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  • Terminator Salvation

    Ever since seeing the little vignettes in the first Terminator movie, I have been waiting to see the movie where we finally see the war against the machines.    I was happy to hear that this one was coming out and it would finally be that movie.  Although, I would have been happy if they had left it at Terminator 2 with everything being averted.  While, I did like the last one, I didn't like that they basically said that everything happens.....

     Anyways, the effects were pretty good.  The T-700's looked pretty awesome.  The scenes of Skynet were even cooler and I loved the scenes as they were going through the areas devastated by the nuclear war (that is one thing I like about Fallout).  You go through areas that are vaguely familiar.  There is even a cameo of sorts by the Governator.

    The acting was okay but then again this has never been a series for it's fine action.   Christian Bale was an acceptible John Connor.  The guy playing the Terminator trying to get him was pretty good too although this is one of the areas where I have a problem with the plot.  We are treated to yet another robot movie where the robot wants to be human and has to choose.

     The storyline was kind of meh but again, the plot lines for the other Terminator movies haven't been the greatest.  Anyways, the effects were cool enough, so I'll give this 3.5 Ahnolds out 5.

  • test

     

     

  • Testing the Blog Feature...

  • Thanks to everyone for the good wishes

    Unfortunately, it got worse.

    At about 6PM Tuesday 7/19/11, my mother in law had a stroke.  To the best of our knowledge, she is hanging on in intensive care.  If my mother in law Grace is going to pass, I just hope and pray she does not die today.  Today is my wife's birthday.

    My mother in law is a very knowledgeable woman, and has historically not been afraid to let everyone know that fact.  In contradiction with all the mother in law jokes, Grace was always very kind to me and helpful to others.

    As time passed, Grace became more infirm and Lin had to do more and more to help.  Lin and I do get few moments together.  Health aides being a no show is a current infuriating frustration for my wife.

    Grace passing is inevitable, but today someone's insensitivity got to me.  I'm trying to be positive, but this guy made me physically ill.

    I am a union rep.  A fellow rep and I were talking at the end of the day, when he commented "Dave, what are you going to get for your wife for her birthday?  A dead father?  How about a coffin for everyone thats died this week?"

    Am I being too sensitive?  I know the guy was trying to lighten the mood, but Jesus.  At the end of all that, he rolled his eyes and sarcastically said "I guess if you don't show up tomorrow, I guess I know what happened."

     Bleah.

  • That Game is Too Long.

    Francie had a game party at her home yesterday. We usually meet in a dank cellar that smells like mildew and paint thinner, has shitty plastic chairs and is full of loud mini players. Or we meet in a small, stuffy meeting room which also has hard plastic chairs and hardly enough room to squeeze between tables to walk to the powder room. It was awesome to be lounging about in Francie's big, gorgeous Victorian house, with comfy chairs, a fridge full of beer, and a pool table. Some of us even spent part of the day talking in the living room, or out on the deck, like it was a real party and we weren't socially challenged geeks who needed a game board between us to interact with other humans.

    What perplexed me, however, is that any game with a playing time of over 90 minutes was shot down as "too long." Most of us were at the party for 8 hours. Some stayed for 10 hours. WTF! A 2-3 hour game is too long??? Also, the games I suggested somehow managed to get shot down for simultaneously being "too easy" or "too light" AND for being "too complicated." Most of these comments came from people who were new to the hobby and had never even played the games.

    Railroad Tycoon is no good because it is just an easier version of Age of Steam, so lets play Darjeeling, GemBlo and Crokinole instead. Again I say WTF!
    I was eventually able to get a three player, learning game of Valley of the Mammoths together. This game really needs at least four, or five to play well. However, this did give us a chance to flail through the rules (third time for me, first for the other two players). I decided that I need to make player copies of all the little charts, and a season wheel marked with the special events that happen on certain turns. Since the two first time players liked it, we may be able to convince a couple more to play next time.
    BTW, Darjeeling is stupid.

