Big changes

I don't blog much anymore (never did blog much, really), but I guess it doesn't hurt to post an update.

TMG

It's official - I now work for Tasty Minstrel Games! This is an exciting change, and I think it's going to be a positive one.

I'm still going to do some engineering on the side. We'll see how that goes. It may turn out to be just a transition sort of thing, but if I can manage to keep that up, then it'll be a nice source of additional income.

Kublacon

In other news, I just got back from KublaCon last weekend. For the first time in many years, I felt like I didn't really have a good time at the con. Don't get me wrong, I managed to enjoy myself for some of the time. But I felt like I spent far too much time just not doing anything - standing around looking for something to do, or sleeping in far too late. I did do some socializing, but even in that respect I feel like I barely talked to any given person, so most of the socializing seemed superficial. I don't know what I used to do differently, but I used to play 30-40 games over a 4 day con weekend, get lots of prototypes played, and I felt like I really got to visit with the people I rarely see.

I don't know what's different, but if that type of con experience becomes the standard, then that doesn't bode too well!

Other stuff going on...

SAGA

In 3 weeks I'm hosting another SAGA fundraiser for Rincon at the Holiday Inn. Last time (March 30) it went VERY well. I'm hoping the next one (June 22) will be equally fun and successful. I also hope I get to spend more time playing games this time.

Summer Vacation

Soon after that I leave for my annual trip to Seattle! I already got a plane ticket TO Seattle... but I have not yet figured out how I'm going to get from Seattle to Ann Arbor for Protospiel and back home. Those tickets seemed extraordinarily expensive, though I have a Delta flight voucher that might cover it. Sadly, Delta flies through Atlanta, so I'd be taking a roundabout path to get home!

I suppose I should make some plans for my trip!

In frisbee news, I have been able to play at league lately. I've even been able to run pretty well (though clearly not as hard or as fast as I used to), and most times it doesn't even leave me limping the next day! It's reassuring that I should be able to play at Potlatch again this year, and I should be in much better shape than last year.

Gaming

In the gaming world, I've played Tzolk'in several times lately, as well as Bora Bora, and I finally tried Terra Mystica. Terra Mystica is getting a lot of good press from my friends. I don't know if I like it as much as they do, but it seems like I ought to give it another try at least. I do like Bora Bora pretty well. And I'm happy to finally be playing my copy of Tzolk'in!

And in entirely other news...

Television

I have continue to watch Doctor Who, but frankly I'm not terribly impressed with the recent episodes, nor with Matt Smith as the Doctor. I don't know if it's Smith, or Moffit, or what - I really liked the early Matt Smith stuff. I also liked the recent companion (Clara), even if I thought they overplayed that "impossible girl" bit. I was not sorry to read today that after the 50th anniversary special and this year's Christmas special, the eleventh Doctor's time will be up. I'm hopeful that I'll like whoever takes up the mantle a bit better - like the early Matt Smith episodes (like the Silence and the Pandorica stuff).

On the other hand, I just watched the season finale of another BBC America show which was fantastic. I mean the whole show was fantastic, not the finale. This show is called Orphan Black - and I'm happy to hear it'll be back for a second season. At first I wasn't sure what they could do for he second season, but they left plenty of viable story open. I look forward to that show coming back, and I highly recommend Orphan Black to anyone who likes things that are awesome.

That's probably enough rambling for now.

Rincon Fundraiser a big success!

Last Saturday we hosted a fundraising game day for Rincon. I was a little worried that not many people would show up, and that we wouldn't end up making much (if any) money... but I guess that's just typical me - I'm kind of a pessimist. I'm happy to report that in fact, 70 people came to our event, some from Tucson, some from Phoenix, and some from Sierra Vista. And from what I could tell, everyone had a really good time!

18 of those people played in the poker tournament, expertly run by Jeff Becker. Karl Davis came out on top after a hard fought, back and forth heads up battle with Russel Knox. Karl won a hotel room for the weekend of Rincon, while 2nd and 3rd place (Russel and Brenda Lundt) walked away with free passes to the convention.

We also had several prize drawings, sponsored by games donated by myself, Brian Poe, and Patrick Nickell of crash Games.

That day happened to be National Tabletop Day, and at least a couple of people found out about our event through the Geek and Sundry TabletopDay website. The event was bustling from 10am to 10pm, and everyone seemed to have a great time! We managed to raise significant funds for Rincon, and by any account I think it's fair to say the Game Day was a resounding success! It was so great, we're planning another similar event for June!

Thanks to everyone who came by and supported Rincon and SAGA!

Rincon 2013 - planning and a Fundraiser

I mentioned last year that I hosted a game convention here in Tucson, and it was a resounding success!

This year we have a much better idea what to expect, and have started planning much earlier. We hope to make Rincon13 bigger and better than last year. We've got the same venue booked, the event will occur Friday through Sunday, October 4-6, 2013 at Holiday Inn and Suites Tucson Airport. Watch Rincongames.com for details!

In an effort to make Rincon bigger and better, we're going to hold a couple of Fundraising events, the first of which is coming up Saturday, March 30th. It's a Game Day and Poker Tournament, and I think it'll be a lot of fun. Here are the details:

Rincon Fundraising Game Day and Poker Tournament

Saturday, March 30, 2013
Barcelona Room, Holiday Inn and Suites Tucson Airport.

