Don't just want to be Indiana Jones, BE Indiana Jones..but without all that excitement, action and screwing of hot blonde nazi chicks. *A TDHM REVIEW*

Ever dreamed of being an archaeologist living in the early 1900's? The fame, the fortune, the geekerie? Yeah me either but yes I do love the Indiana Jones movies and well it should be obvious that I like board games. SO a game about archaeology? Alright I'm on board with this.

The game is called Jenseits von Theben and the bottom line if you are already tired of reading my review is this game rocks. If however you want a little more about the game I think I can drone on some for you.

I've had this game in my "want" list (on BGG) which I use as pretty much a catch all for games I have interest in for quite a little while now. The game looked pretty keen and the ratings were high but sometimes ratings get a little over inflated on games like this that are limited run because those who have played them want to be 'cool' and have played an awesome game that you haven't played. (a big fuck you to those folks BTW) So I took a big ole grain of salt and want listed it hoping I might get to play it one day at a con or something.

Low and behold a friend of mine scored a copy of this hand made (only 300 of 'em made at that) game on eBay for a stupidly low price of $28 which included the freaking shipping! YES I hate him too but that not the point. The point my dear children is that I was able to finally play the game us (as in our play group) silly Americans now endearingly refer to as simply JVT. Ohhhhh let me tell you, I'm not just trying to be 'cool' when I tell you this game is now one of my favorites.

Alright so the game is played in weeks. Basically think of them as your action points but being as they are weeks it's a really keen little mechanic so that if you spend a lot of weeks to do something BIG it will put you way out in the future. Now the other players may get to play several turns as they "catch up" in time to where you are spending their weeks only a couple at a time. WOW! That's pretty cool, and I personally haven't seen this before but that's not to say it hasn't been done before...just I haven't seen it alright...you happy now, I called myself out on that one so STFU.

So what can you do with your weeks? Well you can travel from city to city. Each city will cost you 1 week time. Once you get the various cities there are items you can pick up that will help you in your excavations, or learn about the different areas to make your digs go easier. There are 5 different dig sites (Greece, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Crete and Palestine) so you need to be knowledgeable in that area to get the most bang for your digging buck and we all like to bang right?

So after you've spent some time researching the great libraries of Europe picking up knowledge (and probably vandalizing them as well if not fully burning them to the ground) it's time to get your hands dirty. So you travel to the dig site (at 1 week per point so this could be like a 4 or 5 week journey if you are in London or Paris and heading out to Mesopotamia) and then dig for a set number of weeks. The longer you spend the better your chances of pulling a rare artifact...for a large number of VPs. There is also the chance (as you are flipping cards from a deck, but in the Queen edition I understand it will be pulling tiles from a bag) that you get blanks and all you found while digging was dirt! I'm sure you'll have some "hired" laborers you can whip in your frustration it is after all the early 1900's and why should you take the blame for your own errors when you can make the foreman whip someone.

That's the basic core of the game right there with some other nice little things thrown in for funnities. (I know that's not a word I just fucking made it up, if I made it up obviously I know it's not a real word.) Congress cards that give exponential VPs based on how many you have, Exhibits that you need the right type of artifact for and then have to be in the right city on the exact week of the exhibit in order to be eligible for (what a pain in the ass but a necessary one), bonuses for most knowledge in different areas and oh I could go on but I'm not that kind of reviewer. You gotta buy me dinner first.

I've played the game now in 2, 3 and 4 player versions and I like 3 the best personally. This game definitely works 2 player but tension and pressure to get to the dig sites really comes on strong with each additional player. With 4 it seems like the dig sites get literally dug out and then it becomes this race around Europe to get knowledge cards for bonus VPs at game end.

Still I have rated this one a solid 9 out of 10 on BGG and don't see myself getting tired of it at all. It's got a great feel, plays quickly and solidly and gives you some tough choices to make. All things I like in what I call a great game and my beloved JVT is indeed a GREAT game.

Done.

The box lies in the name of making another sale...no wait that's the marketing deparment.

How many players do we have? What games support that number? Oh, here's one that says it goes up to that number...let's give this one a try.

SIGH.

Then you find out the game that says it can support 6 players was specifically designed to be played with 4 and adding in the extra players really bogs the game down. Or maybe even worse it's a game that technically should be a 2 player game by all rights and well the box says it can be played 2 player but also with more. What about the worst of them all...the game that plays great with 5 players but the box says it can scale down to 2 players and while you are indeed going through all the motions of the game...it sucks ass with 2 players.

Dammit! Game publishers need to not be so freaking greedy when they put the number of players on the box. Be honest with gamers and tell us exactly how many the game should be played with. Granted I feel certain the aim here is to capture that one more sale that might not have been made if the game didn't say that it scaled down to 2 player or up to 5 or 6 and I do understand in this niche market publishers need every sale possible. Still in the long run they hurt themselves. A game that plays poorly with a certain number of players will get generate negative reputation based on that playing alone. Have one particularly bad gaming experience in a game and chances of you wanting to come back and play it again in the future are slim at best...not when there are so many other great games out there. Then in this age of the the inner-web people with spewing their every thoughts out on blogs, forums, and community websites that can be a down right damning thing for a struggling game.

I've seen plenty of times where a game was bought specifically to be played with a number of players in mind, usually 2. The game clearly states that it can scale down to 2 players but let's face it, shouldn't! Then the person who bought said game is disappointed and lets pretty much everyone at the gaming group know...oh sure the caveat is thrown out there "but it probably plays much better with more players" but that little bit of taint has already been smeared on the game.


Let's take a recent example. Iliad is a brand new small box game by Asmodee Editions. Bravo to Asmodee on several fronts with this game. 1. it's a small box game and is just a card game but rather than stick some giant insert in a giant box with only a handful of components to give a perceived value they put it in a slim, thin box and everything fits nicely. The decks (there are I think 4 seperate decks in this game) as well as the rules and these three keen looking god icons. 2. The game looks great, fabulous artwork. 3. The game itself plays wonderfully....for 4 or 5 players. The game box however says it's playable at 2 to 6 players. First off 6...you play as teams. That's ummmm ok I guess...in your group but my group is a pretty aggressive group and we are to fucking win the game dammit! Now let's talk about 2 players. This is fucking stupid. You have to discard one of the decks and the god icons...essentially taking out a key mechanic of the game that makes each siege fun. Why?!?!? This game just shouldn't be played 2 player if you have to gut the system to make it work. 3 works and I'm not going to argue that but it's really kind of clunky just because there's not enough other objects to attack. With 4 or players the pain tends to get split up nicely amongst the players instead of "pound on the leader" mentality that the 3 player creates.

Alright so where is the other end of the spectrum? Where is the 2 player game that shouldn't allow more? Well this is truly out there but I'll agree it's more of a rarity. The easiest example for me to throw out is a personal sticky point for sure. I do believe that the game is listed as a 2 player game on the box but the designer and the publisher both will tout that it can be up to 6 players. The said game is Memoir '44. The nature of the game is player on player yet I've heard time and again that it plays well as 6 (and even 8) players if each player commands one section of the board...which is divided into three sections! WHAT?!?! Why the fuck am I going to sit there and wait to play 2 maybe 3 cards all game! That's just stupid. Being as this is just one game in the Command & Colors line by Richard Borg I'm sure at con's when he's showing his games he touts this wonderful feature about all of the game. Now I like Richard a lot and have sat at his tables and played the games. Very friendly and fun guy but this system is not for more than 2 players.

