Dave Beaudoin

Prodcut Policy, Game Design, and Adventures in Luthiery

[davebeaudoin]

Dating a 70s Telecaster

I happened to see the above guitar, a late 70s Telecaster, listed on craigslist for what seemed to be an excellent price. I jumped at the chance to pick it up but given the nature of Fender guitars and the used guitar market, I wanted to make sure it was completely legit. There are a few things to look for and I figured it would be useful to document them here.

The Serial Number

The most obvious way to check the age of a guitar is by inspecting the serial number. Unfortunately, this is also one of the least reliable as Fender used numbers that span years and can at best give you a general idea of the date. Also, depending on the guitar style the serial number may be stamped on the metal neck plate, which can be easily counterfeited.

For a mid to late 70s Telecaster, the serial is going to be stamped on the headstock. You can use this to narrow down the date range using any number of serial number lookup sites online. Oddly the official Fender lookup site is usually the least useful, especially when dealing with older guitars. For this guitar one of the main sites returned the following:

This narrows it down to three possibilities. Based on the decal design and the Made in USA marking, it's likely that this guitar was produced in 1978 at the Fullerton plant. But we can get more specific - and rule out a reproduction decal or fake serial number.

Further Inspection

At this point you need to start taking the guitar apart. Fender guitars usually have date markings and sometimes assembly notation in the body cavities and the end of the neck. The guitar was set up pretty well to begin with, so I didn't want to pull the neck unless I needed to. Ultimately I didn't, but you can still see the markings on the neck that give you a pretty good idea of the date on the neck by looking at the route above the neck pickup.

You can also see pretty typical wear in the finish that would be indicative of how a guitar like this would age. Most of the instrument is in great shape but when the pickguard comes off you can see a few spots where finish chipped and you can see the difference in the fading of the finish where it was not covered by the guard below.

The next thing to check are the date codes on the potentiometers in the control panel. Fender guitars generally used CTS pots and they all carry date codes that tell you the month that the pot was manufactured. As the guitar was built, the neck, body, bridge, pickups and electronics were all pulled from stock at the factory. You can use the dates on individual parts to get a better idea of when the guitar would have come off the line or at least an idea of a date before which it couldn't have.

You can see the code on the side of the pot here. A 137-7842. This decodes as follows:

A = Analog Taper

137 = The company code for CTS

7842 = Manufactured in 1978, during the 42nd week of the year

A quick check of a calendar means that this pot was part of a batch produced between October 16 and 22. This means the guitar can be no older than late October/early November of 1978. Because we're already up against the serial number date range, we can say with high confidence that this guitar came from the factory just in time for the holidays in 1978.

Additional things to note are the correct wiring style and switch for the period along with a correct capacitor in the tone circuit.

Also of note, was that the pickguard is likely to be original as it still has a matching serial number sticker on it. These stickers weren't something Fender used all the time and it's rare that you'd see someone try to counterfeit one, especially on a relatively unassuming model and year.

With the evidence mounting that this was a legit Fender and the providence fairly clear I opted to not pull the neck, or bridge. The corrosion on the bridge pickup was correct for the era and overall condition of the guitar and even the screws on the pickups look like they had never been touched since it left the factory outside of minor height adjustments. Also, I bought this guitar to play and keep so it was a case of "good enough for me."

If you found this interesting let me know. If you have any questions about validating your vintage Fender drop me a line and I'd be happy to help (though I'd probably recommend taking it to a local luthier shop as they'll do a better job with the guitar in front of them).

[davebeaudoin]

Tone Test Time - Replacing the pickups in a Squire Bass VI

I grabbed a Fender Squire Bass VI when they were on sale over the holidays and was pretty disappointed with the stock pickups. So I asked my friends over at EP Customs to wind up a pair of vintage spec Fender Bass VI pups for me to swap into the guitar. Naturally I was pretty excited to be upgrading the axe so I didn’t bother with recording any before audio, but there are plenty of youtube demos of the stock instrument online. 

I swapped out the pickups and replaced the original roundwound strings with a set of flatwound Bass VI strings from LaBella. Now I have a smooth playing and great sounding guitar for when I want some bass but not just bass.

