Internationale Spieltage (Spiel) is the largest board game convention in the world. It happens in Essen, Germany every October and hosts ~150,000 attendees and introduces hundreds of brand new boardgames.
Essen Spiel 2012 just wrapped up, and I was excited to see that I had my most content this year! Unfortunately, none of my designs were released at Essen, I seem to be stuck with a January release curse, but two games were demo’d in near final production.
In this preview video, Uwe of Academy Games, describes the basic differences between 1775 and 1812. In addition to what Uwe states, there are a number of other important differences. The First Nation/Native American units in this game do not side with one side or the other. Each faction must recruit the natives to convince the individual tribes to fight for them. Also 1775 introduces German Hession and French Army units that come from Europe to aid each side when called on.
Lord of the Rings Dice Building Game
Here, Nathan Fillion aka Scott from Wizkids, and Mike, designer of Quarriors, give a peak at Lord of the Rings the Dice Building Game. Brett Myers and I designed this game for Wizkids based on the system of Quarriors. I am glad to see that they are promoting the story aspect of the game, as I believe it is a strong component of the game. Plus lots of dice rolling!!!
Both games are currently slated to come out in January 2013. 1775: Rebellion will have a Kickstarter campaign by Acadamy Games that should start in the next couple of weeks.
Also 1812: The Invasion of Canada has been nominated in the Wargame category for the 2012 Golden Geek awards on Boardgame geek.com. Register your vote at: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geekawards/boardgame
Well the news is out. WizKids Games has announced the upcoming release of Lord of the Rings The Dice Building Game.
The game was designed by Brett Myers and myself after our game proposal was accepted. Wizkids has started looking for outside designers and was sending out requests for certain theme and game requirements.
The game is based around Eric Lang‘s and Mike Elliott‘s Quarriors Dice building game. It uses the same core mechanics of rolling, activating dice, buying more dice and filling up your bag. But there is lots more that I think player will get excited about.
First of all it is based off the 3 Lord of the Rings movies. This gave us a treasure trove of material to work with. Next, the game is cooperative. This means players will work together to fight off the evil Sauron and his minions.
Wizkids will release more details of the game as it comes closer to the release date, which is scheduled for January 2013).
Until then let me give a shout out to Eric Lang and Mike Elliot for a great mechanism to design around. Also to Paul DeStefano and Benjamin Cheung for the development. And to Brett Myers for the awesome collaboration.
Yesterday, I attended the first semi-annual NASTII. This event is an afternoon tournament playing Martin Wallace’s Age of Steam.
Ryan Sturm, of How to Play fame, hosted 9 other AoS fans for a brain burning session of ‘no holds barred’ gaming. I joined the rest of Canadian contingent as we headed over the boarder to flex our grey matter. First stop… beer store.
The tournament saw 2 tables of 5 players. Ryan picked the best 5-player maps and we randomly drew for postion, table and map. Round 1 saw the standard Rust Belt and China being played.
The top 2 placers on each table moved forward to the playoff game. Joining them would be the closest (percentage wise) of the 2 third place finishers. This game would produce NASTII postions 1st, and 2nd. The remaining players would play the consolation game that would generate 3rd place.
The champion map ended up being Germany, while the consolation table had England.
NASTII is a great name for this event and we saw lots of nasty game play and shenanigans. My strategy of using beer to hone my game play failed miserably.
Ryan Sturm proved himself worthy of the title NASTII Champion!
The next tournament is to be sometime in the early new year, hosted this time in Canada. Drop a message if you are in the area and are looking for an invitation. I’m hoping we can expand to a 3 game x 3 table tourney. NASTII!
Last Friday, Beau and I headed out in the pouring rain for Stoney Creek. It was time for the 199th anniversary of the Battle of Stoney Creek at Battlefield House in Upper Canada. We had signed up for the mercantile area to run a blacksmith and bad weather wasn’t going to stop us from enjoying this event.
Upon my arrival,the rain was coming down pretty good. Our camp area had a shared puddle big enough for a nice summer poolside party. When Beau arrived I had all of my gear out and under a tree, for what good that did.
I had brought a canvas printed image of the 1812: The Invasion of Canada. Luckily I went for the ‘outdoor’ lamination. This picture could take the beating of the sun and rain without skipping a beat.
We unloaded the trailer and setup the new canvas fly and canvas wedge tent. By nightfall we had everything up and could enjoy a couple beers.
These re-enactments are quite intense. Participants go to great lengths and personal pain to keep authentic…. this includes sleeping on the ground with just a few wool blankets.
We celebrated the first morning with handmade blacksmith beanies that Beau had sewn.
The early morning light, filtered by the overcast skies gave us our first real look at our setup:
The rest of the weekend was a blur. The weather improved to a beautiful sunny day. The wind dried out the canvas, and the crowds came out in droves. Beau concentrated on smithing, while I was mainly busy showing interested people 1812: The Invasion of Canada.
We had lots of people stop by. One gentleman had his Academy Games 1812 pre-order t-shirt on. A couple of boardgamegeeks also introduced themselves and had us sign their copy of the game. By the evening, the crowds died down enough to give us a chance to get into our fancy duds and enjoy the evening battle and fireworks.
Overall, the event was awesome. The blacksmith was well received and Beau’s newly hand crafted bellows worked perfect. 1812: The Invasion of Canada sold out at the event and everyone was excited to see it.
Over the last few years, I have designed, manufactured and published a few games. These games were my way to get into the game design industry. I hand constructed 50 copies of each game and gave them out for free at Great Lakes Games, a family boardgame convention in Indiana.
