Just a heads up that I will be at the Origins game faire from Wednesday to Sunday. I will likely be offline while I am immersed in a massive sea of geekdom.

Tags: gaming, Geek

A star went out this morning. Gary Gygax is gone. He didn’t simply help create Dungeons & Dragons. He created a whole paradigm. An entire industry exists because of him. His creation has impacted just about every arena I care about.

My present course was set by Gygax when I was but a child. He, along with Will Crowther and Don Woods, set my mind alight with the possibilities of a collaborative narrative, a story that could live and grow. I became a gamer and role-player at a very young age, but, more importantly, I became a storyteller and world-builder.

Thank you, Gary. You changed my life. One day you and Dave decided it would be cool to add storytelling to wargames and make people roll funny-looking dice. And it has meant everything to me.

Thank you.

This has been a hard day for me. This is the first time I have experienced the loss of someone who was so influential in my life, someone whose contribution helped direct the course of who I would become.

For the record, if Will Crowther, Don Woods, or Roberta Williams die, don’t ask for much of me that day. If it is George Lucas, Neil Gaiman or Stephen King, I’m not even getting out of bed.

Tags: gaming, Geek

Last week my company graciously flew my back to Albuquerque to participate in the company Christmas party. I decided to stay a whole week so I would have time to visit my friends. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Albuquerque, gaming, House of Whack, Landmark, movies, work

Nukes and I played Rock Band pretty much all day long. It is officially the best game ever. The drums are the hardest instrument because you’re actually playing drums as opposed to pretending to strum a guitar. I need a lot more practice if our band, The United Hobolition, is to make it to the top. I found the bass guitar very satisfying and backed Nukes up with some groovy strumming. The customization features are insane, a mini game to get lost in. I must have this game.

Oh yes, it will be mine.

Tags: gaming

I was in Dallas this past Thursday through Sunday for BoardGameGeek.con, a fantastic board gaming convention. It was a smaller, more laid back type of con than your GenCon or ComicCon, with perhaps only 700 attendees.

I cajoled Cory into going at the very last minute, so he, Nukes, Majcher and I headed up there Thursday morning. The con was at the Westin near the airport. The only thing nearby was a Denny’s and a Shell station. That Denny’s must make bank as it was the only source of reasonably priced “food” within several miles, as we found out.

The con itself was spread out between a large ballroom, a smaller ballroom and an overflow room. Plus there was a foyer area and a games library. The games library was this heavenly wonderland where you could find every game you had ever heard of, no matter how rare or out of print. Games that would cost you $300 on eBay could be checked out and played, even taken up to your room overnight. That right there should tell you about the top shelf quality of people at this convention.

I got to see Mischa again! Mischa is a gaming dynamo. I came down one morning, at what I thought was an early time (maybe 7:30 or 8AM) to find Mischa embroiled in a game of Galaxy Trucker. He had gamed through the night with no signs of stopping. Later that afternoon, I began to suspect the use of illegal stimulants, or, at the very least, a clone. How could someone do this? The secret to his staying power was revealed a few days later, but I shall take it to my grave.

I had the most fun playing obscure games, out of print games or games designed by my friends. Kapitan Wackelpudding left a deep impression. Shipping a stack of coffins and video games to Dracula land is no easy task. Tales of the Arabian Nights stole my heart. It is a game I should have been playing during my childhood at the same time as Talisman or Cosmic Encounter. It is essentially a Choose Your Own Adventure board game with role-playing elements. Thankfully, Z-Man is coming out with a new version next June. I learned the ferocity of soccer moms vying for the best looking garden in Garden Competition.

I played Dan’s Monkey Lab again, outwitting my opponents. I also had a chance to play Majcher’s Honeypot, which is a brilliant abstract strategy game. I was also delighted by his prototype of Fluffy Bunny Tea Party. It involves bunnies sitting around eating cakes, drinking tea and being horrifically polite to each other. Dan sold out of Chains of Fenrir, Majcher sold out of Honeypot and Ian sold out of Taktika. We were all really happy for Ian. He walked around in this kind of daze, unprepared for how well his game would be received.

I brought 12 units of House of Whack and managed to sell 6 of them! At first I was really overwhelmed. I felt kind of stunned by what it was I was trying to do and a deep terror grabbed hold of me. I didn’t think anyone was going to like my game. I wanted to give up and run far away. But on the morning of the flea market, I went down to the show room, claimed half a table, and set up a display for House of Whack. When the browsers flooded in like a Zerg rush, I kept my head and hyped the game to everyone who came by. My very first sale was to Aldie, one of the guys in charge of the convention. That was cool.

Friedemann Friese, a famous game designer was there as the guest of honor. He hung out and played games with everyone like a regular guy. You could always spot him in the room due to his shock of bright green hair. He always looked like he was searching for something, entering a room, head craning about, trying to spot something just out of view. I talked with him about what it was like when he had finished his first game and he said that he felt like he had no idea what he was doing, but, after the first game, nothing else quite gives you the same feeling. I get that.

