Dude! Take Your Turn!
A Gaming Life
AEG Adjusts its Views on Expansions
I saw an interesting post on the Smash Up Facebook group the other day. It was a link to a post on the AEG (Alderac Entertainment Group) blog by CEO John Zinser regarding their policy on expansions in 2020 and beyond.
Last year, AEG made the pledge that they were going to publish fewer games and concentrate on quality instead. This was in addition to changing how they went about some of their sales plans: moving some game franchises to Kickstarter, etc.
AEG seemed to fall into the trap where every game was considered to have at least one expansion, even some games before the base game was published.
That’s not always a good thing.
To quote Zinser:
“I also understand that expansions were a big part of AEG’s business plan for many years. CCGs and RPGs are built to be expanded and that is often how the long tail money is made and also how you keep players engaged in those games. As we transitioned into card games the expansions continued. Thunderstone, Smash-Up, and even Mystic Vale all IMO benefited from expansions.
We also tried to expand some games that did not need it like Fantahzee.”
I’ve never played Fantahzee, but it doesn’t sound like a game that needs an expansion.
I’m a man who loves expansions, though I understand that certain games don’t need one. For me, games like Mystic Vale and Smash Up thrive with a bunch of expansions because the games consist of a bunch of cards. Who wouldn’t mind more cards that do new and innovative things?
GMT’s Labyrinth: the War on Terror coming to Steam Early Access – Feb 27
What can be more exciting than a snow day in Vancouver where I don’t have to go to work?
How about receiving big digital boardgame news in my Inbox?
Yes, that’s right. GMT’s awesome-sounding (since I haven’t played the board game yet) Labyrinth: the War on Terror is finally coming to Steam via Early Access on February 27!
Developed by Playdek, who also did the incredible Fort Sumter digital version as well as Twilight Struggle, you know this game is going to be good because of that.
Playdek just knows how to make great digital game adaptations.
What is Labyrinth?
Let’s blurb the game description a bit, since I have non-work-related fun stuff to do.
“Labyrinth takes 1 or 2 players inside the Islamist jihad and the global war on terror. With broad scope, ease of play, and a never-ending variety of event combinations similar to GMT’s highly popular Twilight Struggle, Labyrinth portrays not only the US efforts to counter extremists’ use of terrorist tactics but the wider ideological struggle — guerrilla warfare, regime change, democratization, and much more.”
It’s a card-driven game designed by the incomparable Volko Ruhnke and it looks amazing. I’d love to play it on the table sometime.
But until then, we will have it digitally!
No word yet on the multiplayer capabilities of the game, but being Playdek I’m assuming it will have excellent asynchronous multiplayer.
Also no word on price, but that doesn’t really matter to me.
I’m there on February 27!
And if you are too, maybe hit me up for a game?
Top 10 Games Played in 2019 (5-1)
Whew! After telling you the first half of my Top 10 games played in 2019, I needed a break. Being surrounded by all that awesomeness can be tiring!
But now I’m back with the bottom half of the list. These are the 5 best games I played in 2019, and you know they’re going to be good because I have the best taste (seriously, you do know that, right?).
Please note that this is not the Top 10 games of 2019. I only wish I had played enough actual 2019 games to qualify to have a Top 10.
That would be a great year!!!! But my fellow cultists would be really miffed.
No, these are the Top 10 games that I played in 2019.
You can find the first half of this list here.
So let’s get this show on the road!
Top 10 Games Played in 2019 (10-6)
It’s that time of year again!
Time to look back at 2019 and see what games I played this year and which ones I definitely want to play again. Also, which ones can be left by the side of the road looking all forlorn because they just aren’t that good.
I had a pretty good year in 2019. I played 107 games 192 times (not each!). Of those 107 games, 63 were new to me, which was a lot of fun. I always love learning new games (and I like to keep my cult members happy).
Surprisingly, I played the exact same number of games (107) in 2018 but 67 of them were new (and I had 201 plays).
Smash Up was my number one game played with 16 plays, followed by 11 plays of Space Base (both of them are work lunchtime game staples, so it’s not surprising).
My most amazing feat, however, was getting Eldritch Horror to the table a whopping 5 times! That includes 4 times in the last two months of the year.
Of course, there are side effects to that.
But we endure!
So let’s see what the top 10 games that I played this year are. There may be a few surprises based on last year’s rankings.
I’m nothing if not Walt Whitman.
Please note that this is not the Top 10 games of 2019. I actually did a count, and I only played 20 games published in 2019. Thus, half of them would be on that list if I did that.
No, these are the Top 10 games that I played in 2019.
