 August 2005 Archive
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09:56 PM: Mike Sugarbaker says... In the Summer 2005 issue of Games Quarterly, Hasbro's former CEO and still Chairman of the Board, Alan Hassenfeld, namechecked several old Avalon Hill titles (including his claim to have had a Tactics II "phase") and described himself as a current player of contemporary titles like Duel Masters and Heroscape as well as Acquire. Less than two months later, it is announced that he will step down as a Hasbro employee (while retaining his seat on the board) at the turn of the year. "It is dismissed... as coincidence."
07:19 PM: Demian Katz says... I'm a little late in posting about the latest free game of the month from Invisible City, but it's just as well -- I'd hate for it to get lost in the sea of GenCon posts. Magic Spell casts players as students of magic attempting to learn spells as quickly as possible. Spells are represented by cards with words on them, and letter tiles are drawn to construct the spells. Once spells have been constructed, they can be cast to cause special effects in the game. This one pulls together elements from a lot of different games, and it looks like it should have something to please several different kinds of gamer; as usual with this series of games, you have little to lose by giving it a shot -- the price is right, as always.
12:52 PM: Mike Sugarbaker says... Yup. 45 minutes of action. We put plenty of links in the show summary this time, and you can have at the discussion here.
11:49 PM: Mike Sugarbaker says... Back on the stick! Back in the seat! Back on maybe some metaphor that doesn't sound as dirty! Here's 28 minutes of good stuff from the GenCon show floor. We might paste some more into the regular on-mic podcast, which should get back on track for next week into the foreseeable future. Enjoy!
02:37 PM: Mike Sugarbaker says... Witness the all-out free RPG onslaught that is Metal Öpera!!!
06:49 PM: Mike Sugarbaker says... I didn't find many little tiny small-press surprises at Gen Con... not the kind that I always find at Origins, anyway. Maybe the really tiny companies are priced out of Gen Con's booth space, or maybe the smaller games are just always gonna be of the roleplaying persuasion (and hence either located at the Forge booth or probably forgettable). But by sheer chance I found I Win - it was sharing a booth with the Wench guy, and I sure wouldn't have touched that booth with a ten-foot pole if I hadn't been directed there by the woman who clued me into I Win. It's 16 black and white cards, it directs you to the website for instructions, and it's so beautiful it's like a little poem. It's like a very charming, baroque elaboration of rock-paper-scissors or something. It does, in fact, hinge on your playing one of the cards that says "I Win." My only complaint is that when I tried to pull up the rules on my cell phone browser, I couldn't because they're a PDF for no damned reason. But it's a tiny PDF so you can check it out with impunity. Go!
01:07 AM: Allan Sugarbaker says... According to Variety, Microsoft's hit X-box game Halo will see a movie adaptation in 2007. The rights to the film were up for grabs for some time, and Fox and Universal finally took the bait jointly. Now, while I'm a big Bungie fan, I'm still a bit gunshy after the Dungeons & Dragons movie. Here's to hoping the movie studios put someone at the helm that has at least half a clue.
11:55 PM: Allan Sugarbaker says... By request, Steve has uploaded video of the missing press announcements foreshadowed by Peter Adkison in his "State of GenCon" press conference. Here's the (very) short press announcements on Indy's first day, from Claire Vail of Wizards of the Coast and Claudine Ricanor of Upper Deck.
04:58 PM: Mike Sugarbaker says... All the roleplaying cognoscenti at the show were talking about this: Otherworld Excursions is an "adventure tour agency," only instead of adventuring off to some real place in this world, you go someplace in America and have some kind of location-appropriate tabletop RPG experience with a legendary GM and industry luminary. Ken Hite, John Tynes (!!!) and Dwarven Forge's Stefan Pokorny are the starting lineup, offering events in Chicago, Port Townsend WA, and New York respectively. It feels like this idea has been waiting to happen for a while - maybe it's been waiting for a good tabletop session to truly become a luxury item. In any event I think it's a stellar example of how the RPG industry will likely adapt to market change over the next ten years. (Hint: services, not products.)
