Archive for July, 2010

The How We Came To Live Here Review Giveaway

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

How We Came To Live Here Is ENnie Nominated

As they say, it’s an honor to be nominated. Voting is closed now, and the results will be revealed August 6th at GenCon, but no matter what the results, getting a nomination is really exciting. The only thing more exciting about being nominated for an award is getting to hear about people playing my games.  Seriously.  Well, that and releasing new games, or seeing awesome press about my games. Or really good key lime pie. But – mainly, people playing games.

We’re Giving Away Copies In Exchange for Play Reports

The other cool thing about being nominated is that people are hearing about How We Came to Live Here who may not have heard about it before. When these folks look for more information, I want them to see what it’s really like to play HWCTLH. So, this brings me to the point.

I’m giving away 5 copies of HWCTLH to bloggers willing to write a review, good or bad. It’s okay if you didn’t like the game, or have lots of suggestions for improvement.  I just want to know what you think, and want others to know what you think

How To Enter

It’s easy!

Option 1: All you have to do is leave a comment after this post, volunteering. Please remember to include the address of the blog and a working e-mail address. If you don’t want to leave your e-mail address in a comment, send it to me at madhatter@galileogames.com.

Option 2: Tweet! Include the #HWCTLH hash tag so I will be sure to see it. Make sure you are following me at @brennanrtaylor so I can DM you.

I’ll select 5 bloggers to receive free copies. If you already have HWCTLH – great! Pick another Galileo Games offering (Bulldogs! or Mortal Coil), or a $20 gift certificate for IPR.

Giveaway FAQ

What do you want me to write? Whatever makes the most sense for your blog.  It doesn’t even have to be a full review, it could be an actual play report, or just your thoughts on the writing, layout, whatever. Pictures are even better!

When does the post need to be up by? By GenCon would be best! But that’s pretty short notice, so let’s say “August 31st.”

What if I read it, played it and didn’t like it? Highly unlikely, but that’s okay! I want to know what people think, and if I can learn how to make games better for people, that’s a bonus too. But if you really hated it – a heads up first would be nice. I’m not saying don’t post it, but I need to brace myself.

What if I don’t have a blog? Well, this is a blogger giveaway, because we want to reach as many people as possible – but if you  have a popular “other social media outlet,” “print media column,” etc. – let me know!

What happens if I don’t hold up my end of the bargain and never post? Well, that would suck. Don’t do that! But if it can’t be avoided, let me know. Stuff happens, I get that. But – try?

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Posted in How We Came to Live Here | 6 Comments »

How I’m Voting on the ENnie Awards

Saturday, July 17th, 2010

Voting for the ENnie Awards is open as of yesterday! I’d like to encourage all fans to vote for How We Came to Live Here in the Best Writing category. Indie Press Revolution has also posted a recommended slate on the Summer Revolution site (see below for a link). This is, as usual, recommendations based on IPR’s choices of games to include on their site.

I thought I’d share my own top votes with you, along with my reasoning. I’m only going to talk about games or products that I have direct experience with, so this is a short list.

Best Cover Art

This category is cool because you can take a look at all the entries even if you don’t own them! I glanced over all these, but I voted for Rough Magicks from Pelgrane Press. The rest of the entries seem to be pretty typical, multiple-figure RPG cover art. I also really like Jerome’s work for Pelgrane, specifically the Trail of Cthulhu line.

Best Interior Art & Best Cartography

I don’t own any of these games, and thus cannot comment.

Best Writing

Voted for myself! Of course!

Best Production Values

Another category where I have no direct experience with the entries, so no vote.

Best Rules

Unlike with most categories, I have some limited exposure to all of these games. In the end, I voted for the rules that best reflect my own taste: Diaspora. They use a variant of the FATE ruleset, which I very much like, and the hard sci fi implementation was fascinating to me. The rules for generating linked solar systems were brilliant and made me want to just play with that component for hours at a time.

Best Adventure

I own two of these: The Grinding Gear and The Armitage Files. Both are excellent scenarios. The Grinding Gear is a classic puzzle/death trap dungeon crawl, but with a really excellent excuse for such a place to exist. The Armitage Files does something really brilliant with player handouts, allowing players to really guide an investigative campaign with their own input. I went for The Armitage Files, ultimately, because I think it’s an amazing idea with a truly inspired presentation.

Best Monster or Adversary

No clue on any of these, no vote.

Best Setting

My vote here goes to Day After Ragnarok. It’s the most interesting post-apocalyptic setting I’ve ever encountered.

Best Supplement

No personal experience on any of these, so no vote.

Best Aid or Accessory

People have been talking a lot about Gaming Paper, and if I ever played on a grid anymore this would be some useful stuff. However, Krista got a set of the Campaign Coins last year and they are completely awesome. We use them in every game that requires any sort of token now. I voted Campaign Coins.

Best Miniatures Product

I don’t play with minis lately, but see above regarding the Gaming Paper. I gave them the nod in this, because I would totally be using it if I were still running 4E.

