Philip Reed

AEG's Thunderstone

2009-11-20T13:08:56Z

I had my first play of Thunderstone (BGG Page) last night. This Dominion-like game takes the "build-a-deck-as-you-play" mechanic and tosses it info a fantasy dungeoncrawl.

The game has promise, but a combination of first time playing with terrible card draws left me unhappy with the game after my first play. But I'm not passing judgment yet. There's a cool concept here, and a few neat mechanics, so I'm heading back to the BGGCon floor to find players and try it again.

This isn't as streamlined and elegant as Dominion in its design, but it shows a lot of promise.

More thoughts after I get more plays under my belt.

Zombies and Cthulhu

2009-11-16T16:10:29Z

We've announced Cthulhu Dice and Zombie Dice, two fast-paced dice games that have chewed on my brain for about a solid month now. Lots of planning, production, and print buying thought has gone into these -- my side of the development and playtest process was mostly to make encouraging sounds and participate in brainstorming -- and I think we've got two hits on our hands.

Zombie Dice was originally planned with a dice bag, but as we worked on it we slowly reached the point that we could pack a dice cup with the game.

I expect to see factory dice samples next month, but for now we're using laser-engraved prototypes that Will colored by hand. They look great, but I fully expect that the professionally-produced dice will blow our prototypes away.

Writing About Walking and Toys

2009-11-11T11:22:45Z

My most popular post at Battlegrip yesterday had to be 5 Steps to Turning Your Constant Hunt for Toys into Exercise. Not only did it generate more comments than most posts, the traffic was also about twice what I normally see for a non-review post on the first day.

I guess people want to walk. Either that, or they're trying to figure out what's wrong with me and my step-counting nonsense.

3,052 so far today.

Finally Organized Some Essen 2008 Photos

2009-11-11T10:03:41Z

I know, that was over a year ago.

16,000 steps yesterday, at 10,500 today . . .

2009-11-08T15:20:18Z

We went for our morning walk, about 10,500 steps round-trip to grab breakfast at Starbucks in Kyle. The Starbucks breakfast sandwiches are actually pretty good, and when you have a long walk as part of the process you don't have to feel guilty drinking hot chocolate (with non-fat milk, of course). I skipped the hot chocolate this morning, but only because I decided I wanted a Diet Dr. Pepper. And that didn't work out so I found myself drinking a Coke Zero. Not as good, but it did the job.

Now to unwind. I'm trying to get next week's battlegrip.com reviews finished. Two down, one to go, plus I managed to stock the site with posts for the next week and even finished another round of correspondence with a couple of printers. Yesterday turned out to be a great day; I hope today goes just as well.

Alice in Chains' New Album

2009-11-06T23:06:14Z

I grabbed the new Alice in Chains album, Black Gives Way To Blue, this afternoon and it's not exactly what I expected. To be honest, I was afraid it would be more like Jerry Cantrell's solo efforts (see Wikipedia), both of which did nothing for me.

Well, this new album may not sound like classic Alice in Chains, but there are enough similarities that it's more like Alice in Chains than it is Cantrell's solo albums. This is a very good thing.

It's definitely no "Jar of Flies" or "Dirt," but so far it's a fun album. We'll see how it handles repeat plays.

Do I Prefer Web Marketing or Print Buying More?

2009-11-02T11:37:05Z

I spend a lot of time at the office working on print buying; the occasional book (boring), many card games (eh), and games with completely new components (yeah!) all compete for my time with printer and factory reps. Diving into a project, brainsttorming solutions to problems, and figuring out tricks to shave pennies off the unit cost is a lot of fun and one of the tasks I enjoy the most during my day.

On the other side of the coin there's web-based marketing, which I don't actually touch on much at the office. I love digging through web traffic reports, figuring out ways to make an exit-heavy page keep people clicking around the site longer, and the social network side of web marketing is constantly changing and exciting. I wish I had time to spend hours every day working on this at the office, but basic management and emergencies eat up most of my time.

So if I had to choose only one to be my full-time occupation which would it be? Probably print buying, since that has the most direct contact with people and it's the job I have the most experience in. Fortunately, I don't have to choose just one since my career keeps me constantly bouncing from one task to another completely different task. But there are days that I think it would be fun to specialize in one type of work.