Game Day - 10am - 5pm

Come and enjoy 7 hours of gaming. Borrow a game from our library or bring your own. Learn a new game, or play an old favorite that's hard to get to the table. Participants also receive a Rincoin, which will be good for prize drawings at Rincon. All this for a mere $5 donation to Rincon.

Poker Tournament - 6pm - 10pm

Try your luck at No Limit Texas Hold'Em in this tournament run by Jeff Becker. A $25 donation to Rincon will buy you in with 3000 chips (donations from the game day count toward this, and an optional $10 add-on gets you 2000 more chips). Will you survive to final table to vie for the Grand Prize: 2 passes to Rincon and a hotel room for the weekend? There will be additional prizes (passes to Rincon) based on attendance, and all participants will receive Rincoins as they survive in the tournament.

So save the date - I'm looking forward to seeing you there!

Dallas, Denver, Grandma, a new year, the beach, and Orccon!

I haven't posted in about 3 months, ever since I got robbed, again. Since then a few things have happened, so in case anybody's trying to keep up, here's a quick update:

November
2 significant things happened in November 2012, 1 petty good, 1 not so much.
As I do every year, I headed to Dallas for BGG.con, one of the best game cons I go to each year. It was a great time, as always, though this time I got kinda sick a day or two in, and that put a little damper on the week :(

Sadly, while in Dallas, I got a call that my Grandmother was in the hospital. We had a bit of a scare, but she's doing much better now. After a week in the hospital she's been in a rehab type place for a while, and she's now graduated to whatever's after that. I'm glad she's doing better, but I'm afraid she'll never be quite the same again :(

December
On a happier note, a good friend of mine invited me and a couple other friends to join him in Denver for the weekend. he didn't tell me exactly why, but I kinda figured it out. It turns out the pl an was to surprise his girlfriend at her birthday party... not just by showing up, but by proposing! That weekend was one of the best I have had in a long time, just hanging out with 3 of my closest friends

Holiday season was fun as well - spent a lot of time with a lot of friends who were in town for the holidays. Steve came to town for over a week, and it's always nice to have him around.

January
As usual, I headed up to Phoenix for a New Year's Day hat tournament. Despite the lack of cartilage in my hip and my general out-of-shape-ness, I felt like I was able to run pretty good (if not particularly fast), and I had a really good time.

3 weeks later I went to L.A. for Lei-Out. I was going to pass on it because I didn't have a team, but at the last minute I was invited to play with some friends, and so I went after all. The weather here had been cold and crappy for a while, so it was refreshing that the L.A. weather was absolutely gorgeous.

And today I bought plane tickets to go to Orccon - Strategicon's February event! I always enjoy that con, and the plane tickets were just $155 - a decent deal.

That's probably enough for 1 update. I'll post separately about how Rincon 2013 is shaping up :)

Monthly Recap - October 2012

With Rincon behind me I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I am so happy it went over so well! Now to make it more profitable for next time!

The highlight of October for me is definitely my trip to Essen. I spent the entire last week in Germany for the worlds largest game fair! I've always thought it would be fun to go, but until recently I didn't have any real reason to. My current situation would allow it, so I started considering the trip. After mentioning this online I was contacted by Piotr from LocWorks, a Polish distributor that sells Tasty Minstrel products, offering me a free room for the week, and asking if I'd spend a few hours in his booth signing copies of Eminent Domain! How cool is that? Michael wanted to go too, and it turned out there was room for him as well - and a pretty good deal too: only 150 Euros for the week. On the down side, it was a 15 minute walk, a train ride, and a subway ride to get to the convention hall (total travel time: 45-50 minutes) - but it was fairly easy and very inexpensive. If possible, I'd like to try and stay closer next time, perhaps at the Atlantic Congress (RIGHT next to the convention hall), or perhaps at a hotel near the main train station (the same subway ride, but minus the walk and train). Then maybe I can more easily participate in more of the night gaming I hear so much about.

Essen was pretty amazing. It's kinda like Gen Con, but just the exhibit hall, and with 3 times as many people. Michael and I were trying to decide if we thought the space was actually all that much larger than the Gen Con exhibit hall, I think we decided it was probably about 50% bigger - but it was split into 12 spaces. It was kind of a maze to navigate, but I liked the large maps they had above each portal from 1 hall to the next.

There were a bunch of little snack windows as well as a cafeteria, but I wasn't a huge fan of the food options. Waffles (but no syrup - instead they had a lot of Nutella) or hot dogs mostly. I got some pork and potatoes at the cafeteria one day for lunch, and I got a hot dog once - other than that I really didn't eat in the convention hall.

I wandered around the booths to check everything out. Unlike Gen Con, most booths had tables for demoing games. Like full plays of big games. Many booths were stores, and even they had tables to play games. At Gen Con very few booths have that kind of space - Mayfair and Asmodee do for sure, and probably a few others, but most of the demos at Gen Con are just showing the game and maybe the consumer will buy it and go play it elsewhere.

That brings me to the next big difference between Essen and Gen Con... at Essen, there isn't any "elsewhere." The whole con is the exhibit halls. At Gen Con there are many different rooms including a library, open gaming, and scheduled RPGs and seminars and whatnot. None of that here - just booths demoing and selling games.

People attend Essen just to buy games - like a big shopping trip. Seriously, people go all the way to Germany (from the US, for example) with the intention of buying stuff. I've always seen the "Essen haul" geeklists at BGG, people bragging about what they picked up, with photos of games stacked over their head - but I never thought about what that means to the publishers. One publisher told me he easily sells 8-10 times as much product at Essen as he does at Gen Con.