However one specific offender of this thought process is the Reiner Knizia game Knights of Charlemange. The game simply put had to be designed as a 2 player game then the thought popped up, hey if we opened up the row in between the tiles we could squeeze in a third players. Alright I'm actually ok with that except that the cards will run out sooner and create less options and less tension. Still printing on the box "a game for 2-3 players" just wasn't enough! That's right...4 players and now it's team action! Oh you've got to be cranking my cock. That's just simply put bullshit. A great little 2 player game but don't push it to something it's not.

The real crime of this through process I haven't even mentioned as of yet. What about the games that made it through the play testing process and have been approved by the publishers and released to the public. The game clearly states for 3-4 players...then almost on the heels of the release of the game comes the 5-6 player expansion. Oh just fuck me in the ass sideways why don't you! If this isn't a blatant disrespect to the end gamers. Several of these games just simply put don't need and cramp up the board with more players. All I'm asking here is that these publishers lay off. Expansions can be good, add new cards, give me new things to change the game up a little but more players being the main part of the expansion is just being greedy. Greed will hurt this fledgling hobby of ours. Embrace your games as the designers intended, put forth a decent marketing campaign for it and live with the results. If the game is good as a 4 player game it will sell. If you game sucks ass, it doesn't matter how many players you make it applicable to it's still going to tank.

Weird insertions and asshole designers.

Thank you Avalon Hill. Here is a game company that had the foresight enough to look at their newer games and say "That's just too much junk to have an insert. Why oh why don't more game companies make this crucial decision? The big open boxes of their newer large box games with a simple compartmentalized grid stuck in the bottom of the box is excellent. There's a big open box for you to bag all your pieces and store them in. Ahhhhhh that's how it was meant to be! Well done AH too bad you aren't still out there producing games these days.

Then you got Mayfare Games who insists on using the same insert for every game...of course that means their insert makes no fucking sense what-so-ever. What is that amorphis piece of black plastic that we see inside those smaller boxed games? Speaking of it...why the hell do we even have one in Catan the Card Game? I mean the whole frigging game is just a few square cards...does this really require an insert?

What about Phalanx...oh now here is a company who thinks everything has a place...damned right in a ziploc bag and thrown in the box dammit! Not according to Phalanx though. Take a peek inside Mesopotamia and you'll see the true example of a good idea gone hideously bad. A little spot for every little item. The biggest reason this is a problem is that there isn't a big BOARD to hold everything in place when the game is tipped or carried on it's side. As a tile laying game a board just doesn't exist. So sure enough components everywhere nearly every time you pick up the game. Some of their other games do have these highly defined and specific inserts too but the boards at least make an effort to hold all the bits in their rightful places...however if memory serves me correctly Maharaja, Revolution and Nero all use the same insert but that's got nothing to do with functionality just me taking a mental tangent for a moment.

Now I'm not usually one to make a big fuss over an issue like this because to me it's not an issue at all. If the given plastic insert of a game doesn't work then I simply remove it and throw the damnable thing away. I'll bag my components and toss them in the box. I have however heard time and time again that people don't want to do this because they feel they are throwing away a part of the game. You've got to be kidding me? This just annoys me. The mentality that you will keep something that causes aggravation, that's absurd.

Take the new Mission Red Planet...one of the worst designed inserts ever...NO one should keep that atrocity. That was just about the first thing I did when I opened the box. Certainly as this picture shows you can get those rockets into the box but why in fuck's name would you want to spend the time it takes to put all those rockets in there in that kind of order when you can be...oh I don't know playing another game? Now everything is very neatly packed in plastic bags and I can hand the players all their colored astronauts and their deck of cards quickly and efficiently. I actually believe when the insert was designed they forgot about the rockets. Think about it they knew they were going to sit nicely on top in the sprus just no one considered what would happen with them once you punched them out! Mall of Horrors which is also by Asmodee has a very nice insert and everything is neatly stored, so the company knows they can do it right. Iliad has a very small insert (as it's a very small box game) but is just fine for what it does.

Seems to me every company out there goes back and forth on good/bad insert design. Uberplay did a great job with Motley Fool's Buy Low Sell High. You don't even have to back the individual stock pieces or worry about the cards. The board fits so snugly into the box everything stays in it's given compartment. WOW! Sunken City also seems to be very well put together and no issues there. Oasis on the other hand is the game you toss the plastic monstrosity and bag the bits. Right down the middle of the road comes New England....almost the same approach as AH with their new Risk rethemes but it has a lovely fall leaves printed OPEN area so you are forced to bag the stuff and throw them in the box. This is the way to go if you have a game that has a bunch of small parts like this. Well done over all Uberplay.

So see I'm not hard to please (got a few women who can attest to that) I just want functionality. When done right a larger insert I can appreciate the work put into it and will happily use said insert for the life of my game. Just don't be artsy for artsy sake. Make it work nicely and do what it's suppose to do hold the fucking pieces in the box, nice and neat. Alright I'm done with this topic.

The Game's the thing....I don't give a fuck what you want to label it as!

Good God almighty! It seems like everything in the fucking world comes down to people choosing sides and never seeing any middle ground. No one it seems can just play games anymore they've got to play their "style" of game. Ameritrash/Ameritype Vs. Eurosnob/Eurostyle games. WTF is up with this now? Games are simply diversions from the bullshit we have to put up with through out each and every day. A moment in time where we can sit down with some friends (maybe not all friends but hopefully at least a friend is in the mix of gamers) and push around some bits of wood or plastic on a cardboard board, talk a little smack talk and enjoy yourselves. People can't seem to leave good enough alone though.

So these divisions have been brewing and members of the "community" have been taking sides, battle lines have been drawn and it was only a matter of time until the various little skirmishes blossomed into a full fledge firefight.

Ahhhhhhh and so it came with all the fury of...well a bunch of geeks posting flame comments on their beloved BGG and the outcast scrambling to setup their own Blog so they can find the support they needed to make them feel ever so loved.

Now I'm not taking sides here...mainly because I think both sides were stupid equally and therefore it'd be a slew of ridicule to both. I will say simply that I enjoy the website BGG. I find a lot useful things about it but long ago I decided to cut down the amount I actually post there. Still it's unarguably the best database of board games you can find. It's hugely flexible in your search abilities and well it's become WAY too important to WAY too many people. I've seen plenty of games I that enjoy get the shit beaten out of them by BGG populace just because it wasn't "Euro" enough or had dice and that made it all luck driven. Likewise I've seen games that I can't stand be heralded as the King's Condom. (That's my own distorted version of the "Bee's Knees" but you are going to have to figure out why that's a good thing on your own little piggy.)

People seem to take things way too personally when someone says they don't like their favorite game. Like they slapped their grandmother or something. Shit people do you know how many different styles of music there is out there? Well that's because so many people like so many different things in music. The same can be said for; books, movies, TV shows, and for crying out loud board games. Get a grip! Play the damned games for the game that it is trying to be. If you find you don't enjoy after playing it then that is fine, rate it properly, give your thoughts and don't play the damned game again. If you can't handle someone doing the same thing to a game you do like, I suggest the following and pay attention this is a very strict method of dealing but should help you greatly.

1. Stare blankly at your monitor in awe at the words you are reading that are causing you such tortured emotional pangs.

2. Close your eyes, rub them vigorously so that you see those funny shapes blurring around, then reopen them...hope against all hope that what you just read will now be completely different and will read exactly as your entry on said game's comments area.

3. When you realize the person is indeed still staunchly against your game slam your mouse against the wall next to your computer so it smashes into pieces, stomp around your room kicking whatever fur covered pet's might be in your way. Can't hurt to punch a wall or door, the goal here obviously is to damage the wall/door and not actually break knuckles in your hand but take what you can get.

