» 2006 » July
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Confirming the already-obvious death throes
Author George R.R. Martin’s news page confirms what everyone’s known for a while now: Guardians of Order is shut down. The unanswered phone calls and emails told that story already, but Martin offers news that “[Mark] MacKinnon is presently attempting to place some of GoO’s games with other companies.” More encouraging for Game of Thrones RPG fans is Martin’s statement that he is “presently attempting to work out some sort of settlement with Guardians that would allow the RPG to continue with another company”, but nothing is determined yet. Little by little, we’ve heard from folks who have settled up with GoO, so here’s hoping for a peaceful conclusion, rather than a Wizard’s Attic-like lynch mob.
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Audio Report: the glitzy Ogre’s Choice ceremony
Seriously, you should have seen my gown. It was fabulous.
Friday, July 28, 2006
Announcing the winners of the 2006 Ogre’s Choice Awards
Welcome to the Ogre’s Choice Awards, the first of our long-threatened annual awards, honoring what we of OgreCave deem to be the best products in the tabletop gaming industry. These are the games we’ve enjoyed most over the past year, and simply had to seek out, bash over the head, and drag back to our respective lairs.
The Cave Dwellers have had a taste of many great products over the past year. Now that Gen Con Indy looms once more, the year of game product releases draws to a close as the new product year is set to begin. So it behooves us to take a fond look back, remember the games that rocked, the dominant trends, and the goodies we snapped up in a frenzy of gaming lust.
The award categories and nominees were selected by OgreCave staff (and affiliated cognoscenti), then voted on by same. Products released at or after Gen Con 2005 were eligible. The nominees and winners are listed below. For more detailed discussion of this year’s Ogre’s Choice Awards, you can listen to the 2006 awards episode of the OgreCave Audio Report, our popular game industry podcast show.
To see our list of winners, click over to the 2006 Awards page.
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Audio Report: if you squint it looks like someone announced a product
But only kind of. At last, here’s our post-Origins wrapup of what Mike saw, or at least of what he had written down. Also I share some thoughts on the actually-timely post-show interview that Paul Tevis did with Ken Hite. That’s over here and is totally worth the time if you haven’t heard it. Also, be sure and check the very end of the show (ours, I mean) for a special announcement!
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Eagle Games for sale. All of it.
Mike’s been rambling about this in recent comments, but here’s an official mention: As this Boardgamenews.com story notes, Eagle Games is up for grabs. Troubled for some time now with delays (Sid Meier’s Pirates, anyone?), Eagle has been spotted selling the company’s brand and remaining inventory at auction. Where will this land titles like Railroad Tycoon? Is this all just a maneuver to get developing projects out of the rotting, indebted carcass of the company in order to start anew elsewhere? Wouldn’t be the first time…
Monday, July 24, 2006
Bleat helplessly in the presence of your masters!
By which I mean that comments should be working again (the phrasing is adapted from one of my favorite cards in The Shab-al-Hiri Roach – it’s inexact, I don’t have it in front of me right now BAA BAAA oh god make it stop BAAAA). I was going to solve the problem by upgrading us to Movable Type 3, but that is a much larger project than would fit in the weekend. The problem was really just that spammers made our poor little comments CGI break its brain. All fixed now. Go to town.
Monday, July 17, 2006
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Audio Report: post-everything, pre-everything else
We recorded this show the day the WizKids layoffs were announced… and literally the day before the departure of Jordan Weisman was confirmed. So, we have a variety of perspectives on that, some of which have now proven false. The rest is what we thought would happen at Origins, what we think will happen at Gen Con, and the simple pleasures of Hey, That’s My Fish! In the comments, please tell us: what are the Top 5 RPGs Of All Time? Subscribe here, comment below. [Edit: oh, hey, comments don't work at all. Hopefully I can fix this no later than over the weekend.]