I did not go to shop though. I was mostly scouting it out for a potential future TMG booth. I also met with some publishers and designers. It was interesting being on both sides of a game submission meeting - one time in the exact same meeting!

Since I was going, the guys at Panda Game Manufacturing invited me to play on Team Canada in the Europmasters Challenge - a big team boardgame tournament. We played Village, Airlines Europe, Vanuatu, and Last Will. Two of those games I'd never even played before! I did OK - winning Village, placing 3rd in Airlines and Vanuatu (tied for 2nd even), and last in Last Will (miserable performance there). We finished something like 19th out of 33 teams, which I guess wasn't so bad. It was fun! I've always wanted to play in a tournament like that. And I even got to keep the games! Thanks Panda!

Overall I think the trip was definitely worth it, and I had a great time. I'm really glad Michael decided to go, because I don't think I would have enjoyed traveling like that by myself.

The rest of October will be relatively uneventful compared to that. but next month I'll be heading to Dallas for BGG.con - so that should be good. If we're really lucky, we might even have a super-advance copy of Kings of Air and Steam for people to play!

Monthly Recap - August 2012

I seem to gravitate toward compartmentalization, so I will try giving topic headers for the various aspects of my life, then summarize each:

Games

Mike got an advance copy of Noblemen, and while I've only been able to play it about 4 times myself, I set it up at Strategicon and I know about 4 different groups of people played it there. I'm really excited about this one, because I had a hand in it. A friend from BGDF.com made the game, and sent me a prototype about 4 years ago. I played it a lot and offered many suggestions, most of which made their way into the game in one way or another. Finally the game is being published, and I'm proud to say that TMG is in on that with Pegasus Spiel from Germany!

In addition to that, I've played a couple of other games which TMG has decided to go in on: Rialto by Stefan Feld, and Il Vecchio by Rudigor Dorn. It'll be awesome to get some of those big names in the TMG lineup.

Other than that, I haven't been playing much. Most of the time I play anything lately it's been the Eminent Domain expansion (called Escalation), which should have all the illustration done by this weekend, when everything will go to the graphic designer. Pretty soon that one will be all wrapped up, and I'll have to turn my focus toward the next expansion, or another game altogether.

RinCon

RinCon planning is humming right along. I visited several game stores in Phoenix to hand out posters and Vendor packets, hopefully some of them will come down for the convention. I also hit up every vendor in the dealer room at Strategicon, and one of them has signed up to come to RinCon! We're currently at about 150 people - I wouldn't mind another 100 though. I'm sure there will be some latecomers signing up in this last few weeks. The show is less than 3 weeks away! If you're reading this, tell your friends to spread the word. We have a bunch of special guests now as well.

Kickstarter

Mike had to cancel the Stack It! kickstarter project because of potential copyright issues, so TMG doesn't have anything currently on Kickstarter. Past KS project Ground Floor (and Skyline) are on track for Essen delivery, according to the guys from Panda when we talked to them at GenCon. And Josh is wrapping up Kings of Air and Steam (another past KS project) as well. I look forward to both of those being completed and seeing final copies of them.

I've heard some chatter on podcasts or online about people being "done with Kickstarter" - deciding they've gotten over he novelty of it and aren't interested in supporting any more games on it. That's all well and good, but their reasoning makes me chuckle. People don't seem to differentiate between one type of Kickstarter project and another - they seem to lump it all together in one big pot and assume that any given project on Kickstarter is equivalent to any other given project. To me that sounds pretty silly - akin to "I've played enough published games I didn't like that I'm going to stop shopping at game stores." Each project may or may not have merit, whether it's on a crowdfunding site like Kickstarter or whether it's on the shelf at the store. It continues to amaze me how many people don't recognize that.

Travel

 In August I spent a week in Indiana at GenCon. It was an interesting and fun trip, Mike and I picked up a couple of submissions to consider, and we met some interesting people. It was a relief not having to be leashed to the booth the entire week, but at the same time, leaving the sales of TMG stuff up to someone else meant we couldn't do much when they weren't selling very well. Next year I think TMG is going to have a dedicated booth again.

At the very end of the month I went to L.A. again for Strategicon, where I met famous game designer Antoine Bauza. He was very cool, and even played one of my games!

That's nothing compared to next month's travel update... (that's right, a teaser in a blog post!)

Frisbee

I mentioned before that my hip is old and busted. It had been really getting me down, and I got sick of that, so I have started playing frisbee again. I am playing summer league, and I've started going back out to pickup on Sundays - and better yet, a group of club players have started playing a higher level pickup/practice on Saturdays and Mondays, and I've been going to that as well, at least when I'm in town. So far so good! My hip is holding up, and between that exercise and eating a bit less I think I've lost about 4 or 5 pounds.

Friends

This month a good friend moved to Hawaii with his girlfriend. We had a going away BBQ like old times, and like old times we played some Guitar Hero (which we've not done in several years). This makes 3 friends now that live in Hawaii, I'd better get out there to visit them before they start to leave! In fact, I think Steve might be moving back to the mainland sometime soon.

Speaking of friends from Hawaii - Tyler is in town right now, I am going to go hang out with him. See you next month!

