Let the Southern Fandom Resource Guide Save You a Headache

If you’re like me, keeping up with all the conventions you’d like to go to can prove to be quite a bother.  I go to one big con a year – DragonCon in Atlanta – but I also enjoy going to some of the smaller ones that pop up throughout the year.  Seems like unless you know one by name, it can be a chore tracking those smaller ones down online.  In the past, I’ve stumbled across a few by accident, but that only happens a little more frequently than winning the lottery.  Luckily, everything changed when I found The Southern Fandom Resource Guide.

The SFRG offers a comprehensive listing of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Gaming, Comics, Anime and Pop Culture conventions across the southeast portion of the US, roughly from the Maryland/DC area down to portions of Texas.  Each con is listed by date and has a link to the con’s website.  The homepage presents a list of the newly listed ones, as well as those upcoming. 

The page was created by Kelly Lockhart, who continues to edit and update it on a weekly basis.  Be sure to check out the Facebook page, too.

The Southern Fandom Resource Guide is an informative, time-saver, and well worth a visit. 

The Cult of the New can bite me:7 Games you should play instead of the new hotness

A recent post on Reddit's board game subreddit got me thinking about how often my personal taste conflicts with the average ratings on Boardgamegeek.com. I've been playing hobby games with a few of the core members of my group for over thirty years. Being grey beards, we tend to be resistant to “the cult of the new” and the “best-game-of-all-time-of-the-year” trends that drive ratings so powerfully on BGG. We like what we like, and we don't feel bad about liking it. At some point I'm going to write an article challenging the accepted truism that game design has evolved and new hobby games are objectively better than early hobby games, but that time isn't now. What I thought I would do is discuss a bunch of games that are outside the BGG top 1000 that I think are under-appreciated. Hopefully, it will introduce you guys to some games that you hadn't stumbled across before. If you do know the games, it will at least give you more information to decide how to process my reviews of new games in the future. I thought I'd start with "fillers" or games that can be taught and played in less than an hour.  Here we go.  

Dragon's Gold (BGG #1017): This Bruno Faidutti design has seen heavy play in our group since it was release in 2001. It was the first D&D-lite card game that I ever played, and I think it is vastly superior to the much more popular Munchkin. In Dragon's Gold, each player controls a party of four adventurers who are all trying to slay the same line up of dragons. When a dragon is slain, players with heroes involved in the battle must negotiate to split up the treasure while a timer ticks away. The forced negotiation and tension from the timer makes for a lot of fun.

Cloud 9 (1999, #1100). I've always been a fan of the push-your-luck genre, and Cloud 9 is one of the best. Players are passengers on a hot air balloon. A player rolls dice that show colors that must be matched out of the player's hand. Players then have to opportunity to jump from the balloon if they think the player might not be able to match the colors or risk crashing and stay in as the balloon moves to the next (higher-scoring) spot on the board. It is admittedly super-simple, but it is easy to teach and I don't think I've ever taught it to a table that didn't like it. The feeling generated when all of the other players jump and I am able to guide the balloon to a top score is one of my favorite gaming moments. By the way, I own the excellent Out of the Box Publishing version of the game, but if anyone wants to trade me a copy of the F.X. Schmid original, feel free to check out my trade list at BGG (tolendante).

Nuclear War (1966, #1521). Users of the Geek think there are 1500 games that are more fun than Nuclear War. There are members of my group who would say there aren't ten. I don't rate it quite that highly because of the insane randomness you get when you mix random card draw with programmed instruction. I've had too many games where I just couldn't get rockets to deliver payloads with or payloads big enough to fill larger rockets. The game definitely has a mind of its own some games, but, when it gets going, no game provides more laughs along with its dark political commentary. The rule that allows defeated nations to launch all their remaining munitions at another country (which often ends with all players losing the game), is funny and satisfying every time it happens. My motto for the game is “the only thing better than winning Nuclear War is watching everyone lose it.”

Cheapass Games Two-fer. While scrolling through the ratings, I noticed a bunch of Cheapass Games that I enjoy, but just two I felt the need to write about on their own. In general, I think James Ernest is underrated on the Geek as a game designer.  Here are two of his best:  Light Speed (2003, #1395) is a great real-time spaceship combat game co-designed by Ernest and the legendary Tom Jolly. The only knock on the game is it takes longer to score than it does to play, but since six minutes will be enough time to do both, I don't imagine it should be much of an issue. The Big Idea (2000, #1600) is a great party game that we have only recently replaced with the glossier and less fiddly Snake Oil from Out of the Box. The economics engine in The Big Idea makes it a little too gamerly for a party game, but the potential products are more hilarious ad irreverent than those in the Snake Oil box.

