Waggle Dance. Today's first game with Juliana, and it really worked well - definitely a good gateway, but also interesting strategies. The exchange actions, for example, were my saviors, even though I initially rated them as rather weak. And the victory scoring - great. Efficiency is so much cooler than just victory points in a field. Both of us had 5 honey (here the leader would have won), both 9 bees (here the lower one would have been the winner), but Juliana had more nectar and was thus the winner. Very friendly, visually beautiful and elegant worker placement game system.
spielen - 25.2.2011 - 15.1.2015
Shadows of Brimstone: City of the Ancients. Distributed in this country by Heidelberger and the German versions of the two base boxes have already been threatened. Weird West at its ameritrashiest.
The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game. Twice, Aragorn, Celeborn, and Beravor attempted to find the secret of Celebrimbor from the Orc troops of Bolg, but both times they failed, despite support from the Ents. On the second attempt, they already had the mold, but were then overrun by the Orcs.
Waggle Dance. Just a test flight of the busy bees to get a feel for it, but I like the game! Pretty colorful and a simple, catchy worker placement with enough tactical options. Definitely a good decision to join the Kickstarter. Nice gateway game that even advanced players can have fun with.
What is this all about? | Space Empires 4X - a board game by Jim Krohn. Another program to automate the alien players in Space Empires 4X. This time in Java.
Space Empires: 4X - Alien Players Tool. Bookmarked for later - simulates the Alien Player in Space Empires 4X when playing solo and not wanting to face the Doomsday Machine.
Gears of War: The Board Game. On the day of his arrival at his new post, Markus Fenix made a truly pitiful figure - Dom would laugh at him. But it was only flesh wounds, quickly patched up by the medic and right back in, that damned hole must be plugged. And this time it worked. The grenade launcher that the Boomer lost, which suddenly appeared in front of his Lancer - where do these big guys always hide? - and which he couldn't grab, did bother him a bit.
Forbidden Desert. Navigator and water carrier had no major problems finding their way out of the desert, despite the storm picking up and the scorching sun. The game is really nice, relaxing, and fluid to play, even for the first game - although I had of course read the instructions and watched the game on Tabletop. Can definitely become a regular guest with us, and offers space for 2-5.
The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game. Aragorn and Frodo visited Celeborn and helped him get a captured Orc through Fangorn. The Huorns were a nuisance but could be kept under control and the group made it through with a few scratches. The deck isn't running really smoothly yet, I still need to optimize, even though it achieved its goal here.
Galaxy Defenders - blocked for later, so around May 2015 - with the Windows program you can create your own missions. And with the tracker you can keep track of the current status in a campaign, so you know how it ended the next time.
Sentinels of the Multiverse. Baron Blade destroyed Legacy, Ra and Fanatic on Insula Primalis. I guess I need to get better.
Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer. And another time killer on the plane. Offline against the AI.
San Juan. On the return flight from Gran Canaria, this was the perfect relaxation in the plane, even if only against the simple AIs.
magefree/mage. Keep an eye on it - client and server in Java and cross-platform, AI integrated in the server and rule control with the cards (though not all cards, so potentially a problem with EDH). Oh, it's about Magic the Gathering.
A Brief History of Wiz-War - Interesting history of the inspiration for Magic: The Gathering. The game itself is also very interesting, albeit somewhat random. It's really good, solid Ameritrash. And wild spell-slinging and wild brawling. It's a lot of fun, but it is quite text-heavy due to the cards. The design is really very similar to M:TG, the cards simply convey their effects through text that you have to understand and execute (and not, for example, like in classic Eurogames through symbols and clear rules).
Alderac Entertainment Group • View topic - Thunderstone Variant - Cutthroats & Sellswords. Fascinating game variant - fan-created and brings Thunderstone more into an interactive RPG direction. Always amazing what fans come up with as their own rule sets for games.
Deckmaster: A MTG Variant Format by Jim Bowie. Interesting Magic variant that turns the cards into a deckbuilder similar to Star Realms, but still allows the use of the very interesting Magic card pool. Build your own Deckbuilder. I could have thought of that myself, given my preference for deckbuilders and Magic.
Getting started in legacy- Legacy on a Budget - Legacy Type 1.5. Bookmarked because Legacy might become interesting someday. Affinity is particularly appealing to me.
Warhammer Diskwars Deutsch. Set aside for now. Because, because I want it. Simply because the idea is fun - a miniature game, but with significantly less setup effort and no miniatures to assemble and paint (which would completely fall by the wayside for me anyway).
TheKolWiki. Of course there's a Wiki for KoL. You are in a maze of twisty little pages, all alike and all insane.