Monthly Recap - July 2012

Another month down - here's the recap:

I mentioned last month that I'd gone to Seattle and to Protospiel - that technically was THIS month, but who's counting ;)

A friend of mine got engaged, which doesn't really count as my news, but seems like it's worth mentioning. I've sent a handful of emails to people on OKCupid.com lately, but none of those online sites ever seem to work out for me.

As for gaming events, I attended Gamesmiths (game design meeting), Ides of Gaming (monthly game day), and a new group that meets about once a month at Cartel Coffee Lab. I got to test one of my games (Alter Ego) at Gamesmiths - I'm not happy with that design at all right now and I think it needs a large overhaul. Ides is the game day put on by the Southern Arizona Gamers Association (SAGA), an organization of which I am the president. It was at a new location this time (Something Sweet) because our old venue got remodeled and didn't have space for us anymore. I liked being on campus, but Something Sweet isn't bad so far. This new group that meets at Cartel Coffee Lab, a coffee shop/restaurant on Campbell north of Grant, as well as up in Oro Valley. Cartel is near my house, so I thought I'd check it out. I went about a month ago as well. This time there were 20+ gamers there, which is a lot. The place was also fairly packed with regular patrons as well. A photographer from the local newspaper (AZ Daily Star) was there taking all kinds of pictures of the games we were playing. Maybe that means an article is imminent!

RinCon planning is still going on. Events are being added to the schedule, and people are signing up. We need to get some advertising going to make sure people know about the con - I'd like to take out ads in the paper in Phoenix, San Diego, L.A., Las Cruces, Albuquerque, and Las Vegas - all within reasonable driving distance (or perhaps a cheap flight). It turns out that when you run a convention, what you're really doing is selling hotel rooms, because in order to afford the banquet space, you have to guarantee a certain number of hotel rooms. So getting people to come from out of town will be key to this event's financial success! So tell your friends to come stay at the Holiday Inn and attend my con! :)

I did finally get some posters made, and they've been dropped off at Game Daze, Heroes and Villains, Amazing Discoveries, Bookman's, Casa Video, and hopefully Magic Tower as well. Game Daze was going to send some posters up to the Phoenix locations as well, hopefully that will pan out!

In other news, my hip has been feeling somewhat better - though it's clearly not 100%. I got some Joint Maintenance pills (Glycusomine, Chondroytin, And some kind of fish oil or something like that) which are supposed to help. I went out to pickup a couple of times - the weather was perfect for it: overcast, having rained that day but not still raining - and it's clear I'm out of shape, but it felt good to run again.

That's about it for this month. Next month I'll be heading to GenCon with Mikey in Indianapolis, so expect some TMG related new from that! In the meantime, you can check out TMG's latest kickstarter project: Stack It!

See you next month!

Monthly Recap - June 2012

It's been over a month since my last recap, so I guess it's time to take a look at what June had in store. According to google calendar I didn't have much going on - but then I haven't gotten all that good at utilizing google calendar (I think I'm getting better about it though). Bi-weekly meetings for SAGA (Southern Arizona Gamers Association) continued in an effort to keep RinCon progress on track. But the most notable thing was my annual trip to Seattle for Potlatch.

I haven't been playing Frisbee since February because my hip has been hurting. It started hurting about a year ago, but only sometimes, like if I moved it a certain way. I figured I'd injured it playing Frisbee, but I didn't like that it didn't seem to be getting better. After a little tournament in February I could barely walk, so I decided to give it a rest. Months of not running on it and several trips to the chiropractor made it hurt less, but it just wasn't getting better. A couple weeks ago I got an X-ray, and the radiologist diagnosed Moderate Joint Degeneration. It appears I've got some degeneration and a little bone spurring in there. This has been fairly depressing news, and it's got me thinking about retiring from Frisbee. I was worried it would ruin Potlatch for me as well. The good news is that, for whatever reason, my hip held up all weekend! I don't know if it was the softer ground in Seattle, adrenaline, or shear force of will - but I was able to run all weekend! Sure, I was slow, out of shape, and not 100%, but at least I was able to do it.

In other news, as I mentioned before, my house was robbed, and that inspired me to sell most of my board games. The auction went pretty well. I suppose it could have gone better if I'd promoted it more, but I wasn't in the right mind frame to promote it, and I'm happy to recover some cash anyway. My grandmother was nice enough to replace some toys for me as well :)

But it's not all gloom and doom... speaking of new toys, I did get a new car. Well, new to me. It's a 2010 Honda Accord Crosstour, and so far I like it a lot.

In addition to my hip holding up, I also got to catch up with a bunch of friends on my Seattle trip - including Rif, Mohan, Runjith, Sean, Jeremy, Amelia, Aaron, Emily, and of course Renee, Matt, Jonah, and I even got to meet my brand new niece Eliana!

After Seattle I flew directly to Ann Arbor for something called Protospiel - a meetup of game designers to play prototypes. I have been wanting to go for years, but because of the proximity to the Seattle trip, I haven't been able to make it. Last year I attended for the first time, and this year I returned. I was a little skeptical, thought I might be under-prepared or something, that it might turn out to be a big waste of time... I'm happy to report that it was NOT a waste of time, I had a very productive time at Protospiel :)

Finally, there's some recent TMG news I don't think I've mentioned. Things are going pretty well at TMG, despite some art delays on Kings of Air and Steam...
* Village, a game TMG is importing to the US from Germany, has won the Kennerspiel Des Jahres - which is like the German Game of the Year award. It's a really big deal, and it certainly won't hurt TMG! It looks like we picked a winner to pick up there.
* The Kickstarter project for Ground Floor was very successful, raising over $116,000! The manufacturing of Ground Floor and Skyline (another game by the same designer, which is included for Kickstarter supporters) is underway.
* People are receiving For The Win (TMG's latest game to arrive), and they seem to be liking it.