  • The 2011 Rumpies

    Good evening ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the first annual Rumpies. Here we’ll hash out some of the fascinating developments in gaming during 2011, as well as dish out some choice (and not so choice) awards at the end. What were the big stories of 2011? What game will be crowned game of the year? And when will the awards statuettes ever get mailed? (Answer to the last one: never.)

    Big Stories in 2011

    I have read and heard a lot about how 2011 was a great year for games, and I can only assume its true, because I haven’t played a whole bunch of the games that have been getting press this year. Mage Knight and Eclipse in particular interest me, but I still haven’t gotten around to playing either one. In fact, there are a lot of 2011 games that I still haven’t played. So it’s hard for me to gauge the overall quality of 2011. But here are some trends that I noticed (as did many others) over last year.

    The most noticeable movement over the past year was the adoption of Kickstarter as the key way to get new games off the ground. In 2010, Alien Frontiers was the Game that Kickstarter Built. Hoping to get a piece of gamers who spend money without considering the consequences, tons of indie publishers piled onto that bandwagon. In 2011, it seems like every game that wasn’t from an established publisher was funded through Kickstarter, and some established publishers even used it as a way to remove the risk of putting out a new game.

    I’m of two minds about this movement. First of all, I liked Alien Frontiers a lot. It wasn’t exactly original, but what was there was very polished and fun. So I don’t blame people for hoping to get in on the ground floor of some new title. And the indie publishing movement has been very fruitful for video gaming, so I would love to see a similar movement of affordable creative board games become available. Kickstarter seems as good a way to do this as any. The problem is, most of the games on Kickstarter are anything BUT creative. More often, they are some warmed-over deckbuilding or worker placement game from some guy on BGG who fancies himself a designer. It’s proving to be a dumping ground for games that probably don’t deserve to see the light of day. And of course those who do not think about purchases crap away money to back those tired designs. It has the potential to be a cool movement, but it’s being choked by hobbyists who are willing to buy anything. I hope that I’m proven wrong going forward.

    More than any other year, I noticed that 2011 felt like the year of the reprint. I don’t remember a year when so many old games were announced and published. Survive, Outpost, Wiz-War, Nexus Ops, Knizia’s Lord of the Rings, Through the Desert, War of the Ring, and many others all saw new affordable reprint announcements, and almost all of them are out already, with a couple on the boat right now. Leading the charge is Stronghold Games, who has made it their mission to snag rights to every game that hasn’t already been reprinted by Fantasy Flight, the other major publisher who has reprinted stuff like crazy. It’s becoming less and less rewarding to hold onto that old game because of its value, because very few old favorites remain that won’t see the light of day eventually. That’s a good thing. There are way too many classics out there that haven’t been around for several years or much longer.

    Of course, that leads us to what has to be the weirdest news of the year, which is theMerchant of Venus reprint that was announced by BOTH Stronghold and FFG within the same day. Stronghold negotiated with the original designer, Richard Hamblen for the rights to his classic game, while FFG negotiated with Hasbro, who now owns Avalon Hill. But at no point did Hasbro or Hamblen ever speak to each other about their actions, and Stronghold and FFG were left holding the rope. At this point, it’s looking more likely that FFG’s version will make it to market. They have a lot more clout in the industry, and were apparently well on their way to printing and shipping the game (it should be available in March). I’m fine with that, since I like most of their reprints and I feel Merchant of Venus could use just a little streamlining. But it would have been cool to see what Stronghold would do with this classic title, and I would never complain about a reprint from them. The depressing part is that it still isn’t resolved. Fans of the original game like myself all hope dearly that at least one version gets published. The worst case scenario is a scorched-earth legal decision that leaves it out of print forever.

    And now, without further ado…

    THE 2011 RUMPIES

    Best Old Game I Played for The First Time This Year (Card Game): Tichu
    Look, let’s not waste any time here. If you (the reader) can find two more people, call me and I’ll come over to play. Seriously, Tichu is just that addictive, and as I said in my review this fall, all of the years I didn’t play it feel like youthful indiscretion at this point. I’ve dived into the game headfirst, but it’s an ocean that I could swim in for years. It’s the deepest best card game I’ve ever played, and there’s no excuse for not owning it. Seriously, go buy a deck. You’ll thank me later.