Filthy Rich (1998, #1700). I've written about this Richard Garfield design before. Played in a three-ring binder, this advertising game is a great combination of luck and strategy. I almost can understand the low ratings on this one because about one of every four games we have played of this goes off the rails because of too many taxation rolls. If someone got that experience in his or her first game, I doubt they would bother to play it again. That would be a terrible loss though because the novelty of placing billboards into the binder in a way that maximizes their exposure while it obscures the ads of your opponents is interesting and unique.

Africa (2001, #2261). This isn't the biggest difference between what I rate a game and what the Geek users do (that would be one of my former top 10 games, Borderlands, which I rate a 10 and the Geek rates less than 6), but it is the game whose low rating surprises me the most. Maybe it is simply the fact that designer Reiner Knizia has fallen out of favor with the Geeks because of his failure to continue to make “gamer” games. The Geeks are a fickle, entitled, and petty lot (and I say that with much love). One only has to be aware of the Great Games Workshop Downvoting Conspiracy to know that. Otherwise, I have no idea what there is to dislike about this exploration and set collection game. Both the exploration and the set collection are at their most pure and uncluttered. The game looks beautiful when set up, and, at forty-five minutes, it is the perfect opener to a night of hobby gaming.

I will stop there for now. There are dozens of other games I could mention here, but I will save them for a follow up. If there is a point to this exercise, it is this: there are games you may really love that are outside the hobby gaming mainstream. Often these games can be found very cheaply, making the bang-for-buck ratio very appealing. Next time I will focus on meaty "gamer" games.  Let me know in the comments what games your group loves that are currently out-of-favor on the Geek and elsewhere.   

Japan's Legendary Director Hayao Miyazaki to Retire

Sad new of sorts coming from the Venice film festival.  The Associated Press is reporting that Hayao Miyazaki, director of brilliant films like Princess Mononoke and Howl's Moving Castle is retiring after the release of his newest film, the controversial The Wind Rises.  Miyazaki has had a brilliant career and had an enormous influence on this generation's animators, so while it will be sad to see him go, he has earned a relaxing retirement.  Read the full story here. 

Film Review: The World's End

The World’s End (2013) Dir. Edgar Wright

I expected the end to the Cornetto trilogy to be triumphant and uplifting.  After all, between the second and third film, the director, Edgar Wright, made Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, a film that is probably my favorite of the last decade and one that never fails to make me smile throughout.  The World’s End has moments that feature that same irreverently joyous filmmaking; however, it is, for lack of a better description, more of a grown-up.  The characters, played by Wright’s usual suspects, haven’t had easy lives, and they carry the physical and emotional scars to prove it.  The film is better for the presence of these realistic, well-rounded characters, but there is enough emotional pain in the film to prevent it from being one I will throw on the television when I’m in need of an escape in years to come.

Like Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, the first two films tied together loosely by the casting of Pegg and Frost and the passing reference to a delicious treat, The World’s End, is Wright’s take on a popular genre, this time the body-snatching alien sci-fi movie.  As he did with the zombie movie and cop movie, Wright handles the genre conventions well.  The robotic blanks are genuinely creepy and the basic body-snatching conceit is as effective here as it is in the classics of the genre (though the films nod to The Thing by way of Jaws doesn’t really have the tension of Carpenter’s classic because we are pretty sure neither of the two leads will turn out to be a replica).

But it isn’t the genre tropes that really hit home.  At its heart, the film is about lives of unfulfilled promise.  Pegg is perfect as Gary, a sad case who is hell bent on completing a pub crawl with his high school mates that they couldn’t quite pull off back in their day.  We see Gary in what we suppose is rehab at the beginning of the film, so each drink he downs on the quest darkens the mood of the film.  By the time Gary and the rest of the crew have revealed the pain and loss that has befallen them since high school (failed marriages, lack of growth, unrequited love), the film needs a triumphant and redemptive finale to lighten the mood.  It doesn’t offer us one. 