That's about it! See you next month...

Game Auction on BGG

I have posted a Game Auction on BGG, selling off pretty much every game I own (save a few that I actually expect to play soon or often).

Some of my favorite games are on that list, but I figure if it hasn't hit the table in over a year, it's hard to argue that I need to keep it!

So take a look, and if there's something you like, feel free to bid!

Somebody asked me about donations. I hate the thought of asking for handouts, which is why I thought it was better to sell off these games, but if you are so inclined I suppose I wouldn't turn it down. Maybe the best way to handle that is with the donation link at the Board Game Designer's Forum. I pay for that every month, so any donations there will help me directly and would be much appreciated!

Thanks everyone for your support. I feel kinda like a jerk complaining about my robbery when other people have real problems (like when their house got destroyed by a natural disaster, or their child died). But I appreciate the help all the same!

Robbery Relief Game Auction

I posted an auction list at BGG - feel free to check it out, and if something interests you then place a bid.

Thanks!

Charity Game Auction, so to speak

I apologize in advance for this off topic and sort of whiny post.


If you follow my FB or Twitter stuff then you already know that yesterday my house was broken into and I was robbed of a great deal of cash as well as my iPad and a few other little things. I am no stranger to theft and loss - over the years I have had wallets stolen (out of my jacket, out of my car, out of my backpack) as well as bicycles (3 in a 6 month period)... but the value of this particular loss was about an order of magnitude larger than all the rest combined, and because much of it was cash, it won't be covered by insurance.

It's been a bummer to say the least, and to make matters worse, it happened while I was out negotiating a deal on a car...


In an effort to recoup some of that money (which was to be my down payment), I have decided to host a game auction on BGG. I have an awful lot of games, many of which I never play. With the exception of a few favorites, I think I'll put them all up and see if I can get any interest in any of them. I could really use the money!


So if you are interested in buying a game and helping me out, stay tuned - I'll probably put up that geeklist in the next couple of days.


And to be at least a little bit on-topic...

RECENT GAMING
I have played an awful lot of Lords of Waterdeep lately. With two caveats, I find it's a very solid game and I like t very much.
Caveat #1: Remove Mandatory Quests - The Mandatory Quests are a bummer pretty much all the time - often you don't want to draw it, because it does not net you anything, and it sucks to have a Mandatory Quest played on you, because (especially if it's in the last round or two) it can keep you from scoring a large VP Quest that you've spent multiple turns building up to. Nobody I know likes those cards, so I simply leave them in the box when I play.

Caveat #2: Remove the Lord which rewards buildings - In some games I think it's fair and balanced, but with a Quest, a Building, and several Intrigue cards which allow a player to build even if the building space is occupied, in some games I think that Buildings are too available, making that Lord too easy to dominate with. So I simply leave it in the box to ensure a more fair game.


I just got Castles of Burgundy and I've played it a number of times already. I enjoy it more as I play more and discover strategies and tactical tricks. However, I do think it takes too long, and much like Martin Wallace's London, I'm surprised at the degree to which you cannot plan your turn ahead of time in this day and age.

Monthly recap - May 2012

I think I'll try a new thing... I have this dry erase calendar at work, and when I erase it and reset it for the next month I'll try posting a recap of the previous month of my life. Let's see if this idea lasts...

May 2012

I don't have much written on the calendar on the first 1/2 of the month, but I think that's because I was lax in updating it more than because I didn't do anything. It does appear that the month was somewhat uneventful though.

5/11 I drove up to Phoenix to meet with Patrick Nickell of Crash Games (as well as Fred McKenzie of Clever Mojo, Tory Neimann, and Nathan Kohatsu). We played some games and that was fun. The next day I stopped by and had lunch with my old friends Chris and Becky, who I hadn't seen since way before their second daughter was born (she's like 2 or 3 years old now).

5/19 the Ides of Gaming event that I run at Espresso Art on campus was bigger and better than it has been in recent history - more people and more fun all around.

5/25 - 5/28 I went to Burlingame, CA for KublaCon. KublaCon is a lot of fun, and I normally get to play a lot of games. This time however I was under-prepared as far as gaming is concerned, so I barely played anything at all. I did however get to meet Martin Wallace, attend several interesting seminars by Wallace, James Ernest, and Richard Bliss, listen to (and participate in) a live recording of a podcast (part 1 part 2), and visit with some friends.

I demo'ed Ground Floor (14 hours left on the Kickstarter! Will it break $100k?) three times, and got to play one of my prototypes once, and one of Martin Wallace's as well. I played only a couple of commercial games (Castles of Burgundy, Glory to Rome, Yahtzee Free-For-All, and Battle Line) and I played 1 game of Eat Poop You Cat (AKA Paper Telephone or Telestrations). Not a whole lot of gaming for a con at which I used to log 40 plays of various things!

I did take the airline up on its offer to pay me $311 in flight vouchers in exchange for bumping to a different flight. So I flew through LAX (instead of direct), had time to eat at McDonald's, and arrived about an hour or so later than originally scheduled. Seems like a good deal to me!