01:01 PM: Mike Sugarbaker says... Steve and I did finally get to play Clout Fantasy. It's good. I would even venture to say that it is a better Diceland than Diceland. Thing with Diceland is that it's both very random and very chaotic, which are not the same thing. The chaos in Diceland is made of the unrandom parts, the parts that are kind of knowable, in theory, but you're never going to know them, without being some kind of savant or putting in way too much work ahead of time. The random factors in CF have been stripped to the bare minimum - there's no directionality and one side - so all the cognitive load you have is the inherent qualities of the chip, and of course remembering what all the damn special abilities do. The set of abilities is pretty diverse up front, so that's not inconsiderable, and I can see this game bogging down for some players as a result... but not as much as they would if you analyzed all the knowables in Diceland. Anyway, it turns out that the price point is not a disaster - $15 gets you 30 chips in the form of two fixed, well-matched stacks that have very decent replay value. That price might have been a GenCon special but I don't think so. I know that the boosters will be $2.50 for two chips. The boosters could have one more chip in them and I'd be happy, but having each player add four chips every week would not be an unreasonable way to grow the game. Finally, playing on the carpet is fine as long as you are not anal about allowing rethrows for things that roll away to someplace inconvenient. Mind any furniture that you cannot reach under without injury or paralyzing fear. Clout safely, everyone!
11:33 PM: Steve Kani says... We stopped by the Turbine booth to check out their upcoming massively multiplayer online roleplaying game: Dungeons and Dragons Online. Check out the video.
10:23 PM: Allan Sugarbaker says... Amidst all the excitement of GenCon Indy, the 2005 Gen Con EN World RPG Award winners were announced. The winners are copied below, though all of the nominees are worth checking out.
09:18 PM: Allan Sugarbaker says... Steve's prepping more video footage, so he asked me to point out Mike's interview with Jason Mical, WizKids Marketing Director. Watch the video and learn more about WizKids' current plans, including some tidbits on NASCAR Race Day and the Battlestar Galactica CCG.
08:44 PM: Allan Sugarbaker says... According to numerous websites, there's a fair amount of D&D Miniatures information coming out of GenCon. Here's what I've been able to round up:
08:34 PM: Mike Sugarbaker says... Troll Lord claims to be doing really well with their OGL-adaptation Castles and Crusades. They mentioned how they let online fans in on the development of the game - Daniel Chenault specifically talked about how, no matter how smart a designer is, he's never going to be as smart as the whole Internet. Good man - I wish more design processes would let fans in. C&C looks simple and sharp - a basic old-school fantasy RPG romp. Good times for those who seek good times in such. Shifting Forest does what they call "Parlor LARPs" - live game books designed for four to eight players, which I can imagine would materially change the LARP experience by a lot. And they're doing a lot of the darn things. They handed me The Queen of Hearts, a murder mystery with intriguing atmosphere, and an adultified, dark take on Snow White. They still look a little systems-heavy to me, but Steve says they're the LARPs for people who hate LARPs. Because apparently Steve hates LARPs. I'd link to their site but they told me it was broken and to try in a couple days. Google is your friend. Forge-a-mania! The great thing about the Forge booth is that whatever you pick up from that little stand full of books, some game designer standing nearby will point to it and go, "Dude! I love that game. I stole a mechanic from it for my game! Plus if you like that you should really check out this other guy's game over here! And yip yip yip yip arooooo!" (Note: small-dog barking and howling added for emphasis) Thing about the Forge books is that each is small (good) and more expensive than you'd think (also good and sensible in my opinion), but so many of them look worth owning that you actually end up spending a hell of a lot. I picked up Emily Care Boss' Breaking the Ice ("A Game About Love, For Two" - I was too scared of it to not buy it), Under the Bed by Joshua Newman (the spare, tiny visual design got me to buy it, and it looks similar to Puppetland), and the No Press RPG Anthology (eight standalone games in one big ol' green book I've never seen in a store). Tomorrow I might go back for The Mountain Witch (phenomenal buzz on this), Dogs in the Vineyard, or, God help me, something else. It seems like half the RPG energy at the show is focused on the Forge (and stuff like it, such as Wicked Dead), with the other half split between the Serenity RPG and Green Ronin. The Torg Revised-and-Expanded "1.5" edition is indeed in print at the show. Not so much energy there, but hey, yay for products on time. Demoed the City of Heroes CCG. There is a tremendous amount going on in this game, even in slim 25-card demo decks, but the design still feels really elegant - probably as elegant as a make-your-own-super card game could be. I know I've said this kind of thing before, notably about the luckfest that was Initial D, but I was impressed and I think it might have legs (by depressed CCG standards anyway). Have not yet demoed WizKids' High Stakes Drifter nor, I'm very sad to say, Clout Fantasy. I hope to at least fix the latter situation later tonight. My legs hurt.
