If this is the big announcement, some heads are gonna be pissed off. But the announcement about Girl Genius is interesting; did they acquire it from the Foglios outright, intellectual property and all, or are they simply handling the publishing side of things? Nothing on Foglio’s site even mentions the
Author: Mike Sugarbaker
Taking a Dip online has real sanction?
So I was nosing around the Avalon Hill site tonight, given the recent news, and I found this: the complete rules to Diplomacy as a PDF, from the publisher. This is pretty interesting to me, because I remember back when I was investigating the online Diplomacy scene, when physical copies
Avalon Hill dead again?
Veteran designer Greg Costikyan reports in the second-to-latest entry of his weblog that Hasbro has killed off its Avalon Hill division. I can’t find any confirmation of this, but I have heard talk of a “small box” version of Risk 2210 coming out soon… perhaps a smaller box to accommodate
Origins 2003 hangover: BESM me, BESM me mucho
New at the show from was BESM D20, and the big news was that the whole rules content of the book is Open Gaming Content, not just the five percent or whatever demanded by the D20 System License. I had a long conversation with Mark MacKinnon about parallels between how
Origins Awards: are they broken, should we fix?
Ryan Dancey has floated a very specific set of proposals to change the voting process for the Origins Awards, and they’re eliciting unusually active discussion on GamingReport. I like the vote-count suggestions, but if the goal is to make the awards less of a flavor-of-the-month popularity contest, why eliminate “outdated”
Origins 2003 aftermath: better living through tiny giant robots
A friend ordered me to find out about something called Solaris VII at the WizKids tournament space at Origins. Turns out that it’s a set of unofficial alternate rules to make MechWarrior a fast, brutal game for mechs only. It’s named after the BattleTech universe’s “arena planet,” written into the
Spiel des Jahres 2003 winner announced
Winners and nominee lists are here. Most of this year’s nominees are relative unknowns here in the states, although I’ve seen Amun-Re get plenty of play on the strength of the Knizia name. Shortlist nominee Clans is the only other one with an identifiable English edition. This is the second
Origins 2003 aftermath: the dirty details
Anthony Valterra showed me a 36-page-or-so preview of the upcoming 192-page Book of Erotic Fantasy. From that small sample, I can say that the book seems about 50% relatively lame fan service (a Command Orgasm/Masturbation spell, with color photo illustration. Did the world need that? I’m thinking not), and 50%
Price tag for WizKids: $29.5MM
More details on the WizKids deal and the rest of Topps’ financial picture.
Live from Origins 2003: see, there are these dots, and they hack enemies
Decipher announced this game what, a week ago? And they’re running demos here at the show. This newest salvo in the .hack multimedia assault (anime TV, anime features, PS2 games and now a CCG) has gameplay that will be familiar to players of, well, anything in the medium, but most
Live from Origins 2003: Turns out that Vanna-ing is a career with a future
A little late-breaking news from the awards ceremony: Nicole Lindroos has been named the new chair of the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design. Congratulations, Nic!
2003 Origins Awards winners
I was going to be all smooth and post the Origins Awards results live as they happened from the ballroom, but you can’t get signal in the ballroom… I’d have to sit in the hallway to be online. Well, OK. Game Aid/Accessory: Gamemastering Secrets, Gray Ghost Press Play-By-Mail: Button Men
Live from Origins 2003: speaking of mad kung fu skills…
Here at the show: Munchkin Fu. Day-amn. The money train keeps a-rollin’ for the Munchkin franchise. This one looks especially sweet to combine with the other two.
Live from Origins 2003: You can change the ending!
Testament: Roleplaying in the Biblical Era is the big new deal from Green Ronin. It’s the first book in their Mythic Vistas line, which is all d20 settings in a not-typical-D&D-at-all-but-still-fantasy vein. The next book in the line, Skull & Bones, is in layout hell right now, but Mindshadows, about
Live from Origins 2003: stock update
Diet Evil Games is doing this thing kind of like Flying Buffalo’s Origins Metagame last year, wherein one buys some play-stock in various participating game companies, and participating in those companies’ events will get them more stock, et cetera. People are only allowed to make one trade a day, because