That's about it for May! See you next month...

How to get into game design

I was offered the opportunity to write something up for Why I Design Games - Collected essays from established game designers on the theory, art, and compulsion of board game design. 

 I was excited about the opportunity, but when considering why I design games, I found my thoughts coalescing more toward the question "how does one get into the game design hobby?" So I answered that question instead. Have a look, and leave a comment (here or there) - I'm interested in what you think!

Dallas for BGG.con, stupid nagging injury, and etc.

I don't know who reads this blog, but in case you're out there and wondering what I've been up to...

I spent a week in Dallas at BGG.con - a game convention put on by the people who run boardgamegeek.com. I've been every year they've put it on, since they began 7 years ago, and it's my favorite convention of the year. I got to see a lot of friends both old and new, I got to play a lot of games, and generally I got to have a lot of fun. My friend Steve (from Hawaii) came to Tucson for a week after, and we got to hang out and play more games for another week!

I love the holiday season, as there's a lot of fun to be had. I usually dislike the relative lack of frisbee compared to summer, but lately I haven't been missing it - maybe because I've got a nagging leg injury that doesn't seem to want to go away :( I think it might be something with my IT band, but I'm not sure. This couple of weeks off seems to have helped a lot, but I can tell it's not 100%. Maybe I'm just getting old :/

In other news, my game Eminent Domain seems to be going over very well. People enjoy it, and Tasty Minstrel Games has started selling into the 2nd batch of games that were printed. I really enjoyed seeing people playing the game at the convention last week.

Evie was happy to see me when I got home from my week long trip - I can tell because she followed me around all week, and even slept in my bed - she hasn't done that since she was a kitten!

Oh, and I found out that I'm going to be an Uncle again! Come April, my nephew - who calls me Uncle Jump-jump - is going to be a big brother. Renee, Matt, and Jonah are coming to visit next month. Jonah is about 2.5 years old now, and I look forward to having actual conversations with him :)

So there you have it. things are going well around here. Happy Thanksgiving!

About god damned time!

I have good news!

After 10 months of waiting for artwork, manufacturing, and shipping... experiencing delay after delay for one thing or another and disgruntled fans and customers (both reasonable and unreasonable)... I am ECSTATIC to report that people are FINALLY starting to receive their copies of Eminent Domain!

Maybe now that people are receiving their copies, I can start hearing about how much they love the game or how happy they are to have participated in the kickstarter campaign, rather than a seemingly endless deluge of criticism for things that are outside of my control (criticism because people didn't receive a shipping notification via email, on top of Mike's announcement that the warehouse had begun shipping the games? Really?)

In reality though there are a lot of international supporters who still won't get their copies for a while due to shipping logistics, and I'm sure there will be a number of people who end up not loving the game, and posting about how sorry they are to have supported it in the first place, and of course people who are dissatisfied with the extra Kickstarter Exclusive item added at the last minute for one reason or another. It makes me wonder why anybody goes through the effort of creating anything creative, ever.

Thank God I still enjoy playing Eminent Domain, because the amount of pain and suffering is quickly approaching the amount of fun I've had designing and playing the game int he first place.

The long wait is finally over... for some people anyway

Last week I got news that the boat had landed, and all of Tasty Minstrel's games had arrived in the warehouse (ahead of schedule for once)! I was sworn to secrecy, but today it was announced that the Kickstarter copies started shipping out last Friday! That means people in the eastern US will probably be getting their copies any second now, while people like me on the west coast will be receiving their copies in the next couple of days.

I know the international orders will still take a while to arrive - I wish there were a better system for that. Hopefully there will come a time when TMG has a distribution partner, or a warehouse, in Europe and some of each print run can be sent directly there rather than sending it back and forth across the globe.

I have heard that our exclusive surprise for Kickstarters DID make it into the shipments, so Kickstarter supporters should be receiving those along with their copy of the game.

I look forward to seeing reviews, session reports, and strategy posts at BGG and Boardgaming.com starting to pop up this week!


In other news... My friend David (designer of Ground Floor, coming soon from TMG) helped me put together this official rules sheet for the Bonus planets:

This will be available in the files section of BGG as well as on PlayTMG.com in the near future. I think it looks great, and I love that it matches the rulebook.

Brain Freeze iPad app is live!

It's been in the works since December, and finally it's done... the Brain Freeze iPad app is in the App Store! It's a free download, so give it a shot and let me know what you think!

So what's new?

Might as well post a blog update...

Not terribly much is new I guess - still playing and designing games, working as a Structural Engineer, playing frisbee, etc, etc. A couple notable items that have popped up recently:

* I have been traveling a bit, and will be doing some more this year - I bought 6 plane tickets in 1 day a couple weeks ago. Here's a brief list of all of my 2011 trips, both done and planned:

-- Lei-Out beach frisbee tournament in L.A. in January
-- Strategicon (OrcCon) game convention in L.A. in February
-- GAMA trade show in Las Vegas in March
-- One Love, one Beach beach frisbee tournament in San Diego in April
-- Spielbany game design gathering in Albany in April
-- KublaCon game convention in San Francisco in May
-- Solstice frisbee tournament in Eugene June
-- Potlatch frisbee tournament in Seattle in July
-- Protospiel game design convention in Ann Arbor July
-- GenCon game convention in Indianapolis August
-- Strategicon (Gateway) game convention in L.A. in September
-- BGG.con game convention in November in Dallas
And it's not unlikely I'll be going to frisbee sectionals and regionals in September/October as well. I don't plan on going to Essen, Germany this year, but there's a decent chance I'll try to go to that next October for Tasty Minstrel Games.