02:00 PM: Steve Kani says... Matt Wilson of Privateer Press announced the upcoming release of their new miniatures game called Hordes. Check out the video of the announcement and the figures. Privateer Press Hordes announcement (Quicktime required)
12:22 AM: Steve Kani says... We dragged lead Hecatomb R&D guy, Ryan Miller, to the back recesses of the press room to find out more about Hecatomb. Check out this video clip of the full interview. Ryan Miller on Hecatomb (Quicktime required)
11:30 PM: Mike Sugarbaker says... So I spoke with Avalon Hill brand manager Linda Cox at length today - she didn't want to be on the podcast, citing excessive self-consciousness, and since she's not on the podcast, I actually had to remember what she said. We mostly talked very generally, though. Axis & Allies Miniatures has of course become one of the monster hits of the con, selling out its daily allocation in about an hour each day. I tried to get her to spill about the Seekrit Projekt alluded to in that Robo Rally article a while back; no go. Mostly we talked about the perceived "lightness" of AH's current offerings compared to its history. I came away from the conversation a little dubious about the claims that hardcore wargamers welcomed this game as a good introduction to historical gaming for beginners (probably a few did, but come on), but confident that AH is doing the right things right now. Avalon Hill's market is at a point where it needs to be grown aggressively, and you aren't going to bring in new people by, say, reprinting Kingmaker. (My out-of-nowhere example, not Ms. Cox's.) Games like A&A Minis and Nexus Ops stand a chance to do that.
09:09 PM: Steve Kani says... On Thursday, we members of the press were treated to an informal press conference and QA with Peter Adkison: Owner and CEO of GenCon. For the first time, we have video footage of his short presentation. Peter Adkison speaks (Quicktime required)
07:55 PM: Steve Kani says... I must say I feel a little bad. I completely missed the guys at The Forge at GenCon SoCal last year, and they had some new items. Not wanting to make the same mistake twice, I stopped in to take a look at what they had for GenCon Indy.
01:19 PM: Allan Sugarbaker says... WizKids announced its plan today to develop a Battlestar Galactica CCG based on the Sci Fi Channel TV series. The game should be ready for release in early 2006, and will be supported by the WizKids Approved Play program, but aside from that, details are sparse. The press release is below, and Steve and Mike will hit up the WK guys for more info. We'll see if any other licenses spill out of the rest of GenCon.
09:40 PM: Mike Sugarbaker says... Delta Green and GODLIKE author Dennis Detwiller has created a fundraiser with a goal of $500, with the project released upon achievement of the goal set to be a... uh... that part isn't clear actually. Yeah, I think this kind of thing might work better if the page where you ask for money tells people what they might conceivably get. It is probably Insylum, which is all over his front page as of this writing (confidential to D.D.: not having permalinks on your blog is very very bad and kills kittens, please fix okthxbye) and looks very cool indeed.
09:17 PM: Mike Sugarbaker says... The fine people who brought you Yu-Gi-Oh! will now be bringing you the CCG - sorry, that's TCG - based on the most popular MMPORPG in America. I think of Blizzard's work generally as video gaming's epitome of both class and mass appeal; I am not convinced that Upper Deck is a great match on that score, but then again, they are the first not to make a total mess of superheroes in CCG-land, so it's probably time for me to reevaluate them. This comes out in spring. And hey, if any of you play WoW and see a gnome named Oompal anywhere, kick him in the nuts for me. [EDIT: Upper Deck's site is slow right now, so we've copied the press release below]
07:11 PM: Steve Kani says... I had a chance to sit down with Jesper Myrfors and Peter Adkison of Hidden City Games about Clout Fantasy - a game of dexterity and strategy for two or more players. This game is unique in that it uses a collectible poker chip that features high quality artwork.
11:45 AM: Steve Kani says... I was sent ahead to check things out on the day before opening day. After getting my hotel situation straightened out, I wandered around the Indianapolis Convention Center, getting myself reacquainted and reoriented. Overall it looks like it’s going to be a pretty good convention. The attendance looks good and the registration line seems to be moving a lot faster than in previous years.
08:35 PM: Allan Sugarbaker says... The winner has just been announced as Alan Moon's Ticket to Ride by Days of Wonder, in what was the shortest Diana Jones Award ceremony yet (probably so the celebrating can commence). Runners-up were the other shortlisted nominees, Code of Unaris by Goldleaf Games and Dogs in the Vineyard by Lumpley Games. Steve was on hand for the announcement, and he'll have an update soon with photos, so check back later.
