Will do. I’m definitely interested enough to pick it up, but might have to wait for Christmas, as I think I’m going to take the Skies Over the Reich plunge for the very brief remaining P500 time. Solitaire games are almost the only kind I can foresee myself playing for the, uh, foreseeable future, although I did get a fun game of 13 Days with my girlfriend, even though I never banged my shoe on the table as threatened.
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/169236/kandahar-special-forces-afghanistan-solitaire - is pretty good.
Warfighter is okay but it feels a little too random and each scenario lacking individuality as a result.
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Just totaled up number of Pax Porfiriana games played with a friend of mine on yucata.de. We’ve played 25 games to completion, and this last one I got hit by a rule I’d never seen before. Playing the physical version and keeping track of all the fiddly bits must be kind of a nightmare. I despair of ever getting Pax Renaissance to the Actual Table. I should probably just sell it.
Have you seen Cole is doing a 2nd edition of Pamir? Bigger game, more developed, supposedly less fiddly.
Arg, I have not. If you recall, it’s your fault I bought that one in the first place. Actually managed to play it a handful of times. Great game.
Edit: And Pax Emancipation is coming? Sheesh. Well, I’ll be sitting that one out, at least, despite the Pax games being some of the most interesting games around as far as I can tell. Just never enough time, people or shelf space. How’s John Company, by the way?
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It probably was my fault! He’s been talking about it and shown bits and pieces on his twitter if you’re on there.
John Company is really quite interesting. It’s a lot more robust than An Infamous Traffic, and there’s a lot of player-chosen randomness, and it has that versatility I’ve only really seen in some 18xx titles and a few other economic games, where you can crash companies intentionally to do well. The promise cubes, essentially commodified favours, are a great touch.
Hello and welcome to another episode of, “What is Kolbex sighing about?” Thank you for asking, this time it’s High Frontier 3rd Edition and the fact that I’ll almost certainly never get to play it.
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Some controversy on BGG about the art/artist of Scythe.
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1990146/truth-behind-art-jakub-rozalski/page/1
It is interesting and could probably lead to some good philisiphical and legal discussions, but it also doesn’t sound like he did anything that most artists don’t do. Artists use visual inspiration for their work; in this case, he essentially makes collages using other images to help inspire and frame his final paintings.
Yeah, as collage is my medium as an artist, I understand that entirely. I think the hot takes and that they demanded a response from the creator of the game was a bit maddening.
:-/
https://postimg.cc/image/fzwfjzwbh/
I have to say, his use of tracing and ‘reference’ seems excessive. His tutorials also eschewing mention of it and making it seem like he’s doing them freehand is…a lie of omission at best. That change of ‘style’ is particularly damning.
Ah. those examples are a lot more blatant than the others I’d seen. 
I still don’t necessarily have an issue with this, depending on the situation. Where are the original images from? Are they public domain? Further, who are the people complaining, here? Are any of the original artists complaining that their work has been appropriated?
Clearly there is quite a bit of artistic skill involved here, whether the images are copied or not. Maybe they could recruit him to trace and improve the Terraforming Mars art…
Are any of the original artists complaining that their work has been appropriated?
Considering one of the images used belongs to Disney, I personally would consider art from him very carefully in future.
The ethics of this stink to high heaven. I’m sure he’s walked a fine line and it’s mostly legal enough to avoid being sued, although, given some recent lawsuits involving the likes of Shepard Fairey, perhaps not.
Clearly there is quite a bit of artistic skill involved here, whether the images are copied or not.
Then I’m afraid I have a different definition of ‘artistic skill’. Photoshop is fine, but don’t photoshop and allow people to believe you just knocked it up freehand while waiting for a coffee. Be open and honest about your creative process, and reference the works you used, out of common decency.
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Clearly I need to read more about it as I don’t know exactly what’s gone on.
Perhaps I’m wrong, but from what I’ve seen, it seems a little unbelievable that on the one hand you have such extensive use of references, and then in examples of his process, he makes no mention of them. I don’t want to rehash the BGG and reddit threads here though, as Scythe isn’t really my sort of game in the first place, so I shall leave the subject to wiser heads.
Finally played Near and Far this past weekend and really enjoyed it. Played with 4, which worked well and caused what I think is a bit of necessary congestion in the town part of the game (ie: resource and party gathering) so as to trigger duels over spaces. The exploration part of the game was very satisfying, and the game feels a little more enjoyable (to my tastes) than Laukat’s similar earlier game, Above and Below.
Essentially, there are two boards–the town you all start in and the landscape around the town, which you go out and explore. Each player gathers resources and party members (up to four) in the town and goes out to explore the surrounding area at any point that they feel they’re ready. There are areas to explore that each present a unique small encounter scenario, and you make a choice about how you want to deal with it, then roll dice, use modifiers, etc to try and meet your stated goal (for rewards). You can also build camps, run into bandits, and find random treasure. Your “energy” is used as you move farther away from town, though, so you need to go back to town and sort of refuel as well as change your party if you want.
There are four(!) modes of play, including a campaign mode, which we’re going to try progressing through and see how meaningful the character building and story aspects are. I somewhat blindly backed the Amber Mines expansion on KS and am so far glad that I did. The game already appears to have a lot of depth, paths to victory, and replay value, and the expansions looks like it will add more.
And of course, it’s Laukat, so the art is beautiful (and not traced from other sources!).
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I’ve kickstarted so many of Eklund’s games and have yet to actually get one of them to the table. The new edition of Bios: Genesis has a rulebook that is denser in biochemistry than any text I read in college. And I have a degree in biology/chemisty.
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I only own one Eklund designed game: Pax Renaissance. I despair of ever getting it to the table, and while I find Phil’s politics (as gone into at some length in the rulebook) off-putting, his designs are top-notch as far as flavor goes. There’s really nothing like them. Pamir I also own and have played a few times, but that one wasn’t designed by him, so it’s actually human-usable. Now, I have played 30 or so games of Pax Porfiriana on yucata.de, and it’s a wonder, but I would probably find playing it in actual cardboard form extremely annoying. As detailed in some other comment on this site, I just now, after those 30-some games, got hit by a rule I didn’t know existed; thank god for computers in that regard. On the other hand, the game got me to buy a two-volume history of the Mexican Revolution (which I have yet to read), something I would never have imagined would happen prior to playing it. If you’re ever interested in getting some games of it in over there (asynch, of course), hit me up. I’ve tried to drum up some interest around these parts once or twice with no luck. It’s web-based but totally playable on a phone or, presumably, tablet.
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