    Best Old Game I Played for The First Time This Year (Board Game): Imperial
    I avoided playing Imperial for a while because I thought it might be a super-intense brain-burner. Well, it kind of is, but I don’t mind a bit. In fact, if I’d known how interactive and cutthroat it was, I would have cleared time to play it much earlier. It’s easily one of the best heavy Eurogames ever published, and I have immensely enjoyed every game I’ve played. Word to other noobs though: start by just buying your own bonds instead of random distribution. It should be the only way to play.

    Biggest Disappointment: The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game
    Ahh yes, the game that I traded to actually get Imperial. Boy, was I excited for this. I am a minor-league Tolkienphile, and I like good strategic card games. And even though it was collectible, I thought I would still like to get into a game based on my favorite novel. The fact that it was cooperative? Even more compelling. Turns out it was a turgid frustrating exercise in mechanical futility. Okay, maybe it wasn’t that bad. But neither was it actually fun. Instead it was just hard and overwrought. What a letdown.

    Best Expansion: Innovation – Echoes of the Past
    Innovation was my favorite game of 2010, and I still play it a ton. But this expansion was a revelation to me. It somehow made Innovation feel even more wild and varied, but in my experience it actually evened out the lumpier parts of the original game. The echoes captured the idea of past technology so well. And the huge array of special achievements makes the game much more workable from other tactical angles. It does everything the original did, but much better. Basically, this is the advanced version of Innovation, and the base game now feels impossibly thin without it.

    And finally…

    Best Game of 2011:

    MERCHANTS & MARAUDERS

    Alright, I haven’t reviewed this one yet. In fact, I only got it a little while ago. And it’s not precisely a 2011 game, coming out at the tail end of 2010. But most people played it in 2011, and it’s a terrific game. So good in fact, that I would call it the best “narrative” game since Battlestar Galactica. It’s the best pirate game that has ever been made, and I honestly cannot imagine a better one. Yes, it’s a complicated game. There are a lot of rules to digest up front, but it never feels overwhelming or burdensome. And yes, it’s challenging to find the balance in the game between being a Merchant or a Marauder. I wouldn’t be surprised if it actually isn’t that balanced to begin with. You know what though? I don’t care. Nothing about this game is boring or not fun. It somehow manages to make an adventure game that is also surprisingly strategic and nuanced. Very few games are as much fun in crushing defeat as this one. There is enormous satisfaction to be had by simply doing your own thing, and for that reason, Merchants & Marauders is my game of the year.

    So there you have it, my own authoritative (*snicker*) guide to 2011 in gaming. What’s that you say? How can I write an article on the best games of 2011 if I haven’t played most of them? Because shut up, that’s why.

     

     

  • The A-Team

    A-team

    NO, I'm not talking about the A-team movie remake coming out nect week.
    I'm talking about the FA-team converging on Atlanta to kick ASS!
    Hannible: Zev Shlasinger. The man with the plan and a guy carrying enough prototypes to jury rig a car bomb.

    Face: Merkles.The silver tongued con-man. Posing as a history professor he intends to charm his way out of trouble and into the hearts of the ladies

    Murdock. Gary Sax. Certifibly insane pilot. He intends to escape the captivity of his institution and drive 8 hours in nothing but this underwear and a straight jacket

    Ba Baracas "Mr. Z":Bad Attitude Billy Zavos. I pity the fool that crosses Zavos...

    In this weeks episode  the fA-team will rescue Jana Nelson from her usual fair of really bad Eurogames. Guest Star Frank Branham will throw everything he's got against the team with his wicked fingers of death. Don't miss a riveting moment of heart racing action this week as the FA-Team explodes into action driving my wife's signiture white extended grand vorager minvan and unloads games for Maximum Carnage!