If you take a listen to the recordings at the top of this post you can hear the improved separation in chords and the more discernable difference in tone that is provided by the Strangle switch, both when playing chords across all three pickups and when playing on each pickup individually. It’s also worth noting that I didn’t have any issues with intonation that you hear about on the older Squire Bass VI models. The stock bridge and flatwound strings behave beautifully once properly setup. Like any Fender jag style tremolo guitar (those of you with extra sharp eyes will notice I also upgrades to an AVRI trem unit), they require precise setup to really rock, but once that’s done they’re extremely stable.

[davebeaudoin]

I Think I’m a Klone Now

I was looking for a good clean boost pedal and since actual Klon Centaurs are effectively unaffordable (or unjustifiable at my guitar skill level anyway), I decided to build a modern copy. 

This is one of the ubiquitous kits available online and it was a pretty easy build with decent enough components. The only areas where they really skimped was on the jacks, though even there they provided the plastic housed jacks that are common in lots of pedals today. I was able to build this in an afternoon and ended up with a great clean boost pedal that plays as well with my amps as part of my pedal board as it does into my PC though my interface.

For about fifty bucks it was well worth the price and was a solid afternoon project.

[davebeaudoin]

Covid Project: Restoration of a 1965 Fender Mustang

As Covid continued I decided to work on another guitar. I found a pretty rough vintage Fender Mustang on Reverb and decided it would be a good project. 

What I received was the original 1965 body, neck, and body cavity shielding. The body was originally blue but had been stripped and refinished with clear poly at some point. There was extensive buckle rash that needed to be addressed and the whole thing needed to be cleaned and correct parts needed to be sourced. 

I was able to find a correct neck plate with an accurate serial number to the time, along with a good condition original mustang vibrato tailpiece and control plate. I already had a bridge and tuners from various experiments with my Jaguar over the years, so the only real remaining parts were the wiring. 

I commissioned a set of custom wound pickups from EP Customs out of Santa Cruz. These are based on the original fender 1965 spec, with the bridge pickup wound slightly hotter to get a bit more power.

The wiring is mostly standard as you can see above, however the switches are wired slightly different from stock. The rear switch includes a capacitor which enables a “dark” mode which gets me a great grunge tone with the hotter bridge pickup engaged.

I opted for a pearled pickguard from WD Music and finished it all off with a strap from Couch that is made with vintage Ford Mustang seat fabric. 

What I ended up with is a fantastic guitar that has tons of mojo and ridiculous tone. It’s also a dream to play and might be the perfect living room guitar (it’s actually one of the custom models with the shorter 22.5″ scale). It’s super lightweight, perfectly balanced, and the neck is extremely fast. Being from late 1965 it is also from the transitional period just after Fender was purchased by CBS. 

[davebeaudoin]

Covid Project: Finish a Guitar

So a few years ago, my amazing partner bought me a build a guitar kit on the internet. She was going to be out of town at a conference and I was going to be left with very little to do for the week. The guitar turned out great, but I never actually finished the headstock. So while I was waiting for delivery on Gibson parts, I decided to finally get down to finishing it. 

The kit was a semi-hollowbody HH telecaster and turned out pretty well. Since I was tearing it down, I also decided to swap out the pickups with a set of Warman Retro Rocker alnico pickups. Warman is an outfit out of the UK that makes great cheap pickups - I recommend them if you are looking for something solid but not fancy. 

Because it’s a Telecaster style guitar I wanted the classic tele headstock profile. I was able to find templates online and transfer them to the head. After cutting it out with a coping saw, I spent a few hours sanding the wood to really get the shape correct. once that was done I reapplied several coats of tung oil and let it dry completely. Tung oil is great, but it is an extremely slow curing oil, so this part of the process took several days.

Once that was complete I was able to install updated tuning machines. I switched this guitar over to locking tuners as well. It has a bigsby tremolo so the locking tuners really made a huge improvement in the ability of the guitar to stay in tune. But something was still missing! 

The headstock logo! 

I didn’t want to just slap a Fender Telecaster decal on there and call it good, but I also didn’t want some cutesy “Frankecaster” or “Less Paul” style wordplay that is sometimes popular on these guitars. Because I have undying respect for Woodie Guthrie and because like Woodie I too hate fascists, I decided to adopt his classic “This Machine Kills Fascists” slogan and put it in the style of the Fender Telecaster logo. I designed the logotype scaled to the same kerning and sizing of an authentic Fender Telecaster logo, but it is unmistakably my own. I printed it out on waterslide decal paper, applied it, then covered it with a light coat of acrylic clearcoat. 