4. Next filled with shame of your previous action curl up in a dark corner of a closet somewhere and let yourself indulge in a good cry. Be sure to be locked into the fetal position so you can feel your hands on your back and you can pretend someone who cares (like that exists!) is comforting you.

5. When you've got to take a piss after a few hours come back here and re-read this article. Now realize what a complete dick you are being. Smirk it off and go buy yourself a new mouse.

(For those who didn't follow that...it was the 5 major stages of grief; Shock, Denial, Anger, Depression, Acceptance.)

Alright really, so now you are wondering where I was going? The point of this post is simply the point of gaming in general. To have fun. To not take things so stupidly personal. To be able to embrace gaming and games in general. Your opinion, review, rating of a game is not going to make me buy or not buy a game I want or don't want and mine shouldn't impact you either. Use my thoughts and comments (as I'll use yours) to gain maybe some perspective but that's about it. My point is that we don't have room for divisions in this niche market. If we want to see our hobby grow and expand we need to be at least accepting of all games. Otherwise outsiders who are looking to find a new hobby will see the stupidity (and trust me that's exactly what it looks like to them) and they will want no part of it. Let's all grow up, agree to disagree and play a fucking game already...although you might not want to play with me...I'm just going to beat. :)

Games as debilitating and possibly lethal diseases

Todays Subject: Tenjo



Here I present you with a game based in feudal Japan where Samurai's and Shadow Warriors lead amies into battle on the...shiny black...map? The high gloss blackness outlined with gold lines that squiggle...and funny 4 pointed star castles...wait this doesn't even come close to resembling a map of Japan...fuck it doesn't resemble a map board at all? A casual passerbyer would swear you were playing some game based in space as the Daimyo figures even resemble some sort of power generating tower. OK the shadow warriors are very nicely sculpted figures but then given everything else is so abstract looking they seem out of place! This mish mash of art is best thought of if you were to imagine the works of Salvador Dali, mixed with Georgia O'Kieff (without the images conjuring thoughts of vagina's) and highlighted with a little Andy Warhol (only without so much color.)

This game when you view the entry on BGG has been listed on such geeklists as:

The Worst Game You've Ever Played
Worst. Wargame. Ever.
Game Breakers Part II >> Flawed Rule Designs
Diminishing Marginal Values >> Or, The More I Play These Games, The Less I Like Them
Games I hate, despise, loathe, and spit upon. (By Tom Vasel of all people!)
Longest and most Painfullest game I've ever played.
Games you just HAD to get rid of...
WHY?!?!?!
A-Z: The Worst Board Game for each letter of the alphabet.
Noble Failures
Games I hate. (part 2)
I Don't Have Time for this Bulls**t!

And to a lesser extent:
Games I desperately wanted to love -- but couldn't!
Decent Games that are Nonetheless Broken

And THANKFULLY:
Game Companies that no longer exist

I mean when a game is bad enough to make someone craft a GeekList AND invent a new word (Painfullest) to describe how bad it is...certainly there's merit to this notion.

The propaganda reads:

The peace that existed in decades past has vanished. A new breed of warlords has emerged. Among these men, authority depends on the ability to wage war. Each seeks to control and unify the nation.

You command a fearless army of Samurai soldiers, Daimyo generals, and secret Shadow Warriors. Your military strength is immense.

However, to acheive victory you cannot rely on military strength alone. Fear, greed, trust, and deception may be your most powerful weapons. You must anticipate your enemy's ambitions and understand the true nature of man!

In the end, only one can rule the nation. Will you be crushed by your enemy? Or will you have the ability to become Shogun!

As any good propaganda does, this makes the game sound intriguing, engaging and even fun. Much like reality though when the propaganda is stripped away what you are left with is embareassment, fear and overwhelming feelings of being perpetually lost.

Yes feudal Japan wars can be fun and to be honest there are some kind of keen ideas going on here with Tenjo. I like that the armies are single chips with a number on them representing the army size. These chips are played face down so you can easily have a stack of 5 chips that are 5,000 units or a stack of 5 chips that are 50,000 units and your opponent won't know until a) he attacks this stack or b) you attack WITH this stack. Neat! I like the border points giving you control of a province. See in order to get your round end "bonus" you have to control an entire province. The problem is to control it you have control ALL the border points of said province, yes these are shared points between this province and it's neighbors. So in order for you control Province A you will have to make it so no one else can control provinces B, C and D. This makes for some nastiness.

So without going into a full blown review here (because this isn't a review) let me give you the lowlights of the game.

The biggest point of contention I have come from the GeekList above about broken rules (in which Tenjo is the FIRST game listed and probably the main game that spawned the list) and it reads as follows:

Tenjo's promise - excellent bits, compelling theme and interesting mechanics - are all dashed by the overly harsh mechanic of rolling 1d10 at the beginning of your turn to see how many actions you have. It's so wildly chaotic that you could conceivably have 1 or 2 actions per turn while your opponents have 9 or 10. And the game is unforgiving enough that there isn't enough time for it to truly average out.

Far better mechanics could have smoothed this out, and there are numerous ways this could have happend: Rolling 2d6 for a more predictable curve of actions, alloting "action cards" you designate each turn (a la Carolus Magnus), bidding VPs/money for actions or turn order, being able to purchase extra actions if you're below a certain threshold, having each person roll and "drafting" the results based on game position, etc.

While I am not opposed to dice (I LIKE dice games actually) it just seems that dice are often opposed to me...see the name of this blog for reference to that. :)

The down time in this game is unforgivable. In a five player game it would not be unreasonable to expect 20-40 minutes in between your turns. Trouble there is the game really does not offer much to keep you in it between turns. I mean yes if an opponent attacks you, you battle but if they attack other opponents and not you...you sit...and wait.

Highly overpowered card system. I'm a HUGE fan of action cards. I've even made up mock action decks and rules for Crokinole! I think all games should have action decks. These cards are either useless...or ungodly and seem to not have any in between nicely playable cards.

Despite everyone else raving about how beautiful this game is, I think it's crap and does very little component wise to encompass the theme and setting of the game. The components are of good QUALITY and as mentioned the one nice piece...doesn't fit with the style of the rest of the crap.

A "never out" but "fully useless" mechanic. So let's say you are getting stomped. You fought the good fight but to no avail you feel your mortal coil slipping from you...but as a player NO you do not get to escape to the sanctuary of another (good and enjoyable) game. NO now you are Ronin and must wander the aimless blackness of the board doing pretty much nothing but bothering people. It's possible for you to come back from being ronin but if you do you'll be weak and easily stomped again. STUPID...just let me be out of the fucking game already.

So boiling it down we come to the analysis portion of this article...what disease does Tenjo best compare to?

Alzheimer's

Yes Alzheimer's is the disease and Tenjo is the game. See it's not one of the "cool" diseases where you get to talk to your friends about it as most of the time people afflicted don't know they have it! Well Tenjo isn't one of those games people go "Hey have you ever played Tenjo?" and you can respond "Yeah I've played and didn't like it." NO You bring this one up and get looks from people that are easily read as "Well you are the idiot to have played it, sounds like a horrible game you deserve the misery you felt playing it."

Alzheimer's patients often revert back in their minds to earlier times in their lives and no doubt when playing Tenjo you will constantly be thinking back to other gaming session where FUN was present. You will even fondly be remembering the moment you said "Yes I'll play Tenjo" and gleefully you will imagine yourself choosing another answer other than yes.

Alzheimer's completely incapacitates it's victims and with Tenjo...Ronin are useless. You can not effect the game as ronin and you can't redeem yourself either.

The effects of Alzheimer's is severe and watching a person degrade from this disease you can't help but think of the power it has over a person's brain. Tenjo's card systems can completely unbalance the game and put you under pressures that you are not able to free yourself from.