That's a lot of travel! And it doesn't include short trips up to Phoenix, or frisbee tournaments or game events here in Tucson.

* I sprained my ankle at frisbee league - about 4 hours after purchasing plane tickets for the Eugene tournament. I think I have decided to go anyway and hang out with my teammates (not play). I am hopeful that my ankle will be in decent working order by July 1st for Potlatch!

* An old friend I hadn't heard from in a while sent me a FaceBook message out of the blue. He wanted to set me up with a tennis buddy of his, thought she and I would get along. I went to dinner and a laser show with her (unfortunately right after spraining my ankle, so I was on crutches), and she was pretty cool, but I don't really think she's what I'm looking for. This makes me feel shallow to say, but she's older than me which is a turn off, and she has a 12 year old kid which is also a turn off. I kind of want a kid, but I'd want my OWN kid - not someone else's... and I'm kind of afraid I'm getting too old to be starting that project now - I think that's one reason I'm not interested in women my age or older than me. Is that wrong? Also, how do I know relate this information to her without sounding like a jerk, and without just ignoring calls or emails?

* My new game Eminent Domain is being printed right now,  and while we initially ordered 5,000 copies, apparently we've already sold 6,000, so we've ordered another 5,000 copies as well. I'm looking forward to finally having it arrive next month! There's a contest on BoardGameGeek right now to win all of the summer Tasty Minstrel titles (note the snazzy new website!) - 15 great grand prizes! Lots of interest in that so far :)

* More good news about my new game - a Japanese company has licensed it and is printing 1000 copies in Japanese! That's pretty cool!

* I had hired someone to paint my house, and I had 2 options at the time: an expensive one and a cheap one. I have been getting sick of making what seems to be the wrong decision in these cases, and I felt like I normally choose the less expensive option. In this case, the more expensive one was WAY more expensive (fully 2x as much), but they seemed like they were very professional and would do a much more thorough job, so I decided to go with them. I figured that at the very worst, I'd be out a little bit of money - not much in the grand scheme of things, and I'd have a nicely painted house. Weeks later, after paying a hefty deposit, I have decided that I in fact made the wrong decision again. Not only was the cost fully double the other guy (the other guy being a client's painter guy), but it was going to go up about 25% because of some BS about having to dispose of lead based paint or something - something I'm pretty sure painters don't really do. Furthermore, the way that company operates, they schedule jobs in the spring to be done in the summer, so I would have to wait until late May at the earliest to get the job done. I'd already procrastinated - I should have had this done about two weeks after getting stucco repairs! Well, it's June 7, and my house is still not painted, so I left a text message and a voice mail with the guy I'd contracted with that I'd like to cancel and would like my deposit back (seeing as how they have not held up their end of the deal). The other painter would have been done two months ago, and for less than 1/2 the price. I figure if I don't get the deposit back, I'm actually still saving money on the project, but I am kicking myself for having chosen poorly.

* I'm formulating a plan which would allow me to spend a good 2-3 months in Seattle each summer. I guess by "formulating a plan" I really just mean "I would like to do this" and I'm now just waiting for an excuse or justification. I'm hoping that Tasty Minstrel / game design will factor in - if I didn't have to be an engineer anymore, or if I could move to a schedule where I could work as an engineer for 8 months out of the year and concentrate on game stuff over the summer, then I could realistically (and even productively) bring my plan to fruition! I already go to Seattle for about 11 days every year over the 4th of July. So how much different would it be, really to extend that to 2-3 months? All I'd need is a place to stay and an internet connection, and I can work on game design there. In fact, the gaming community is so much bigger up there I could probably get a lot more design work done there than I can in Tucson. I could even drive up there so I'd have a car the whole time as well. Maybe I'll look into that for next year - maybe drive up to KublaCon for Memorial Day weekend, continue up to Seattle for June, July, and into August, then maybe drive to Gen Con (assuming we go again next year), then drive back to Tucson.

That's about it for now...

The Plan

I just posted this as a bullet point in a life update post, and I thought I'd break it out - mostly so I could find it again. I like the sound of this more and more, and I don't see why I couldn't implement it next year.

I'm formulating a plan which would allow me to spend a good 2-3 months in Seattle each summer. I guess by "formulating a plan" I really just mean "I would like to do this" and I'm now just waiting for an excuse or justification. I'm hoping that Tasty Minstrel / game design will factor in - if I didn't have to be an engineer anymore, or if I could move to a schedule where I could work as an engineer for 8 months out of the year and concentrate on game stuff over the summer, then I could realistically (and even productively) bring my plan to fruition! I already go to Seattle for about 11 days every year over the 4th of July. So how much different would it be, really to extend that to 2-3 months? All I'd need is a place to stay and an internet connection, and I can work on game design there. In fact, the gaming community is so much bigger up there I could probably get a lot more design work done there than I can in Tucson. I could even drive up there so I'd have a car the whole time as well. Maybe I'll look into that for next year - maybe drive up to KublaCon for Memorial Day weekend, continue up to Seattle for June, July, and into August, then maybe drive to Gen Con (assuming we go again next year), then drive back to Tucson.

