OgreCave

Atlas Games is 20 years old this month, and founder John Nephew has put out the word that they’re celebrating. If you’re lucky, you may still have time to get a free birthday gift box of Atlas Games stuff – the first 250 folks to order it and pay for their own shipping will get a semi-random assortment of games or game related items from the company. Even if you miss out on the birthday goodies, stop by the website and wish the Atlas crew a happy 20th, with many more to come.

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Our latest new reviews come from Demian, who has tried his hand at a pair of recent card games – several hands, actually. First he describes Minion Games’ Nile, an agriculturally themed game done in a classic style. Then Demian holds no punches in his review of the wild western brawl card game, Knock Down, Drag Out by Interaction Point Games. If you’re craving a dust-up, but aren’t looking forward to bruised knuckles and lost teeth, you’d do well to check this game out.

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Monday morning, and we’re off to war – specifically, Daron’s review of the brand new Memoir ’44 expansion Disaster at Dieppe. This set provides new map options for the streamlined war/board game, new unit types, and a bunch of new scenarios. See what Daron thought of the latest set, or look through our review archive to see other Memoir ’44 reviews. One way or another, get your war on.

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Looking forward to the inevitable late-night recap episode, but here are our notes for the supposed last TJI of the year, with guests Monte Cook, Robin Laws, and Eddy Webb.

• The White Wolf party apparently exceeded expectations.
• Again with the Iron Tyrants!
• The 5-2-1 rule, expert mode for the 3-2-1 rule.
• True Dungeon finally gets a mention. It doesn’t seem to be on everyone’s lips as in past years.
• Skulduggery sounds hot.
• Hamlet’s Hit Points
• Mars Colony
• ICONS
• Blood Bowl Team Manager, and acknowledgement that FFG’s announcing things before they have a release date is irritating as all hell.

And that’s Gen Con. Hope you had fun!

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Another group of new reviews has just been added to OgreCave’s collection, with items of interest for roleplayers and board gamers alike. First, Demian takes a look at two RPG resource books: Town, and the revised version of Points in Space, Volume 1: Starport Locations, both from Cumberland Games. Then Daron continues his quest to cover the entire Memoir ’44 game line with a review of the Memoir ’44 Terrain Pack. Enjoy the trio of product write-ups – we’ll have more soon.

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After sweeping the ENnies, you’d think Paizo’s Jason Bulmahn would be ready to relax and celebrate. Not entirely: he’s currently running a contest challenging Pathfinder fans to push his Facebook page up to having 1,000 people “like” it before the end of Gen Con on Sunday. If the goal is reached, all of his Facebook fans will 12,000 words of free Pathfinder material. Even if his page doesn’t reach the 1k mark, Bulmahn plans to offer up some material to those who helped the effort. As of this post, 853 people “like” his page – head on over, click the “like” button, and help the Pathfinder community.

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As Day 3 of the “Best Four Days in Gaming” winds down, we’ve got your show notes for the Saturday 5 pm TJI show. Guests Adam Jury and E Foley (aka @geeksdreamgirl) join hosts Ryan and Kevin for the Saturday evening show.

• @geeksdreamgirl ran multiple dating events at the show, while Adam and Eclipse Phase managed to snatch away a few silver and the gold for Best Writing at the Paizo Awards ENnies last night. (See the winner list here.)
• The costume parade forces Ryan to make a hard choice. Everything from stormtroopers in kilts to walking tetris blocks was represented.
• In case you forgot, Eclipse Phase is under the Creative Commons license. Rules remix, people!
• More about geek dating events, including speed dating at Gen Con Indy. On the other hand, some guys just need to be slapped silly for honking what isn’t theirs.
• The fit4gencon movement.
• A little social pressure is applied to… um, us at OgreCave.com. Don’t worry, Ryan, we’re working on the podcast. Expect the OgreCave Audio Report 2.0 soon!
• Hosts and guests all want an adult-sized LEGO bounce house.
• DC Adventures: “freakin’ gorgeous”.
• Praise for Twitter, and the gaming community therein.
• Stupid Ranger and the Roleplaying Therapy for the Severely Disturbed event.
• Ryan manages the most spectacular segue ever – with urine.
• A parting shout-out to Campaign Coins.

One show left, midday Sunday – pardon me, “Day 4”. Check back tomorrow!