In latter stages of Alzheimer's a person's actions (if they are able to move that is) and their words become confused. In their minds they can fully be living in a different time period gone by making what they say and do unreasonable and confusing. Rolling 1d10 for action points? Let's see if I were a ruler in Japan and my enemy just used 8 action points to amass an army outside my castle's walls...I guess it doesn't make much sense that I'd only use 1 or 2 action points to slowly start bringing in reinforcements! Never the less this is the logic this game generates. FUCK!

So there my friends. Tenjo as Alzheimer's Disease. Do yourself a favor...get rid of all you aluminum frying pans to help avoid Alzheimer's and never....never sit down to a game a Tenjo, unless you really are that much of a sadist.

To cast or not to cast...is it nobler to blog into the depths of the unread internet?

So really it should come as no surprise after reading my last post that the idea of doing a Podcast was weighing heavily on me. Should I? Shouldn't I? I embraced the idea for a bit and decided to at least do some brainstorming and here's what I came up with.

If I were to podcast it would be an offshoot of this blog. So name is easy "The Dice Hate Me". Enough said and step one very easily taken care of.

If I were to podcast I wouldn't want it to be another one of those where it's just this one guy you listen to for an hour or more who drones on and on about this or that. I also didn't want to recreate Luke's awesome "Happy Happy Board Game Love-In" podcast. So I could do one of those where you got multiple people on the show. The first thought was Skype. That'd be the easiest as I'm lazy and don't really want to hang out with my friends unless we are gaming and chances are good if I went to my friends house to or vice versa to create a segment for the podcast we'd end up gaming and scrape the damn podcast...so that'd be doomed to failure. Next thought was once I figured out what I wanted my segments to be I could assign them to a few friends...each friend records their segment and sends it to me and I can sort of be the anchor man as it were and put these segments together to form one podcast. Yeah that would be how I'd do it...

...If I were to podcast I'd want enjoyable and innovative segments. I also didn't want a very patterned podcast. Some casts I've listened to have the exact same segments each show and are laid out in the exact same order. I was planning for a 1 hour show and each show would have a different lineup of the segments I was planning on. So now comes the task...WHAT would those segments be? So I started giving brain cells over to that. I came up with I thought was a nice range of segments, both humorous ones that would allow my personality to flow through and more focused real gaming segments. Here's what I came up with, steal as you feel:

•Reviews
Meh seemed like an evil necessity. Not that I minded I think me and some of my friends could have done this one nicely and made interesting reviews.

•Games you don't know
An attempt to expose some of the lesser known or older titles are get overlooked but are still great games.

•Print & Play
I believe in this form of game publishing and have printed out, laminated and played several games that I thought were decent enough for me to spend my time on.

•Why you shouldn't be listening to this
A short segment where I would highlight (kinda like I did with HHBGLI last post) a podcast about gaming that I feel is MORE worthy to be listened to than the one the listener is currently listening to. :)

•Games as debilitating and possibly lethal disease
Paying homage to Luke and his HHBGLI this segment would be a hybrid of his "Slag of the Week" and his "Board Games As Movie Stars". I'd take a game I really don't like and compare it to a debilitating and possibly lethal disease. (See this is one of the FUNNY segments people.)

•Who would win in a fight (Ameritrash Vs. Eurosnoot)
Pair 'em up, lace the gloves on 'em and let 'em beat the loving shit out of each other and see which game stands at the end of the contest. This would be a humorous take on comparing these styles of games. Of course NO consideration would be given to balancing the two games...in the end one of the games would have to have throughly trounced the other...and next time maybe it's teammate would be able to avenge it! Silly I know.

•Important rules that we missed
Seems like there's always some games that you miss a rule...truth is I've played games many times by said missed or wrong rule. This would be a short segment talking about the game, the rule missed, and the repercussions of that rule having been missed and how the game is playing now that we know the rule.

•Man on the street
Here is a segment idea I've actually given to podcasters and no one uses so FUCK THEM I would certainly do it on my cast. I'd generate a list of upcoming MotS topics. Listeners could e-mail me with their thoughts on one of the upcoming topics. If I liked it we'd talk and record them...Skype or whatever but it would literally be putting the LISTENERS on my show and not just me mentioning their name.

•Examining a Franchinse
The world of designer board games has changed over the last 4 or 5 years. No more does a designer put out a game then start working on a totally new game. Nope, now you play a game and instantly start thinking about....the expansions that are going to come for this game...or the offshoot games. This segment would look at an entire line of games that are all from the same core and cull out the useless from the prime.

•Bits & Pieces
My adult natured segment...Bits & Pieces would be for the guys. What games can you play with your significant other, let her win and how to get a pieces of ass out of doing just that! :)

I had my Segments, my title and my plan for implementation. I thought I was ready but one important factor was still missing. WILL. Just like with this Blog I realized that I probably wouldn't be dedicated to it and wouldn't get casts out in any kind of timely manner. In addition creating a podcast is significantly more work than blogging. So fuck that! After all that mental work I decided to scrap the who damned idea of doing a stupid podcast.

Still some of those segments were good ideas.

Now the thought is to incorporate them here into TDHM. As I feel like doing something inane that no one will ever bother to read anyway well now I've got some ideas...I can pick one of those topics and blog it here for all you no one's to read!

If perchance someone is stopping by on some rare occasion to see if I've added anything maybe you'll start seeing some of these.

Maybe.

Until next time...
THoiA

Maybe some hamsters shouldn't be so furious...but if they weren't would we love them as much as we do?

This is just a short post people to plug something I've found and enjoy greatly. The Happy Happy Board Game Love In podcast. Hosted by Luke Morris aka Hamster Of Fury on BGG. He's got a fresh smarmy take on podcasting.

As with a blog I've often thought of doing a podcast myself but like a blog I know I'd ignore it too much not have a following listening to my podcast just like I don't have a following reading my blog. Of course the fact that I don't advertise my blog or even tell anyone about it. . .well that might have something to do with it. Mind you I do still consider making a board gaming podcast because WTF I can do with it what I do with this blog and just make a new one whenever I fucking feel like it...be it weeks or a month apart.

But I digress....

Luke has churned out 5 podcasts so far so there's a little bit of catching up for you guys. His podcast is low budget as a good B-Podcast sould be. Check it out at:

http://happyhappyboardgames.blogspot.com/

THoiA

I'm not a league, I'm jus zis guy, ya know?

The "Mad" Gamer aka Steve Weeks and his game group now goes by the ominous title of The League of Untouchable American Gamers. Reviews have been posted (and removed) from the BGG database and I disagree with this action. While I don't always (actualy rarely) agree with Steve's opinion on the game I do applaud his attempt to write creative and thought provoking reviews.

One of Steve's main claims of fame is that he never accepts free games to review and all games are purchased by the league and proof is on file and able to viewed by those interested through Bubbles McFadden the leagues honored treasurer.

I understand where Steve's coming from but I feel he went about things wrong. I fully agree that BGG tends to be a bit uppity and slam games for the wrong reasons and certainly exhaults games for even more wrong reasons. Still his approach was negative review after negative review after negative review....his reviews are pretty harsh I might add so it's no wonder he's made some enemies there. So what. He has recently posted a positive review (for Wyatt Earp which I hate...it's JUST Rummy people!) but there should have been more of an ebb and flow of positive/negative reviews.

So in my own little response I intend to begin writing my own meger reviews here for the troves of no one's who frequent my blog and read my drivel. Expect brutal honesty on all game aspects and both in favor of and against games. These will be slow coming...as do all my posts here but they will start to rear their ugly heads and will have the word •REVIEW• in the postings title.

