Letters from Sag -- Table Battles

That’s the song I was singing as I was playing...

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This was a great read. I didn't know anything about Table Battles besides that it existed when I started, and now I very much want to try it.

To touch on your point towards the end, this is the kind of design/publishing work I'd love to see more of going forward. Weird stuff, niche stuff, but always interesting stuff. The PnP/PoD model allows for a massive amount of flexibility without needing overproduction to catch eyes or dumping all the extra copies into a landfill. Hollandspiele in particular is really something special.

I wish they had just put a little bit of art on the cards to give it some semblance of theme. Otherwise, I might as well play Button Men.

Yeah, you'd end up with something like this:



So when you get people that are willing to use their hands and are enthusiastic about a game you can end up with some pretty neat results, and the designer gets a value add to his or her design for things that may not be their best skill. The card above is from a guy named Phillip Wilson who felt the game could use a little color. As best I can tell he's just a dude with some time on his hands that wanted to have fun with it.

So to some extent you're in the mix as much as anyone else. This is a game designed by a gamer for gamers, not someone that's part of a big publishing company. Though I'll confess to enjoying more deluxe implementations, there's really something edgy about garage band products. If this isn't your kind of thing you're best to wait for Asmodee to purchase Hollandspiele. As it stands now you're going to get gameplay first and pretty second. For $12 and some matchsticks I think I've done ok.

While I like the artwork on that card, that whole text box is a lot of words to cover two words that would have been listed on the original card. I do think the original cards could have been arranged a little differently for clarity and maybe add a picture for artwork, but I prefer the clean, lean look.