The Kingdom of Loathing. Muahahahaa. Ahem. There's nothing that doesn't exist on the internet. And some things are very, very strange. And very, very old. And not only did I miss this very strange MMORPG (haha, no, seriously!) for ages, I also missed the Kickstarter for their CCG. And it all fits the color scheme of my blog.
Cool idea: Decks for every Ravnica Guild. And each deck led by the Guild Leader. Probably not the best decks for the respective guild, but with many on-flavor cards.
Fishing in Modern: Top 64 at Grand Prix Antwerp by Raphael Levy. Very nice report about a good (and especially affordable) Modern Fish Deck. I'm considering getting it - I already have some of the cards, many are not so expensive, and with Modern as an eternal format, you can play it problem-free for more than a year. Moreover, Merfolk is right up my alley - on MTGO I play a Heroic Deck that works with buffs, sometimes also with a Sliver Deck (which works similarly to Merfolk). And in paper, my Standard Deck is a Nivix Cyclops Deck - which also works with buffs, albeit rather temporary ones.
Drawing Attention : Daily MTG : Magic: The Gathering. Great article about what card draw in Magic the Gathering actually is and how to deal with it. Why is the game structured the way it is, what influence do the different colors have on card draw and how important are cards compared to other resources such as life points?
Tokens zum Ausdrucken is the alternative to making them yourself with the designer - simply select the appropriate tokens and print them. You can even collect several and print them together. Advantage: they are the original tokens in terms of design. Disadvantage: they are the original tokens in terms of design (sometimes you want to be a bit more individual). And only tokens, not any card proxies or homemade creations.
Welcome | Magic Set Editor. Create your own Magic cards - on the one hand ideal for creating tokens, or also for proxies (as long as they are accepted in the game round), or of course also for your own creations that you want to play with (this also only works, of course, if your own game round agrees). Use slightly stiffer, springy cardboard (or original cards - e.g. basic lands) and cut out the prints and glue them on, then put them in the sleeves and you're ready to go.
Magic Plugin for LackeyCCG. Drin was drauf steht - a plugin that allows MTG under LackeyCCG.
LackeyCCG - Play any CCG Online, or make your own. Mac or PC.. Looks interesting, an alternative to Cockatrice and allows playing any CCGs over the Internet, not just MTG. Just like with Cockatrice, only the game table and the cards are simulated - players must ensure compliance with the rules themselves. Therefore, not a real competitor to the Magic Online client - but of course much cheaper, as you simply use cards and do not buy them. And it runs on Win, OSX and Linux.
Forge - Slightly Magic. Really practical software for Magic beginners like me. You can assemble decks, use ready-made decks, get randomized decks - and then play them against an AI. The AI isn't the strongest, but hey, I'm far from that too. It's all in Java and actually runs on Windows, OSX, and Linux alike. Nice to give your own deck a test run, especially if you don't have Magic players nearby (or they don't feel like testing your crazy creation). Oh, and it's open source too.
EverythingServerUbuntu - Ryzom - Ryzom Core Development Site. I should take a closer look at this - at the moment I'm playing a bit of Ryzom, just for relaxation on the weekend, and that has been open source for some time now - you can set up your own server with your own little world. It's not connected to the main system as far as I can see (which is a shame, it would be funny to jump with an avatar from there into my own little world), but still maybe something to play around with. Even if it's probably more complex than OpenSim to build something like Lilliput inside it.
LEGO Universe : Game Help - LEGO Universe. Oh no, I haven't even played it (though I bought it, just never logged in due to lack of time) and they're already shutting it down. I would have wished for a bit more patience from them - do companies now expect every idea to be instantly successful? It's a shame anyway, the ideas sounded really good.
Python Interpreter by Noam Gat -- Unity Asset Store. And this is more for my private tinkering: a plugin that integrates an interactive Python shell into Unity3D. Somehow, Unity3D always fascinates me when I see it. Especially since the entry is now free (unfortunately, the jump to Pro - which offers some essential tools like a profiler or support for external versioning - is quite steep).
The plan for mods : The Word of Notch. This is how other game studios should handle mods. Don't sue the people who build on your game, but openly welcome them. Notch even releases the entire source code for mod developers.
MostAwesomeDude/bravo is a Minecraft server written in Python. Looking at what's happening around Minecraft, I think I should check it out. Especially after a bit of browsing - it seems to be a good mix of freeform building like Lego and (adjustable difficulty) monster-slaying gameplay. And since you can run your own server, which can now also be multiplayer, you can build your constructions together with others or share them (though they can also break everything if you let them). And it doesn't cost a monthly fee, which personally kept me away from Lego Universe (even though I bought the box).