Another Dice Masters What If Response Post!

dice masters, Dicemasters

It’s Monday (or it was when I started writing this post) and the latest fortnightly episode of A Double Double ‘n Dice podcast has dropped.

Continuing on with their blue sky think pieces around Dice Masters, Jocelyn and Kim ask in their second What If? Episode

But before you read my contribution to the discussion I’ll give you the chance to listen to Jocelyn and Kim in the embedded YouTube video below.

In my previous post I touched briefly on the very subject of the latest A Double Double ‘n Dice podcast.

If no more product is released does that make Dice Masters a complete game? It certainly makes the game a solvable (eventually) game where the best teams that always win will be found.

Obviously in this scenario of no more new product on a commercial level the game is no more.

However that doesn’t mean people will stop playing it. It will mainly be kitchen table play amongst friends using their collections (I’ve looked at different ways to play in previous posts), and an even more niche game.

Now in the podcast Jocelyn and Kim mention that the Star Wars Destiny scene started developing fan made content. I wasn’t aware of this and not surprised. To me it follows on from the example the Android Netrunner community set when they too took over the running of the game after FFG stopped.

As pointed out in the podcast we have already talented creative fans of the game creating cards for the game. This just needs better organisation, a governing body to become like the Destiny and Netrunner communities.

With a governing body apart from new cards, there will also be a competitive scene amongst those hard core players still playing the game and getting the new fan made content. Some of this maybe in person events. But with Dice Masters being very well suited to online play using webcams I see the majority of the competitive stuff being held this way.

Sadly unlike Ashes I don’t see Dice Masters being picked up by its original publisher (after they left the parent company) and partnering with a retailer/third party to keep the game alive with new content and a second edition.

I did get a mention in this episode (the new normal has been restored). In an older post I do cover what a cube is. This is how I mainly play Dice Masters with my friends (who don’t have any Dice Masters cards/dice themselves). It’s fun drafting this way. Whether it’s a regular draft or the two player dark draft.

I am enjoying this What If? Series. It makes you ponder the current state of play and what could be.

What’s new pussy cat?

bgstat, by the numbers, Fenland Gamers, gaming stats, life, the universe, and everything, stats, still alive

January was a slightly better month for me gaming wise than the previous two months. But still the numbers weren’t great.

However I should be grateful that I got to play some games. Especially that some of those games were with Nathan.

Now I am hoping now that Nathan is driving, and has a new car. That Nathan will be able to navigate the British roads to find his way up to mine. Enabling us to play some of the bigger games that are not an option at his due to the clash between game foot print and the size of his table. Or in simpler terms his table isn’t big enough. To be able to at last share my favourite game of all time Scythe with him will be amazing.

My top 9 games for January 2024

What I do find incredible from last months stats is that I played 10 (not 11 as Knock Out Whist aka Trumps was not a new to me game) new to me games. That’s two thirds of the games I played in January.

I have ordered twenty new custom d6 dice for Fenland Gamers members to have. It’s a new design for the six face, that has the club name and year.

Like the previous design (which I still have some left) I’ll be giving them out to regular club members for free.

I even have a design ready to go for UKGE this year to give to club members that make it to the show and the annual club picture that gets taken there.

Plus I want to do a club poker chip. But I have to buy them in quantities of fifty to get them at a reasonable price. They are also a bit more expensive. So they will have to wait until later in the year.

There is only so much I can finance out of my own pocket for this sort of stuff. I’m not on some CEO banker salary.

I like being able to do stuff like this for members.

Whilst I’m talking about Fenland Gamers and this ties in with the last life, the universe, and coffee post, I am testing the waters on the viability of Sunday sessions. At the moment I have created one club event to gauge interest. I’ll write more on that in future I’m sure.

Payday was Friday. Which was just at the right time to enable me to order the latest offering from Stonemaier Games, Wyrmspan, along with the optional deluxe component kit. I’ll leave the neoprene playmats until the next payday, along with the Rolling Realms promo packs.

Interesting enough this release of Wyrmspan has an initial print run of 100,000 copies. That’s a crazy number. Usually (I think I’m remembering this correctly) publishers print twenty to thirty thousand copies of a game initially. Then if the game does well do a second print run.

We know Wingspan sold an insane number of copies (well over 1.5 million by now I would think). But does that incredible success translate to Wyrmspan?

I can’t wait to see the next state of the nation post/email from Stonemaier Games where they give the total number of copies sold for each of their games.

