» 2005 » June
Thursday, June 30, 2005
Origins photos and board game news
Yup, there’s a big ol’ pile of Arkham Horror. Also, Memoir ‘44, Mystery of the Abbey and Pirate’s Cove are all getting expansions and Ticket to Ride will jump to PCs. And some other stuff in a Gamewire post hella jam-packed with all kinds of crap. Check it.
Dear Internet, you’re fired
Okay, it’s the first full day of Origins, the Origins Award winners are supposedly sitting around on posters everywhere, and the best you can manage is one press release on this one for Eberron? Jeez. Tear yourselves away from staring at that crazy carpet pattern for a minute and put something online already.
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Skotos ships Lovecraft Country
Lovecraft Country is online, in beta form. This is one of the first upcoming projects they announced back in… what was it, 1999?
WizKids offers treasure to avid captains
For all you scurvy Pirates of the Spanish Main out there (or Crimson Coast, or whereever), WizKids has some loot for you. The company has announced its Pirates Plunder Promotion, in which sea dogs of the CSG variety can mail in just a few game wrappers (plus a receipt, so be sure to save it) to capture a share of the treasure. In this case, the treasure in question can be a rare Limited Edition Ghost Ship or two, or even the character busts previously only available in Approved Play events. So if you end up on dry land near a mailbox, consider the benefits of owning a haunted galleon or two.
Monday, June 27, 2005
Niagara wins this year’s Spiel des Jahres
GR has a translation, as amusing and confusing as you’ve come to expect from Babelfish and its cousins, of the German press release.
Sunday, June 26, 2005
Free Fun from Invisible City
Project Aon isn’t the only organization giving stuff away this month. Right on schedule, they’ve produced another free game of the month. This time around, it’s ‘Dillos in Austin, delightfully described as “a simulation for 2 to 4 ground-dwelling armored rodents.” If you only visit the city when I report on their free games here, you might also want to check out Shift, last month’s free game, which I think I neglected to mention at the time. Oopsie.
Project Aon Pleases Lone Wolf Fans, Depresses eBayers
There are a few rare and valuable books that could be considered the holy grails of gamebook collecting, and most of them are part of Joe Dever’s Lone Wolf series. One such book is The Magnamund Companion, a full-color, large-format reference book featuring everything from a short solo adventure to instructions on building miniatures. Often found selling for ludicrous sums on eBay, it can now be downloaded free and legal from Project Aon, the official online home of Joe Dever’s gamebooks. Just click on “The Books,” and you can find the PDF file in the “Other Materials” section. Enjoy!
Thursday, June 23, 2005
Doom boardgame expansion packs loads of minis, Descent compatibility
In continuing FFG news, Doom expansion full details. I get the feeling that most gamers who frequent the ‘Cave are waiting on Descent, the straight dungeon-delve remix of the Doom mechanic, if they are interested in this at all. So it’s at least of note that in this upcoming expansion, “[b]its are included to let you integrate my favorite improvements from Descent back into Doom.” Also, I don’t think I’ve yet made the joke that they should really work out how to make a board game out of Descent, the head-twisting PC-gaming contemporary to the original Doom. That guy who goes to cons with the nice tall 3D-dogfighting miniature rigs might be able to hack it.
Arkham Horror loose, roaming, probably drooling
Man, I was all set to make a post about how the only news seems to be that things are constantly getting their ship dates pushed back. But then I go to FFG and there’s the word that the long-awaited new edition of Arkham Horror has shipped to distributors and should be in stores shortly after Origins… which probably means you’ll be able to buy it at the show. And I just got through laughing at you all about RoboRally… serves me right, I guess.
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Because bangin’ and gangsta rap resonate with so many gamers
These guys announced a while ago and I didn’t comment on it… largely because I found myself speechless. I still am, but here: the STREET WARriorS CCG Official Site. The publisher, Lethal Entertainment, is a new company comprising several Pro-Tour Magic players. Of particular high quality is this paragraph here.
I’m not even opening comments on this one. Let’s… let’s just leave it alone.
Thursday, June 16, 2005
Next two Avalon Hill ship dates have slipped
Release dates have slipped on RoboRally and Vegas Showdown – the former to July and the latter to the start of the Xmas buying season. I really only post this to give a good ol’ Nelson “ha ha” to everyone who was hoping to see RR at Origins, now that I know I can’t go. Which doesn’t make any sense, but I wanna do it anyway. Well, also to say I got Nexus Ops and my first inspection confirms what the early reviews have said: namely, it’s a very straightforward battle game with nice bits, much like WarCraft would have been if it hadn’t shipped broken. (I still contend that WarCraft is great with the errata, and don’t currently think Nexus Ops will be better, although the bits are even nicer.) Lastly, because Vegas Showdown piques my interest more every time I hear about it. And even more lastly, because posting anything about AH seems to enrage everyone amusingly. So there’s that.
Friday, June 10, 2005
Origins Awards ceremony isn’t one
Instead, the posters (presumably posters, anyway) with all the winners will go out in the morning on the very first day of the show, and then a gala event of hobnobbing on Friday. The party costs $30, but I’ll take a paid party with food over a free, boring show any day. The way winners are announced will be total anticlimax, but hey: kind of was already. Full text of the policy announcement after the jump.
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Thursday, June 9, 2005
Hasbro buys back digital rights
In a press release today (also copied below), Hasbro announced that it has regained the digital rights to Hasbro properties for $65 million, which had gone to Infogrames for $100 million at the end of 2000. As part of the new deal, Hasbro grants Infogrames an exclusive, seven-year license for the interactive rights to ten Hasbro properties, including Monopoly, Clue, Risk, Scrabble and Dungeons & Dragons (which will allow Infogrames/Atari to go ahead and release D&D Online, among other things). Most notable amongst the interactive rights regained by Hasbro proper are Magic: The Gathering, Transformers, Tonka and Playskool. And right about now, Peter Adkison is saying “I told them so.”
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Tuesday, June 7, 2005
Oh, good freakin’ God: White Wolf announces CSG
“Speed and valor bring victory!” What brings bankruptcy, I wonder? Racer Knights Of Falconus will feature “a variety of plastic cardstock components from which to build your Racer including engines, tires, weapons, armor, and more plus a rules sheet and two dice.” Ooooooh, two dice! I mean, I really like the one CSG there’s been so far so I guess I shouldn’t bitch, but this just looks incoherent and… well, like a White Wolf product. Sorry to put it that way, but there it is. Exalted still seems like good IP, but most of the rest of their lineup, including this, is starting to look kind of silly. No release date announced on this, so we’ll see what happens.
CCG mounts epic battle between business plan and reality
So this new Score CCG called Epic Battles, which I don’t know anything else about, will be sold exclusively through Blockbuster Video at first, then trying to feed customers from Blockbuster back to hobby stores, via organized play. The latter point sheds some light, I think, on why all these people wanna be in Blockbuster in the first place. I doubt it’ll be effective in any great numbers, but it is encouraging to see that some publishers still know who really supports them in the long term. Theories?
Thursday, June 2, 2005
Dungeon Master’s Guide II scores critical sales
It would seem there’s considerable excitement about WotC’s next rulebook for D&D 3.5, the impressively-titled Dungeon Master’s Guide II. According to the company, orders from the hobby market are already so strong that DMG II will be the biggest release ever for the game (aside from the core rulebooks). Industry favorites such as Jesse Decker and Robin Laws developed the nearly 300-page tome, which is the first DMG sequel to be created for any iteration of the D&D game system.
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