Sunday morning found us packing up our massive hauls of treasure gleaned from the math trade and the flea market. If I had an extra $100 (and more trunk space), I would have matched Jake and Jen’s impressive finds. I think they got Arkham Horror and Descent for $40 total. Nice.

And then we came back to Austin.

The End.

Tags: gaming, House of Whack

I think I mentioned this before, but I want to reiterate how cool the Flywheel game design group is and how grateful I am for them. Ostensibly we meet every Tuesday night (I try to go as often as I can) and playtest each other’s designs, offer critiques and talk about game design in general.

Mischa originally turned me on to the group. Even though he’s back in NOLA, he remains a font of useful info and insight via email. He teaches us the deep magic hidden below the surface of the boardgamegeek.com web site!

We meet at Dan’s house. Since there are at least two of every name in our larger gaming group, he has been dubbed “Monkeyman” Dan, presumably from his Monkey Lab game rather than any simian proclivities. Dan has a wide range of games in the works and I’m always impressed when he pulls out a new prototype. I can characterize his designs as elegant. The games are straightforward and easy to learn, yet have deep strategy and well thought out game mechanics. This is really hard to do and he makes it look easy. He has released Chains of Fenrir as a self-published venture and is shopping Monkey Lab around. Monkey Lab is brilliant and is as fun as it sounds.

Ian’s games tend to have wizards and/or space ships, which is awesome. His current labor of love is Taktika, which is a game combining strategy and dexterity, as you have to flick wooden disks around the playing surface. The game looks fantastic and it is super fun.

I’ve only seen a few of Marc’s games, but they exude polish and fun. In Rocket Yard, players compete to build rockets with components of varying quality and be the first to launch. His Honeypot game has been out for a while. I bought a copy, but haven’t had a chance to play it. It comes in this sweet tube and is printed on a handkerchief, evoking old school classics like Cosmic Wimpout.

There is another Mark who I haven’t met yet as he is usually entwined in Bunco Night, which also falls on Tuesday night.

John is a new addition and is certainly the most prolific of the group. He has been creating one game a month and releasing it on his web site for quite a while!

Most of us are going to BoardGameGeek.con next weekend and it has been fun discussing various strategies to get more exposure for our games. Dan had the idea of using the stones from Chains of Fenrir as markers in House of Whack and I thought that was pure genius. Hooray for cross-promotion!

Visit the Flywheel Blog

Tags: gaming, House of Whack

Portal is one of the funnest and most entertaining game experiences I have had in a long time. Well, since Bioshock. So not that long. I digress…

Do yourself a favor and pick up the Orange Box or get Portal on Steam. There are much worse ways you can spend 3 hours.

Plus the Jonathan Coulton  song at the end is hysterical genius, the perfect cherry to top a tasty chocolate and wickedly misleading cake.

Tags: gaming

And now in news that isn’t actually a cruel practical joke on Mischa…

Fantasy Flight Games has obtained the rights to Cosmic Encounter and will be releasing a new version next summer. I cannot be more excited. There is no better company to handle the game. I will go ahead and say that it will be the best version ever. It will have gorgeous art and components, as well as lots of expansions.

Hooray for nostalgia!

Tags: gaming

EDIT: To be clear, this post is entirely fictional. Dan told me how Mischa coveted this game, so I thought it would be amusing to write this post. As it turns out, Mischa had already obtained a copy, so the joke was on me. And, for the record, San Marco is a fantastic game and I wish I owned a copy too.

Last weekend, on my way to the grocery store, I stopped at a yard sale. I really love yard sales, but I haven’t gone to one since I was back in Albuquerque. I have this recurring fantasy of finding a rare Boba Fett action figure.

It looked like the lady who was running the sale had a husband who was a board game collector and he was getting rid of a couple of things. It looks like everything had been pretty picked over before I got there. I saw this game Celtica, which I already had. But there were a few interesting-looking games which I ended up buying: San Marco (mostly because of the cool looking lion statue on the cover) and Ticket to Ride (which I had played before but never bought my own copy). Both games looked like they were in good shape and had all their pieces (though the San Marco box was a little scuffed).

I got a chance to play San Marco tonight at Great Hall. As I was setting it up, the board reminded me of this other game I had played with gondolas going around the board. The board looked like someone had gone a little bit crazy with a map of Venice and Photoshop. It came with the same little cubes you find in every game plus this figure with a little hat. Oh, and there were bridges.

Essentially it is an area control game in the vein of El Grande. I found myself constantly reminded of El Grande, which, having played both, I think is the superior game. San Marco is way more cutthroat and it felt like you couldn’t plan a long term strategy because inevitably someone would screw you over pretty badly. It had an interesting mechanic where one player divides the action cards up and then another player chooses which set of cards they will use.

Anyhow, it was kind of amusing, but it felt too much like El Grande merged with some other game that I can’t remember. When I was packing it up, one of the guys ( I don’t think I had ever actually spoken to him before) came up and offered to trade or buy it. It had only cost me $5, but he offered me $10. Score!

I also got to play this game that let you make cool little sculptures from putty. It took a while before someone guessed that one of mine was a star destroyer.

Tags: gaming