Until Wingspan, Scythe was the bestseller. I’m just curious to see if Apiary and/or Wyrmspan have it in them to challenge Scythe for that number two spot. I am expecting them both to do well.

When I was sharing with a friend at work Friday morning that I had ordered Wyrmspan she said my face lit up. I guess I’m pretty excited about getting the game.

Once more with feeling

life, the universe, and everything, still alive

It’s another one of those posts where I let you know I’m still alive.

Obviously writing one of these posts means I’ve done no gaming at all in over a week now.

My free day yesterday was an opportunity to play a game or two. But alas no one even responded to my post on the clubs discord server.

It’s probably for the best.

Not sure how good an opponent I’d be.

At the moment I’m feeling very bruised emotionally.

Thinking about it I’ve been this way for three months or so now.

I can’t wait until I swap stores which should help on that front. The three weeks can’t go fast enough.

The little bits of gaming during this time have been but brief rest-bite from it all.

I don’t think my new shift pattern will enable much gaming. Not unless I can fix the Tuesday evening gaming location or hope folks are free Sunday afternoon.

Will have to see how it works out on that front.

So I’m still here. Just a bit battered.

A Dice Masters What If… Response

dice masters, Dicemasters

The latest A Double Double ‘n Dice podcast has dropped. Which shockingly never mentioned me! That’s two shows in a row now. Maybe for Jocelyn and Kim the novelty of my responses has got old. Or I’m not writing anything interesting. Which is the more likely.

Anyway that’s not the point of this post. This is a response post which they may or may not read. The later being the more likely.

But what am I responding to?

Well the latest episode of their most excellent Dice Masters podcast started a new series called What If…?

I’m assuming by the logo, inspired by the Marvel tv series. But we all know it was a comic book first.

First listen to the podcast below first before going on to read the rest of my words.

Ok here is my response or thoughts on…

Dice Masters is a competitive game. It’s one player verses another player. You take turns until there is an eventual winner.

But that’s not the competitive Jocelyn and Kim mean.

They mean more organised play like store events such as Friday Night Magic (FNM), regionals, and world events.

I think that without a competitive side to Dice Masters the game would not have lasted as long as it has. Maybe!

Let’s look at MtG. It has both a competitive side and a casual side. The competitive side, and I’m going to focus on the FNM and store events here have a very important role to play in a games popularity.

Firstly they help build community. They give a regular time and place (your FLGS) where like minded players can gather and play the game. Friendships are made, cards traded, rivalries made. And dare I suggest casual games take place between rounds or alongside the competitive side of things (often there are games of Commander running alongside FNM).

Secondly a community means the FLGS gets stock in to sell. Which makes it easier for players to get hold of the game. Sales means Wizkids make more sets. You get the idea.

Now casual also has an important role to play in the health of a game. The most popular format for MtG is Commander. Which is a casual format. It wasn’t created by WotC. Although they sure jumped on the bandwagon in the products they release, and cards in new sets.

But it was at competitive events it initially became popular with players between rounds/events.

I would argue there are more casual players than competitive for any of the ccg/lcg/tcg games out there.

But seeing the game played at an FLGS or a regular event being held means that you can easily find some-one to play with. Which means you are more likely to buy in to the game. And the popularity grows as does the community.

The problem with a game just being casual is that of building a community. Finding like minded folks to play with. Especially if none of your friends are interested in playing.

Jocelyn and Kim ask what if there is no competitive Dice Masters going forward?

I think fans of the game would step in to fill the void. Well on a national level. Like they did at UKGE last year running an event. Although my point below on product would heavily influence the long term viability of this.

We’ve been living in a non-FNM Dice Masters world now for years. I would argue that the Dice Masters has gone from being a local thing to a global one. Although the overall numbers are not nearly as large.

But it’s product that we need to keep both player bases going. Without product eventually the game will die. Look at Funkoverse, no competitive side, after an initial flurry no new product. The game has died. Ashes had poor competitive support, and lack of product, and died. The reboot of Ashes has failed to reach critical numbers to take off.

With the silence over the next Dice Masters set are we looking at the end game?

Does the game have enough of a fan base to go the Android Netrunner route after that was no longer a product, with fan created content?

There you go a poorly argued response that makes f all sense.

Two new games and a second play

game night

After a week of no gaming and adjusting to the work routine again (it’s amazing how having a week off throws you out) Diego and myself met up on Friday to play some games.

There were others invited but they had life going on to prevent them from joining us.

We started off with a learning game of Parks.

