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This is part of a series of bloody matches to the death. Show support for your favorite game so it will do better in the fight. You can support it by writing why you think its the better game and more importantly by betting (i.e. voting for) it. Please make it clear for when I check the bets later. You have until Friday when I tally the bets and declare the winner. I will reserve my bet for any tie-breakers.
Although you should be familiar with both games, there is no rule that says you have to have played both of them. The only rule in Trashdome is this;
Two games enter! One game leaves!
Trashdome: Corey Konieczka vs Kevin Wilson
This is part of a series of bloody matches to the death. I thought i'd at a bit of spice by putting lives on the line, rather then cardboard and plastic. So show some support for your favorite designer. You can support him by writing why you think he is the better game designer and more importantly by indicating your vote clearly. On Friday I tally the bets and declare the winner. I will reserve my bet for any tie-breakers. Although you should be familiar with both game designers, there is no rule that says you have to have played all or any of their games.
Two designers enter! Only one leaves alive
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For the most part, I like Corey K.'s designs. His games are undeniably clever, and Battlestar is somewhere in my all-time favorites. Mansions of Madness is an impressive feat, and even though some sessions of it have been way more fun than others, I really enjoy the game. Yet I feel he's at the forefront of taking thematic games in a direction I'm not overly okay with, and that's making them more mechanical. This is most prevalent in Middle-Earth Quest, a fine game, but one without a whole lot of immersion. Battlestar has a bit of it too, but the atmosphere sort of blurs those lines. It seems he's becoming more enamored with cards as time goes on, which is saying quite a bit as it was obvious that was the case early on. So many decks of cards makes games like MoM and MEQ an absolute bitch to setup and take down.
Meanwhile Kevin Wilson's designs are quite the mixed bag. If we're to judge him solely on his own work...yikes. I like the ideas in Android, but holy hell, I *HATE* the experience of playing it. And I don't mind Civilization, but it feels like I'm playing with these 4-5 separate mechanics and I don't think they really gel together.
But!
His redesigns are awesome. Fury of Dracula, Arkham Horror, and Cosmic Enounter make my vote go to Kevin Wilson.
Unless we're only counting original designs, and in that case, I change my vote.
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Exactly what I was thinking. KW redesign > CK design > KW design. Since I prefer playing with a limited repertoire, and would rather just have the best games (re)done as well as they can, my vote goes to Kevin. But I have to give Corey props because I think he does a good job at coming up with some innovative things and then gluing them together pretty well, even if the end result is a Eurofied Frankengame.His redesigns are awesome. Fury of Dracula, Arkham Horror, and Cosmic Enounter make my vote go to Kevin Wilson.
Unless we're only counting original designs, and in that case, I change my vote.
Vote: Kevin Wilson
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- Dr. Mabuse
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Kevin W has done great work on Cosmic Ennounter, Arkham and Fury but they had a pretty solid foundation created by other designers.
VOTE: Corey K, for his original designs.
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Vote: Corey Konieczka
EDIT:
Actually, Thaad if you're out there, perhaps you can chime in with some personal insights into these two gentlemen. We totally want to know if Corey is in fact a huge prima donna who throws things around the office in a Christian Bale-like tirade when in-house playtesters critique his designs, or that Kevin Wilson still lives in his Mom's basement and won't come to FFG Christmas parties because the thought of girls and mistletoe scares him. Give us the goss.
And Kevin, if you weigh in and totally shitcan Corey, I'll totally change my vote.
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His redesigns are awesome. Fury of Dracula, Arkham Horror, and Cosmic Enounter make my vote go to Kevin Wilson.
My thoughts too. I only have 3 games I rate a 10, and the redesigns of Arkham and Cosmic are 2 of them. Corey K has done some great work, but you can't compete with Kevin's redesigns.
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I love the redesigns of Arkham Horror, Fury of Dracula, and Cosmic Encounter, which are all three great improvements over the flawed originals. And I really like Android.
Vote: Kevin Wilson
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- Jackwraith
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A couple years ago, it would have been a runaway victory for Kevin, because we hadn't seen a whole lot of Corey's work... but then things started to change.
Kevin's updates of Fury of Dracula, Arkham Horror, and Cosmic Encounter are triumphs, to be sure. I especially like the innovative changes to Fury. And I love Android's premise and really wish I had a more cooperative group to play it with. I'm among those who considers Blade Runner to be one of the greatest films ever made and I'm also a huge William Gibson fan, and Android draws a lot from both. But it is clunky in parts (puzzle aspect not meshing well with Clue-like game, etc.) I haven't played Civilization, as I really have no interest in trying to experience a fully-automated video game as a board game.
As for Corey, I really like Death Angel's re-envisioning of Space Hulk. I'm also a fan of Runewars, although I feel like it's begging for an expansion and could have been fleshed out a bit more. However, while I like BSG, I think it's fundamentally flawed in that it sacrifices theme for mechanics and the Cylons have an enormous advantage over the humans if the latter don't intimately cooperate (read: cheat.) I haven't played MEQ.
Their one semi-mutual project, in my experience, is Starcraft. I was part of the FFG testing groups that worked on Kevin's original design. It was... not fun. Then Corey took over and banged out a version that many people rave about. Again, I haven't played it because I'm on that "why would I want to play a video game as a board game" thing. I was willing to test for Kevin, but had my doubts from the beginning. There's also the whole "great at re-designing others' original designs" thing. Of course, the two things I'm citing for Corey are a re-working of Space Hulk (not an update, but an original game) and Runewars, a redesign of Battlemist (another game I haven't played.)
So, tough choice, but I'm going off what I've most enjoyed as an "original" game and that means:
Vote: Corey Konieczka
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Vote: Kevin Wilson
because while his designs may be fiddly, they're still not a boring blend of every other FFG ever with coma-inducingly boring rulebooks.
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- san il defanso
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Like D&T, my two favorite games are Cosmic Encounter and BSG, but I think we can mostly agree that the largest part of KEvin Wilson's contribution to CE was getting out of the way, and not mucking it up. He did bang-up work on Fury of Dracula and Arkham Horror, but let's not short-change Corey. After all, he did the redesign of Warrior Knights and the first TI:3 expansion.
So for my money, the re-design argument is something of a draw, with a slight advantage to Kevin Wilson. In that case, original designs will win this contest for Corey K. Death Angel was a highlight of last year, and BSG remains the best original design that FFG has ever done. Starcraft is a terrific game too. Descent is fun enough, but it's definitely on the next tier down for me.
Vote: Corey Konieczka
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Reason: Cosmic Encounter
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Original designs are more impressive feats of design and creativity than redesigns of classic games. Plus, I do loves me some StarCraft TBG (a deck-building game published before Dominion).
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- hotseatgames
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Vote: Cory
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He made one of the best expansions of all time with Shattered Empire. He helped out with Tide of Iron. Made BSG, Runewars, Starcraft, Death Angel, Mansions... Man, he's prolific. He did proto-deckbuild in Starcraft (which I still haven't got to play).. there's no way in hell Kevin Wilson is a designer I'd watch out for on nearly the same level. When I think of Cory I think of a man who is a better designer, in the true sense of the word. Wilson can make a fun game [i[with too much shit going on[/i] sometimes. He can help smooth out or add onto older designs. But I can't honestly say he's better at being a designer with a capital D. I just don't see it.
Vote: Cory
Amen.
i love kevin's redesigns, but
vote: Corey
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