I'll start with what I am the most certain about:

For the sake of the Squawk Web page project, this needs to be done for the Hack and slash role-playing system:

• Step 1: Determine what scale we want our Squawk Toys to be at. I have been assuming we want 1/50^th scale, or 2 centimeters per meter. I think that action-board games are about twice that size, with about 4 centimeters per meter. At any rate, we need to determine what scale we want to use. Seriously, get out a ruler and figure it out! Our scale can't be too big, or the dino toys will be too huge.

• Step 2: Based on how big we want Squawk toys to be in the distant future, develop a generic blank hex board, for use with the H&S RPS. (I suggest using traditional hexes, instead of a hex-dot grid, because it's more standard and easier to get into. Just using a tape measure is more standard than the hex dot grid.) The individual hexes should be at least one meter wide, but if our scale is pretty small, like 1/50, it could be more convienient to have hexes represent more space (like 2 meters.) Convienince is critical here. It should be in a Jpeg format, and should be small enough to print out on a standard sheet of paper, and should be able to be cut out and put with others sheets to make a bigger map. (It should be inter-locking, if you take the trouble to go after it with a pair of sizzors.) I HOPE THIS WILL BE DONE IN THE GIMP!!

• Step 3: Based on what the size of the individual hexes are on the blank H&S RPS hex board, develope flat (direct over-head view,) generic hex-shaped player pieces. There should probably be a set of 10 of them, labeled 0 to 9, that are other wise identical. (This is just enough for a few characters to take on several NPCs.) There should be an indication on the player piece as to which of thier 6 sides is the front side (it could be the way the character on the peice is facing, or there could be an actual arrow or something to clarify it.) The player peices should fit neatly on or in a hex on the blank hex board. There are probably 3 main canidates for what these player peices should look like: A)Large, intelligent, weapon weilding "sabretooth penguines" as described in the rules, B) bathroom-sign Stick-people graphics, as we have been known to use a little on the H&S RPS web site, C) Purely smbollic, like with an X in the center and an arrow for the front side (or perhaps the number of the peice instead of the traditional "x.") Any of these 3 optons would suffice, and more than one of these options is excessive.

• Step 4: Based on the Player Peices, make "obstacle" peices, for trees, rocks, large multi-hex ( "multi-hex" = cut out along standard hex shape, to fit neatly on hex board) boulders, and large multi-hex trees. These should be, in and of them selves, things that can be printed out and used on the blank hex board, for making "custom maps." (It might be cool to do these graphics as 2D Overhead view renders from 3D Blender models. Then, once they are turned into Jpegs, they will be gimp-compatable graphics.)

• Step 5: Using materials from steps 2 and 4, throw together a few generic combat maps, so that people can get into play right away without having to decide where a bunch of trees and rocks should go first.

AFTER and ONLY after Steps 1-5, the next step is to make markers for Xanadu, for all the creatures in the Besitiary and for the 4 anthrosuar races. (It WOULD be cool to do these graphics as 2D Overhead view renders from 3D Blender models.) The step after that is to start making specific combat maps for places used in the Xanadu Valley setting, the first one should probably be the arena?

Stuff I am not so sure about:

• We have been slightly screwed by search engines, because we use frames, and the "most commonly viewed" Squawk web page is the black side-bar. I think our site kind of needs frames, especially because of how we use the H&S RPS. (I looked at our site on a cell-phone a little while back, and the cell phone didn't do frames! While I was doing this, I noticed that on our home page, all the information in the side bar is a redundant extension of what we already have ON that front page. Ideally, though not realistically, we'de come up with a scheme that didn't require Java, Javascript, Frames, or Flash. I don't think alot of people will be using their cell phones to look out our site next month, but do think they will be next year.) I think the solution is to have our side-bar/primary-navigation stand alone as a splash-page, and the way to do that is to have the navigation be from the top, instead of from the side. So if the major items on our side bar are News, Xanadu, Other Worlds, Bestiary, Rules, and Store, instead of having them in a side bar, we have them listed horizontally under the Squawk RPG logo, like this:

  Squawk Logo Graphic

  The official Squawk Role-Playing Game

  News Xanadu Other Worlds Bestiary Rules Store

Secondary Navigation (like what you item you are looking at in the store for example) would be on the left-hand side, and may or may not have it's own seperate frame.

