As we all know, the dilution of the Mythos deck is the biggest problem when playing with multiple expansions. I'm working on a software Mythos deck system that will hopefully solve this problem. Right now I have a program that allows you to choose which expansion to use. So you no longer need to remove/add cards and shuffle the big pile before playing. And you can set the environment and rumor cards fixed.

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Now that I have this, it should be easy to add new features. I'm thinking of expanding it so the user can chose the frequency of certain expansions (e.g. better chance of hitting a card from Dunwich or King in Yellow), remove the bursts, next act begins, double doom or double terror cards. Stuff like that. If someone has feature requests let me know.

Note: I'm currently not distributing the program. It contains the image of every Mythos card so there is a copyright issue. I've contacted fantasy flight to find out how they think about it. But I haven't heard from them yet.

I could distribute the program without the images, but you'd need to have your own mythos card images to work properly. You can download these from a popular source, but it takes some work.

I'll wait and see how FFG reacts before thinking about distributing it.

Wonderful!

As a comptergame-developer I know how much work you have put into this and I can do nothing else than salute you.
I think you have covered the basics but how do you intend to expand this program further? Maybe add the OW or locations-decks so that you can place a laptop next to your game and still save a lot of boardspace?

I was thinking about the OW deck. I'm not sure how to handle this. Best thing I can think of is have a random encounter from the location you're in, but this will be a problem for Another Dimension and would remove the other encounters.

Arkham encounters shouldn't be a problem. I'll probably split the expansion selection though so you can select one expansion in the mythos deck and another for the encounters.

But I'll focus on the mythos deck first, as I think that's the most important one. I'll see if I still want to do the others after that

Yeah keep things simple and fun but still consider possible features.

A possible development would maybe be to have a possibility to show the GOO as well.

Also consider some kind of counter when you draw a roumor that have a counter.

Don't forget to include The Story Continues and The Stars Are Right. These are more important than you'd think.

Yes, I've included The story continues in the mythos deck. It will show the card and reshuffle the deck. I will include an option to remove these cards though as some people prefer to play without.

Does it run only on Windows ? I am a Linux user and would appreciate if it ran on several platforms (either using Java or a compatible GUI library like Qt). This is the case for Strange Eons, for instance. Thanks a lot.

Right now it's windows only. But if FFG says it's ok I might convert it to Qt. I have some experience with it so that shouldn't be a huge problem.

Eddie said:

That's very kind of you. I am learning Qt and find it impressive. However, if you don't distribute the source, you'll have to compile it for the different platforms. You can cross-compile a MacOS or Linux version on a Windows machine though.

That is F'ing awesome! Good Job... but I have Mac

Very cool. I was thinking of trying something similar using FileMaker databases which could generate Mac and Windows stand-alone apps (I'm on a Mac). I'll be interested to see if FFG gives you the green light -- it would be awesome to create more player aides and I think it would broaden the appeal of the game to people who don't like managing all the components.

Excellent idea! I hope this flies. I would love to have something like this. It would help our games out tremendously!

A friend of mine was working on something like this, only he wasn't planning on using scans/images of every card. However he was planning on doing it for the location decks as well.

Did he type out all the cards? Seems a lot of work to me. Using the cards makes it instantly look nice, although it takes a lot of space on the screen.

This appears to be an awesome effort Eddie that can only help us all, especially the solo players, and please do not forget that as a community of players with a common interest we are all more than happy to asist in anyway we can. Waiting to see the results of your efforts.

So when it gonna be ready for us to use?

Eddie said:

He and I did type them out, but at the time CotDP was the only expansion. He also laid them out so they could just be read from top to bottom in order of operations (gate opens, clue appears, monster movement, card text)

Just finished changing all the images from png to jpeg. Maybe a small quality loss, although I can't see a difference. But the size of the images is greatly reduced (setup went from 70MB to 14MB) which will be important when adding other worlds and Arkham encounters.

I've also changed the user interface a bit to make room for the other cards. And I've added the other worlds. Now you pick a location and you will automatically get the next card of the right color from a randomized deck.

You can select different expansions for the Mythos deck and the OW deck. Makes it easy to change the decks any way you want.

Still need to find a good name for the application though...

Eddie said:

Great news.. smaller size of the aplication if always appriciated.

There is and Investigator who treat all OW as green as well.. you might want to take that into consideration if that is possible.

Read through some famous quotations from Lovecraft.. that's how they came up with Strange Eons..

P3T3Y said:

Why is the layout of the mythos cards so counter-intuitive?

I really don't understand why they didn't put the gate location and monster movement icons on top followed by the headline & mythos action text.

Update with screenshots.

Arkham encounters. You have the option to shuffle before each draw, or shuffle once at the start and draw the next card from the deck.

Other World encounters. You will automatically get the next card of the correct color. No guaranteed match (yet) though, so you might still end up with doing "Other".

Next up is the Dunwich / Kingsport / Innsmoth encounter page. After that I should be able to add new options.

I just received word from fantasy flight games. Unfortunately I'm not allowed to distribute the software. I knew there was a big chance that I wouldn't be able to.

Please respect their decision. I won't send you a version, even if you ask nicely in a message and guarantee you won't tell anyone ;-) . Also, I'd prefer not to have any discussion about their decision and why you think it's wrong or right. It's their choice and I understand why they made the decision.

Either way, thanks for the input. And sorry for the false hope.

Eddie said:

An expected decision so I hold no grudge against FFG. Hope you will enjoy this neat program on your own though and not get dampened by their decisions but you seem to take it quite well. Excellent work regardless.

Svavelvinter said:

Certainly not dampened. I knew before I started it that there was a good chance that they wouldn't allow it. And trust me, I understand their point of view. Now I can create a half-assed version for myself and don't have to care if buttons aren't aligned properly and stuff like that.

jhaelen said:

I think they originally planned the cards to be read the way they are laid out. Then decided, for some unknown reason or maybe it was just a mistake, to read it in a different order. As an experiment, We tried a few games of reading the card: text, clue, gate, movement. It seemed to work fine. Everyone adapted to it almost immediately, except me. I don't think I ever read the card as it was laid out.

Or maybe, just maybe it is the way it is so we can feel just a little bit of insanity. New players, especially, look at me nuts when I read the card out of the obvious order.

If you read the headline first, then monsters are laid out that will move and only monsters that were out in a previous turn are picked up.

Clue. Sometimes it might get picked up after its laid out, but I think that probably won't happen.

Gate: no effect

Movement: monsters just brought out from the headline will move. This will be more dangerous, especially with respect to green monsters.

We quite doing after 2 or 3 games and no one missed it. Still though I can't see any compelling reason for them to have changed the obvious order.