Quirkworthy

I spent this afternoon playing Project Pandora: Grim Cargo with Ronnie. After some awkwardness to start with, she’s suddenly decided to behave herself. Yay!

I’ve talked before about the variable helpfulness of different game designs, and this was another variation of awkward. I could always see the game lurking within the tangle, and it’s nice to see it finally doing what I wanted it to from the start. We’ve been playing the first training mission a lot. Like the first scenario from each of the Dwarf King’s Hold starter sets I’ve aimed to make it a scenario that you can play again and again as you fine tune your tactics and (in this case) go for a high score. It’s proving very popular with the testers who keep asking for “just one more go”, and this is exactly the response you hope for. Once you move onto the other scenarios you get some extra features and the game gets a little more involved, so it’s a really good idea to get a firm grounding of the basic tactics on the training ground, before they try to rip your head off for real.

When I got back from the carnage (and after snaffling some of the splendid Mantic ghouls for my upcoming undead army project) I found an email from Foundry telling me that Tribes of Legend has survived the Somali pirates and escaped the dastardly clutches of customs, and even now is ready for pre-orders. If I’m really quick I can get one of the first 50. Apparently they’re signed by the author!

Really?

Anyway, my gaming year’s starting off nicely. It also looks like I might be visiting the Beasts of War chaps again, and heading off down to Salute. This year I’ll be trying to sneak away from the stand to have a bit more of an explore around the rest of the place and perhaps do one of my event reports. If I can smuggle in a file to get through the chains…

As we come to the end of the year (Gregorian calendar) I wanted to look both back at the last 12 months and forward to 2012. I’ll do my crystal ball gazing on New Year’s Day, which seems more appropriate. Today I’d like to look back at 2011, and rather than focus on what I’ve been playing, look at what I’ve been creating.

For me, 2011 has marked a big push and a major ramping up of my attempts to get some of my games published. As you may have gathered if you read this blog regularly, designing games comes very naturally to me – getting them published is always the challenge. Over the last 18 months, and particularly the last 12 I’ve focussed increasing amounts of effort into making this happen, with some success.

Continue reading →

Whether or not you are religious, a midwinter holiday is celebrated by most people. May yours be a happy and stress-free time of relaxation and recharging of batteries, both physical and emotional.

Presents too are traditional. Presumably this was originally to mark the turning point where the days begin to grow longer again, rejoice that the winter stores haven’t run out, or perhaps simply to remind yourselves that you’ve got half way and haven’t been eaten by wolves. Yet. Here on Quirkworthy I won’t bore you with tales of socks and tasteless cardigans, just games 🙂

This year I’m doing very well. The usual don’t-know-what-to-get-you-so-you-order-it things are making their stately way from the distant corners of the globe as I write. We did that rather late, and I picked obscure stuff (naturally), so it’ll be a while. When they arrive I’ll be sure to mention them. Today, however, I got not one but two of the remaining three parts of Lego Heroica to go with Nathuz. It was all a bit of a mix up, to be honest, but I’m not complaining 😉

I’ll be writing up a review in due course, but suffice to say that we’ve already defeated the goblin king this morning, and will be trying out what happens when you link sets together later.

Here’s hoping that you and your loved ones are as happy with your gifts.

Best wishes

Jake