Instead, our heroes get a hollow victory, at best.  It certainly isn’t uncommon for genre films to end on the note that The World’s End does, but I found myself wishing that the nihilism had been turned down a bit. 

None of the above should be taken as a flaw with the film.  In the end, I think it is one of Wright’s best.  What I wonder is will it have the longevity of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, which ended on warmer (if not chipper) notes.  Regardless, I recommend anyone who is a fan of Wright and company to rush out and see the film. 

****/5

--Danny Webb

Fallen - Kickstarter Preview

Amidst a rather hectic cross-country move, I had the opportunity to play a prototype copy of Watchtower Games' current Kickstarter project Fallen. Since the copy I have is a prototype, I do not have the full compliment of components and stories that will come with the full game, but I would like to give my impression of the game in it's current state, so you can better determine if it is worth Kickstarting. I am not going to delve into a rules description in this preview, as I think the Kickstarter page itself does a great job in describing gameplay, but there are a few things that are worth exploring in a bit more detail.

As a card-based 2 player dungeon crawl, Fallen pits one player as an intrepid hero and treasure seeker, against a dark and evil dungeon lord. The hero navigates a series of events during his quest, which are defined by a set of randomized story cards introduced during play. In order to complete these events, both the Hero and the Dungeon lord battle each other through the use of dice and cards that represent special abilities and equipment collected during the adventure. The game concludes with an epic showdown between good and evil, wrapping up each story with a satisfying conclusion.

I was initially very interested to see how well this card based dungeon crawl would be able to harness the feel of a dungeon crawl without a plastic miniature or board to be found in the box. Surprisingly, Fallen pulls it off well. Where many modern dungeon crawls focus on the tactical maneuvering of an adventuring party, Fallen strikes an almost nostalgic chord, emulating more the roleplaying games of the late 80s and early 90s in which the story unfolded entirely in the heads and actions of the players.

Fallen's art is also worth a mention up front. While many Kickstarter projects have art and graphic design that seem mediocre at best, the art in this project is top notch, extending to the graphic design of the components and manual, which are all very clear and readable. Even though my prototype copy does not contain all the final art and components, the quality of those that are in the box leave me no doubt that the final product will be high quality. (Fallen has one of the most polished Kickstarter videos I have seen for a game, which is hopefully an additional indicator of Watchtower's attention to detail.)

I have always enjoyed story based games where the game delivers an explicit narrative. Games such as Tales of the Arabian Nights and Betrayal at House on the Hill really get my imagination flowing, and help immerse me in the game. Fallen takes a similar approach to its gameplay, feeling almost like a hybrid of the above games. A set of story cards drive the action, describing the environment, and giving the player a set of choices he can make. Based on the player's choice, the story unfolds, requiring players to make skill checks with dice and battle for the result of the event. After the event completes, given the outcome, the story moves to the next plot point as read from the story cards.

The use of story cards solves one of the biggest issues with Arabian Nights; There is no huge book to tote around, and flip through to find the correct passage to read. Everything is there on the card. These cards contain a good amount of text as well. Unlike the tiny story cards in Mansions of Madness, the large story cards in Fallen allow for a satisfying amount of prose.

The use of story cards could also be one of the game's negatives as well. After enough plays, a player may become familiar with the story cards, and know what happens when certain paths are taken. This doesn't break the game, as the battle between the dungeon lord and the player still make the outcome unknown, but it removes the uncertainty of exploration that is the bread and butter of a story game. The game ships with 45 story cards (3 of which are randomly selected per game), so there is a good amount of replayability here. At higher Kickstarter pledge levels, "adventure packs" are added which each contain 12 new story cards. While the base game is still fun, even after exhausting the story cards, I see adventure packs as a real draw to keep the game feeling fresh.

Fallen works only as a 2 player game in it's current incarnation. There is a stretch goal to unlock a multiplayer mode, but at the time of this writing it is uncertain whether it will be unlocked. Fallen is fun as a 2 player game, but has the potential to be even better with a party of adventurers playing. I wish that a higher player count was something that was included from the start.

Fallen has already met its kickstarter goal so will be printed, though there are still some stretch goals yet to be unlocked. In it's basic form, though, it gets my seal of approval for a fun, interactive 2 player game. With it's polished art, well thought out gameplay, and immersive story based play, Fallen is definitely worth checking out. (http://kck.st/10FXN09)