Parks had not even been on my radar of games to buy. But over Christmas an opportunity came up to buy a copy so I did.

I have to say production value wise Parks knocks it out of the park! This is Stonemaier level of production quality. A great insert, trays you take out to hold the resources. Wooden pieces. And the cutest animal tokens ever. Each a different animal.

Parks

I love the art on the cards. The game looks beautiful on the table.

During setup and our dramatic reading of the rules I was thinking how are we ever going to buy park cards or do anything in the four rounds, or seasons as they are called in the game? The action track or whatever it was called seemed too short. But it does grow by one space at the start of the subsequent rounds.

One of my tactical mistakes of the game was letting Diego keep the camera for a large part of the game. It was basically giving him free points.

We both got a lot more done in the game than I thought we would. It was very quick to learn, and play. We both really liked the game. And yes sooner than later the expansions will be popping through my letter box.

Oh Diego won.

Our second game was a new push your luck dice game called Can’t Stop that I got.

Can’t Stop

What a fun dice game. It worked at our player count. And I can’t wait to play at the higher player counts. I’ll write a bit more in my research post for my cyberpunk game project, because this game was bought for that.

But the history books will reflect that I won the game.

Our final game of the evening was Terraforming Mars the dice game.

I thought this worked well as a two player game.

It did initially feel like a learning game as I’d only played the game once before.

Terraforming Mars the Dice Game

We soon picked up the iconography on the cards.

It felt like an awful long time in the game from the initial production that I did a production run. I’m not sure if that was a good or bad thing. I’m also undecided if it’s a good thing to do frequent/regular production runs in the game. More plays will help with this tactical decision.

Like Can’t Stop I’ll be talking about Terraforming Mars the dice game in the research post.

Sadly it’s no longer John Carter of Mars, but Diego of Mars as he won.

It was great to be sharing these games with Diego. I had a fun evening.

Hack the planet!

#YourTurn, Cyberpunk Dice Game, Game Design Project, Game Dev Diary, Prototype

In the inaugural post of this “game design diary” I promised to write about why I chose to develop a dice game that has a cyberpunk theme.

This is that post.

I love the genre of cyberpunk. Whether it’s books, films, anime, graphic novels. I love it.

As I’ve mentioned many times in the past I was a teenager during the 80’s. I grew up with the home computer boom. I was part of the home computer boom.

I learnt to code on my ZX-81 and Oric-1. Later on a PDP-11 and BBC Model B’s at college.

But that was me. I spent a lot of time bathed in the glow of the cathad ray tube of my tv typing away.

It can’t be stressed how amazing and wonderful a time this was. Every month there seemed to be a new home micro released trying to tempt you to part with your money. Computer games were exploring what a game was. Not only mechanically and gameplay wise but also theme wise.

I loved the movies Wargames and Tron.

Whilst studying in Brighton I came across William Gibson and cyberpunk in the form of his novel Neuromancer.

I loved the dystopian setting of mega corporations, hackers as lone wolf guns for hire.

Then I stumbled upon the Shadowrun series of books. Wait cyberpunk with fantasy elements! Wow!

Then I came across anime and manga, particularly the amazing cinematic and ground breaking Akira. Then there was Ghost in the Shell.

Hackers hit the cinema.

More recently (the last ten years or so) I came across Netrunner and the Android universe. Netrunner captured the whole cyberpunk genre so well, especially the runner (aka hacker) going up against the mega corporations and hacking their servers. It was fun having to play both sides in a game.

We have had some cool tv series and movies such as Tron Legacy, and Mr Robot. Black Hat was more action than hacker.

Somehow cyberpunk is meant to be this dystopian future with mega corporations running things. Law unto themselves. But somehow that seems to be now! I love how it has the little guy, usually a hacker as the hero fighting against the corporate big guy.

Inside me is this counter culture, anti-establishment rebel. Cyberpunk feeds that inner me.

So that is why I’m going with a cyberpunk theme.

Myths and trains

Fenland Gamers, Game day, game night

Friday morning was the last morning of my visit with Nathan.

Usually I get a whole morning with him before setting off after lunch. But this time I had to leave before lunch so I was back in time for a Teams call.

Leaving earlier meant I was back in time to attend the Fenland Gamers club night. But more importantly able to try Cyclades.

It’s been on my wish list for yonks. I even backed the Kickstarter for the second edition (granted at the $1 level to get me access to the backerkit) last year.

So what did I think of Cyclades?