So thanks Steve for the inspiration.
THoiA

02-27-2007 •UPDATE•
Alright well his original attempt at bringing a bit of humor and truthfully a different take on most games to the snobbish world of designer board games has waned. Seems he has overly embraced his own image and become the thing with which he hates...granted he's on the other side of the fence but still he's not being very fair. Steve has created his Podcast for his little "league" and it sucks. Granted he's got podcasting "skills" and uses nice equipment to create his casts but the content is what's important here and we are being fed the same form of rhetoric that Steve railed against and indeed still rails against only he's using the opposite side of the argument. He's pompous and arrogant on his casts his opinions are not being delivered in a precise and formulated format like they were in his reviews. Sure the humor is still there but now it's humor just for humor whereas before you actually got humor and a good review.

Turn hard earned cash into pieces of cardboard, wood and plastic. . .

A few of the things that my currency has rencently turned into:

I haven't done a what I've bought in a long time so here ya go...like anyone really cares!

Hex Hex Next-Great game, adds in or stands alone but for me it just adds in. Great new cards

Ticket to Ride Marklin-Move those passengers along.

Ticket to Ride 1910 Expansion-BIG cards for the USA map with new destinations.

Puerto Rico-Finally got a copy of my favorite euro game.

Settlers of Catan-Picked up this classic too.

Settlers of Catan Event Cards-I'm gonna use them as event cards but also gonna keep rolling the die...cause it's suppose to be that way! Should shake things up quite a bit.

Iliad-Neat little card game with lots of nuances.

Aton-2 Player, very nice looks to be a lot to this game too.

Catagena-Get your pirates outta prison first...then SCREW everyone else!

Mission Red Planet-Ahhhh another Bruno game. I love it.

Nexus Ops-Bugs...war...alrighty.

Vegas Showdown-This game gets better with ever play. EXCELLENT!

Oasis-Love the card mechanic, very unique, fun game!

Carcassonne The City-A Carc. Variant and the wall look like they might be fun.

Metro-Not really crazy about this game but it was cheap.

Memoir '44 Pacific Theater-Another Mem. expansion, this one is superb, almost as good as the Eastern Front. Cant' wait for the carry case and expansion with it.

Aquarius-Crazy short game by Looney Labs, makers of Fluxx and Chrononauts.

Junta-Politics, Bribes, Backstabbing and Assassins...do we need anything else?

Relationship Tightrope-Good game, lame theme.

Rocketville-Not as bad as the gaming eliteiest at BGG say it is. Light and fun.

Grand Tribunal-Not played yet but interesting.

Recess-Same as above with a cute theming.

Succession: Intrigue in the Royal Court-Back stabbing galore.

Battleground: Fantasy Warfare-Card based mini fantasy war gaming. Neat.

Lifeboats-Pretty disappointing actually, way too long.

Return of the Heros-Dungeon crawl type of game.

Under the Shadow of the Dragon-Expansion for above.

Barbarossa-Almost exactly like cluzzle but came years ago. Hmmmmm.

Catan the Card game-Looks really neat actually.

Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers-War game based on the book.

Nero-We'll have to see if it's as bad as the BGGer's say it is. I doubt it.

Some of my recent learnings include:

Die Macher-Finally played this amazing game. WOW

War on Terror-This IS fun.

Mykerinos-A friend calls this Louis Light (as in Louis XIV) but I don't really agree. Very different game with one similar mechanic.

Cluzzle-EXCELLENT party game. LOVE it.

Seismic-Alright tile laying game. Could have been better kind of boring looking green tiles with no texturing at all.

Assault on Stalingrad-Very fun little deathmatch mini's game. Kill, pick up power ups, die & drop a stim pack, respawn. Fun fun fun.

I Just Want To Pillage, Rape and Plunder. . .Is That Too Much To Ask?

Funny thing about humans…we tend to forget the atrocities that happen in life. The longer the time span the more flippant we are about it too. Certainly in our time certain events still ring true with a vibe of revulsion such as the holocaust, Ted Bundy and those sorts of things. However as time has separated us we tend to look back on a guy like Jack the Ripper and it’s not so much revulsion of his acts like it was back then but more curiosity. Going back further to the “Golden Age of Piracy” around the 1600’s and now we are idolizing these villains. We now dress our children up as them and see them as heros whereas the fearless armed forces who were out on the high seas trying to bring these criminals to justice are portrayed as the “bad guys.” How wrong is that?

Truth is I don’t care how wrong it is, I’m on board with it! I too like so many others, like pirates. So why then can’t I get a decent pirate game!?!?!? The right combination of a game that is not overly light yet not drowning in rules and fiddly mechanics. Quality components that look and feel piratey and actions that do the same. This elusive game has been haunting my desires for quite some time now…but no game company out there seems to want to bring this to me. WHY!?

In my opinion the one game that comes the closest to fulfilling this is Pirate’s Cove by Days of Wonder. I get that piratey feel I want and it’s a fun game. Clocks in at just over an hour and is easy to teach to anyone, gamer or not! As with any DoW product it looks amazing and the game play is quick and fun. Still doesn’t clock in as being a deep enough game to fit my ever empty list of “Good Pirates Games.”

Plunder (by a company called Laughing Pan Productions) is an option but here’s a game that could use a really good re-tooling. It’s just clunky enough in game play to make it not so much fun as irritating. Then comes the components. OK Great idea to have the box the same of a little treasure chest, but I can’t help wondering….if they hadn’t paid extra for that in the manufacturing process could they have then been able to afford a larger “Regular” shaped box and a mounted board? Hmmmmmm.

Swords & Skulls. Avalon Hill has a tendency to good games. Then they have a tendency to do bad games. This one isn’t so much bad as it is just dull. Great looking game but we expect no less from AH right, so no brownie points there. Theme is worked in alright and you can go “Garrrrrr, I think I’ll be moving my pawn further on down the track.” So see, neat idea but the track system kind of dumbs down the game….something that seems more common with AH games now that Wizards of the Coast bought them. (althought apparently recently dumped them again! Go figure you buy a franchise, change the style of the games it makes and it’s fan base disappears on you…fucking idiots!)

Front Porch Classics created what has to be the coolest looking pirate game ever in Dread Pirate. WOW if you get the expensive $80 version you get this awesome wooden chest, a cloth map, great pewter paws, super cool wooden dice that are aged, real heavy pieces of eight for money and well done cards too. WHEW! What did they leave out? Easy….a game. This game SUCKS! Roll dice move, roll dice whoever is higher won the fight, roll dice move….FUCK that’s not a game that’s stupidity. The components give a pirate feel but if they’d been shaped like puppy dogs and instead of attacks the towns were kids at a park it could be about getting more “pats on the head” then your opponents.

7^th Seas is based on the Role Play Game by the same name and produced by Alderac Entertainment Group. Alright here we go. This is a pretty good pirate game. Cards are beautiful, theme fits so perfectly, game play is in depth but hell it’s a CCG so you know it’s not overly so. The problem is…well first it failed and is now out of print. (Go to eBay and buy someone’s entire lot of 800+ card for like $12.00…they spend $300 on it but fuck them.) Next problem is simply…it’s a CCG. It does have some neat little mechanics of it’s own but over all it plays just like all the other CCG’s and I’ve seen matches go for longer than an hour and a half which is entirely too long for a CCG. Very close but still strikes out in the long term playability factor.

