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W. Eric Martin
United States
Apex
North Carolina
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Once again, this page is a mix of new and somewhat old-ish material as the Spiel 2011 info wave crests and I begin to see the calm waters ahead.
• Polish publisher Portal is celebrating its fifth appearance at Spiel with some special treats for fairgoers. First, it's releasing a pack of variant rules for its five major Spiel releases: Neuroshima HEX, Witchcraft, Stronghold, 51st State and Prêt-à-Porter.
Second, the publisher has scoured its warehouse and uncovered hard-to-find items like Neuroshima Hex! - Doomsday Machine and Stronghold: Heroes; as Portal notes in its press announcement, "The quantities of all these objects are very small, a few pieces each." Finally, Portal will record and publish a daily podcast during Spiel, talking about everything that's happening at the show. Knowing how busy Spiel is and how little sleep time can be available, I think that last item on the agenda is madness.
• And as some might have expected, 7 Wonders took first place in Fairplay's 2011 À la Carte Preis, which focuses on the best card games of the previous year. For those who might have already heard of this game, you can check out the other nine, less well-known games on the Fairplay website.
• One award that 7 Wonders did not win, however, is Spain's Premio Juego del Año, which was won by Matt Leacock's Forbidden Island. Congrats, Matt!
• The winners of the Graf Ludo 2011, a German award for artwork and graphics in games, have been announced, with Michael Menzel winning in the category of "best family game graphics" for Eselsbrücke and Alexander Jung for "best children's game graphics" for Voll in Fahrt.
• Tom LaPille, a developer at Wizards of the Coast for Magic: The Gathering, does his best in an October 2011 column to discourage random and baseless speculation on how newly previewed cards from an upcoming Magic set will play out in real life. From the article:
Quote: From an internal perspective, the Innistrad preview season was a fascinating exercise in restraint. Magic players are full of opinions, and every time a new card is revealed, players share their opinions enthusiastically. A few of the things people said were interesting. Some seemed accurate. More did not. Most were fascinating. All, however, were uninformed...
During which Magic-related activities do you learn the most about Magic? I bet it's not sorting cards or physically building decks. I also suspect it's not reading Magic articles or watching videos. No, I think the fastest way to learn about Magic is to play Magic. When you see the cards in action, you'll have leaps of insight that you could never have had while looking at a card in a vacuum.
Having endured far more uninformed speculation that I care to about hundreds of newly announced games, I second the Sisyphean cause LaPille undertook in that column. Mind games can be fun, but nothing compares to the actual experience of playing a game in terms of forming comments with merit as opposed to random opinion gassing.
• Speaking of mind games, Mensa in Deutschland has announced the nominees for its 2012 MinD Spielepreis and the list is a weird mix of old (okay, relatively old) and new titles including a few that have been nominated in prior years. Maybe the process is similar to that used for baseball's Hall of Fame in which a candidate can be nominated repeatedly until everyone gets tired of seeing his name. The nominees are:
—7 Wonders, by Antoine Bauza
—Agricola, by Uwe Rosenberg
—Dominion, by Donald X. Vaccarino
—Egizia, by Acchittocca
—Gemischtes Doppel, by Christian Gottwalt
—Multiplayer Pentago, by Pål Keller Carlquist and Tomas Flodén
—Stone Age, by Michael Tummelhofer
—Tobago, by Bruce Allen
—Triovision, by Susanne Galonska
—Ubongo 3D, by Grzegorz Rejchtman
—World Without End, by Michael Rieneck and Stefan Stadler
The winner will be announced in February 2012.
• Longtime BGG users might know that actor Rich Sommer from Mad Men is a board game geek, but for those who don't you can see him on Attack of the Show giving overviews and hitting the highlights of Quarriors!, 7 Wonders and the iOS version of Ascension.
• On Spiel Portugal, Nuno Sentieiro interviewed designer Jason Matthews in a quick Q&A format.
• The Oct/Nov 2011 issue of Battlespace has been released, with a spotlight on real-time strategy gaming.
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