Overall this was a pretty easy project, though more involved than most of the work that went into building the original guitar. I’m really pleased with how well the waterslide decals worked and would definitely recommend that route if you have a similar project.

[davebeaudoin]

Covid Project: Build a Guitar

I’ve always wanted a Gibson Les Paul. I’ve played guitar since High School and a mid-90s Fender Japan-made Jaguar was the first nice guitar I bought. Since then I’ve picked up other stringed instruments (banjo, mandolin, lap steel) and even built a few guitars, but I’ve always wanted a Gibson Les Paul. During the pandemic I decided to build a custom Les Paul to my personal specification.

Step 1: The Body

I was able to acquire a modern Les Paul Studio body from a place out of the east coast of the US that deals in surplus guitar parts. I opted for the modern body style because of the updated weight reduction that Gibson swears retains all the tone and sustain of the old solid body models.

Step 2: Parts!

Next up I had to order all the different parts and add them to the guitar. I opted for Lock and Trim tuners, which lock the strings in place and automatically cut off the excess. They are maybe the best thing I learned about on this project - I’ll be replacing the tuners on my Jag soon. 

Because this is a fully custom guitar I sourced classic style knobs with a slight difference. These go to 11.

There are literally dozens of ways to wire Les Pauls. One reason I’ve been playing a Jaguar (and not the more popular Jazzmaster) is the freedom you have to fully customize which pickups are engaged in the circuit. For this build I wanted the same freedom. I installed CTS push-pull pots that are set up to let me split the coils on my humbuckers so I can independently turn them on and off. I also opted for a pre-1950s style tone to volume wiring because it lets you do some cool things with the way the tone and volume pots interact.

 I used modern Orange Drop capacitors because honestly I can’t tell the difference between these and NOS Russian or other oil and paper resistors. 

Step 3: Pickups & Putting It Together!

The real heart of the guitar are the pickups. My partner was kind enough to order me custom wound pickups for my birthday from a great US based company called Planet Tone. They sound fantastic and with the wiring setup I get a fantastic range of tone from twangy highs down to solid bluesy lows. They also sound great overdriven. 

After installing a 3-ply cream pickguard and the bridge and tailpiece, I installed the pickups and strung it up. I also spent probably 3-4 hours doing setup and fine tuning and now it plays like a dream. 

All told this saved me maybe $500 off retail, but every component is an upgrade from what you get from Gibson stock, so in reality I ended up with a great guitar that is 100% mine. And it kept me busy for a few months during the pandemic.

[davebeaudoin]

Restoring the Jump Seats on a ‘72 FJ40

I used to own a 1980 Toyota FJ40 and I loved it. It was a Michigan car, was rusted out, and would never have passed smog in California, so I sold it. I finally found a new one, a 1972 FJ40, in pretty good, unprofessionally restored condition. After flipping the bezel, the real work on the truck began. Starting pretty easy, I’m restoring the rear jump seats. These are fold-down seats in the back of the truck that add seats for two more passengers.

Here they are in their original state. Surface rust, scratches and the vinyl covers are heavily faded, dirty, and damaged. The first step was to strip off all the old upholstery and cleaning the frames. 

After cleaning I treated the rust with a rust converter. It basically uses chemicals to process rust into a hard, black surface that you can sand and paint. After sanding down the converted rust, I hit the seats with a few coats of primer, sanding between coats. 

Finally time to start painting in the final cover. I went with a Dupli-Color Medium Charcoal Metallic rattle can. I decided to not go with a more correct color because I’m not trying to do a full restoration and if at some point I want to do a true restoration, stripping this will be easy enough. You can also see some red oxide primer on the back seat (not yet painted) that I used to beef up the rust protection in the areas that were prone in the old seats. 

Once the new foam arrived I used the old seat material to trace out the sizes and assemble the foam. Each seat takes four pieces of foam to fill the space inside the tube frame and build up a pad to sit on. I used high density marine grade foam and the whole thing took two standard 72″ sheets.

You can use an electric carving knife to cut the foam, but a good utility knife also works. Once I had the foam fitted I used Super 77 contact cement spray to stick them together. While not strictly necessary, it made the later steps of working with the foam inside the covers significantly easier. 

