installing an up-to-date version of Firefox, Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Opera or Internet Explorer. The Grunt'O'Matic is tested on Chrome, Safari and Android (using Opera and native Webkit browsers) but should work on recent verisons of all the others (plus more) too.
Units have a Manufacturer entry. Please do pick the manufacturer if your model is a commercial product. I'm hoping that this will allow someone who gets a model from manufacturer X to find other users' pre-made cards for that model. Some people don't want to stat up their own models or simply want inspiration - I'd like to support them. PM me with any suggested missing manufacturers and I'll add them to the list.
There's bound to be bugs found after go-live as currently only I am using the Grunt'O'Matic. I'll fix them as quickly as I can. Please PM me on the Gruntz forum with bug-reports. The more detail you give on how to reproduce the issue and the more serious the bug, the quicker it's likely to get fixed.
Feature suggestions are very welcome, also by PM on the Gruntz forum for the moment please. Order of implementation will depend on how many people want them, how much time it'll take to do them, how busy real-life is (pretty crazy) and a random 2d6 roll
Thanks to Robin for the cool game. I really felt it could use a card builder and now it's going to have two of them!
Some sample graphics:
Crusty Force made using GoM - PDF exported to jpeg and shrunk to embed here.
Unit selection page
Unit editing page
The Grunt'O'Matic is available at www.gruntomatic.com
I started work on this shortly before the Barrack's announcement but wanted to delay announcing it until after the Barrack's indiegogo closed - on the off chance this could have a negative impact on such an important funding drive.
Features:
Unit card support for Gruntz, Squad Attachments, Commanders, Specialists, Mecha, Tanks, GSVs and ASVs - I'll add support for any future unit types once I have their rules.
Force support - create forces, add a description, add as many units as you like. Choose whether to have one card per unit type printed, or one single card to represent all instances of that unit type. IE include one card per tank 'X' as you need to track damage seperately, but only one card total for all the gruntz squad 'Y's as you don't need cards to track their damage seperately.
In-built sharing of cards. Everybody can view everybodies' cards and include them in their own forces. If you like somebody else's force, then print the card-set!
PDF download of cards. Cards are outputed in PDF format - portable and reliable for printing. Cards are standard card dimensions and you can print up to 8 per page, 24 in total in a single PDF. The 24 card limit can be easily increased but seems sensible to me initially. We'll see what load the Grunt'O'Matic puts on my server and if there's any demand for more than 24 cards in a single force it can be increased.
Multi-unit printing outside of a force. Want up to 24 assorted cards in a single 3 page pdf? No need to make a force, just select 1-5 copies of each unit and hit the 'Multi PDF' button.
Filter unit list by owner, unit type, cost, name or manufacturer.
Order unit list by name, owner, manufacturer and cost.
Works on Windows, Mac, Linux, iPad, iPhone, Android. If you have a device with a decent screen and a modern web-browser, it should work.
Custom weapon names on cards - all weapon names including close combat, grenades, vehicle and infantry can be over-riden.
Language localisation support built in from the start - I just need volunteer translators and then to test/bug squash the implementation.
Downsides:
This is all hosted online. If you rely on the Grunt'O'Matic for your card creation needs then you're relying on me On the plus side, I am very reliable - I've run the Bloodbowl Ireland perpetual ladder site (http://www.bloodbowl-ireland.org/) for about 4 years now amongst other online projects and even if I stop playing Gruntz, I'll continue to support this project for at least a few years. Save your PDFs off-line anyway in case I get hit by a truck
Not as user friendly as the official Barracks tool (I would bet). Please buy a Barracks license. Support the official app, fund its further development and don't have to rely on some randomer (me!) as your sole Gruntz card creation option. I think the two options will complement each other very nicely. Please do try out the Grunt'O'Matic though - I really think you'll like it.
Notes:
In order to have a nice user-friendly GUI, the Grunt'O'Matic requires a javascript enabled modern web-browser. That's pretty much all of them nowadays. If you have problems please consider installing an up-to-date version of Firefox, Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Opera or Internet Explorer. The Grunt'O'Matic is tested on Chrome, Safari and Android (using Opera and native Webkit browsers) but should work on recent verisons of all the others (plus more) too.
Units have a Manufacturer entry. Please do pick the manufacturer if your model is a commercial product. I'm hoping that this will allow someone who gets a model from manufacturer X to find other users' pre-made cards for that model. Some people don't want to stat up their own models or simply want inspiration - I'd like to support them. PM me with any suggested missing manufacturers and I'll add them to the list.
There's bound to be bugs found after go-live as currently only I am using the Grunt'O'Matic. I'll fix them as quickly as I can. Please PM me on the Gruntz forum with bug-reports. The more detail you give on how to reproduce the issue and the more serious the bug, the quicker it's likely to get fixed.
Feature suggestions are very welcome, also by PM on the Gruntz forum for the moment please. Order of implementation will depend on how many people want them, how much time it'll take to do them, how busy real-life is (pretty crazy) and a random 2d6 roll
Thanks to Robin for the cool game. I really felt it could use a card builder and now it's going to have two of them!
Some sample graphics:
Crusty Force made using GoM - PDF exported to jpeg and shrunk to embed here.
Unit selection page
Unit editing page