3 of these games have just come up for auction from my friend Erin O’Mally. She is moving and merging boardgame collections and is in need of cash to help the transition.
These games don’t come up very often for sale, so here’s your chance to get a copy.
The Colony 1st Edition: This is a themed Mancala varient with plastic ants, wooden board, and glass eggs. It is a bit bigger than the 2nd edition still available from Blue Panther LLC.
The cover art was done by Scott Starkey.
Auction: http://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/141399/item/2127098#item2127098
Dawson City Barbers 1st Edition: This is a 3-6 player game of bluffing and hand management. A fun light theme is great for a family filler. This is the hand made edition with hairy meeples.
Artwork was done by Hawaii designer, Greg Daigle.
Auction: http://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/141399/item/2136701#item2136701
Panacea: This is a deduction game, that I am rather proud of. It uses the box as part of the deduction system along with some custom dice and cards. A small package that packs a decent brain burner.
Auction: http://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/141399/item/2137269#item2137269
Good luck, and let me know if you get a chance to play one of these games. It would be fun to track were the different copies turn up.
I love it when you can get hobbies to intersect. It feels like you get more bang for your buck.
Last year, I met through a good friend, Howie Tsui. He had recently received a commission to create an art exhibit with Agnes Etherington Art Centre and the Museum of Health Care. He wanted his pieces to reflect “the merger of popular culture with the military industrial complex”. It was also to be part of the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812.
He got in touch with me, as I had an interest in fixing and restoring pinball machines. His idea was to re-theme a pin to be the inside of a soldiers body as a musket ball bounced around. I was eager to accept his request and aid him in any way.
The first chore was to find a suitable candedate machine. There was a few things it couldn’t be:
- a newer DMD machine (that has the animated display)
- a machine in great condition (I would have a hard time modding something that was in good condition)
- a machine over a couple hundred bucks
So that got me searching for a 70s pin. I soon game across another collector that had a 2nd Gottlieb Pinball Pool machine that he could sell. I had worked on other Gottlieb system 1 machines before and knew that I could easily replace all the electronics with an all-in-one board from Pascal in France. I had installed one earlier into my Joker Poker.
With a replacement board purchased, I could now get down to fixing burnt coils, bad flippers and cleaning all the mechanical features of the game. This was a process of dissassembling, cleaning, tweaking and reinstalling all the playfield components.
Eventually I got the system up and running. Howie now could come and pick up the empty playfield to start his part painting the playfield. While waiting for the playfield to be finished I worked on an audio trigger device, that would replace the beeps and boops of the current sound board. I used a MP3 trigger from Sparkfun and loaded it with musket shot sounds.
During the Christmas break, Howie delivered the newly painted playfield. I got to work reinstalling the upper playfield components. Once together, I had to tweak the various switches to the correct sensitivity.
Finally the day came for final testing. I hauled the machine in the backyard for some pictures and to make a few videos for Howie to look over.
Then it went on a skid and was shipped out to Ottawa, where Howie work finish the cabinet art.
That’s where my part ends. Howie was successful in installing the piece at the art gallery last week. The local news has been eagerly covering the installation. I think Howie’s art is wonderfully freaky.
The backglass that Howie finalized is particularly wonderful. Could this be General Isaac Brock being shot by a sharp shooter on the heights of Queenston?
Check out a VIDEO!
Check out the EXHIBIT in person!
Apologies for the recent lack of updates. Over the past month I’ve been working on a couple of designs.
The first is the next in the Birth of America Series by Academy Games. Beau and I have now submitted all the files to the publisher and work is now under way on the card and map artwork.
1775 Cover Painting by Steve Paschal
The game is a sort of prequel to the current 1812: The Invasion of Canada. It will probably be called 1775: The Rebellion. 1775 uses similar game mechanics as 1812 but tweaked to better fit the theme and goals of the American Revolution. It is a faster playing game and I think fans will really like what we have done. We have also put quite a bit of work in the varient included. So much so that I would say it is almost another game in itself. Advanced players will love the additional choices that come up.
The second is a game that I am working on with my friend Brett Myers. I am really excited about this one, but can’t say anything at this time on its subject matter or its publisher. Hopefully we’ll see this sometime this year.
In other news, 1812 is getting great reviews. If you haven’t had a chance to play it, please do so. I believe Spielbox, THE international game magazine, has a review of it in their 1/2012 issue. The magazine is available in both english and german here: Spielbox Shop. The magazine is a great read. I used to get a subscription in German prior to the English version just for the pictures…. (as opposed to Playboy which is for the artcles)
Abstract games are a unique breed. Where games with theme give the players a gut feel on what to do on their turn, abstract games need careful evaluation. This evaluation usually involve visual perspective or mathematical insite. Or just experience.
Many abstract games coin the term “minutes to learn, a lifetime to master”. And it is true that most abstract games are light on rules and deep on expanding possiblities. Especially when compared to American style or Euro style games. Read more…
Dice are a iconic and powerful tool for boardgames.
What most of us will think of when mentioning boardgames is a board, a pawn and dice. Roll and move games were a popular mechanism for toy companies that made countless games. On you turn roll the dice, move the amount on a board with your pawn and do what ever the space says. These mainly use the dice as a randomization tool.
Game day means something different to board game geeks. It’s the day when we all gather together and play all sorts of interesting games. Today’s game day is a special one.
BoardGameBrewer 
