We met Tom Jolly, creator of Wiz-War and Diskwars, who was at DDC running Diskwars tournaments for the second year in a row. The title of this item would probably amuse him as much as the fact that Fantasy Flight is officially appending his name to the title of his upcoming tile-based board game. You know, like Bram Stoker’s Dracula: Tom Jolly’s Drakon. Tom said the idea that his name will ship units strikes him as pretty funny. (By the way, if you play Wiz-War but don’t own it, he said to buy your own damn copy. We think he might have been joking. Maybe.)
Anyway, Tom Jolly’s Drakon is a version of a game, variously titled Traps or Vaults, that Jolly’s been developing for ages. From what I saw, players lay down new rooms of a dungeon on a regular grid, and each room contains special rules and restrictions on pawn movement. Similarly to Wiz-War, the goal is to get treasure, but there’s also presumably an element of getting out alive. The game is in final assembly stages and should be released relatively soon. I didn’t have a chance to give Drakon a test drive, though. What can I say, after the con I went to a party in Fremont that involved wine mousse cake and torture by Trivial Pursuit while I watched two guys play PS2 Beatmania to euro-disco songs about an Indian guy whose family was eaten by a tiger. Long night.