Pirates of the Spanish Main ( and all the various expansions) by Wizkids is pretty cool. Neat looking little boats that when not being used to play this game can be used in a ton of other games as ships. Game plays is fair but being as they really wanted to target a younger audience there’s just not enough there to want to play this time and time again. A collectible game that has released 5 or 6 expansions so far, so the $40 I spent on boats on the initial run AND the first expansion is wasted as all the new boats kick mine’s ass…just like Magic you gotta keep investing if you want to play, which is bull

Loot by Gamewright. Oh come on, did I really bring this one up? Five bucks at your local Wal-Mart in a tuck box ($10 at online distributors if you want a nice fancy lidded box.) Another game designed by Reiner Knizia and it’s another game where you do simple math all game long and any theme could pasted onto this game. SIGH….no thanks.

Skallywags is a cute game by Bent Castle Workshop where you “build” a crew by giving them a Head/Body/Feet using different cards so you can come up with different combinations. Fundementally a matching game because you want to get similar part “types” together to get the best guys/gals for your crew. Cartoony artwork takes away from the serious aspect and overall pirate feel but it still great looking (probably the best part of the game) and fun. Little replay value here and overall not much fun, also seems like this game should be over in 30 minutes but it’s well over an hour ever damned time.

Mutiny! Currently being published by Fantasy Flight Games as part of their ever affordable “Silver Line Series” so the MSRP is only $20. Basically this is a bidding game (and I love bidding mechanics) where you fight over who gets to take the actions of five different tiles and earn these little swords. Neat game but very much non-pirate feeling. Still it’s cheap you should probably own it.

Broadsides & Boarding Parties by Milton Bradley as part of their old Game Master series is one As it is out of print and can go for $80+ on eBay and doesn’t get good reviews from gamers I tend to think this is one of those situations of people reliving their childhood. I've read the rule book and it's a very simple move and fight game. Granted the pieces look amazing a board with two giant ships manned by deckhands everywhere. Cool as crap looking but game play? Doesn't seem to be there from reading the rules and I don't feel like spending the time to actually sit through a game of it just to find out what I already know.

Cartagena is a cute little strategy game. Really it's a race game...see the story is you are all pirates imprisoned in the vile fortress Cartagena. To win you have to get all your pirates to the escape boat at the end of the tunnel. Now you do this by playing cards that take you to different ares of the tunnel like the pistol, the keys, the sword....wait a second, if I can arm my pirates with pistols, and swords and give them keys to the damned prison...why aren't we going out the front door? Bah, tis a fun little game really is, but piratey? Well the theme is just barely tacked on and not very accurate. NEXT!

Speaking of racing pirates...now let's talk about Lifeboats the game that has been released in the Americas by Z-Man Games. In this one the ship has sunk and all the pirates are scrambling to survive by getting in and out of the rickety lifeboats that are headed towards the island. Because this one is played through a series of back stabbing votes to move the ships, spring leaks in the ships and throw someone overboard it's very cut throat and well....back stabby. Granted these are all fine pirate qualities and it allows for a lot of piratey table talk to be spouted in terrible pirate accents but still the game is not what you are looking for when you are looking to be a pirate.

Pieces of Eight a new game on the streets by Atlas Games. The whole game is this bunch of coins you hold in the palm of your hand and each is a character and you can only use the front and back on and it’s dumb. The idea is neat, to be a game you can easily carry in your pocket and play anywhere but the game play is not fun and very unpirate feeling. Plus it’s collectible so expect to shell out bucks to keep up with all the cool new coins that come out. Shit I hate that.

Alright now on to a game that originally was not a pirate theme at all. Armada 3 and yes in 1 & 2 the theme was just nations trading goods and with 3 it's PIRATES! I will say this for the game. The ability to attack, steal goods and yes even hijack the ships of other players does indeed make this game rich in pirateness from that point...it's still at it's core a resource management game and you can feel the "nations" theme under it all. A good try by EuroGames and a fair game, but nothing of greatness here.

Blackbeard. Back in the hay day of gaming when Avalon Hill ruled the world with their epic war games, they produced Blackbeard, the grand daddy of all pirate games! This game has EVERYTHING that could possibly be thought of as piratey. Given that it’s an old AH game the quality is nowhere near what we are use to these days but for the game who with an imagination you can still get into it. The problem is you are looking at 3 hours to play the game IF everyone involved knows and understands all the rules…longer if not. The good news is GMT Games is looking at republishing this game called “Blackbeard: The Golden Age of Piracy” with 1. much nicer components to give us a lovely pirate look/feel and revised rules to cut down on all that fiddly AH nonsense they use to love working into their games. So there is hope here…my copy is on pre-order already.

Speaking of GMT and the hopes of a good pirate game another in the pre-staging process (but closer to completion then Blackbeard) is Winds of Plunder. I do also have this one pre-ordered and having read a ton of material online about it think this might be my “Good Pirate Game” that I’ve searched high and low for. Very nice looking game, mechanics are simple but the choices are many, actions seem to all be very pirate like and reviews so far have all been stunning. So here’s me holding my breath….maybe Winds of Plunder will fill that much needed pirate gap in my game collection.

There are still a few games on the horizon that I've not had the chance to play and wonder if I ever will. The Pirate theme is and has been quite a popular theme (even more so since Disney's little Depp film) and so the abundance is there. Some of the games that interest me that I'd like to give a shot at are; Buccaneer, Caribbean, Age of Piracy, Meuterer, Corsairs and Rum & Pirates (pretty sure this one is not going to fill the niche either but still might be a fun game.)

…oh there’s other pirate games out there but none of them that excel at juicing me up like a real pirate game should. I mean it's been several hundreds of years since there murdering, raping bastards would skin people and hang them to die in the sun on the mast of ship...shouldn't I be able to feel like one of them by now?!?

THoiA

It's a sickness I know it is. . .

My recent acquisitions:
Bolide-racing without dice

Dynasties-2 player fuedal Japan

Hive-Creepy crawly bug fun

Mag*Blast-Space ship blowing up in the TI3 world

Fjords-Two player tile layer

Dread Pirate-Crappy assed game with the best components EVER

Girl Genius-Very cleaver little card turning game sounds weird but is fun

Saboture-Dwarves in mines digging for gold...with a traitor

Miskatonic Madness-Cthulhu game, free print and play, neat 'o


My recent learnings (IE Played but don't own):
Space Hulk-Basically Aliens

Hansa-Boats, markets, goods, fun!

Tenjo-6 hours of my life are gone due to this game

Diamant-Fantastic, quick, light.

Ticket to Ride Marklin-I love me some TTR

Princes of the Renaissance-Martin Wallace greatness, bidding, war, what else is there?

The Fallacy of Optimism

It’s true that despite good intentions a persons inner self will eventually come through. I knew from the get go that I didn’t need to have a blog all my own. I knew I’d never have enough content to actually have something worth reading by anyone else. Still I had this fleeting hope that just by having created the blog I’d be motivated enough to write more. BULLSHIT! I knew it was bullshit from the first moment that little optimistic bastard inside me was telling it to me. Fuck him!

It’s not that I’ve been short of ideas, hell no. I’ve had plenty of ideas for topics…I even started a couple (actually this post right here is the 2^nd time I’ve written this one, only I’m hoping to actually finish it this time) but for whatever reason they’ve never made it to the publish button.

I was going to write a bit about some particular games I’ve been playing lately….just sort of dedicate an entry to a single game. That didn’t happen. I was going to go ranting off again on the state of gaming and gamers with their silly idiosyncrasies that can be found virtually nowhere but the world of gaming. One of those got started but never completed and I’m pretty darn sure I didn’t even save the damned thing.

Good ole procrastination coupled with little time creates a real recipe for disaster when it comes to blogging. The only thing I think I’ve got going for this blog is that I think I’m a relatively creative guy. Still if the creative juices don’t ever get tapped…well you dear reader will never know of these things.

