Hey,

for everyone who – just like me – bought a Samsung GT-I5510 (Galaxy 551) Android smartphone, updated to Android 2.3.6 via the official Samsung KIES software and subsequently had a nigh-flawless phone with the exception of the display not showing anything readable, please take a look at this video to see if you have the same issue.

Lost Temple

Gesellschaftsspiel

White Goblin Games, 2011

Autoren: Bruno Faidutti

Eckdaten: Deutsch, 25cm × 18cm × 5cm

Preis: 25€ → Amazon (PartnerNet)

ISBN:

• Citadels without town building
• Meaningful choices
• Good family / casual game
• Quite some downtime in between turns
• Good material

Here is another strike of french game designer Bruno Faidutti, launched at SPIEL 2011. Lost Temple is a racing game in the spirit of his acclaimed game Citadels. Here comes the review.

Conclusion

Lost Temple is a lightweight racing game with a jungle adventurer theme. The mechanics rely on predicting other players' behavior and optimizing one's own advancement with some minor resource management. Its components are nicely done and the rules are easy to grasp. It's not likely to appeal to hardcore gamers, but a good game for casual gamers or as a family game. If you know "Citadels", this one will be familiar to you.

Finally, this is the forth and last of a series of four interviews I did on my visist to the SPIEL 2011 in Essen. All of these shows have been done in English (since the Germans somehow managed to evade my microphones). I hope, you can cope with my teutonic English for the sake of the interviewees.

I planned to have the interviews up during SPIEL, but it turns out that editing takes a lot more raw hardware power than recording and my mobile equipment was ill-fitted for this purpose. Thus, the interviews are late. I'm sorry for that.

This concluding interview is with Vlaada Chvatil from Czech Games Edition who had a small but crowded booth at the SPIEL 2011. Vlaada is a well-known Czech board game designer, famous for Galaxy Trucker, Space Alert, Dungeon Lords, his newest games Pictomania and Dungeon Petz and quite a couple more games which have been published internationally.

We talk about his game design philosophy and cycle, how his designs come about, his build-and-wreak-havoc-upon-style games and a couple more smaller topics. If you have not yet played any of his games, try some. He's got something for almost everyone!

So, I hope you liked the small series! If you have any suggestions or other feedback, please let me know. After all, that is the best way to improve for future interviews. So, let me know!

Here comes the third of a series of four interviews I did on my visist to the SPIEL 2011 in Essen. All of these shows will be in English (since the Germans managed to evade my microphones). I hope, you can cope with my teutonic English for the sake of the interviewees.

This interview is with Matt Machell who also shared a booth with Arkenstone Publishing. Matt is a British game designer, publishing small games with a British flavor.

We talk about the reception of his games at the SPIEL, his three games published so far (Covenant, Pulp! and the new, revised The Agency) and some minor topics.

As always, feel free to leave comments (if it's not about my bad English …) and stay tuned for the final interview. Cheers!

Hey, everybody. Here comes the second of a series of four interviews I did on my visist to the SPIEL 2011 in Essen. All of these shows will be in English (since the Germans managed to evade my microphones, somehow). I hope, you can cope with my teutonic English for the sake of the interviewees.

Again, I am sorry for the discrepancy between desired and realized publishing date. On the up side, I think my new mobile recording setup really did its job well so that the interviews should have a far better audio quality than last year.

This second interview is with Eero Tuovinen from Arkenstone Publishing. His company distributes indie and OSR games in Finland and also publishes his own games and translations of indie games. It has been Arkenstone's third attendance to the SPIEL and they might just be coming again next year.

We talk about how indie and OSR games are received at the SPIEL, Eero's efforts to spread the word, news from the Forge-scene and some new, recommended games Eero has with him among other things.

I hope you like it! Feel free to leave comments and feedback, and stay tuned for two more upcoming episodes. Hope to read from you!

Oh, and if you like what you heard, feel free to click those flattr buttons to retrocactively fund my recording equipment.

Hey, everybody. Here comes the first of a series of four interviews I did on my visist to the SPIEL 2011 in Essen. All of these shows will be in English (since the Germans managed to evade my microphones). I hope, you can cope with my teutonic English for the sake of the interviewees.

I planned to have the interviews up during SPIEL, but it turns out that editing takes a lot more raw hardware power than recording and my mobile equipment was ill-fitted for this purpose. Thus, the interviews are late. I'm sorry for that.

This first interview is with Gregor Hutton from BoxNinja who shared a booth with Arkenstone Publishing. Gregor is a British game designer and best known for his game 3:16 - Carnage Amongst the Stars.

We talk about the meaning behind 3:16, his new game Remember Tomorrow, his approach to game design variety and a couple smaller topics. You should definitely check out his games, if you don't know them already!

I hope you like it! Feel free to leave comments (if it's not about my bad English …) and stay tuned for the upcoming episodes. Hope to hear from you!

Hey fellow roleplayers!

I just got a hold of D. Vincent Baker's Apocalypse World. After reading most part of it, I want to pitch it to my playing group, but something nags at me:

There's the playbooks for the characters. And while I do like the selection of characters in the main book, Vincent published some more through dark and mysterious ways. And he wants us to come together, talk about his game and trade.

So, being a (and posessing the) HOARDER, I would like to offer you the HOARDER (or the MAESTRO D') in exchange for any other non-standard playbook you can give me. In fact, if you really want the HOARDER, just ask for it, and I will send you the link. Of course, you can also just leave a comment and hope that other people will send you their playbooks.

As of today (2011-10-07), the following playbooks have been released:

So, on to introducing myself to the English gaming crowd. When I say gaming, of course I mean non-electronic gaming.

I'm a physicist doing my PhD in atmospheric science. When I am not working or spending time with my family, chances are I am doing something related to gaming. In fact, I have been a gamer more than half my life; starting with the dreaded Monopoly and then other board games early on, discovering RPGs in 1996 and finally discovering alternative RPGs in 2006. By now, I have looked into pretty much every aspect of analog gaming.

Besides the gaming itself, I have of course designed a couple of games, some of which even saw the light of day. I've been blogging (mostly about games) for roughly 4 years now and started my podcast PiCast 1½ years ago.

All of reality never was in the first place.

So, we finished another game of Epidiah Ravachols amazing Time & Temp (which you should pick up if you don't already have it, maybe even in this nice package). Oh, and we also finished with reality.

We had a Skype session. Me as General Management, my old hometown group as temps on the other end. This worked rather well, as the player-GM setup is roughly as asymmetrical as the one-lone-skyper-and-a-bunch-of-guys-in-the-living-room setup. In short, we had a blast.

Scroll down for English version …

Oder: SPIEL 2010 Teil 3

Auf der SPIEL habe ich mir nicht nur diverse Rollen- und Gesellschaftsspiele angeschaut, ich habe auch ein paar Interviews geführt, die ich Euch nicht vorenthalten möchte. Leider ist die Aufnahme mit meinem Equipment auf der Messe nicht ganz einfach, so dass der Ton nicht immer optimal wird. Gerade bei enthusiastischen Gesprächen kann es zu leichten Verzerrungen kommen. Ich bitte um Nachsicht.

Wir wechseln zu Englisch, da weder Eeros Deutsch noch mein Finnisch sonderlich gut sind …