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W. Eric Martin
United States
Apex
North Carolina
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• Nominees for Juego del Año Tico 2011 – the Costa Rican game of the year – were announced in late June 2011, and they are 7 Wonders, Baltimore & Ohio, Caylus, Chaos in the Old World and Maria. I love seeing nominee lists from countries that are off of most gamers' radars as they present a kind of parallel world similar to my younger years when my best friend and I would contemplate cross-universe comic book series: Batman vs. Captain America, Superman vs. The Hulk, and so on. Of course I know zip-all about the Costa Rican gaming community, so I won't hazard a guess as to which game might win.
• Continuing the award posts, Spiel Portugal's 2010 Jogo do Ano is Troyes.
• From mid-June we have the nominees for The Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming, with the nominees being two board games and three RPGs:
-----* Catacombs
-----* Escape from the Aliens in Outer Space
-----* Fiasco
-----* Freemarket
-----* The Dresden Files Roleplaying Game
The winner will be announced August 3 on the eve of Gen Con 2011.
• And finally, another list of award nominees, albeit from May 26, 2011 and overlooked by me until now, comes from the Deutscher Lernspielpreis. Four lists actually, as the Lernspielpreis jury chooses games appropriate for children ages 3, 6 and 9, in addition to a separate list of games meriting mention that have yet to be released. Matt Leacock's Forbidden Island picked up yet another award nomination.
• And speak of the devil, Derek Thompson at Meepletown interviews Matt Leacock who talks briefly about the Pandemic expansion that he and Tom Lehmann are designing, among other things.
• Designer Matt Worden was interviewed by the Wausau Daily Herald in Wisconsin. Despite his debut title Jump Gate being named Game of the Year by GAMES Magazine, Worden notes that he's yet to break even on the game:
Quote: Matt estimated he invested $10,000 to $12,000 to publish it and have the game's materials produced.
"We filled up our garage and part of our basement with cards, boxes, chips," he said.
On a more positive note, the article mentions that Jump Gate has been picked up by a German game publisher for a new edition.
• Pete at The Superfly Circus highlights a few titles from Travesty Games.
• In his BGG blog, Patrick Carroll writes about personality types and gaming, both Keirseyan temperament theory and the nine Enneagram types.
• Old link but previously overlooked by me: Matt Stevenson of Board Game Back Room interviewed designer Antoine Bauza in mid-June 2011 before 7 Wonders had been announced as the Kennerspiel des Jahres winner. (And the interview is a good reminder that I should reprint my translations of those design diary posts from Bauza!)
• Another 7 Wonders item: Asmodee's Stefan Brunell has noted on BGG that he's now seen the replacement decks for Age III – to replace Age III cards of varying colors in some printings – and has notified U.S. distributors about the availability of these cards.
• And another article I previously overlooked – seriously, I should never move again – is a "Hey, look at this wonderful Settlers of Catan game" write-up in The Globe and Mail, a national newspaper in Canada. (HT: Jacob Lee)
• Gamewright interviews Hayden, the seven-and-a-half-year-old reviewer from Games With Hayden. An excerpt:
Quote: Q: Do you get recognized at gaming conventions?
A: Haha... well that's funny. While I was at Gen Con last year people actually stopped to take pictures with me. Silly people.
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