The Opinionated Gamers

 
Dale Yu – 9:07 PM
This year, the Opinionated Gamers are in an interesting position – normally we report back on the new games from Essen… but this year, we have a number of our writers who are involved in games of their own!  I thought it would be a good idea to get us in a chat room and discuss our new games for a bit.

[Based on the length of the chat, I will split this into at least 3 pieces for the blog, but what is published here is pretty much what we talked about without edits.  If you’ve ever been in a chat room, you know that the conversation gets a bit fractured from the lag.  There are a few places where I have re-ordered the chat to keep the conversations intact (and to make it easier to follow), but I have not changed any of the words of the participants.  The timestamps have not been altered, so you can try to follow my edits if you want.]

[Any extra text will also be denoted in brackets, just so you know]
The people involved:

Dale Yu – more of a host than anything else, though I do have a game (Suburbia Inc) which I have developed

Brian Yu – has 2 games coming out from Mattel Germany: Geister, Geister, Schatzsuchmeister, Kronen für den König

Jonathan Franklin – Plunder, from R&R Games

Brian Leet – New Haven, from R&R games

Ted Alspach – Suburbia Inc from Bezier Games (he also happens to own Bezier games)

W. Eric Martin – editor of BGG news.  He has no games that he’ll admit to designing

Jeff Allers – Artifact from White Goblin Games and Citrus from dlp games

[START PART 3]

Dale Yu – 9:55 PM
so, jeff – you’ve got two games. where do you want to start?
jeff allers – 9:56 PM
I wish I had more time to co-design with people.

Dale Yu – 9:56 PM
umm, at least one of your games is a co-design!
with Bernd, your game cafe buddy

jeff allers – 9:57 PM
Yes, Artifact goes back to the beginning of our friendship
He just moved to Berlin, fresh off of winning the Hippodice competition on his first attempt

jeff allers – 9:58 PM
We decided to show each other some of our unfinished prototypes
He took a really cool action/market mechanism that didn’t fit in his game and spliced it into my thematic-but-lacking archeology game

Continue reading →

Dale Yu –
This year, the Opinionated Gamers are in an interesting position – normally we report back on the new games from Essen… but this year, we have a number of our writers who are involved in games of their own!  I thought it would be a good idea to get us in a chat room and discuss our new games for a bit.

[Based on the length of the chat, I will split this into at least 3 pieces for the blog, but what is published here is pretty much what we talked about without edits.  If you’ve ever been in a chat room, you know that the conversation gets a bit fractured from the lag.  There are a few places where I have re-ordered the chat to keep the conversations intact (and to make it easier to follow), but I have not changed any of the words of the participants.  The timestamps have not been altered, so you can try to follow my edits if you want.]

[Any extra text will also be denoted in brackets, just so you know]
The people involved:

Dale Yu – more of a host than anything else, though I do have a game (Suburbia Inc) which I have developed

Brian Yu – has 2 games coming out from Mattel Germany: Geister, Geister, Schatzsuchmeister, Kronen für den König

Jonathan Franklin – Plunder, from R&R Games

Brian Leet – New Haven, from R&R games

Ted Alspach – Suburbia Inc from Bezier Games (he also happens to own Bezier games)

W. Eric Martin – editor of BGG news.  He has no games that he’ll admit to designing

Jeff Allers – Artifact from White Goblin Games and Citrus from dlp games

[START OF PART TWO]
Dale Yu – 9:32 PM
Ted, since you never leave the booth, maybe we should get you talking about your new game
which is really my new game that you put your name on the top of the box

Ted Alspach – 9:32 PM
Sure
Nice. I see what you did there.
I’ve got two new games coming out at Essen this fall:
1) Suburbia Inc., the expansion to the wildly successful and award-winning Suburbia.
2) A secret game that will be announced at Essen and shown in the Bezier Games booth.
Continue reading →

Dale Yu – 9:07 PM
This year, the Opinionated Gamers are in an interesting position – normally we report back on the new games from Essen… but this year, we have a number of our writers who are involved in games of their own!  I thought it would be a good idea to get us in a chat room and discuss our new games for a bit.

[Based on the length of the chat, I will split this into at least 3 pieces for the blog, but what is published here is pretty much what we talked about without edits.  If you’ve ever been in a chat room, you know that the conversation gets a bit fractured from the lag.  There are a few places where I have re-ordered the chat to keep the conversations intact (and to make it easier to follow), but I have not changed any of the words of the participants.  The timestamps have not been altered, so you can try to follow my edits if you want.]

[Any extra text will also be denoted in brackets, just so you know]
The people involved:

• Dale Yu – more of a host than anything else, though I do have a game (Suburbia Inc) which I have developed
• Brian Yu – has 2 games coming out from Mattel Germany: Geister, Geister, Schatzsuchmeister, Kronen für den König
• Jonathan Franklin – Plunder, from R&R Games
• Brian Leet – New Haven, from R&R games
• Ted Alspach – Suburbia Inc from Bezier Games (he also happens to own Bezier games)
• W. Eric Martin – editor of BGG news.  He has no games that he’ll admit to designing
• Jeff Allers – Artifact from White Goblin Games and Citrus from dlp games

Ted Alspach – 9:07 PM
Yeah, I have a mystery game being announced at Essen too. You forgot that.

Jonathan Franklin – 9:08 PM
Ted, is it being sold there?

Ted Alspach – 9:08 PM
Pre orders, yeah

brian yu – 9:08 PM
i hope it’s called kickstarter: the game

Dale Yu – 9:07 PM
Probably a decent idea to start by introducing ourselves and how we got into gaming?

Dale Yu – 9:08 PM
W. Eric Martin is also here. You know him a bit better from his other job, the editor of the BGG news feed
he’s here to correct us on all the factual errors we’re about to make
Continue reading →

OG Previews the 2013 2F Releases

So, I’ll have to admit it. I don’t really like the color green. Vegetables are made of that color!  And it’s Luke’s favorite color to play, so it’s got that against it too…  But each October, I make an exception to this rule because dealing with Green is the only way to get to the 2F booth and see the new games!  (Actually, I’m kidding. It’s not that I dislike Green.  It’s just not as cool as Yellow!)

Friedemann Friese is never short of game ideas, and every year when I hear about his new games, I’m always amazed at the different ideas that he is able to put together into a game.  Over the years, I’ve been able to become friends with Herr Friese (we see each other at the Gathering most years and we stay at the same hotel in Essen).  Anytime that I talk to him, he’s always got two or three game ideas that he’s working on, and he’s always seems to be excited to talk about them and get your ideas on them.

This year, the output from 2F is higher than normal as there are (at least) 5 releases coming from the small company!  I’ve had the chance to see some of them as prototypes or in their previous incarnation, and it definitely looks like my gaming shelves will definitely have a green section this year – maybe I should arrange them by box color!

The first game for the year is a reprint, Friese’s Landlord. This is a nearly 20-year old game which was, in fact, one of my first German games that I ever purchased!  Shockingly, it came in a yellow box – though Abacus released it, not 2F…  Landlord is a card game where the players are landlords trying to make the most money from attracting and keeping the best tenants in their apartment building.

Continue reading →