06:33 PM: Allan Sugarbaker says... A couple of us Cave dwellers got to play around with some Hecatomb TCG starters early last week. You would've heard about it in our OgreCave Audio Report last week if not for the aforementioned pooch-screwage. Now that I'm back from a cross-country jaunt, let me summarize what conclusions we came up with about WotC's latest CCG experiment.
12:53 AM: Mike Sugarbaker says... Yup. Tsuro looks very decent, probably more tactical and tense than the games it reminds you of... and for the components, the price is certainly right. But I can't help but wonder if this is really where WizKids should go. I mean, for all the crap we give them, they are actually pretty much doing all the right things right now: experimenting a lot, phasing out old products gradually, and developing successful ones sensibly. But the "family" board game market is crowded, muddled, and not a place where one can make a big splash without considerable marketing moxie. And maybe that's exactly what they'll bring to bear... if they didn't already blow all their margin on those nice components. Streets in September.
07:05 PM: Mike Sugarbaker says... Legends of Alyria is a complete roleplaying game, not only published free on the web, but published using a free, automated tool. As the game's creator says, "[W]hile I like the idea of game design, increasingly I'm finding that I don't care for game production and promotion. I don't have the time, energy, or desire to put into it, at this point." If more RPG creators would give in to their laziness, I think both the RPG industry and the RPG hobby would be in better shape.
02:09 PM: Mike Sugarbaker says... With a press-release headline like "Titanic Games Takes to the Water - New Board and Card Game Company," I happily admit that I had my knives out. I mean, come on, wouldn't you? However, it merely appears that one of the best design teams out there has found a couple of people willing to bankroll a proper publishing company. Said publisher will do nice things like that long-fantasized-about deluxe version of Kill Doctor Lucky, the lavish-sounding (and shockingly Vegas Showdown-esque) Dust and Sin, and an "anthology game" called Stonehenge featuring five designs for the same components by Ernest, Selinker, and three other names that truly make it an all-star cast. I am kind of assuming that the industry vets behind the cheekily named new company do actually know what they're doing, despite the crazy expense of this opening lineup. If they pull it all off I'll be ecstatic - this is the kind of action we need.
05:37 PM: Mike Sugarbaker says... Okay, so, new poly-card CSG whatever, due out at Gen Con and I don't think it got a sneak release anywhere although I could be wrong. OgreCave obtained four packs and got sort-of-enough ships to play a three-player game. If we had played a two-player game we would definitely have had fleets that made sense, although still not enough for a reserve fleet (that is, for the 30-points-all-over-again of ships that you can build on the fly during the game if you collect the right resources). So we didn't even put the resources in. This led to a somewhat abbreviated version of the game, but it was still enough to sell Chris on the game completely. (Note, however, that Chris has never played Pirates of the Spanish Main.) The ships look great for the most part. The standard banana-ship design for two of the factions isn't terribly interesting, but the Martian and Venusian ships we got are very cool. They may be standard designs for the cruisers in those factions, however. (Every ship we got in four packs was a cruiser, the family-size minivan of the game's spaceship classification. No squads of little fighters, and no full-size fighters that I recall. Looks like the biggies are this game's mainstay, just like in PotSM.) Flow of play is much more gamer-y than PotSM - the goal is to take over the opponent's base or DESTROY HIM. At least in the two-player rules that we, um, played by. So, barring the whole resource-collection thing (which I think would work better if you started with, say, 15 points of ships and held 45 points in reserve, instead of 30/30... but I haven't tried it), your goal is to fly around, shoot stuff, not get shot, crash into stuff and board it, and not get crashed into and boarded. All of this happens when ships spend their action points, which are marked AP but that actually stands for something goofy and story-related, so, action points. Combat is straightforward enough that I don't actually remember how it works right now. Boarding is brutal, heavy on dice, and tends to destroy both entities involved rather quickly. It is also how you take over a base, so you'll be seeing some of it - especially if you play with a fatalistic bastard like myself. Movement is much more anal, and frankly better, than it is in PotSM (or PotCC or whatever). Well, not anal, really: you spend action points to go straight, then you spend one to pivot. It's clear, fudge-resistant, and nice. I think I'll stop there for now, because I expect Chris will jump in in the comments.