Stick-y adventure game arriving at Gen Con
Another reason I wish I were going to Gen Con Indy: to pick up The Order of the Stick Adventure Game: The Dungeon of Dorukan from APE Games. To quote Rich Burlew, the man behind The Order of the Stick webcomic and co-designer of the Adventure Game, “This game will be kind of a hybrid between a card game and a board game, with strong influences from games like Talisman and the old Dungeon! board game. Each player will take on the role of one of the OOTS members and delve down into the dungeon to fight Xykon, while choosing whether to help or screw over their fellow party members.” Sounds promising to me.
Monday, July 10, 2006
ENnies nominees announced
The EN World awards, known as the ENnies to most of us, has revealed its list of 2006 nominees. Voting hasn’t opened quite yet though, so check back next Monday and get your two cents in. As always, winners will be announced at Gen Con Indy.
Wednesday, July 5, 2006
Audio Report: three short podcasts from Origins
The Volity team, Brennan Taylor of Indie Press Revolution, and Rob Dougherty of Your Move (publishers of Battlegrounds). I talked to them on the show floor (generally) and the sound is good, unless you try to listen with the in-page widget. So there.
Tuesday, July 4, 2006
Origins 2006 Live: crawling from the wreckage
A few last details:
- Hey, guess what? AT-43 isn’t collectible. Fixed boxes of assembled and painted plastic figs. It will be in your FLGS in December, provided that Rackham communicates anything to retailers at all, which they seem not to enjoy, so who knows.
- People do indeed seem to be making the jump from Fluxx to the Icehouse world as a result of Treehouse. So yay for Looney Labs, there.
- After visiting the Hidden City booth and demoing Clout Fantasy yet again (to get throwing tips), I have decided not to count them out. First, they have preconstructed stacks now. Second, they have a piratey expansion coming out for Gen Con, and the kids, they love them some pirates. Lastly, (and this is total rumor territory) they may have picked up a major superhero license. And the comics fans seem willing to buy anything. But really, every time I play it I have fun but wish I could get things to land where I wanted. The precons will definitely be something I consider.
- Played The Shab-al-Hiri Roach for the first time – ironic, given that my name is on the back cover – and had a blast. The table took things in a sillier direction than I really wanted to take things at first, but that’s collaboration for you. I managed to keep a bit of an edge on things with my degenerate proto-fascist classics prof. Good times.
- Battlegrounds, man. Finally got to demo this and picked up two army decks. They have the dwarf army debuting at Indy, and next year? WWII, baby. I laid down some tape with Rob Dougherty, Your Move’s head (I think) and Battlegrounds’ designer, so Audio Report subscribers will get an earful of that soon.
Saturday, July 1, 2006
2005 Origins Award winners announced
The 2005 Origins Awards winners are announced, now that those in attendance have had time to sleep off the revelry. Items of note: among the winners were Artesia for Best RPG, GURPS Infinite Worlds for Best RPG Supplement, Gloom for Best Traditional Card Game, and Warmachine: Apotheosis for Game of the Year. The Ravnica: City of Guilds expansion for Magic: The Gathering got the nod for Best Collectible Card Game or Expansion, and Miniatures of the Year went to Wargods of Aegyptus. Midnight Syndicate also got some recognition for their great work, as The 13th Hour Roleplaying Soundtrack won Game Accessory of the Year. The entire winner list is copied below. [EDIT: And now the news of Hall of Fame inductees has come in as well. You can't tell from the Origins website, though.]
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Origins 2006 Live: don’t follow the corsets
- Playtested Slugfest Games’ upcoming expansion for Kung Fu Fighting. I am NDAed on the details but I can tell you I am confident that this set will make an already-screamingly-fun game even more fun.
- I keep meaning to say to any board game fans at the show that Titan Games has some copies of Tenjo at 75% off and if you have enough space in your luggage/vehicle to get it home, then dammit, you need it. I hope they still have some left as I write this.
- Still hoping to get a shot at Days of Wonder’s Cleopatra and the Society of Architects, which is effectively new at the show.
- WizKids is doing nice fixed figure sets for HeroClix and, even more interestingly, for HorrorClix AvP. There’s one for MechWarrior as well, but the others have nice big plastic windows in the boxes that show you everything inside in a nice little tableau. So, at least collectors will probably find that more appealing.
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