I’m not really concerned about the state TDHM as I’ve said before this is an exercise for me myself to purge some of the demons of writing within me. If anyone accidentally stumbles upon this page of the internet then may God have mercy upon them and allow them to find their way to BACK button or the Google search box or any other browser device that will get them the hell off this blog. Maybe I should rename it to “The Blog That Will Eat Your Soul.”

But if you are of the persistent bunch who feels perseverance is something of a virtue and you decide that you will continue to drop back by here from time to time then let me be the first to pat you on the back. I don’t know why you are doing it but because you might be out there I’ll try and get a few more things written. Not that I owe it to anyone but myself mind you…but that damned little optimist…not matter how many times I squash the little fucker down he stands back up and says “Come on man, we can put something up…”

THoiA

It's never enough. . .

My recent acquisitions:

Deflexion - An abstract game...with lasers! So how's that not a good thing?

World of Warcraft the Boardgame - HUGE game, tons of minis pretty fun, about 3 hours I think once everyone knows the game.

Oltre Mare (Merchants of Venice) - Haven't played or read rules to this yet

Way Out West - Rules make this look great, we'll see soon enough.

Durch die Wuste - German version of Through the Desert...mmmmm pretty pastel camels.

Ice Frenzie the Hockey Card Game - Kinda sucks but it's HOCKEY!

Cape Horn - Racing around the southern tip of S. America, very cool little game, high screw with others factor

Babylon 5 Component Game Syste - they call it a CGS...cleaver huh? Chances are good this will never get played, a huge rule book for this being the core system, don't know if it's gonna happen or not.

Stratomatic Hockey - 2000-2001 team stat cards. Looks neat again probably won't get played. The rules are very in depth however.

Family Business - Mayfairs low budget re-release of this mobster card game. 10 bucks just about anywhere.

Dying Lights - 220 cards crammed into a tiny little box with a rulebook, beautiful art and space combat to boot.

Chalk Talk Action Hockey Trivia Game - with a title like that you get the idea.

What's the Score - Stand alone game/addition to above title funny the cards in this are higher quality than the ones in above title.

Just Add Ice - Hockey card game, simple mechanics might be fun for a little bit, probably won't hold attention more than a hand or two.

Speed Circuit - AH classic game of formula 1 racing. Woo Hoo. Excellent rule set, dice play a significantly smaller role than in Formula' De.

Win Place & Show - AH game from same era as Speed Circuit but is horse racing, won in lot with above title.



My recent learnings (IE Played but don't own):

Carcassonne The Castle - I love Carc. games.

Hey! That's My Fish - Techinically geared for kids, but a great game.

Elasund the First City of Catan - Great fun, lots of player interaction (read screwing over).

Twixt - Old 3M classic bookshelf game, very fun abstract game. Highly suggested as it's easy to get.

Talisman - WOW Superb game, there's a reason this is a classic.

Revolution the Dutch Revolt - Pretty in depth but a bit dull to me.

Runebound - Neat dungeon crawl without the dungeon, by Martin Walace. Lots of expansions, beautiful game.

When Morons Collide

Gaming is about a lot of things. It's about social interaction with people. It's about stimulating brain exercises that allow you to win the games. It's about chips, soda, beer whatever you eat/drink when you game. It's about showing off the neat new game you got with all it's pretty pieces. It's about learning new mechanics and trying to figure out how those people you play all these games with are going to react to these particular mechanics.

Then there's a handful of things gaming is not about. The two biggies in my book are religion and politics. In my experiences these topics are just too hot buttoned to be discussed in this arena where we all have gathered to let go the stresses of the day. So at my club it's a hard, fast rule...no discussion on these topics unless it's directly game related, which means you have to be playing a political or religious themed game (Twilight Struggle or Mesopotamia that sort of thing.)

Well maybe it's a rule that doesn't get mentioned enough because it just so happens that a couple guys in the group started into it a few weeks back. SIGH. I'm only glad I was busy playing a game...because that's what I was there for...playing games...and so I was playing a game and having a good time. These two decided that game night might be better suited for standing around and discussing politics on which it was obvious neither would ever see the others point of view.

So their conversation starts to get warm and the volume goes up. Then it starts to get very heated up and names get tossed around. It kept going with them continuing to disagree with each other until one finally had enough and stormed out...leaving behind the only game he owns a fairly new copy of Hammer of the Scots...and dammit I was nice enough to make sure he got it back the next day but that's another story. The real issue here isn't even that they got mad and one left...it's the negative mood the entire place was put into because of these two morons who were stupid enough to start the conversation took it to a infantile level and let it linger. Now they were screwing with my gaming experience and sweet Nelly that pisses me off.

My big question is why. Didn't we all (see above) show up this blessed eve for a friendly night of competitive gaming? Why would you even start the conversation and when it begins to spiral downward why wouldn't one of you just make a statement like "Look we aren't going to agree here so let's just stop here and play a game." No it had to continue to the point of breaking and it really left everyone around in a weird mood so it had an effect on everyone not just these two.

It's just sad, I mean we have great conversations, some times, and a lot of time we don't agree on things but when you bring politics and religion into the equation "not agreeing" tends to escalate into severe arguing. People hold these issue too close to their hearts for them to be able to be discussed lightly, so dammit if you've got that on your mind and you're about to game with me, shut the fuck up cause I don't wanna hear the drivel you have to say. Chances are real good we won't agree on it anyway.

The Addiction Grows must...have more...games....

My recent acquisitions:

Combat Soldiers in the Battle of the Bulge - Lost Battalion Game - Card driven WWII game for 2 to 6 players.

Battlegroup - Lost Battalion Game - Card driven NAVAL WWII game for 2 player.

Sergeants! on the Eastern Front - Lost Battalion Game - Introductory light war game for 2 players.

Sergeants! Expansion - Lost Battalion Game - More chits and rules for Sergents.

Dungeoneer; Vault of the Fiends - Atlas Games - Dungeon crawl where players are both hero and Dungeon dude 2 to 4 players.

Let's Kill - Atlas Games - Everyone's a serial killer, 2 to 6 players.

Ice Frenzy - Anderson Family Games - All the action of a real hockey game, says the publisher, 2 players.

Lightning: Midway - Decision Games - Card drive WWII plane game about...well battle of Midway, 2 player.

Target Arnham, Across 6 Bridges - Multi Man Publishing - 2 player light introductory war game...it's free for $5.00 shipping fee.




My recent learnings (IE Played but don't own):

Circus Imperium - Chariot game, race, fight, kill, destroy, win.

Power Grid - Power cities by connecting them to your plants.

Hellrail 3rd Perdition - Tain the souls to hell.

Twilight Struggle - Cold war game...2 players.

Girl Genuis - James Ernest's card flip-floping game.

Bohnanza - Bean farming at it's best.

Of Bricks, Mortar and Rays of F'ing Light

***DISCLAIMER START***
If you are going to read the things I post here you are going to need to learn to read past the smarminess and sarcasm. When you do I think you'll find that there might be a small nugget or two of useful information tucked in there...or maybe I just sharted, not sure. At any rate my true feelings on this subject can be understood and felt underneath the flaming arrows I'm about to throw. That being said let's get on with it.
***DISCLAIMER END***

Gaming is a fickle hobby and gamers are bunch of jerks with fickle attitudes who speak in an endless string of contradictions. I know I'm a contradictory throwing jerk who loves playing games and if you're a gamer reading this chances are you are thinking "But that's not all gamers, I'm not one of them." To which I say..."yes you are, now shaddap!"

How many times have I seen the post somewhere about "Oh woe is me, my local gaming store where I play and meet new gamers is closing"? I see it a good bit, more than is comfortable for me someone who see this as a loss to his hobby. ***Does a quick search for the poster's name on the forum*** Ahhhh here it is the post where that SAME person said "Hey look at this huge $631 order I just put in with some online distributor, man I can't wait to drag these games into my local store and play them."