I put the covers on in the evenings and didn’t actually take any process pictures, but with these, you thread a length of 16 gauge wire through the edges of covers, then secure them with screws to the back of the seats. The covers I got fit pretty well, but there were a few dimensions that required some significant stretching. 

Once the covers are on you can mount the seats back into the truck. My 1972 didn’t come with a stock roll-bar, but since I’m not insane I have one installed. This means that the seat mounts need to move about 1.5″ out from the walls of the truck to accommodate. 

I also installed all new straps to secure the seats in their upright position. The springs on my seats are in great shape, so the seats stay up on their own, but the straps do a great job of finishing off the work. 

One additional modification to accommodate the rollbar are two pieces of wood on each side that line up with the seat bumpers when they’re in the down position. You can see these in the below photos. They are just mounted to the wheel well. At some point I’ll replace them with metal or paint them so they’re less conspicuous. 

In the end I’m really pleased with how they turned out. The paint looks good with the rest of the vehicle and the quality of the covers was great. The new seats do draw some serious attention to how crummy the floor looks. I guess one of my next projects will be to get a liner in there!

[davebeaudoin]

Moving Away From Flickr

With Flickr changing to a paid model without really improving any of the UX I decided to migrate off the platform for photo sharing. I also tend to share more photos via Instagram than any other service. To that end I set up a few different tools to better streamline workflows and serve pictures like the above more generally. 

I joined 500px and it seems to be a more interesting community that Flickr ever was. Maybe what Flickr could have been. I set up an IFTTT integration with dropbox to auto-upload photos to 500px for when I’m travelling and don’t want to burn bandwidth on repetititive tasks. I also set up an IFTTT that pushes all my insta posts to twitter as inline photos rather that just as insta links. 

I also used Small Victories to set up a quick and dirty photo share. Right now there’s no real organization to it and it just appends, I’ll probably add some more folders and whatnot, but for now, as a photo stream for a broader range of pictures than I’d post to 500px it works well. 

[davebeaudoin]

A New Game About Beards and Loyalty!

I’m excited to announce my next game, the upcoming ...And My Beard! A Game of Dwarven Fealty! 

In ...And My Beard! you play as a dwarven guild leader trying to earn the favor of the new king by adorning his beard with the symbols of your guild. You compete against the leaders of the other guilds to place the most beads on his intricately braided beard to show your loyalty and to make sure every dwarf at court knows which guild lays claim to the longest, most luxurious braid. 

This is a game that I’ve been working on in some form or another for over two years. I knew I wanted to do a tile laying beard based game, but it took a lot of time to figure out how to make it competitive and how to develop a hook that made sense contextually. I’ve spent the last few weeks building and alpha testing a prototype and I’m ready to start public testing. If you’re interested in participating in the beta test and providing feedback, you can request access using this form. 

As you can see the artwork is all draft and I’ll be looking for professional/better than I am artists to help with the final art. If you’re interested in this paid gig, please email me and send art samples!

[davebeaudoin]

The Limited Run Games Collection at the Digital Game Museum

This is a project I’ve been working on a for a few months and it’s finally live! I reached out to Limited Run Games back in the spring to talk about how to preserve their published games as part of the collection at the Digital Game Museum where I serve on the board and am acting executive director. 

Limited Run Games publishes physical copies of games that were originally digital-only releases. This includes full color game booklets and packaging and represents a unique desire in the market for the ability to purchase games via traditional physical models. This desire is strong with collectors who want the games to display or who appreciate the extra work that goes into producing the instruction booklets and other packaging. Often Limited Run Games releases sell out in minutes and the general public misses out on experiencing the unique packaging and physical release. 

At DGM we want to preserve not just the games, but also the culture around the game industry. The work Limited Run Games does sits right at the intersection of games and culture and it was important for us to preserve these releases not just as games, but also as an artifact of the culture and market that is partially resisting digital-only distribution.

The collection itself is hosted at DGM and available online for anyone to view. As a research institution we also provide access to the collection to any scholars who would be interested in research or study. For this release, I published our press release, coordinated social media posts, and conducted interviews about the partnership. 