    All your favorite FA-Team fun and excitement will be playing:
    Billy Zavos trying to strangle Gary Sax while Zev and Merkles sedate him.
    Merkles getting the girl.
    Gary Sax's split personality playing against himself
    and the team building a Sherman Tank out of Kenyon's TI3 plastic bits...
    a-team tank

    And don't forget the heavy ordinance and gratutious gunfire as tons of mooks fire upon the A-team. Even though Aaron Tubb and Richard launius will be showering the FA-Team with machine guns on full auto, Mr Z will go untouched...Until Gary Sax drops the rocket lancher on Mr. Z's head causing it to fire and blow up Avery's House in a shower of slow motion wooden bits.

    explosion

    Stay Tuned,this weeks episode is sure to thrill.

    Steve"HouseParty"Avery

  • The Abject Failure That Is Called "Gateway"

     

    The Abject Failure That Is Called "Gateway"

    We all have a story to tell. For many of us we're the star of the tale,for others it's about a friend, or a spouse, or a relative or maybe someone on a plane that looks over your shoulder as you're reading a rule book to something new. It's the story of someone getting hooked on exotic boardgames and seeing the light of just how immersive, how intellectually stimulating, how rewarding it can be to step out of the dark ages of Monopoly into a world enlightenment. We all have one, and it may be that you're actively trying to create a few more stories just like it.

    Likely you're considering one of your stories right now. My personal favorite is my own personal entry into modern boardgaming, via what is in my opinion the best candidate for a gateway game you could ever think of -- The Queen's Necklace. Blind bidding, variable market valuation, dynamic ruleset based on cards in play, tons of hidden information, all the things you look for in a classic gateway game are there, except maybe for fiddly bits. Hang on, it has those too now that I think about it. It's a perfect gateway game, and once I played it, I had to have a copy.

    That thin, thin slice of amusement is at the heart of the issue.

    We classify games as "Gateway" because we think they will be accessible to the unwashed masses. They're pretty, they're simple, they're short and unimposing, and because we can imagine someone who isn't as "enlightened" as ourselves indulging in them and maybe even enjoying the play a bit we've decided that they will provide a bridge to the really good games, and that the journey across that bridge will be smooth and rewarding, at least for some subset of the people that we spend the time to educate. With care and an appropriate amount of nurturing, we can turn these people into gamers.

    And so we play. We teach Ma Lost Cities or we give our nephew Ticket to Ride for Christmas. We drop Coloretto in the lap of people playing Rack-O in the hotel lobby. They try them out and . . . hallelujah! They enjoy it! They're in! They're making the journey! We bring our copies of Cartagena and Warrior Knights with us to the next family reunion, and when we offer to set up a game . . .

    . . . Ok. At least they're polite about it. They smile and nod and indicate that the tile game with the towns and the roads was fine and that they really enjoyed it, but that's where they'd like it to end. You see, they didn't want to play a "gateway" game and in their mind they didn't. They played a "different" game, and they're comfortable letting it replace Parcheesi and Monopoly on the rare occasion that they sit down to play with friends or family. The new game is fine, but that's where it's going to end because they just don't want to spend the time learning a new game each time they sit down with you and any rules complications are just something they have no interest in or time for. One is enough.

    Gateway just failed.  Again.

    And fail it does, with remarkable predictability.  More than a few of you shake your head reading this, because even though this has happened to you any number of times, on occasion, and with some of the most surprising people, you've succeeded in making inroads. You've made the difference in someone's life! You've enlightened them and brought them into the inner circle of the gaming elite!

    But that's exactly gateway's misconception, and the reason that The Queen's Necklace makes every bit as good a gateway game as the usual suspects do. On those rare occasions where the introduction of a more modern, complex game actually sticks, it's likely that the choice of game is of little consequence or none at all -- you've converted someone that was already standing in the doorway of the church, and your choice of hymm didn't really make a lot of difference either way. In fact selecting a softball may have actually been counterproductive.

