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Dispatches:
News from Atlas Games
Pieces of Eight Designer Interview
Fist Full of Comics (and Games) has posted an
audio interview with me, wearing my Pieces of Eight designer hat, in their GenCon 2006 section. It was great talking to them, so make sure you have a listen!
(Speaking of podcasts, it never hurts to plug Friend-of-Atlas Paul Tevis's excellent
Have Games, Will Travel. Check it out, if you're into the podcast thing.)
Let's Kill rules now in Spanish
The Spanish translation of the
Let's Kill rules is now available on the
Let's Kill product page.
Congratulations Jon Maske!
Jon Maske was the winner of the
GenCon Pieces of Eight High Seas Admiral's Challenge. He took home a boatload of Atlas product, plus the one-of-a-kind lead proof of the promotional Captain coin we've been giving away at the summer conventions. (
And now also available from Warehouse 23.)
Congratulations, Jon!
Ars Magica 5th Edition Errata Updated
As my first official post as the new webmaster, the
Ars Magica 5th Edition Errata has been updated by David and posted.
Additionally, the new
Short Index for
Houses of Hermes: Mystery Cults is now up and available from the product page.
Please take a look and Enjoy!
Seismic Review on RPG.net
Shannon Appelcline has posted a new review of
Seismic on RPG.net. Shannon says, "I suspect many gamers who have never seen Carcassonne will be entirely impressed and enthralled by this offering, while regular Carcassonne players will enjoy it as a change of place, because despite its similarities it still plays like a very different game."
Read the review now!
New Webmaster Joins Atlas
Atlas Games is pleased to welcome a new webmaster to the team, Wendy Wyman. Wendy will be in charge of maintaining the Atlas Games website and forums starting this week.
Wendy tells us that she got into gaming back in high school, where she learned that patience is a virtue, especially when creating Rifts characters. This lesson served her well in college at
UW-Platteville, when her professor told her that "the internet was just a fad and you will never make a living from it." Thankfully, like most of her college education, she has found that very little of it actually applies to the real world. At the moment, she is happy to live in Madison, WI with her wonderful & talented husband Drew, where she has made her living from this fad for over a decade.
Wendy has been the webmaster for such illustrious sites as
DorkTower and says that she's honored to add Atlas Games to her portfolio.
Wendy can be contacted at webmaster@atlas-games.com
Web Updates
You may have noticed the new link to
the official Atlas Games forums in the top banner of every page, and that the forums icon in the bottom right area has been redesigned, as well. We're hoping these changes will make it easier for our fans to find each other, since the forums are such a big part of this website.
Also,
Ars Magica players will be happy to find two new indexes on the site. The unified
Virtues and Flaws index covers all Ars Magica 5th Edition releases through The Infernal (our thanks to Erik Dahl), while the
Divine index makes things easier to find in that book.
And finally, our friend Atsushi Moriike has recently sent us updates to all of his Japanese
Dungeoneer translations, including a new download of all of the card text from
Haunted Woods of Malthorin. Atsushi also sent a translation of the rules for
Recess in Japanese.
Love for Recess from Ogre Cave Audio Report
The guys at Ogre Cave Audio Report give Recess some rather glowing comments in their Origins report, somewhere around the 32-33 minute mark of this episode:
http://www.ogrecave.com/audio/index.php?id=44
40 Years of Gen Con
We brought home some very exciting news from
Gen Con, about a project we're putting on the schedule for 2007. At Peter Adkison's invitation, we will be publishing a "40 Years of Gen Con" coffee table-style book to celebrate the convention's big anniversary next year. (It's older than I am!)
Robin Laws will be writing the book; Randy "
Keeper of Ancient Gen Con Lore" Porter will be the chief researcher/archivist; and
Michelle Nephew will be editing, coordinating, and managing the production. All of us have been attending Gen Con for more than a dozen years. I don't know if there are enough superlatives in the English language to describe how we feel about this project, personally and professionally.
We'll have a lot more to say about the book in the near future, as we will be reaching out to four decades of attendees to put together a vast collage of the Gen Con experience from every point of view that we can cram in the book. We'll be putting up a web page specifically for people to share tips, leads, personal stories, photos, etc., to help us make the best book possible. If you feel inspired by a rush of memories to share with posterity, or a discover of a box of old snapshots, we will want to hear from you!
Nyambe Minis
While I was at Gen Con, I was lucky enough to be gifted with a pile of minis from the guys at Crunch-Waffle Enterprises. Dan Wall pointed out that they produce realistic-looking African-esque minis, perfect for Nyambe campaigns, and great potential "First Ones" minis usable for Northern Crown. They're available for order through the
www.crunch-waffle.com .
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Happy birthday to me!
Happy birthday to me!
Happy birthday dear Michelle!
Happy birthday to me!
Reviews, Reviews, Reviews
While we were away at GenCon, several great reviews came out about various Atlas products ...
Shannon Appelcline at RPG.net says of
Recess, "Recess! is a bit of a rarity. It's a well-themed abstract strategy game ... It allows for some surprisingly deep play given its short play length".