Top Toy Reviews at battlegrip.com in October

2009-11-01T08:54:05Z

Another month down, and another list of top reviews at battlegrip.com. This time around there's really not all that much variety in the top spots, and only one of the toys is a mass market release. What an odd month October was. Let's dive into November, guys, and prepare for the upcoming fun of the holidays.

Oh yeah, LJ . . .

2009-10-31T21:40:13Z

You know, between everything I can do with Twitter and the work over at Battlegrip I've completely neglected LJ. I'll try to get better about updates here. Especially life and work-related stuff.

Cthulhu 101 by Ken Hite

2009-08-14T11:10:51Z

Available from Atomic Overmind, at GenCon at the moment, this is a fun book that I didn't intend to read in one sitting. But once I started I couldn't put it down because Ken's such a fun writer.

"If Lovecraft had wanted bad writers to avoid Cthulhu Mythos stories, he wouldn't have written back to August Derleth."

Man, I hope Ken never decides to write mean things about me. I'd hate to have to pay him for saying nasty things about my lack of talent (because I would pay him; his books are just that entertaining to read).

Revolution Review at BGG

2009-07-28T17:08:59Z

Review for those of you interested in the game.

Dallas for Games

2009-07-18T12:09:42Z

I'm in Dallas today for the Dallas Games Marathon. I played a game of Revolution last night and peeked at a post-apocalyptic game Steve found . . . a post-apocalyptic game with a Dominion-like mechanic.

I'm so trying that game today.

No Revolution this weekend . . .

2009-07-10T14:20:24Z

Too much going on. I've directly contacted the two people who were interested, but I wanted to post that I will not be running the game this weekend. Please don't go to Great Hall Games looking for me.

Another thing I don't get . . .

2009-07-06T22:02:28Z

How did Admiral Ackbar "It's a TRAP!" get a page at BGG?

Revolution in Austin . . .

2009-07-06T14:10:41Z

Okay, I'm home and pretty well rested. Who in Austin wants to try Revolution this weekend? Maybe a Saturday afternoon game.

Morning in the desert ...

2009-07-03T12:00:03Z

I'm all full of burito ...

2009-07-01T17:28:46Z

Nico's Tacos in Tucson is yummy.

More Vacation Shots

2009-07-01T12:42:28Z

Photos

2009-06-30T13:03:31Z

Building my own action figure . . .

2009-06-25T10:14:59Z

Only four points of articulation, but my crazy bootleg action figure design is coming together. Casting and assembly is finished and now it's time for paint. I've built six of these and before even finishing the work all of the pieces are spoken for.

Origins is dying?

2009-06-23T11:18:30Z

Well, something's going on. The number of companies -- and game industry pros -- who are skipping this year seems to be higher than ever.

My Rothan Pheyden gets wet . . .

2009-06-23T10:38:49Z

I love taking photos of toys. Especially photos of toys in water.

This is the Rothan Pheyden from Onell Design's Glyos System. And this particular Pheyden is special because Matt Doughty, designer of the toy, scarred him up for me at the New York Toy Fair.

If you're gonna wander around in the desert . . .

2009-06-21T19:50:38Z

. . . then you're gonna need some water. But since I don't want to carry bottles of water with me while we wander through the mountains and deserts I grabbed a CamelBak Vantage 30 backpack. It's kinda cool, with lots of pockets and pouches, and should work great for carrying water and stuff while we're out wandering whatever trails we find.

I think I'm gonna fill it with water and go for a walk this afternoon. After all, it wouldn't be right to go off on a journey without testing the equipment before you leave the house. And since it's hot today this will be an excellent test; after all, I don't think the desert is gonna be any cooler than Austin is today.

Rogue Trader Quick Start is Neat!

2009-06-20T11:53:22Z

That Rogue Trader Quick Start arrived in the mail yesterday and it looks very nice. I hope to get a chance to look it over closely later today, but the first flip through shows that (at least in production quality) this is a head above the older Dark Heresy quick start booklet.

Today is Free RPG Day, so you can find your own goodies at your local store.

Watch me open a box!

2009-06-20T11:27:38Z

Well, I guess it's not only me since Will helps (though I'm more likely to fall into a rant than Will is). One of the new projects at the office has involved creating a few short videos to post online and we posted the first video -- unboxing Frag Gold Edition -- yesterday as I was headed out the door.