    Merely a theory? Sure. But Ticket to Ride has more than one million copies in print if the front of its box is to be believed. Agricola, generally touted as the cardboard incarnation of Jesus by the gaming elite, is rumored to be getting printed in groups of only 5,000 or so. Apparently Z-Man isn't expecting the unwashed masses to storm their doors, and for good reason. One million copies of Ticket to Ride likely means four million players of it, and if "gateway" worked, if T2R had led to the harder drugs, if even 1% of the uninitiated had become enlightened through our efforts to show them how much fun gaming can be, then surely sales for highly-regarded titles would be brisker. But they're not, and that just doesn't add up, especially since the two are similar in look, feel and target market. The transition from the entry-level to the advanced simply doesn't happen.

    Is it because we're not trying hard enough, or is it because "gateway" doesn't exist? Gateway is a concept that we have talked ourselves into, but in reality it's nothing more than a thin piece of common ground that allows our friends and families to spend time with us enjoyably, or at least tolerably. They permit one title (maybe two) to enter into their world, provided they're simple enough, short enough, polite enough, and pretty enough to let them play without too much hassle or time. It's a thin little slice of something new, and that's all they're looking for. Gateway X was just a fun, accessible game to them, and that's where they want to stop. It's sufficient to scratch their mild itch, and maybe, just maybe, they were telling you that they sat down at the table to spend time with you, not the piece of cardboard on the table in between.

    Sag.

     

     

     

  • The Almost Definitive Guide to Axis and Allies

    Axis and Allies was probably the first game to introduce me to higher level games.  I remember  seeing the box at Toys R Us or Meijer (which is like a Super Wal Mart but better...:) ) and being amazed at it.  Up until that time my gaming pretty much consisted of Risk, Monopoly and Dungeons and Dragons.

  • The Arkham Campaign

    I was home alone today. Everybody else is doing family/Christmas stuff, so I set up a big-ass game of Arkham Horror, with four characters against all four boards. My intention was to play a campaign, with surviving characters carrying over from game to game.

    There have been some interesting and complicated ideas for campaign rules, but I decided to keep it as simple as possible. My rules:

     

    1. Once any unique character is killed, it's out of the campaign. This includes allies, unique monsters (like Wizard Whateley), Heralds and Great Old Ones.

     

    2. Surviving characters reset to maximum Sanity and Stamina, adjusted for permanent effects (like -1 Max Sanity for Schizophrenia).

     

    3. Retired characters are available for use in future games within the campaign, returning with everything they had at the time of retirement. According to the Dunwich rules, you can retire a character that has a combination of at least two Madness and/or Injury cards.

     

    4. Allies attached to a character who is devoured are assumed to have run away. Allies that have been sacrificed (like Duke, to regain all sanity) are out of the campaign.

     

    5. I roll on a chart that I made up to determine if a Herald is in play. After the Great Old One and Herald have been determined, the players can choose to use a Guardian. Each Guardian can be used twice during the entire campaign.

     

    6. Once a Great Old One wins, the campaign is over. Otherwise, the players win when the final Great Old One has been defeated.

    The campaign started off promising, with a win in epic battle against Glaaki and his herald, Ghroth. I called upon Hypnos for help because Ghroth was such a threat. All four investigators survived, but I retired Leo the Leader due to his head wound and double vision. Zoe the Cook was Forsaken and had Schizophrenia, but was otherwise well-equipped so I kept her, along with Tony the Bounty Hunter and Wilson the Badass.

    The second game started out well, with the all of the three returning characters starting with some clue tokens and decent weapons, plus two skills each thanks to a passed Rumor card. Leo was replaced by Gloria the Author, adding some useful spell firepower to the team. They were opposed by Nyarlathotep, and the Green Flame herald.

     It was damned close. Five sealed gates when Nyarlathotep woke up. Tony was clueless and died instantly. The others put up a hell of a fight, and Gloria was the last to die, needing only two more hits to finish Nyarly.  So close.

  • The Barnestorming Christmas Special: Operation Burning Christmas (also, Battle of the Bulge in Review)

    burning-christmas-treeYes, this is a Very Special episode.