• Take a look at our home page: www.squawkrpg.net I think it has too much information, and makes it utterly impossible for the player to get emerged into any one place. (The main navigation suggested in the last bullet IS WHAT I ACTUALLY SUGGEST for our main navigation: News, Xanadu, Other Worlds, Bestiary, Rules, Store.) In fact, the tendancy is for the player to get involved in a RACE instead of getting involved in a SETTING. Races need to be in the context of a Setting, or the player will not get emerged into the game. (If a player EVER asks "can I be an Ogre in Xanadu?" then that player isn't living on Xanadu, becuase he doesn't get that Ogres just don't live there! We should give the individual worlds a fair chance of being intorduced to a viewer as an anthrosaur race, and we should give an emphasized world like Xanadu a MUCH better chance of being intorduced to a player first.) I think our "Anthrosaurs" page needs to be linked to from the "Bestiary page." The only reason why I think bestiary needs to be linked from the main navigation is that it does a lot to expain what Squawk is about in general terms. I also think their should be a golem link from the bestiary page.

• "Dinosaurs with Swords" is what is said to attract people to Squawk. The main Squawk logo needs to include a "dinosaur with a sword," or two. If our main attraction for a while is going to be Xanadu, than these anthrosaurs on the logo should be Xanadu Anthrosaurs. In this case, the Squawk Logo should be written in Asian-looking caligraphy. Clicking on the big logo would automatically take you to the Xanadu setting page. Imagine if you will, Squawk written out in chinese-looking letters, with a Titan with a massive blade fighting a couple of Kolbolds with spears, on top of the letters which say "Role-Playing Game":

  Squawk-in-chinese-looking-letters(large, in background?)

  Xanadu Anthrosaurs fighting eachother

  Role-Playing Game (small, in fore-ground?)

  
  
  

• How do we create Heroine-content? The only site I've ever been hooked on is the Blizzard site for the year before they released warcraft 3. I think our default website, www.squawkrpg.net, should be our news page in the Squawkrpg.net frame (with the logo and primary navigation in the top frame as always.) The secondary navigation on the news page would be to our non-Squawk projects (or perhaps just a galbraith Games link that takes you to a page that goes to our non-Squawk projects) and to our old news. However, this strategy only works if there is Squawk news to be had, at least one new piece of Squawk progress per week, even if it's just another NPC for the Xanadu setting.

• When you click on rules, the secondary navigation is just a notice that Squawk isn't free or open source, but that the Hack and Slash Role-Playing System it is designed to be used with is LGPL. (Perhaps this would be the "How to Play" page?) This would be in a smaller frame on the left (perhaps as narrow as the other secondary navigation side bars,) and the RPS would be in a larger frame on the right.

• We need to purge the Squawk system of the word "Anthrosuars." Even just "intelligent races" is much better.

• I am also in favor of attempting any or all of this without the use of frames at all, though I don't really see how it would be possible... yet we need a no-frames version anyways, no? We do this by making sure all the content is somehow connected without the frames?

• In the Store, we can AT LEAST start off with an e-mail address, which you can write to, to get on the mailing list for news about product releases. We can set up pre-ordering using PayPal for projects that we have fully developed, and the printing/shipping research has been done on, so that we know how many pre-orders we must have in order to publish that specific project. On a pre-order item, you have to keep the site updated with "A/B", A= How many pre-orders we already have, B= How many pre-orders we need to publish that project. For example, if we need 900 pre-orders to publish the squawk rpg book, and we have 600 pre-orders already, somewhere by the Squawk RPG book the "600/900" information will be listed. This has a number of effects, not the least of which is another reason to visit our site, and also getting your friends to pre-order the book so you can get yours faster. Same goes for other Squawk-projects like posters, T-shirts, coffee mugs, what ever. The point, however, is that we start with being able to get on a mailing list to find out about when we have stuff for sale. Perhaps this would be a more general news letter? Still, the place to put it I think would be the store, at least until we have stuff to sell there. Of course, we could eventually SELL the news letter, though precious few people would likely subscribe to such a thing (PAY for spam? No thanks!)