[davebeaudoin]

Project: Restoring a 1984 Honda CB700SC Nighthawk

I used to spend a lot of time working on and restoring classic cars. I restored both a ‘72 Cutlass convertible and a ‘80 Land Cruiser FJ-40 to daily driver status and have worked on a few mid-60s Triumph TR4s. When I moved to California I sold the Cutlass and the Land Cruiser with the intention that I’d be picking up a new project when I got out here. 

The problem with a hobby like car restoration is that it requires both space and time - things that are in short supply in Silicon Valley! So I decided to try something different and more manageable. I bought the above bike cheap, in non-running condition on Craigslist and got to work.

This is going to be a pretty long post so hit the jump if you want to hear all the details!

Step 1: Tear-down

First things first I had to pull the bike apart to be able to get to everything I needed to fix and evaluate. My laundry list of projects was as follows:

Flush and clean the tank Rebuild the carburetors Replace the aftermarket pod filters with the OEM Airbox and hoses Replace vacuum and gas lines Flush and restore the brakes Change the oil Replace all the lights with brighter modern LED lights Replace the worn rear tire

Having worked on cars I assumed that each of these tasks would spawn their own set of sub-tasks. I was not mistaken (hence the beer).

Step 2: Frankenstein’s Monster

Having the pod filters actually made it easier to pull the carb, but did mean I had to drop some money on replacement hoses to mate the carb intake manifold to the airbox (which luckily hadn’t been removed). Pod filters are an affectation of the cafe racer scene and they’re fine for some bikes, but they looked terrible on this one and whomever installed them didn’t rejet the carbs to account for the difference in airflow. 

This is why you clean your carbs kids. This was the worst of the sludge that had accumulated in the bowl of the carb, but they all had deposits of varying degrees. 

The choke valves were also a total mess. This one was seized in the carb body and took some convincing to get loose. Once it was cleaned up and back on the bike we were in business though. 

A post shared by Dave Beaudoin (@daswickerman) on Jul 1, 2017 at 12:25pm PDT

It’s Alive!

Step 3: Fluids are boring

I changed the oil, and flushed the brake lines with a handy vacuum pump. I will say that the whole process is way easier when you’re working on a 500lb bike and not a 1500lb car!

Step 4: Electrical

With old vehicles it’s not uncommon to have electrical “gremlins” that you have to chase down. I converted everything to LED lights and updated the original flasher unit from an electro-mechanical model to a pure electronic flasher. That upgrade is necessary because LED lights don’t draw enough power to operate the magnets inside an old style flasher and you end up with no flash or fast flashing. It’s a similar situation as to what you used to see on vehicles with trailers. Attaching the extra wiring to the system changes the current and resistance and no longer matches the specs of the flasher. Electronic flashers fix this by only requiring a very minimal current to operate. They’re far for forgiving and for $6-$10 deliver great results. 

Once the conversion was done I was still having problems with my brake lights and headlight. After about a week with a multi-tester and the wiring diagram for the bike, I found one of the problems. A broken ground contact in the light switch was disabling the headlight. Since I had it out of the bike, I rebuilt the switch and added solder to the contacts on the inside of the mechanism to replace copper that had worn down. Once that was sorted I was treated to this ridiculously bright headlight! Score one for safety!

The other issue is with the break lever on the handlebar. It’s an aftermarket lever and lacks the material to properly push down the leaf switch that controls the rear brake light. The options here are to find an original replacement or build up that part of the brake with extra material. I’ll probably take the latter approach in the short term by using JB Weld or another epoxy to build up the lever while I look for a more suitable replacement.

That’s all the updates for now. next on the list is a replacement rear tire!

[4colorrebellion]

Policy Wonk Warning: A Short Rant About IP Protection

So I’m a total policy wonk and specifically tech policy as it pertains to games development, localization, and design. Sounds kind of boring, I know, but it’s totally my jam. I try to make up for it by getting tattoos and arm wrestling strangers in bars.So anyway, if you’re not interested in this stuff feel free to skip this post, but I do think there are some interesting points we can glean from the hack of CD Projekt Red. 

Also, I’m going to use a bunch of awesome hacker imagery like you’d see on the local news so you know I’m a pro.

Keep reading

[davebeaudoin]

Article: Securing Your Digital Assets

I wrote this short piece on the recent hack at CD Projekt Red and went though some of the basic questions devs of any size should be asking about their security. 