    During some of the backroom emailing that went on during Michael Barnes Proudly Presents Secret Satan 2013, I received this email from Frank Branham, whom you may know best as the designer of Warhamster Rally. He said:

    Hey Barnes, I was just listening to John Lennon’s “Merry Christmas (War is Over)” and when he asked me “So this is Christmas…and what have ya done?” I realized that I had not done anything. So why don’t we all send our Secret Satan gifts to Shellie (aka Ubarose) this year?"

  • The biggest deal I ever passed up

    It started with a Christmas present for my brother-in-law. Actually it REALLY started with a Christmas present for me — Descent: Journeys in the Dark. My brother-in-law liked it so much that when Christmas came around the next year I looked into a cheaper, smaller alternative dungeon crawl to give him.

     

    I decided on Dungeoneer: Tomb of the Lich Lord. It's small, portable and costs less than $20 — the perfect gift. Except it wasn't and I knew it. I had played it once before and wasn't all that thrilled by it. It was OK, but the dungeon creation aspect was frustrating and nobody really felt like they were in control of what their characters were doing. But I figured it was my best bet so I picked it up from the FLGS (although not really that "L" because it was a 20 min drive to get there, but I digress) and we shipped it off to the in-laws with the rest of the family presents.

     

    Then I saw Return of the Heroes on Tanga. It was resonably priced, it had lots of fans — more than Dungeoneer seemed to — and I hadn't played it, so I thought I'd take a chance and send him that. Called the in-laws, let them know that present previously received for bro-in-law was going to be replaced by something in shipment, please send the original present back when you get a chance.

     The details are a little fuzzy on when Dungeoneer returned to me. But by the time I got around to returning it to the FLGS, BattleLore had just come out.

     

    My brother (not the bro-in-law, but MY flesh and blood) had Commands and Colors: Ancients and we both liked playing it a lot. Even though he usually trounced me with his solid infantry formations, I still liked the game. Well it had some other flaws, but still an enjoyable game. Then Days of Wonder started revving up the BattleLore hype machine. Fantasy! Medieval! Magic! Goblins! Dwarves! Expansions! Monster units! Sounds awesome!

    I got permission from the wife to turn the Dungeoneer store credit into a game purchase. I was giddy. I was going to get BattleLore. I had it all rationalized. It's MSRP was $70, if I've already spent $20 on Dungeoneer I'll have to spend $50 for BattleLore, it's like $50 if you order it online, so why not buy it instore and get the Hill Giant.

     I drove up to the FLGS, went inside and there it was on the shelf. I picked up the box — hefty! — and admired the back.

     "You know I just got in some games that were dinged up and I'm selling them for 50% off," the owner said.

     I turned around and sure enough there was a large stack of games in the ding and dent area. And not just any games, a large stack of Fantasy Flight Games.

     

    World of Warcraft: The Boardgame: $40

     

    A Game of Thrones: $25

     

    War of the Ring: $35

     Oh man! Great games! 50% off! $20 already in store credit from the return of Dungeoneer! The possibilities whirled through my mind.

    I love adventure games and WoW: TBG had just come out too. My brother and I had played the PC game for about 6 months or so, but I'd heard people say it was pretty long. And it kind of looked like Runebound. My brother did not like Runebound. Still, at $40 it would be hard to pass up.

    I had been reading the Song of Fire and Ice series and very familiar with the AGOT setting. My bro, too. But it was usually jus the two of us for any hardcore gaming and it was unlikely we'd get a third, let alone five people together for what people describe as the proper AGOT experience. So that was out.

    Now War of the Ring. Here was a game I had really wanted to try. I'm a big Tolkein nerd, have been since middle school. And I had played a lot of Axis and Allies in high school. A strategic board game about the events of the Lord of the Rings was something I had always dreamed of! But my brother had owned it. My brother had sold it to his friend. We had never played it. Would it be stupid of me to buy a game he had already owned and then SOLD? Seemed like it.

