Like Brian, I knew Tom's games before I knew Tom. Not all were favorites--his games, though innovative, were still based around the American paradigm and even back then I was somewhat disenchanted with that style (I just didn't know there was anything else). But it was clear there was an original mind at work here, so I made it a point to seek out his games when I could. It was a genuine pleasure to meet him more than a decade later and get to know the man behind the games.

Definitely a tough game to grok, particularly the rules about royal marriages. I played it several times and sensed there was a good game there. But there was usually six months or so between games and I'd have to relearn the unintuitive concepts all over again. Eventually, I just gave up. Still, I'd love to play this with Tom to see what makes this game tick; I think I'd like it if I could ever really understand it.

I really like this game. I was in a demo at Origins once, and it didn't seem that complicated, so I think you would probably like it if someone taught it to you. I bought it on the strength of the demo.

The royal marriages are counterintuitive because the partner receiving the spouse has to pay, whether it is male or female. (Different societies do pay a dowry or a bride price, but not in the same society.) But I don't think the rule is that bad, at least once you figure out how to play it. (Some rules are hard to understand and hard to apply. Other rules, like this one, appear to be hard to understand, but easy to apply once you undersand them.)

Actually, Suzerain was the third published Prism game (after FFF and TA); the publication date BGG gives is incorrect.

AofE was intended as the third game but we pulled it at the last minute for some extra tweaking, which is why AofE is numbered before Suzerain.

(The TimJim only games, Outpost and Mystic War, were numbered 100X; the Prism only games (FFF, TA, AofE, Sz, and TW) were numbered 200X; and the co-design, 2038, was numbered 3001. We playtested each other's games, which is how I came to help Jim develop the Outpost Expert Game rules.)

Before I started Prism my rule was that I had to have one finished game in hand (FFF) and two more well in the pipeline (TA and AofE). I chose these three games from a bunch of different games under development to stake out a fairly broad range of period (contemporary, SF, and historical), subject matter (finance, conflict, and exploration), and complexity (introductory to medium).

The downside of publishing a broad range is that very few gamers like (or even play) so broad a range, which made it hard to establish customer loyalty.

My designs continue to range along a fairly broad spectrum, with relatively few repeating mechanisms other than in the 18XX games. I would love to go farther afield (a block game, a CDG, a CCG, a storytelling game, etc.), but this ultimately depends on the publishers...

In this game, there is symmetry between male and female royal marriage partners. This may not be the case in real life, but it's hard to complain about the fact that Tom made it that way in his game.

One of the few games I've ever bought where the visual appearance was so off-putting that I never even tried it. In addition, I was really looking forward to a game was really about time travel and the abstract way it was represented here was a major disappointment. Probably not the game for me, but it's still a shame I didn't try it out back when I had more time and patience for games like this.

I have been trying to get this to the table for ~3 years. Someday...

The group I game with holds 2-3 'big game day' events each year. Our day spent playing Time Agent was unanimously agreed to have been our best day ever.

The recommendation for 5-6 hours for first-timers seems about right. We spent 8 hours together and enjoyed a leisurely game, a fair amount of socializing plus lunch and dinner breaks.

Setting aside enough time is crucial. Although not terribly complicated, this is a deep game with lots of possibilities for player interaction. Rushing people through their moves would definitely ruin the experience.

We used a spreadsheet (found on BGG) which cut down on the turn-to-turn math significantly. But you'll still find yourself running numbers furiously towards the end as you try to decide whether you can vault yourself into first AND destroy time travel all in one move.

I don't know what to make of the comments about the game being 'visually daunting' (or, even worse, off-putting). All I can offer is that our experience differed. At the end of the game, several players specifically mentioned the visual representation of timelines and/or the puzzle like quality of rotating tiles to alter connections as their favorite aspect of the game.

Can I use this as an excuse to pimp my Time Agent Scorekeeping Utility?

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/fileinfo.php?fileid=22986

Pimp away, my good man. Pimp away.