 It kills me to see the hard work of game developers get ransomed. While other data (business statistics, user data, etc) is definitely sensitive and can cause massive problems when it’s compromised, make no mistake that this is a case of art being stolen and ransomed. It kind of blows my mind that there isn’t more outrage over these kinds of things. 

[davebeaudoin]

New Project: @HorrorShortcuts

Fun Fact: I love horror movies, books, short stories, pretty much anything horror related. One thing I particularly like about horror is the ability to elicit responses from readers/viewers while giving only scant details. 

This is a far cry from the old adage in writing of “show, don’t tell,” but I’ve always thought that the scariest horror stories are ones that require the reader to fill in the details and draw their own conclusions. In having to fill in the blanks, good horror forces the reader to scare themselves. By pushing the reader into the dark room, telling them there’s a monster, then shutting the door, the horror writer exploits the nature of people to assume the worst. For me personally, any time the monster is revealed, it stops being scary and I start relating to the monster. This can be it’s own powerful storytelling mechanism (and why I also love monster movies) but true horror relies on the ability of the reader to scare themselves. 

That being said, my new project is a twitter feed called @HorrorShortcuts where I’m writing micro-horror stories in under 140 characters. Some of these are scary, some are funny, but ultimately, with so few words, the details and interpretation is up to the reader. 

An example of this is the following tweet:

Clive woke, paralyzed once again in his bed. But unlike the other times, there really was something sitting on his chest in the dark.

— Horror Shortcuts (@HorrorShortcuts) April 19, 2017

This references a real condition called Sleep Paralysis in which people wake up, conscious, but unable to move. It’s a fascinating condition and is credibly terrifying, but only to people who have experienced it. I have had different people tell me that story is either disturbing or ask if it was meant to be funny rather than scary. 

Also, Sleep Paralysis is the inspiration for one of my favorite paintings, The Nightmare by John Henry Fuseli

[davebeaudoin]

Privacy Through Obscurity: Using an App to Devalue Your Browser History

Both houses of congress in the U.S. just passed S.J.Res. 34 – Disapproving the Federal Communications Commission’s Rule on Privacy of Customers of Broadband Services. This law is designed to roll back Obama era online privacy protections for citizens and limit the open and free internet. 

What this means functionally, is that your ISP now has the legal right to sell data collected from your phone and internet service including, but not limited to: 

Browsing History

Search History

Streaming Content Information

Location Data

You can do things like use TOR and Signal and https Everywhere to encrypt your traffic and obscure your location to external sources, but ultimately your ISP knows where you are, and what requests you’re making across the network.

To start to combat this, I developed Privacy Though Obscurity for your mobile phone. The application is very simple, and does three things:

Display a random Wikipedia page in an embedded window

Perform a Google search on a random phrase

Perform a Bing search on a random phrase

By performing these searches, you’re adding noise to the overall data set that is being collected by your ISP and the search engines you use. This extra noise reduces the overall value of the data as a tracking and targeting tool for advertising and other more nefarious uses. 

You can get it on Google Play here

How it Works

The app uses the awesome Wikipedia random page generator to get a random, searchable phrase to feed into a browser. The app was made with the excellent MIT App Inventor 2 tool and is available for Android. If you would like to help port the app to iOS or Windows Phone, please get a hold of me! 

Each time you hit one of the buttons, your personal digital history is expanded in a totally random way. 

And because Privacy is the whole point here, make sure you read the Privacy Policy in which I not only detail the ways I’m not tracking how you use the app, but also try to show the ways that privacy policies can undermine privacy itself!

What’s Next?

For the app: I’m working on a way to reliably automate the process of sending requests so you can make requests in the background on your app to generate additional false data points. 

For humanity: Call, e-mail, or fax your representatives! Let them know how you feel about online privacy and your rights as a citizen. Join groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation to stay informed and coordinate action with other like-minded activists!

[davebeaudoin]

Five Seven Five: A Cooperative Game of Meditative Creation

I’m excited to announce that Five Seven Five is now available for purchase! You can pick up a copy over at The Gamecrafter for $15 + shipping.

In Five Seven Five you work together or alone to create a traditional water garden by building haiku from five and seven syllable phrases. Every deck contains the translated lines of different haiku by the 17th century Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō, who is often credited as being responsible for popularizing haiku. These different lines can be combined to form many haiku with which to build your garden.

What is Haiku?