    Which brought me back to BattleLore. The cult of the new! That Hill Giant! It was the last one the FLGS had.  I could've gotten two games for the price of BattleLore, or heck I could've just gotten one GREAT (presumbly, still haven't played WotR) game for half the price of BattleLore. But I must plead insanity, I bought BattleLore.

    Don't get me wrong, I was giddy as could be. A box FULL of plastic minis (though bent) that played the Commands and Colors system! In medieval times! With fantasy! It was great for a while. My brother and I had fun playing it for a while, but then I moved and it sat on my shelf. And sat. And sat. Then one night I took it over to a friends and we played the first scenario. Granted, the first scenario isn't all that great, but it didn't do much for me.

    Now BattleLore sits on my shelf, occupying a space where War of the Ring and/or World of Warcraft: The Board Game could be sitting. In a market flooded with unwanted copies of BattleLore I think about how getting WotR for $35 was the biggest gaming deal I ever passed up.

     

  • The Black Album Has Nothing On Rust In Peace

    In 1985 Dave Mustaine released “Killing Is My Business…And Business Is Good!” in a drunken, hate filled rage which served as his vendetta fueled fist down the throat of the four bay area thrashers better known as Metallica. While Mustaine’s Megadeth would rally a devout following and produce some fucking amazing material, they never quite equaled his former band in the realm of popular opinion. The two were inextricably linked and no one could mention one without unjustly comparing it to the other.

  • The Blade Runner/Beneath a Steel Sky/Dystopian metropolis game blog RETURNS.

    Ok.  So Josh got a little trigger happy and pulled the plug on things too at the first sign of trouble, but I'm over it.  I apologize to everyone who was getting into the ideas coming out of it, but let's get back on the horse.  No bullshit this time, I promise.

    I'm a "theme first, ask questions later" kind of guy.  Sue me.  That's what separates us from them, if you get my drift.

    The theme in question here is DYSTOPIAN CITY, taking cues from Blade Runner/Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Beneath a Steel Sky, etc.  I'm not convinced that Android is the best anyone can do, and we're the people to do it.

    I'm not committed to any one concept from the aforementioned, but I do think there's some really cool gaming to be done within the atmosphere that a futuristic, dystopian, crime-ridden city has to offer.  There's got to be something to tie in directly to the gameplay that sets it apart from a modern city, something that says, "Hey, this is a science fiction game and really couldn't work any other way.  Androids (or replicants, if you want to use that word) are an easy way to do that, but again, I'M NOT COMMITTED TO ANDROIDS.

    Here were my ideas about how to handle androids.  It needs to be ambiguous.  BSG and SOC handle traitors in a very clean cut fashion, and if we're going to allude to Blade Runner, it can't be clean cut.  So what I had thought was that you get a deck of cards that is 50% human, 50% androids.  You get an odd number of cards at the beginning of the game, let's say 5 for now.  Whether you're human or android ultimately comes down to what the majority of your cards say you are (so in this case, whichever you have 3 of).  The twist is that you don't get to see all of at the beginning of the game.  Say you only get to look at one card at first.  As the game goes on, you get to look at the others, one at a time.  You're either becoming sure of your humanity, or become self aware of your programming.  Meanwhile, the other players trying to investigate you while in addition to hunting down and retiring androids (if that is what this game is about).  They'll have a number of ways to it.  They might be able to go to your apartment, and if they successfully search your home, they can take a peek at one or more of your cards.  You won't know which ones they saw.  You'll just be left knowing that they might know more about you than you know about yourself.

    Imagine the paranoia there.  I think the communication between players should be pretty loose.  They could lie to the other players.  Everyone could turn against you, thinking your an android, when you're not entirely sure that you are yourself.  Of course, if their hunch turns out to be wrong, not only are they going to look bad, but if they take action against you, some penalty would have to be issued.  Or you might have a situation where you find out that another player is an android, and this point, you know that you are too.  You get this unspoken alliance with that person.  Like I said, there's some pretty rich gameplay experiences to be explored here, and not only do I think that a BR inspired game is far from impossible, but I think a good game can come of it.

