You do something often enough, eventually you'll get some of it right (cf. series games.) That appears to be the case with our dear hobby, which, during the past year, showed little predilection for the egregious sort of behavior we have come to know and love from the likes of Terry Shrum and Keith Poulter. Whether that is a Good Sign or a Bad Sign depends a lot on why you read BROG. Having said that, it's time to Send in the Clowns.
The Most Effective Display of Village Genocide, to Joe Youst, and GMT, for wiping an entire city off the face of the earth, name-wise if not practically. The map for Battle for North Africa fails to inform the player that Tobruk is "Tobruk".
Trial of the Century XLVII. Clash of Arms sues Boulder Games. Boulder retaliates by bad-mouthing Clash. Clash retaliates by winning the suit, which result was not helped by Boulder's failure to appear. Boulder retaliates by bad-mouthing Clash. Clash retaliates by having the court rule that punitive damages may be applicable. Boulder retaliates by bad-mouthing Clash. Clash retaliates by releasing a tape of a phone conversation that Boulder Jim had with Monica Lewinsky. Boulder Jim retaliates by bad mouthing Kenneth Starr. Clash decides to end it all by having John Schettler do a game on it, forcing Boulder to be the sole seller of same. More next year.
Does My HMO Cover This? A new category: The Hernia Award. Bulgarian weightlifters have been brought in to see if any human can bench press either Dave Bolt's Home Before the Leaves Fallor the Spanish Vae Victis' (and see below) La Batalla del Ebro, both of which were far weightier than even the enormous DAK which, in itself, raised the hobby to new heights. It's the first mass-produced game with a retail tag of over $100. All getting very Dickensian, as if we're being paid by the word.
Walk-ons in the Clone Wars Movie: It is not unusual to see 2, even 3 games come out at the same time, each covering the same period of history … and usually one that has escaped attention previously. However, that has been taken one step higher (or lower, depending on where you're standing). We now have two game-publishing entities, each with the same name: Vae Victis. There is the French magazine of that name, to which we add the Spanish company of that name. What next? Cloning developers?
Le Mortmain de Poulter. It all started with a large ad in one of the slick history magazines one sees at Borders, et al. A new company, selling a Civil War game on Cedar Creek, based in Minneapolis. Not much else, but enough for the denizens of the Internet to find out that the fellow was actually on AoL (which meant he had access to the public). Sure enough, he pops up one day on the BROG AoL topic (not his first mistake, as you shall see, but a telling one). He - and I must apologize for forgetting his name; then again, ignominy invites camaflouge - started out in good shape, with lots of curiosity from the gaming crowd, and he was doing fine until he mentioned who the designer was for his game. The second the words "Keith" and "Poulter" hit the screen, he was dead in the water. The company was, literally, never heard from again. Even from the grave, the Dead Hand of Cambria reaches out to grab its victims.
The Herodatus Award for Cartographic Accuracy . To The Obispo Apologist, Ted "Renfield" Raicer, for insisting, on maps for two different games, that the French city of Abbeville be across the river from where it actually lies. His excuse? Game balance. Design for Effect is one thing; insisting one re-locate entire cities simply because they shouldn't be overrun is in never-never land. At least he put the town's name on the map.
A Stuffed Fat Cat to Richard Garfield, the doyen of Magic and the entire collectible card industry. RG managed to patent certain game mechanics used with CCGs so that most of his competitors had cardboard coronaries. While it turned out to have far less impact than thought - those Wyvern-filled palettes a-moulderin' in the warehouses of newly extinct distributors weren't affected - it brought to mind some possibilities for our own, cozy little fraternity:
A Screening of "The Wrong Man". To Richard Berg who, at the Origins Awards, when hearing the winner of best Computer Adventure game, jumped up and accepted on behalf of (the non-present) Talonsoft. Unfortunately, Talonsoft's game was not the winner; it was AH's Wooden Ships. Aside from providing an embarrassing lesson in paying attention, the incident also drove the Duke of Development, Don Greenwood, to call Oliver Stone, with inside information on a massive industry conspiracy to destroy Avalon Hill, in general, and ASL in particular. Conspirators ran the gamut from our editor to Frank Chadwick. Intelligence ran the gamut from A to B.
The For Your Eyes Only, Need to Know Plaque. To Talonsoft, whose manual for their East Front computer game was so thin and devoid of any useful information that it just may well be the first, verified case of literary anorexia. That, and the photo lineup of Gaming's Usual Suspects.
…and A Special Board of Director's Achievement Award to Rob Markham, for his witty, clever and incisive Auction Game. The rest of the industry should be so funny in print. After all, they're funny when they try to run a business.
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© Copyright 1998 by Richard Berg
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