Hmmmmmmmm and you were saying gamers are not contradictory.

So we've got this situation that has arisen that pits two opponents against each other. The Brick and Mortar stores (We'll call them BM's from here on out) and the online retailers who's sites are made up of Rays of F'ing Light (you got it we'll, call them ROFL's). But THoiA, what ever can I do to help out all those poor little children living in tree house tribes in Indonesia? Well I don't know about them but I can tell you what I see is going on between the BM's and the ROFL's.

THE FACTS:
ROFL's offer HUGE discounts.
BM's usually offer play space.
ROFL's throw in free shipping at price break points.
BM's give you that "touch-n-feel" experience.
ROFL's you can place an order while in your underwear.
BM's you can order in your underwear as well and usually not be thrown out.

That's really the big points now isn't it? How much money am I spending and a place to play/meet gamers. So where to start? Well let's rewind a bit. Game stores...ahhh yes it's a nice world with stores that sell games, everyone's happy. Internet come along and low and behold ROFL's appear and what do you know due to low overhead they are offering discounts! Now the BM owners are freaking out...calm down fella. Did VCR's put movie theaters out of business as they screamed would happen? Did Amazon squash retail bookstores? Did online prescription buying put Eckerd’s out of business...well maybe that's not the best example (see most Eckerd Drug stores have been bought out.) The answer to my question there are all YES. YES they did shut down some of those businesses...the one's owned buy people who refused to change their business model. You can not open a business today and expect it to be run exactly as it is being run 3 decades down the road. If that were true we'd be buying our euro games from the Sears & Roebuck Catalogues we get in the mail.

Take heart, there is certainly room in this world for both BM's and ROFL's but there will probably be some casualties taken here and there. So *sound of sucking wind* BM's are going to have to make adjustments if they intend on being here for the long haul. Can they afford to give their customers 35% to 40% discounts off of MSRP prices? Hell no, they've got way too much overhead to do something like that.

So where can they wiggle in and make some money? Well first of all they throw me "Joe Shopper" a fricking bone already. Do you know how insulting it is to me to walk in a store and see a game that I know has a MSRP of $49.99 and see a price tag on it of $49.99. Read my lips BM owners...NO ONE pays full MSRP these days. I just checked the price of a popular Day of Wonder title who's MSRP is $49.95...one ROFL has it for $31.45...that's $18.50 in savings. If I know I'm going to order enough games to get free shipping why would I throw away that extra $18.50? This is what I'm talking about. How about if the BM offered me 15% to 20% off of MSRP? Well now they sell said game for only $39.96, compare that to the ROFL's cost of $31.45 and guess what? I'm going to buy from the BM simply because as a greedy American I've got that "instant satisfaction" thing in me and it's worth it to me to pay a FEW dollars more to have my game RIGHT NOW!

The next thing I see that BM's can do is diversify their stock. It's time to stop be a pretentious "gamer than thou" store who stocks only obscure titles that no one not registered on BGG has any idea even exists. That's right I'm talking about being a "sell out"! The common thread with all the popular sell outs is that they now make (or have made and are living off of) an obscene amount of money (Metallica springs to mind.) Cha-Ching. The point is BM's need to carry items that are going to sell. Is it some variant of a classic (read boring like; Stratego, Risk, etc.) that now has a LotR or Star Wars theme on it...pick up a couple copies. Chances are good some 40 something aunt will wander in sometime and know nothing of gaming except her little nephew just loves Frodo and she'll buy it. Boom sale. Let's face it, the slew of games like these keep coming out right? Well that's because people keep selling them. If they didn't sell you wouldn't see new ones hit the shelves.

Next, go collectible. I personally hate collectible games and feel they are the bane of western society but they sell like a $2.00 whore outside the dock where US Navy vessel port for shore leave in Indonesia (see they working hard to feed those children, we don't need to worry about them anymore, now we can all breath easier and buy another game.) D&D Minis, Axis & Allies Minis, Heroclix, obviously MtG and other established games can be picked up and then host a weekly DRAFT tournament. Not just an open tourney, no no, do a draft! That way the players who want to play in said sanctioned (and yes do the paper work to make it sanctioned so they can be "ranked") tourney will be forced to BUY product from you. Wow clever.

Another though on collectible games is to offer large quantity discounts. If someone is interested in buy an entire retail display of boosters don't make them pay full MSRP for each pack. Obviously again the BM's can't sell for the ridiculous prices they can find on eBay but making some sort of effort to lower the cost makes a huge impact to the end buyer. They feel special!

My last thought is something I've seen in some smaller game stores here and there but nowhere near enough of it. Sell used games. Give someone about 30% of what a game is worth in trade dollars in your store, then sell the game for about 65% of what the game is worth to others. Of the 2 stores I've seen doing this both said it's very successful. Can't get gamers to come up off of their games? Well then go consignment. Same thing as above but now let the person owning the game name his price....you get a say 25% of the sale. This could be a bit more risky though as if you are buying the games outright you don't have to buy the games that you are currently selling new copies of.

I've got other ideas for the BM's as well but they start getting more difficult to manage and possibly just hair brained ideas that won't work so I'll stop there.

What can ROFL's do? Well not really a damn thing. They get the business already and even if the above steps are taken they will STILL get plenty of business. You are not going to make all the ROFL's go out of business, it's just not going to happen. The BM's just need to make sure they stay not only afloat but are profitable. If the BM's treat their customers with respect and are little more kind to their wallets they will generate die hard fans of their stores who will always buy from them first.

Now the next time you see that "going out of business" sign in your local BM's window don't cry about it on the forums. Just think back to that big assed box UPS sent you last week and think to yourself "It's all my fault, I should probably go kill myself." and you are most likely right.

THoiA

An attempt to perpetuate the ever growing nothingness that is the internet.

Bloggety-blog blog! Everybody and their little sister has a blog these days. Hell every bodies little sister’s hamster has a blog too. So why on God’s big beautiful green earth would I bother with creating…yet another blog?

Because I’m a dork. That’s right folks you heard it here first, straight from the dorks own mouth…or fingers as I type…whatever, the point is I know it already and don’t need a endless strew of comments telling me this.

At first I wasn’t going to create a blog. I really did want to write some gaming related articles and what-not but I know I won’t be posting to this thing even as frequently as every week which doesn’t make for a good blog now does it? (Then again maybe the act of creating and owning a blog will spur my imagination to come up with even more boring mundane shit to write about and it will be updated frequently.) My original idea was to guest blog on someone else’s back once a month or so but after reading through many gameblogs I couldn’t find the blog home that felt right for me. My reasons are stupid I know but they are the reasons of a self proclaimed pessimistic dork. You know stuff like “Well he read a description of Beer Money and swore of the game.” “Well this guy’s a pretty prolific writer my stuff would get lost in the spew he drivels on about.” “I hate this person.” those kinds of things.

So here I sit keyboard at hand writing my…ugh I can’t believe I’m going to say it…blog.

Expect to the see this blog updated on a strict schedule of whenever the hell I feel like updating it and keep in mind I never miss my own deadlines. As such I would say that I’m open to the idea of guest bloggers riding on my back like it was my intention of doing but you’ll probably come up with some really stupid reason for not doing it. You know stuff like “Well he read a description of ASL and swore off the game.” “Well this guy’s not a very prolific writer my stuff would flood the spew he drivels on about right off his own blog.” “I hate this person.” However if you manage to make it past those hurdles e-mail me, we’ll have some coffee, we’ll talk.

THoiA