    I had some other ideas in my BR-leaning brainstorms.  I thought about putting the mood dial from the book in, and that would give you different bonuses depending on what "mood" you left your home in.

    So yeah, that's what I've got so far.  Still no idea on victory conditions.  Richest android hunter is an easy way out, but I do like the idea of playing out a personal story.  And of course, you find out you are android, how you win would have to change.

    With that, I give the floor to you guys.

  • The Bomb

    familyatomicsI believe that one of the most satisfying things we, as Ameritrash Gamers, can possibly experience in this hobby is the thrill of  nuking the living crap out of our friends and peers.   It's a critical feature that's really missing from pretty much every Euro ever made.  I'm confident PUERTO RICO would be a better game if you could build an IPBM (Interplantationary Ballistic Missile) silo hidden in your corn fields and use it to blow the shit out of your slavedriving competition.

  • The Box Before Christmas

    Twas two weeks before christmas and driving home from work, I wondered what duties tomorrow I would shirk. As I rolled up the driveway,  what did I see? A box from Fantasy Flight filled up just for me.
    I had waited since T-day, for my special stuff, And kept pondering if I had  ordered enough . When out of the box to my wondering eyes should appear, games and minis that I hold so dear.


    I burrowed through the box and bathed in the loot: Minis and Doom and Drakkon to boot. The colors, the plastic - I swooned with delight- sure that I'd be unpacking them all through the night.

    My senses overwhleming I could percieve! Fantasy Flight games by the dozens did I recieve.


    Carefully the boxes I fondled and stacked. Then I sorted and arranged all  the contents unpacked. Men with their guns and monsters with swords,  each little figure did I whisper sweet loving words.

    the containers and boxes rose higher and higher as I plunged through the pakages with earnest desire. Games and minis were spread all around. Plastic and paper littered the table and ground

    With a contented sigh did I unpack the last gift. Though-through the rubbish I still did sift, a mini, a game or even a card? Ever so hopefull I searched  very hard. Finally  I realized I had opened every last thing in sight, a voice in my head said "Lets go game its still early tonight."

  • The Boy is now 8.

            (Finn Noah the Human from "Adventure Time")

     

    Happy 8th Birthday, Mr. Monkey Pants. 

    You are growing into such a big boy in so short a span of time.

    I totally agree with your mother, we wish you would stop growing.

    You're making us feel old.  Seriously, stop.  ;o)

    Nevertheless, we love you very much.

    Happy Birthday

     

  • The Case of the $5 Necromutant- MUTANT CHRONICLES Preview

    OK, take everything you read in this MUTANT CHRONICLES preview over at Gameshark.com with a grain of salt.

  • The Christmas Offensive

    Real good gaming day. The six of us started out for Battlestar Galactica in a tight race. We seemed to be doing fine for the first half of the game (two jumps to get there). But after that the resource levels rapidly deteriorated, the cylons started to ascert themselves more and it took too much time to neutralise them, after which they declared. Despite the fact that military we did very will (hardly any damage or losses of civilian ships), we burned too many cards on reining in the cylons. Finally succumbed on morale, while trying to get to the last jump (from Kobol to Earth). Heartbreaking.

    Starcraft followed an though me and one other ran off on points, a third was pushing towards his secondary objective (more areas than any other player). And we were approaching the 3rd deck with the Aldares trying to push towards their objective. I had to fight my way into a third planet, and managed to build a base and hold on to it through superior defense quality, thus grabbing the secondary victory conditions. Although the other Protoss guy also managed to gain more areas than anybody else, my advantagein VP broke the tie. First time I felt I had got my head around the rules and built up good tech.

     We finished off with two games of Monty Python Fluxx and a round of Comrade Koba. The last game is much more intersting than you might think from the simple rules. The obituaries of the deceased (Bukahrin as Stalin's 'pet intellectual') add a lot of flavour and get you into the spirit of the game. We have a Stakhanov consolation prize for the player who manages to kill the most comrades.

     

  • The classic first play mishap (with Kremlin of all things)