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Hyrum Savage at Super Genius Games has been teasing for a day or two that an announcement was forthcoming, and now we know what he’s been up to: Super Genius Games will take over management of Dungeonaday.com. Started by Monte Cook, the subscription-based website has provided dungeon crawl encounters and rules articles every weekday since its inception in early 2009, with most of the site’s content generated by Cook himself. Starting September 1st, Super Genius Games will take over the daily site updates and management, and update the site to be compatible with Paizo Publishing’s Pathfinder RPG. Seems like a solid plan – Monte’s leaving the Dragon’s Delve, the massive Dungeonaday.com labyrinth, in good hands. (Full press release below.)
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Continuing the TJI adventure:

• Sandstorm, the new publishers-facilitators-whateverers of Eclipse Phase as well as… Poo.
• Apocalypse World
• Steal Away Jordan
• The D&D “Never Split The Party” contest
• GlowFly Games, who I think are set to publish Globalization?
• DC Adventures from Green Ronin. Also Dragon Age and Song of Ice and Fire.
• Artists Echo Chernik, Matthew Stewart and Christopher Shy
• No idea what this sales-skills game is. It certainly sounds like a subject amenable to a teaching game, though. Hell, some people say that’s basically what business school is.
• The Game Crafter, printing board games on demand
• There is a LEGO Games booth??!!?? I DEMAND PICTURES. [EDIT: Done. -A]
• Happy Birthday, Robot!
• Blowback
• Infrno online tools for tabletop play.
• Iron Tyrants! There are a couple of great making-of articles at the site.

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The annual Gen Con EN World RPG Awards (otherwise known as the “ENnie” awards) took place earlier this evening at Gen Con, and the internet is buzzing with celebratory blog posts and tweets. Paizo Publishing dominated this year, with Pathfinder taking home gold for Best Game, Product of the Year, Best Production Values, and several others. Here’s the winner list (the full nominee list can be found here):

2010 ENnie Award results:

Best Cover Art
Silver: Eclipse Phase
Gold: Pathfinder Bestiary

Best Interior Art
Silver: Shadowrun 20th
Gold: Pathfinder Core Rulebook

Best Cartography
Silver: Aces & Eights: Judas Crossing
Gold: Pathfinder City Map Folio

Best Writing
Silver: Victoriana
Gold: Eclipse Phase

Best Production Values
Silver: Shadowrun
Gold: Pathfinder

Best Rules
Silver: Hero 6th Edition
Gold: Diaspora

Best Adventure
Silver: Trail of Cthulhu: Armitage Files
Gold: Pathfinder #31: Stolen Land

Best Monster or Adversary
Silver: Pathfinder: Classic Horrors Revisited
Gold: Pathfinder Bestiary

Best Setting
Silver: Rome: Life and Death of the Republic
Gold: Day After Ragnarok

Best Supplement
Silver: Players Handbook 3
Gold: Mysteries of the Hollow Earth

Best Aid or Accessory
Silver: Gaming Paper
Gold: Pathfinder GM Screen

Best Miniatures Product
Silver: Gaming Paper
Gold: D&D Minis

Best Regalia
Silver: Battletech
Gold: Cthulhu 101

Best Electronic Book
Silver: The Devil We Know
Gold: The Great City Player’s Guide

Best Free Product
Silver: Lady Blackbird
Gold: Advanced Players Guide Playtest

Best Website
Silver: d20PFSRD.com
Gold: Obsidian Portal

Best Podcast
Silver: All Games Considered
Gold: Atomic Array

Best Blog
Silver: Gnome Stew
Gold: Kobold Quarterly

Best Game
Silver: Shadowrun
Gold: Pathfinder

Product of the Year
Silver: Eclipse Phase
Gold: Pathfinder

Fan Award for Best Publisher
Silver: Fantasy Flight Games
Gold: Paizo Publishing

Judges’ Spotlight Awards
Fiasco
Trailblazer
Chronica Feudalis
Ancient Odyssey: Treasure Awaits
Mindjammer

A hearty congratulations to all of this year’s nominees and winners!

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Catching up after the one-two punch of delayed-then-released shows – here’s show notes for the Friday 5 pm show. Guests Steve Kenson and Ken Hite sit in on the Friday evening show.

• Dresden Files is on demand, but the show is short on magic savvy GMs.
• Massage kiosks are praised.
• White Wolf is experimenting with its booth and bar – more the latter than the former. This is to promote White Wolf’s Grand Masquerade event, happening in New Orleans on September 23-26. The lack of White Wolf book sales at Gen Con is… an interesting choice.
• Indie RPG Awards were announced. 2009 Indie Game of the Year: Kagematsu (which was shortlisted for the Diana Jones Award this year as well); Best Indie Supplement: Ken Hite’s The Day After Ragnarok; Best Free Product & Best Production: Lady Blackbird; Most Innovative Game: Paul Tevis’ A Penny For My Thoughts; Best Support for a Game: Fiasco.
• Steve hears about games and construction of characters more than he hears about characters themselves. ICONS and DC Adventures both make their convention debut at the show.
• Ken pimps the con debut of Targets of Opportunity, and mentions his chapter of The Dresden Files RPG, which is still on track to sell out at this year’s show.
• Cosplayers have emerged from their synthetic cocoons to prowl the exhibit hall.
• The Smallville RPG “looks delightful”.
• Rogue Games’ Shadow, Sword & Spell.
• The Savage Worlds book Space 1899: Red Sands.
• The informed are not terribly surprised by releases this year, but there are still plenty of less informed folks out there.

