I was just playing a little online Acquire (a friend of mine hacked it up, and it’s still aggressively beta so be gentle) and did a quick search to see if I remembered, back at Origins, to post about the Face 2 Face Games folks and their line of reprints of the work of Acquire designer Sid Sackson. It turns out I didn’t. At the time they were already having great success with their version of Kohle, Kies & Knete, retitled I’m the Boss, and were previewing the card game Sleuth; their third “Sackson Signature” game was previewed at Gen Con and will be hitting the channel soon.
At Origins I spoke to Face2Face’s Lawrence Whalen about the Sackson line – he told me they were working closely with Sackson’s family (and that the I’m the Boss character portraits were in fact of extended Sackson family members). Sackson’s immense collection of games, split up and sold at auction after Sackson’s death in 2002, apparently contained a number of prototypes of Sackson originals – many of them unpublished. When I talked to them, Face2Face was starting to work with the family to track these prototypes down, possibly develop them, and bring them to market. Naturally, we wish them all the best with that project. Their next planned Sackson reprint is Metropolis, due sometime next year.
As one of our commenters pointed out previously, it’s sad when a collection goes to the four winds at the end of someone’s life, but at least it’s good for the collector to know that things are going to people who know and love them. Here’s hoping that Sid Sackson’s legacy gets a better end than it’s gotten so far – better for the family as well as for gamers everywhere.