Read the review now!Shannon also recently wrote about
Dungeoneer as part of his "Adventure Games" series at boredgamegeeks.blogspot.com. He says, "Adventure games have a long history, but they haven't grown as much as they could have over that timespan. I think that Dungeoneer ... [shows] the potential of the gameplay style, and it's something that I hope will continue to grow."
View the article now!Richard Pardoe posted an excellent play session report about
Seismic up at boardgamegeek.com. He comments, "there are obious similarities to the roads in Carcassonne, but I like what Seismis offers. The Hexagonal tiles offer more options for connection as does the draw 1 from 3 tile choice mechanism. The earthquakes (and their variety) add a nice tension to the placement decisions, but still one that can be strategized around. A game that I hope I will be able to play again soon."
Read the session report now!And finally, Jay Moore posted a review of
Seismic at boardgamegeek.com, also comparing Seismic to Carcassonne. He asks, "Have you ever been playing Caracssonne, and someone puts out that one tile that just totally screws you over? You know, you're building the big ole city, the one with the extra-special super bonus tile in the middle of it, and there's just one more tile to go before you close it off and score so many points that you'll lap around the scoring track four or five times? And then some hater comes along and plays a tile that makes it impossible to finish that city? Do you ever wish that you could just take a little Meeple, arm him with a laser cannon, and go blast that tile into smithereens? ... Then you're going to love Seismic!"
Check out his review now!
Back in the Office
Just got back in the office about half an hour ago. Needless to say, there are a lot of e-mails that need answering (including the ones that I didn't get to prior to Gen Con, what with all the crush of con-prep work), and I see a lot of blinking on the answering machine indicating messages, so it will be a busy day. Apologies if we're slow in getting back to people on one topic and another, and thanks for your patience.
Gen Con was huge and a big success. And we'll have to write more soon about an exciting Gen Con-related project that we're going to be doing over the next year...
Promo Coins at Warehouse 23
At Gen Con later this week, we will be giving away thousands of the special promotional captain coin for
Pieces of Eight. The handy thing about this captain is that it means if you own 4 sets of the game, it will mean you have enough coins for 5 players (since each player needs a captain plus 12 other coins).
If you're not going to be at Gen Con, we wanted to let you know that we're also distributing the promo coins through our online sales partner,
Warehouse 23. While supplies last, they are including the coin free with every order they ship in the month of August.
Pre-ordering for
Pieces of Eight is also now activated at W23, so you can reserve a copy or two for yourself today!
Atlas Office Shutdown for GenCon
Due to Gen Con, our office/warehouse will be closed from Wednesday, August 9th, through Monday, August 14th. Thanks for your understanding.
Pieces of Eight GenCon Tournaments
With the release of
Pieces of Eight at GenCon, we're going to host a series of High Seas tournaments right at the Atlas booth (#1321), one each day of the convention. "High Seas" is a new tournament format that will be detailed in an upcoming issue of Game Trade, but basically, you play lots of individual games as fast as you can, and those who collect the most bounty tokens from those they vanquish advance to a final round, where the winner is determined. Each entire tournament takes only 90 minutes.
Thursday 4:00 - 5:30pm, Everyone Welcome
Friday 4:00 - 5:30pm, Everyone Welcome
Saturday 4:00 - 5:30pm, Everyone Welcome
Winners in the Thursday, Friday, and Saturday tournaments will also be invited to the Admiral's Challenge, a final, invitation-only tournament on Sunday.
Sunday Noon - 1:30pm, Previous Days' Winners Only
Pieces of Eight designer Jeff Tidball (that's me!) will play on Sunday as well, so you'll get a chance to beat the creator at his own game. (Which should be all too easy... I'm not sure I've
ever won a game of
Pieces of Eight.)
Prizes escalate every day, and each day's winner will lay claim to at least one piece of can't-buy-it-anywhere
Pieces of Eight coinage, with Sunday's winner taking home the one-of-a-kind promotional Captain lead proof.
If you'll be at GenCon, don't miss it!
Pieces of Eight Playmat
I've just put up the NEW Pieces of Eight playmat in the left column of the
Retailer Support page. Just put the PDF on a disk and take it to your local copy center to get it printed out and laminated, and your demos can look just like the ones we do at our convention booth! And remember that stores can contact us for Pieces of Eight promo Captain coins, too!
PREORDER Pieces of Eight, and Order Seismic NOW!
If you're not able to find our products at your friendly local game store, note that Warehouse 23 has just activated our newest two games ...
Seismic is ready for orders now, and you can
preorder Pieces of Eight: Maiden's Vengeance and
Pieces of Eight: Cursed Blade for delivery in September.
Epic Dungeoneer Review
A new review for
Epic Dungeoneer: Call of the Lich Lord is now up on RPG.net. Review Shannon Appelcline says Epic Dungeoneer "plays a bit faster and you get to the good stuff a bit quicker, which are both advantages in my book. This new set also opens up the possibility for consecutive adventuring, from heroic to epic level."
Read it now!
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