Haiku is a form a traditional Japanese poetry that is centuries old. Haiku usually consist of seventeen syllables divided into three lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables in length. Though more traditional haiku focus on references to the seasons and pastoral life, even modern haiku feature a juxtaposition of circumstance or feeling within their lines

How to Play

To set up the game, stack the tan-backed garden cards to the side of the play area face down. Select a dealer to distribute six koi cards to each player. Place the remaining koi cards in the center of the play area face down (blue koi side up) to form a pond. Leave some space to the side of your play area for a discard pile.

Playing Five Seven Five

The dealer goes first, turning over the top garden card and playing two cards from their hand against the seven syllable line on the garden card to build a haiku, reading each to the group as it’s played. Each player, in clockwise order, plays two cards from their hands to create their own haiku, each reading their creation in turn. 

Once every player has created a haiku, the dealer selects their favorite haiku from the group. The player who played those cards, then places the garden card face up in the play area in a location of their choosing. All koi cards which were played in that round are placed in the discard pile and each player draws two new cards to bring their hand back up to a maximum of six cards. The dealer role passes to the next player in clockwise order and play continues until all garden cards have been placed into the play area, creating a unique garden. If you run out of koi cards in the pond, shuffle the discard pile and stock the pond with cards.

Winning Five Seven Five

Five Seven Five is a game in which playing and creation are the victory conditions. Unity and peace are not achieved by placing each garden feature individually, but by working together to build a garden which is pleasing to all and by enjoying the haiku that are created during the game.

Each Deck Includes:

54 Five Syllable Koi Cards

10 Seven Syllable Garden Cards

4 Instruction Reference Cards

While I always appreciate the support, I’ve also created an abbreviated printable deck that you can download and play. If you have any questions drop me a line!

[davebeaudoin]

Announcing Five Seven Five!

I’m excited to announce my newest game, Five Seven Five. I’ve been working on this for almost a year and am really excited to share this preview. I hand drew all the art for Five Seven Five and have gone though enough testing that I’m confident enough in it to start sharing details! 

Five Seven Five is a game for one or more players and is based on the Japanese haiku poetry style. In Five Seven Five you work alone or together to create unique haiku poems and build a traditional Japanese water garden complete with koi fish, lanterns, fountains, and other features.

Five Seven Five is a fairly unique cooperative experience that I designed to be a relaxing and meditative experience. Rather than pit players against each other or together against the game, I wanted a way to get away from the negativity and conflict of everyday life in 2017.

To play, you first build a koi pond.

Each card contains one line of an original Basho haiku. Players start with 6 koi cards in their hand, drawn from the pond. Each round, you flip over the top garden card to expose a part of the garden and a seven syllable line. Players each play two of their five syllable lines against the seven syllable line on the garden card and the best haiku is chosen. The judge then places the garden card into the play area to start to build a garden. Used koi cards are added to the discard pile and players replenish their hands from the pond before the next round.

Play continues with the discard pile being added back to the pond whenever it empties until all the garden cards have been played and the full garden has been built. Full games take less than thirty minutes and each round is different with thousands of potential haiku to create. 

At this point I’ve finalized art and am waiting on proofs from the distributor. Once I have those in hand I’ll probably make some minor revisions and formally publish the game. If you’re interested in trying out Five Seven Five before then you can print the cards and instructions at home for free!

If you have any questions or feedback let me know!

[davebeaudoin]

Free D20 leather Dice Bag Plans

In my spare time I do some leather working. I used to do other textile crafting, but I like the more mechanical nature of how you fit and plan leather goods to achieve curves, seams, etc. I put together plans for a leather D20 shaped dice bag with a drawstring closure that is pretty easy to pull together from a single piece of leather. 

The plans are available here and should be pretty straightforward (If you have any questions, let me know). The option to add stiffener triangles to the pattern can help to better define the triangle shape of the bag, or you can score the leather to encourage it to fall into more straight lines. I did both, as you can see in this photo of the bag mid-assembly. 

It helps to punch the stitching with a hole punch tool as seen above. I used a mix of 3 and 4 hole punches to get straight lines, with angles that made stitching easier. Use a traditional saddle stitch to join edges, and a hole punch to pop out the lacing holes. I used a piece of scrap leather cord as a drawstring and the bag holds about a dozen mixed dice comfortably. 

It also makes a satisfying rattling sound when you shake it.