11:39 AM: Mike Sugarbaker says... I had forgotten that White Wolf even had Gamma World, but there you go. One last Arthaus Ravenloft supplement will be hitting as a free PDF download next month. I seriously doubt that Gamma World will ever resurface as an RPG (although it might have kicked a measure of ass as a readymade IP for something like Nexus Ops), but my guess is we'll see Ravenloft RPG product relatively soon. I can always be wrong, of course.
11:33 AM: Mike Sugarbaker says... It is arguably only a matter of time between WARS and, well, this: GR points to a Virginia-based business paper called Inside Business, which in turn points to Decipher apparently melting down. Those up for a round of tasty schadenfreude can enjoy details like Decipher selling its offices and renting space next door, laying off pretty much everyone (maybe that part is old news), and getting sued by its fans for $4000 in unpaid tournament prizes. (Gaming: vicious because stakes are so small.) It must be said, though, that the silence from Decipher about their financial woes makes me respect companies like Hero and Guardians of Order all the more for being upfront about what they're going through financially.
12:37 PM: Mike Sugarbaker says... Uh, yeah I kinda screwed the pooch on that one. We recorded a quick talk about our experiences playing Hecatomb and Rocketmen, and about the Penny Arcade "CCG" kerfuffle, but the audio levels are way too low and the thing is just horribly noisy and unsalvageable. The worse news is that we won't have a podcast next week either, due to some pre-Gen Con travel on my part. However, when I do get into Indy, make sure your bandwidth is loose and limber because I'll be recording short reports directly from the show floor. Those will probably go online in large bunches on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evening. In the meantime, we'll probably go ahead and post our thoughts on Hecatomb and Rocketmen in the near future. Sorry for the pooch-screwage.
02:16 AM: Allan Sugarbaker says... New details are up at the Mongoose site about Paranoia: The Mandatory Card Game. Designed for 3-8 players, this one looks to be an appropriately light-hearted bloodbath, given the proper feel by Steve Gilbert, co-author of the classic Paranoia adventure Me and My Shadow Mark IV. The card game product image shows that the cards that will account for Security Clearance, the dreaded Troubleshooter missions, and more; tokens for Wounds, Treason, and Clones make it all the more ominous. Described as a DNCCG ("Definitely Not Collectible Card Game"), the game will sell for $24.95, and will be in limited supply at GenCon Indy next week before shipping in September. I can taste the Bouncy Bubble Beverage already.
01:36 PM: Mike Sugarbaker says... We all pretty much know that the attempted D&D-esque network play of Neverwinter Nights was too difficult to use for people trying to emulate the tabletop experience, but this first-person account by a frustrated GM really illuminates the problems we face when we try to take advantage of online play to address common roleplaying problems. This article really makes me want to look into Code of Unaris in more detail.
12:54 AM: Mike Sugarbaker says... The Hot Wheels Acceleracers CCG has slick introductory videos and a Cartoon Network series backing it up. Can a Barbie CCG be far behind? Oh God no. Or oh God yes, I can't quite deci -- no, that's a lie, a Barbie CCG would be horrifying de facto. I just wonder why it took this long for Mattel to smell blood in the water - not that I think this is exactly gonna be the next Yu Gi Oh or anything.
12:26 PM: Mike Sugarbaker says... I am actually looking forward to this. I love the strip, and it looks like the creators have been deeply involved in creating the cards and artwork. It looks like the Penny Arcade CCG is designed around some Vs.-esque system where you can take any two decks from however many licenses they can get, and make them fight each other. That idea makes my doom-sense tingle a bit, but the theme of fighting in an epic, ridiculous way out of context for no reason suits the Penny Arcade theme to a T. No release date that I can find; I will follow up on this at Gen Con. [UPDATE: apparently the game is not collectible in any conventional sense, but will be compatible with future games which may be... so Sabertooth is going ahead and calling this one a CCG. *sigh* Load gun, aim at foot, pull trigger.]
06:43 PM: Mike Sugarbaker says... Audio is smoother than last time, but a bit quiet. (You'd rather hear the end theme music than me anyway.) But it's there now and you may jump on it. Gently, please - this one's nearly an hour and we are hosting it ourselves. We'll see how long that lasts. UPDATE: ok I guess you can comment on it.
05:00 PM: Mike Sugarbaker says... This year's Diana Jones Award shortlist has finally been announced, leaving the committee about ninety seconds to vote before the winner is announced in the traditional pre-Gen Con ceremony. The list comprises innovative chat-RPG hybrid Code of Unaris, the hailed indie RPG Dogs in the Vineyard, and the ubiquitous-for-a-reason Ticket to Ride. |
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