Seattle trip 2010 - the rest of the story

Last post was Tuesday night after Music in the Park with Renee, Matt and Jonah.

Wednesday I did play pickup frisbee at Microsoft as planned, then picked up Sean and Jeremy and eventually met up with Rif and Mohan at Griptonite Games' office for a game night. I played my latest design Eminent Domain with Rif, Sean and Mohan (Jeremy played some other game), but then people decided to leave, so we all went to Mohan and Rif's apartment in Belleview and hung out. Mohan and I chatted about game design stuff while Sean, Jeremy and Rif played Innovation - a new game by the guy that made Glory to Rome. Mohan has a neat idea for a solitaire game based on things like Spider Solitaire or Klondike, but with a theme that applies to the way those games work. It might be best as a digital game, so it's a good thing he works in the digital game industry!

Thursday after going to the store with Amelia, I spent much of the day with Renee and Jonah. We went to lunch, the post office, and to check out a day care place. It was a nice visit, and when Renee was putting Jonah down for a nap I think I fell asleep on the couch myself! After that I went to Microsoft Building 50 for a game night to meet up with Christopher Rao, a guy I met a couple of years ago on my Seattle trip, and hung out with at BGG.con as well. I like that particular game night locale because it's in a cafeteria at Microsoft, so the table space is great, the lighting is great, and since it's at Microsoft, there's free soda all over the place. I liked it a little better last year because the "game night" was during the day and the cafeteria was open for business, but what can you do. You can order pizza, that's what!

I met a guy named Robb Effinger there, and he was pretty cool. We played Ground Floor, a game that is being published next year by Tasty Minstrel Games. everyone enjoyed it, it went over very well. After that I played a dice game which I remembered liking the time I played it about a year ago... it's called Alea Iacta Est, and for the life of me I can't recall what I thought was good about it. Jeremy and Robb didn't like it either. We also played Fermat - which is a math game like Set (but with math), which is apparently being published under the name Got It! this year. Finally, Robb and I played a game of Wizard's Tower in which I basically just explained the rules as they came up. He ended up winning, even though he didn't know how to play! Overall it was a pretty fun game night.

Friday I went to another pickup frisbee game at Microsoft. There is so much frisbee to be had in Seattle! And the weather was gorgeous all week! Later that night I had arranged to demo Terra Prime and Homesteaders at Uncle's Games in Redmond Town Center, so I met Renee, Matt, Jonah, Sean, and Rif at Red Robin, then proceeded to Uncle's for their Friday game night. I met a fan of Tasty Minstrel who had come by, Peter Loop, who was a neat guy and I showed him all the upcoming Tasty Minstrel games I had with me (Jab, Train of Thought and Ground Floor). Over the course of the evening I also played Forbidden Island, another cooperative game by the guy who made Pandemic. I had heard good things about it, but it turns out it's EXACTLY LIKE Pandemic, only simpler! I don't think Pandemic needed to be simpler, so I really didn't care for the game at all. I also played Innovation a couple times with Sean, Race For The Galaxy (in which I completely crushed Sean!), Tsuro, Train of Thought, and Fermat (I'm still calling it that!)

Saturday morning, Jeremy, Amelia and I headed to Seattle Center for a Magic: the Gathering Prerelease tournament. I hadn't played Magic in a while, so that was fun. After that we went to a game night for Emerald City Gamers, hosted by a guy named Justin in Ballard (not far from Seattle Center). We played a game called Cyclades which I'd heard about and Jeremy wanted to play because it has a Kraken in it (!) Sadly, in our game it didn't come up, so noone was able to Release the Kraken! After that we played Galaxy Trucker, which is a cute, fun game about quickly cobbling together a spaceship an then watching it get blown apart by space pirates and asteroids.

Sunday I went to Marymoor park for the usual pickup frisbee again. Since the weather was so nice I thought it would be fun to organize a barbecue, which we did on Sunday at Mohan's apartment complex. They have a nice courtyard with grass, a grill, and their apartment is on top of a Safeway (to which we made several trips for buns, burgers, drinks, etc). Alex was able to make it, which I didn't think was going to happen, and I got a chance to play his new game called Witch's Coven - a semi-cooperative game about evil witches brewing a potion of power. The idea is that as a group you want to have all the necessary ingredients for the potion, but since you want to be more powerful than other players, you want to make it so that the coven doesn't need at least 1 player in order to make the potion. So you basically don't want to be obsolete, and further, you want to try and make another player obsolete. It doesn't take very long, and it was more interesting than I thought it would be at first.

There were about 13 people total at the BBQ, and after a bit, the 7 of us remaining went inside and chatted about various thing and just hung out. It's seldom that I just hang out with friends, so I found that refreshing.

Monday morning I had to return my rental car, and Sean hooked me up with a ride to the airport. I flew to Phoenix without incident, then drove to Tucson and went almost immediately to frisbee league.

All in all I had an EXCELLENT summer vacation in Seattle! Next year I hope to remember to factor $10/day of parking into the cost of flying from Phoenix - that can really add up on a long trip like this one! It was tough to leave highs in the low 80s for lows in the high 80s, but the good news is that I seem to have missed all the really atrocious weather while I was in the very comfortable Pacific NW. Every time I go to Seattle I come home wishing I didn't have to leave. I know it's only nice like that in Summer, I think it would be cool to find a summer gig there and work/live the rest of the year here in Tucson.