Best Regalia

I don’t own any of these other than Cthulhu 101, so that got my vote. It’s also brilliant and wickedly funny.

Best Electronic Book

Never seen any of these. No vote.

Best Free Product

Lady Blackbird is an amazing little game. It runs really well on just a quick set of rules, and I had one of my best con games ever using these rules. It’s also gorgeous. John Harper deserves props here, so this is my choice.

Best Website

I didn’t really check these out, so no vote.

Best Podcast

None of these are ones I listen to, really. No vote.

Best Blog

I read One Geek to Another regularly, not the others as much, so I gave it the nod. Most of these are really good blogs, though.

Best Game

I’ve never played any of these! No vote.

Product of the Year

I went with Doctor Who on this one. It was a really well-put together game, and my kids and I had fun playing.

Links

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Posted in Galileo Games | 1 Comment »

Whither Galileo?

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010

It’s time to talk a bit about where Galileo Games is headed. As everyone knows, I sold Indie Press Revolution this year, and one of the reasons was so that I could concentrate a bit more on my own publishing business.

I’ve been working on games since I was a teen, and I published my first one way back in 1996. It wasn’t until I wrote and published Bulldogs! that I really started my game design career in earnest. I followed that up with Mortal Coil, and then there were several long years with no output. I was working on How We Came to Live Here during that time, but the production process was extremely long. If I’d had some more time I would probably have gotten it completed and published sooner. Now that my time has been freed up, that will definitely be the case.

My personal goal is to write and publish a new game roughly once a year. That’s not an unattainable goal for a game designer, and I like writing games so it should be something that’s definitely in line with my own interests and desires. It’s also a reasonable production schedule in terms of making a little bit of money in this business. Sales from one game alone are not enough to keep a small publisher going.

The indie games market is a bit different than the mainstream market, especially when you are producing games like Mortal Coil and How We Came to Live Here that don’t lend themselves particularly well to a steady stream of supplements. It definitely seems that role-playing customers need to be reminded of your existence regularly or your sales drop off. My own personal observations bear this out.

These facts have led me to two strategies. First, in order to keep my stuff fresh in people’s minds, I’ve been looking at what sort of additional material would be of value to players. That led to the Mortal Coil Campaign Frames I discussed earlier on the blog. The campaign frames have some utility for players of the game, and so are not completely insubstantial add-ons. As I design new stuff, I’m thinking about what could be feasibly added to the game without cheapening the initial product but while still adding value over time. The goal is to have something come out every month, whether that is a little free game, an inexpensive extension to an existing game, or some other quick side project.

Secondly, I am working with some other game designers on projects that may have languished or fallen by the wayside but are still great games. I am currently working with Jeff Himmelman on a game he designed a few years back called Kingdom of Nothing. This is a game with homeless protagonists that takes the metaphorical situation of homelessness (people don’t see you) and makes it literally real (you are completely invisible). It’s an intriguing game and one I think should be out there in a final form, so I’ve been editing the book and will help with the publishing part when we are done. Kingdom of Nothing will be out in the Fall.

I’d like to continue to take on this type of project, helping game designers who have stalled out a bit get their games in print. I will probably work on one or two of these a year in addition to my own projects. This ought to get some good momentum going, and offer a wide variety of things from Galileo Games.

Links

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The ENnie Awards

Monday, July 12th, 2010

The list of nominees for the 2010 ENnie awards came out earlier today, and I was excited to find one of my own games listed. How We Came to Live Here was nominated in the Best Writing category.

I have to say, I’m really excited about this, and feeling pretty validated. Like most writers, I suffer from the deep-seated belief that I’m actually a hack. Having my game get listed for an award in the company of some of the heavy hitters of the gaming world goes a little way to dispelling that impression for me.

I’m actually glad that it turned up in the Best Writing category. I felt I was taking a bit of a risk in the game when I wrote a series of six short stories to intersperse between the chapters. I am a game writer and I don’t have an awful lot of fiction experience, but I clearly didn’t fumble the job. I think these stories along with the setting chapter put the book in the category. I’m pretty sure the rules are well written too. I’m only guessing that the non-rules portion of the text is what’s getting evaluated in the Best Writing category, I’m not entirely sure what makes the ENnies judges pick one category over another.

I still feel a bit surprised to make the cut. I thought it was a long shot when I submitted the game. The ENnies judges are actually quite good at looking at the entire field of submitted product. They don’t just go for the most prominent or largest title in each category, I definitely get the impression that they take their (purely voluntary) job quite seriously and try to honestly evaluate all the products they are given. The ENnies judges self nominate and are voted in by the users at the ENWorld web site. They get hundreds of games to evaluate, and complete their task is a shockingly short amount of time. It’s not a job I’d be up for, so I have a lot of respect for these guys.

I’m up against stiff competition in my category. One of my competitors is Eclipse Phase, this year’s Origins Award winner, so I don’t have high hopes of a win. I’ll give it a go despite that, and we’ll see.

Voting is not yet open for the awards, but I’ll post again as soon as it is to encourage you to go vote.

Links

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