May 022012
 

It’s that time of year…gaming awards time! The Dice Tower has listed their picks for the 2011 calendar year and it’s quite a lineup. Covering everything from family games to war games, this years selection committee has put together a collection of the best-of-the-best in hobby board and card gaming for 2011. Even if your favorites don’t end up a winner in their category, this list of award nominees is a great source for deciding your next game purchases. Looking for a good party game for your next family gathering? Check out the award nominees and you can be confident that your hard earned cash is going to a quality title.

The Dice Tower staff will be announcing the winners at this years inaugural Dice Tower Con in Orlando, Florida, July 5th-8th. Check back to see the category winners or go to the con and hear them announced in person!

DT award

Feb 252012
 

This past weekend I played my first game of Twilight Struggle. This GMT Games published board game has a large cadre of fans among the board gaming community. On boardgamegeek.com it is the top rated board game, war game, and strategy game with a stunning 8.32/10 score.

Recently, I had the opportunity to stop by my favorite Canadian game store, J & J Cards & Collectibles in Waterloo Ontario. You will not find a more well stocked brick and mortar store anywhere. I love going in and browsing for an interesting title, one which I may have had my eye on for a while. When I find one it sort of feels like I’m the hunter bringing home a kill from a long hunting expidition. Lucky for me, I spotted several copies of Twilight Struggle Deluxe Edition on the self. With all of the gusto of a cold war arms supplier eyeing a shoulder launched anti-air missile, I eagerly snapped up a copy.

I have at the time of this writing only played the game once and I feel several plays must be completed to give me the full sense of opening, mid-game, and end-game strategies. But I think I have enough of the feel to see several very positive elements to the game that give me a hint as to why so many players think so highly of Twilight Struggle. I found that the fluidity of play was well maintained from turn to turn. The allocation of operations points for player actions on the board from the cards in hand provide a good source for the fuel of conflict. The selection of a card from your hand to play as a single “headline” event for the turn gives players a challenge to prioritize their hand of cards against the current situation on the board. There are scoring cards within the card sets, one for each early, mid, and late war eras, that when played force a scoring round for a given geographic area on the world map. For example, Middle East scoring will score for the players based on the situation on the map at that moment. Knowing when to play a scoring card is a key element to your overall performance in the game.

I played this game with my fourteen year-old daughter. Something that may not immediately be obvious to us older gamers are the rich lessons in history afforded by Twilight Struggle. My daughter does not have the sense of fear or the feeling of potential confrontation that existed for those growing up and living during that period of our history. Growing up in South Florida, I was very aware of the cold war; our neighbors had built fallout shelters during the Cuban missile crisis and nearby Air Force and Naval Air Stations attested to our readiness for conflict. The cards of the game represent historical events, people, policies, and places. Often she would ask me questions about a particular card and what happened around the situation depicted on it. The designers even include a reference in the back of the rulebook that gives more historical detail on cards included in the game. I would even recommend Twilight Struggle as teaching tool for advanced classes in modern history.

Well blended features and mechanics that flow together typically indicate a high quality design. Twilight Struggle achieves both. I am sure that Twilight Struggle will achieve a special place on my own family game shelf and will be a contest that is revisited fondly for many years to come.

Feb 052012
 

Thanks to the folks at Game Developers Guild, we had a real, live, in-person Global Game Jam take place from January 27-29. The first day (Friday) was all about registration, kickoff presentations and forming the teams that would have less than two days to complete their game concepts. The speakers were strong – all with local ties to South Florida: Derek Smart from Quest Online and 3000AD, Miguel Oubiña from Nuclei 3D and Mark Bradshaw from Stratogon Entertainment. Derek and Mark use a lot of remote workers (i.e. “inexpensive”) but Miguel is recruiting local students to intern with his studio. There were some constant themes coming from the presenters: being successful is tough, the work is volatile, use – and legitimately pay for – a prominent off-the-shelf game engine such Unity or Unreal, and be prepared to sleep under your desk a lot.

As we all sat around discussing skills and needs, I offered to provide QA or Music help to any of the teams who requested it. The first day ended with the artists and devs being shown to their computers and me heading for home, but not after I left my email address so anyone could contact me to take me up on my offer to help.

Not sure whether anyone would call upon my talents, I ended up getting requests for the “Midgard Serpent” Viking game, the futuristic, virtual “Voxel Slayer” game, and the urban “Gang Warz” game. Each required different styles and I had to dig out some old sample CD-ROMs to bring the right sounds into the loops and effects for each of them.

For Midgard Serpent I initially provided a sound loop to play while the Viking ship was sailing, as well as am appropriately aggressive battle song titled “for Thor!” The team made additional requests for sound effects such as lightning bolts and injury sounds, which I fulfilled with a combination of public domain sound effects and sounds of my own concoction.

The Voxel Slayer team was less ambitious, asking only for a single song loop, which I titled “Mad Voxel.” This was a synth-driven dance type tune with retro game sounds thrown in.

Finally, the Gang Warz folks needed a music loop and some effects to play when attacking, winning, or when a gang member dies. The loop got an urban treatment and the effects were short and to the point. Here’s a link to download and install their game on your PC:

Overall, the experience was fun, but it was work at the same time – especially when all three teams had overlapping requests that I had to triage and deliver on as quickly as possible. Definitely something I would do again!

Gang Warz