This post will be broken into two parts, so here are numbers 6-10! (The Top 5 will post on Wednesday)
Friday Night Shots – Negativity in Response to Reviews
Welcome to the first in what may be a series (or at least a semi-series) of Friday night posts that are at least partially inspired by Canadian Club whiskey (that we tend to drink on Friday nights).
Tonight’s topic is the idea of negativity in response to reviews.
My good friend (well, I consider us good friends, but I am at least an avid reader if nothing else) Dan Thurot recently tweeted about the extreme response he received to his very lukewarm (if not downright negative) review of Jamey Stegmaier’s Tapestry.
Wowza. Apparently there was a five-page BGG thread about my review of Tapestry that I missed from November. The good news? I now have a New Year’s goal.
I’ll be reading fewer of the comments.
— Dan Thurot (@DanThurot) January 2, 2020
He tweeted about a thread on Boardgame Geek about his review and the garbage fire that the thread became very quickly.
I’m not going to go into the details of the review or whether or not I disagree with it (though I don’t, for many of the same reasons my friend (actual friend, not just in my mind) Katanan mentioned on the BGG review post).
What I want to get into is why people who enjoy a game have to trash almost any negative review that comes out about that game.
New to Me – December 2019
Happy New Year!
As we start the new year here at the Cult of the New to Me, we want to look back at the previous month, because looking back is what we do!
That’s right. We never talk about the new to me games that we’re going to play. We always look at what we just did.
Some would say that we’re stuck in the past, but I say those who don’t study the past are doomed to repeat it!
Yes, I just made that up. Insightful, isn’t it? (Editor – Hey, Dave. George Santayana on Line 1)
I think I’m pretty much as insightful as Abraham Lincoln.
Anyway, we do like to look back here at Cult Headquarters, and right now we’re looking back at December!
So without further adieu (all of my adieu got traded at some Baghdad market stall for a gold guild ring anyway), let’s get this show on the road!
Blog in Review – 2019
I normally don’t do this, but a number of my blogging buddies are doing a look back at their blog and seeing how things went for them in 2019.
While I haven’t done this in the past, it is an interesting academic exercise as it is nice to see progression as the years pass. I’m not putting all of the effort I could be into the blog (I haven’t bought a domain name and WordPress plan, for example), but I do like that some people seem to find this blog entertaining and I’m always happy to see that.
I also love all the friends I’ve made from it (ok, “all” may only be a few, but still…).
So, unlike previous years, I’m going to do a little post talking about the year in review regarding Dude Take Your Turn.
Rival Networks to hit Kickstarter on January 28
Gil Hova’s The Networks is in my Top 5 games played of all time (at least as of earlier this year) so I was kind of excited to hear about the 2-player version of the game, called “Rival Networks“.
Now it finally has a release date!
Well, not a release date exactly, but a Kickstarter campaign start date! (In this day and age, that’s often the best you can get).
Formally announced by Hova yesterday on Twitter and in his monthly email update, this 2-player version of the awesome game will see two players vying to run the best television network.
It will still have the zany TV show parodies that we all know and love from the regular game, but these will be even more current.
Is that the Mandalorian I see? Wow, I wonder what the name of the show will be?
Tekhenu: Obelisk of the Sun from Board & Dice
It’s a New Year’s Eve miracle!
I wasn’t going to post anything else this week (other than Monday’s review and the December “New to Me” post) when I received this lovely email from Board & Dice announcing the 2020 release from designer Daniele Tascini and I had to do a post!
Tascini is known for doing complex games that use dice in interesting ways, like Teotihuacan and Trismegistus so why not do yet another interesting dice game?
Tekhenu: Obelisk of the Sun is going to be a 2020 release that does yet more interesting things with dice. (not sure why the BGG page doesn’t have the picture of the box yet since it’s in the email, but maybe soon?).
Review – Nagaraja
Everybody likes exploring ancient tombs and seeing what the artifacts there may tell us about our ancient ancestors.
Right?
We all have an inner Indiana Jones inside us, striving to get out.
Or maybe it’s just me?
Anyway, with the 2019 game Nagaraja from Hurrican games, you can kinda/sorta get that Indiana Jones feel, with your opponent being Belloq! (or, you know, they may feel the reverse, in which case you should revel in your inner-French person).
Nagaraja is a new 2-player game where both players are exploring their own tomb (I mean two separate tombs, not their own. That would be very existential).
Just double-checked, and these are temples, not tombs. (Editor – Research is a good thing!)
The game is designed by Bruno Cathala and Théo Rivière with artwork by Vincent Dutrait.
And it is a lot of fun.
How does it work?
Let’s take a look.
Dude! Take Your Turn! 