The crew ends the show thinking forward to the evening’s ENnie Awards ceremony, which has happened by now – click here to see the 2010 winners list.

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It seems the technical difficulties have been resolved, and shows are flowing again, so now we have show notes for the Friday 11 am show. Guests Darren Watts and Jennifer Brozek lend a hand for the Friday morning show.

• Ryan swears! Crap!
• Fat Patrol and Felicia Day. No relation whatsoever.
• Jennifer, Ed Greenwood, and others read a really bad book… out loud.
• Ryan ran some Mythender. Darren recounts the tale of when Luchadore masks got him thrown out of a bar a few Gen Cons ago.
• The Authors’ Alley has yet to provide @jenniferbrozek with a Twitter contest winner.
• Darren’s splitting his time between Hero Games, the GPA, and IPR.
• Geeky Pinups, and the Weregeek webcomic.
• Ryan predicts the Dresden Files RPG will sell out at the show.
• DC Adventures: Hero’s Handbook. Awesome layout guys are mentioned: Hal Mangold, Fred Hicks, and Adam Jury.
• Wizards is doling out Dark Sun at the rate of 100 books/day.
• Free Market again.
• The Evil Hat PDF Guarantee: people like it.
• Grants Pass didn’t make the show, which happened to Gameplaywright’s The Bones at Origins.

I’ll have the next batch of notes up in a bit.

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Sorry, I was in the bathroom. Here we go!

• Again, the Adventure Burner and the Parsely Pack.
• gameplaywright.net
• Things We Think About Games, The Bones, and Robin Laws’ Hamlet’s Hit Points.
• Happy Birthday, Robot! (Note to others who want to see what games will come out of Kickstarter: remember Perfect? The new edition text is pretty stellar.)
• Malifaux by Wyrd Miniatures
• Battlestar Galactica, Dominion, and Thunderstone (OgreCave review here)
• IPR and Dresden.
• Apocalypse World by Vincent Baker.
• Apparently there’s WiFi on the show floor, because people are doing things like paying via PayPal on their iPhones and carrying zero cash.
• Steal Away Jordan
• A Taste For Murder
• Trail of Cthulhu (OgreCave review here)
• Skulduggery
• The ENnies
• Iron Tyrants – color me intrigued!
• People still love those BattleTech pods.
• The Smallville team charges the mic.

Can I just say how great it is to not hear Ryan Macklin again after so long? Nah, I’m just kidding. See you tomorrow!

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We’ve already mentioned it briefly in this morning’s TJI From Gen Con! show notes post, but in case you missed it, Boardgamegeek has won this year’s Diana Jones Award. The mostly-anonymous award committee selected the tabletop gaming website over three other game nominees shortlisted this year, FFG’s Chaos in the Old World, and the RPGs Kagematsu by Cream Alien Games, and Montsegur 1244 by Thoughtful Games. See the press release for more details.

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I love contexts where you can just say “It’s Thursday, 11AM, 2010,” and everyone knows when you mean. So yeah, it’s on once again: This Just In From Gen Con is in live-from-the-show mode, and we’re doing notes. If you’re new here, shame on you! welcome! Here goes:

• Dresden Files RPG. (Our thoughts on same.)
• The Adventure Burner, completing the Burning Wheel core books.
• The Parsely Pack, comprising ACTION CASTLE, Jungle Adventure, Spooky Manor, and Space Station.
• FreeMarket
• The Diana Jones Award has gone to BoardGameGeek. And I don’t mean to look up that Agricola expansion. Congrats to Aldie and crew.
• The Smallville RPG, which does indeed look pretty righteous.
• Reactor 88 is doing an inSpectres movie as well as the Brave New World film announced last year. BNW author Matt Forbeck plays a zombie.
• Wisconsin is very cold.
• The Women in Gaming panel – I believe it’s the second year that Gen Con has done this? Can’t find a link, but it has just ended as I type these words anyway. (Somebody write it up!)

Subscribe to our feed if you haven’t, because we’ll be on top of the TJI notes for the whole show, plus any other tidbits we turn up.

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As sometimes happens, one of our recent review targets has been updated, and Demian is on the case. As proof, he’s taken a look at two recent additions to the Wickedly Errant Game System from Gamewick Games. First, WEGS: Old Skool Redux tweaks and adds to the core fantasy RPG system, improving on the original edition. Then we hear about Dice Rule!, which is an enhancement more than an expansion, but certainly worth checking out.

