Thursday, May 10, 2007

An Experimental Post... and Board Games to Boot!

First off, I'm trying to publish a blog entry via email so if this doesn't get through, you'll never see this post anyway.

Second, media coverage really helps entice people to buy a product, even if it's a "soft-sell" or not directly telling you to "go buy it". For example, visits to Newsarama almost makes me purchase comics I never intended on buying. Lately, the criminal in question is listening to a podcast interview with Joshua Frost (from Paizo Publishing) by Pulp Gamer.

Paizo's new product is Stonehenge: An Anthology Board Game. What that basically means is that you get a board game that can be played several ways, in the same way that a deck of playing cards can be used to play solitaire, poker, or bridge, or the way Half-Life served as an engine for various games (the most notable is Counterstrike). It's an innovative concept that makes you wonder why someone hasn't done it in the first place.

Anyway, you get five great game designers working on Stonehenge, and there's other equally-talented game designers working on the expansion (and the next anthology board game after that). My problem with the product page of Stonehenge is that while it gives the credits of one of the designers, Mike Selinker, it doesn't give the rest. Here's a quick run-down of the various designers and the games they've designed:

  • Mike Selinker (Pirates of the Spanish Main, Axis & Allies, and Risk: Godstorm)
  • James Ernest (founded Cheapass Games which gave us the likes of Kill Doctor Lucky, Before I Kill You, Mr. Bond, Give Me the Brain, and Diceland) [Of the four, I've only played Kill Doctor Lucky.]
  • Richard Borg ( Battle Cry and BattleLore)
  • Bruno Faidutti (Knightmare Chess, Mystery of the Abbey , and Citadels)
  • Richard Garfield (Magic: The Gathering, RoboRally) [I didn't even have to use wikipedia!
Of course my question will is...will it be available here in the Philippines, or will I have to trade an arm and a leg for it?

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