No show this week. I am single parenting while my wife is off learning how to become a famous writer (trans: she’s at a writer’s workshop) so my time is a lot more limited. I had hoped to record something last week while we were at the beach, but it didn’t happen. Strange, that.
I did try to record something last night about the games we played on our beach trip, but most of it was lost due to the laptop running out of disk space (I was in the other room, trying to minimize computer noise). I’m not sure it was a complete loss, as I wasn’t 100% happy with the result anyway. It would have been a bit of a cheat to you guys in that I promised more vintage gaming goodness, and it was a bit of a ramble besides. I’ll be back next week with Dragon Quest, and then a special show I’ve been thinking about for some time.
For those curious folk, here’s the list of games we played last week:
- Arkham Horror (with Curse of the Dark Pharoah and Dunwich Horror expansions)
- Deluxe Illuminati (with the Y2K expansion)
- Settlers of Nuremberg
- Bang! (with the High Noon and Dodge City expansions)
- No Thanks
- Mexican Train dominoes
- Runebound (I didn’t play, just observed)
- Blink!
- Cap’n Clever
- Gulo Gulo (with the X-Men expansion)
- Rumble in the Jungle
- Katamari Damacy (PS2 game)
- Guitar Hero (PS2 game)
Unfortunately, we didn’t get to Lunar Rails… ah well.
As our daughter is off with Grandma for the day, I’ve finally had the time to fix the numbering that got off around March-April timeframe. I’ve added intros to the GDC recordings and renumbered the Barbarian Prince and Fury of Dracula shows. I also fixed some of the sound issues with Fury of Dracula so the ads shouldn’t blow out any eardrums any more. If you find problems with the feed, do let me know so I don’t blow out my upload budget.
As a side note, I got a chance to play the Dunwich Horror expansion to Arkham Horror last night, and I highly recommend it to fans of the original. However, as with the “Curse” expansion, shuffling the Mythos deck proved problematic (it’s frickin’ ‘uge!) so we had a run of gates opening on Wizard’s Hill. Since the Old One we were fighting spawned an extra nasty when opening a gate where one already exists, this provided some serious concerns early on in the game. So, word to the wise: shuffle well, shuffle often.
As part of their push to clean out inventory, ToysRUs/Amazon has been selling items at a discount. Of interest to vintage gamers, Acquire is on sale for $39.99, and Cosmic Encounter is on sale for $29.99.
Unfortunately, Diplomacy is still unavailable. A travesty.
Until the next episode of the Vintage Gamer, here’s some news from around the web to give you your vintage gaming fix:
I somehow missed the start of publication of The Escapist e-magazine, and I find it strange that the way I found out about it is through board game blogs as it is mainly a computer gaming rag. It’s also headquartered here in Durham, NC. Small world.
However, in the past two weeks they’ve had three articles of some interest to vintage gaming types. One is a broad history of games by Greg Costikyan. Another is a very Vintage Gamer-like look back at Last Express, an adventure game developed by Smoking Car Productions and published by Broderbund in 1997. And the third discusses the possibilities of game rules as art, with a look back at some classic board games.
Speaking of computer adventure games (a vintage style if I’ve ever heard of one), the Gnome’s Lair has a review of the next installment of the Bone adventure game series. I’ve been playing the first one with my daughter (or for my daughter, as it were) and I’m definitely going to have to pick up this one at some point.
As a final note, if anyone knows why Parlett’s Oxford History of Board Games has suddenly shot up to $180 per copy, I’d appreciate knowing. If it ever drops down to $100 again, I’m definitely getting it. A reprint would also be a wonderful thing. Until then, to the library I go.
Heavens to Betsy, it’s a Vintage Gamer promo. Call the cops, alert the media, all that overreactive metaphorical stuff.
Or you could just play it. Thanks.
I’ve done most of the prep work for (what was to be) this week’s show, but between recovering from my trip, adjusting to two time changes, and spring allergies I haven’t quite found the oomph to finish it off. I should be able to record this weekend, which means it should be up by Tuesday.
To satisfy your need for vintage games until then, I’ll point you to the latest episode of my friend Jason’s podcast, Random Signal, where he spends part of the time reviewing the Schmidt Spiele/Parker Brothers game Survive!/Escape from Atlantis.
More from the Game Developer’s Conference in San Jose, California. This covers the remainder of the conference, focusing mainly on the MMBG I mentioned earlier and the game developer’s rant. As before, it’s presented raw and wrrrriggling.
Update: added pictures to my Flickr account.
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This week I’m at the Game Developer’s Conference in San Jose, California. Schmoozing and learning are on the schedule this week (yes, in that order), but I’m taking a little time out to do a few podcasts. This one is mainly about the first three and half days of the conference. There is a little content here for vintage console game players (in the the Nintento talk).
A few caveats: I would have pictures, but apparently the drivers for my camera didn’t end up on this laptop, so I’ll upload those later. And I recorded this one outside using a small hand-held mic and an iRiver, so audio quality will be a bit different than normal as well. And no editing — just me in all my raw glory.
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As I was listening to music today I realized that I missed an opportunity to play one of my favorite songs of recent times, so I’ve sneaked in and added to the end of the file. If you’ve already downloaded, I’d encourage you to go to Jonathan Coulton’s site and listen to Skullcrusher Mountain. And if you like it, drop him a dollar. He’s worth it.
Many of you have probably already seen this, but Joe Scoleri (The Maverick) put up a BGG geeklist on Sunday which points to a series of geeklists on old wargames and collectible games. Yet another set of lists for me to draw from (besides the old Games 100s). Good stuff.
I’ve already ordered a German copy of Tales of the Arabian Nights. Hopefully the English conversion will be smooth.