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It’s that time of year again: Gen Con draws ever closer, heralding the announcement of the Diana Jones Award and its shortlist for 2010. Each year, this independent award is bestowed on prime examples of “excellence in gaming” by the Diana Jones Committee (made up of past winners and other luminaries). The nominees are an interesting group, and are described thusly:

• BoardGameGeek, a website edited by Scott Alden and Derk Solko
• Chaos in the Old World, a boardgame by Eric Lang, published by Fantasy Flight Games
• Kagematsu, a role-playing game by Danielle Lewon, published by Cream Alien Games
• Montsegur 1244, a role-playing game by Frederik Jensen, published by Thoughtful Games

Follow this link for more details on what brought these four nominees to the committee’s attention. As always, the winner of the 2010 Diana Jones Award will be announced on the evening before Gen Con Indy gets started at the Diana Jones Award and Freelancer Party in downtown Indianapolis.

[Update: The votes are in, and the winner has been announced!]

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RPG Blog 2 broke the news that Precis Intermedia is the new home of the Masterbook, Shatterzone and Bloodshadows properties, which all formerly belonged to West End Games. Last month, it was revealed that WEG’s Eric Gibson had sold the rights to TORG, the precursor to the Masterbook system, to German company Ulisses Spiele – now it seems all WEG has left is the Junta board game. I’m sure someone can be found to adopt it.

We’re still awaiting a more official Precis Intermedia announcement (there’s just this fun hint so far). When we hear more, we’ll let you know.

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Because we know you can’t get enough, we’re starting the week with another Gaming News Update interview. This time Lee Valentine chats with Colby Dauch of Plaid Hat Games and Hasbro’s Dungeons & Dragons Heroscape line. Colby has several projects in his queue, both freelance designs and new Summoner Wars releases, which Lee quizzes him on for this new episode.

By the way, if you still haven’t familiarized yourself with Summoner Wars we’ve got a review of it right here.

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To help keep us up to date on the mass of card gaming goodness available these days, Demian has sent over his thoughts on 7 Ate 9 and Super Circles (both from Out of the Box), and on Third-World General (Battle Bunker Games). As it turns out, at least one of these failed to fully convey its “goodness” to him, while another was selected as part of OgreCave’s Christmas Gift Guide 2009. We trust you’ll figure out which is which.

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Mike tweeted about this earlier, but it deserves a main page mention: Betrayal at House on the Hill: Second Edition is on final approach for release October 5th. Co-designer Bruce Glassco announced the new edition back in November 2009, and has recently hinted at new features of the updated game. The new game will feature eight new Haunts, a new “hidden traitor” mechanic, five new items, redesigned die-cut tokens, and new artwork. In all, great news for fans of the original edition (which we reviewed here), especially those who waited too long to pick up a copy.

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In our latest Gaming News Update interview, Lee Valentine chats with Chuck Kroegel of Petroglyph Games about the company’s plans to release a card game, a board game, and a PC game in the next few months, all about a single fantasy setting. Kroegel, Petroglyph’s General Manager and one of the company’s designers, goes into the details of their plans to present the world of Graxia to the greater gaming public.

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In his quest to examine every corner of Small World, Lee has taken an extensive look at Small World: Tales and Legends, the brand-new expansion for Small World being released this week by Days of Wonder. The set adds random Event cards to the ebb and flow of conquest and civilization decline that fans of the game have come to know and love. How does this set stack up? Have a read and find out.

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Alderac Entertainment Group announced on July 9, 2010 that most of the Dust Games design library they have published or were going to publish (excluding The Adventurers) will be moving to Fantasy Flight Games. Some games involved in the transfer include Dust Tactics, City of Thieves, Arcana, and Mad Zeppelin. The increasing number of games on AEG’s release schedule was going to require the company to grow faster than it was prepared to, and may have forced AEG to release multiple titles per month to keep pace with both its own planned releases as well as those of Dust Games. AEG will cut the total number of scheduled releases to provide adequate playtesting and support for each product they do release. The company also plans to focus on its core product lines that are already doing well (such as L5R and Thunderstone), and may push some other new games back to 2011 release dates. GenCon 2010 events that were scheduled for the affected products will go on as planned, only to be run by FFG staff instead of AEG. (Full AEG announcement copied below.)

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I mentioned this in our KublaCon 2010 image gallery (on OgreCave’s Facebook page – you’ve become a fan of us, right?), where our readers saw a shot of the Small World iPad app. Well, this just in: Days of Wonder has upgraded the program to include an AI to play against, enabling solo play for the formerly two-player only app. Those who already purchased the app can upgrade for free, or new players can download the app for $6.99.

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