I enjoyed it.

I liked the bidding mechanic for the gods and your place in turn order for taking your turn. Which then determined where you were next round in the bidding order.

But did I like it enough to buy the second edition?

Now that is a tough question.

I have Kemet (first edition plus expansions), Cry Havoc, and Scythe. Those three were good enough to fight off Inis taking one of their spots. And I did like Inis just not as much as the others.

And I think Cyclades is falling into that same situation. I like it but enough to get rid of one of the three already mentioned? If you asked me to play one of them right now, I think I’d still go with one of the three over Cyclades.

So it looks like I’ll leave it to Ben to buy the new edition of Cyclades and play that when it arrives (Q4 of this year?)

Saturday saw Jeff and myself meet up to try the 18xx roll and write Arabella. Which had arrived that morning.

I’d only heard about Arabella days earlier via a tweet on X/Twitter. It intrigued me. However nowhere seemed to be selling it. Unless I wanted to import it. Luckily there was a copy in the UK going on the bgg marketplace. Which I snapped up.

When it arrived it was still in shrink.

When I read the rulebook I thought wow this is going to be on the heavier side of roll and writes.

There was one hiccup to playing Arabella. When I told Jeff it was an 18xx inspired game he was apprehensive about it. He is not a fan of 18xx games.

I’d never played an 18xx game before. So this was going to be a way for me to dip my toe in to the 18xx water.

For this first game I went against the advice of the rulebook and didn’t use the AI to add a third player. I want to be able to just focus on the game and not have the overhead and distraction of running the AI.

It is interesting that there are no setup adjustments for player count. Well not if you discount the placement of cubes during setup.

Arabella didn’t disappoint.

It is on the heavier side of the roll and writes.

I really enjoyed it and surprisingly so did Jeff.

It had the feel of an 18xx but not the drawback(s) according to him. Particularly the share side.

We both agreed the wooden dice are ok, but would it have hurt to use plastic ones?

The rulebook is ok. Slight grammar errors. Plus it was not clear that the white dice are your starting dice. But I’m giving a little leeway as the designers are east European I believe, and it could just be a translation issue.

The game does start slow as you start to build your railway, but boy does it ramp towards the end.

Arabella is also a very mathy game! Especially when running your trains or calculating the share dividends.

I definitely need to play this with more players. I think it’s going to be a very different experience.

We followed up with a game of one of Jeff’s Christmas presents Star Trek Away Missions.

This is a fun two player Star Trek game. I played the Federation with a ST:TNG crew, whilst Jeff played the Borg.

It was the intro scenario we played.

So basically I needed to complete at least five mission cards over the three rounds to get my objective points at the end.

This is a skirmish like game or shares some of the mechanics. Players take turns activating a character in their squad/team. The game that comes to kind with that activating mechanic is Star Wars Imperial Assault or Last Days.

There is hand management as well to consider not only for your mission cards, but also for m

Because the game is played over three rounds it is very quick.

I liked it and would play again.

New Dice Bag

accessories, dice masters, Dicemasters, first look

At the start of December or it might have been mid December. Any way it was in December before Christmas I decided to treat myself to a new dice bag to use with Dice Masters.

I had been tempted by the handmade ones by Jocelyn. Who just happens to be one half of the rather great Dice Masters podcast A Double Double and Dice. You remember me mentioning them in the past. That’s the podcast that reads out my comments! So I’m not biased at all. Honest.

Anyway the dice bag I ordered from Jocelyn arrived this morning.

I really like this dice bag.

It’s very personal to me. The reason being when you order you select one of the many themed material patterns that Jocelyn has on her Etsy page for the outside (I went with the rather tasteful spider web pattern). Then I chose the what I refer to as lime green lining for the inside.

Once the order was placed Jocelyn contacted me to confirm my material choices. Which I confirmed.

I like that touch. Seeing images of the two materials next to each other gives you an idea if they work or not. Luckily for me I thought my choices did.

One design choice of these dice bags that I really like is the use of ribbon to close the dice bag over cord. I think it looks better and does the same job.

The included note was a nice touch. It’s little things like that, and the confirmation of materials that make great customer service, and have you ordering more.

I’m really happy with this dice bag. My only issue is I don’t have enough money to get all the various patterns of material I want. There are a lot of cool ones.

If you want to get your own dice bag from Jocelyn you can get it at Jocestitch on Etsy.

Did you cheat?

father son gaming, Game day

Not much gaming got done on our last full day together.

We played two new games that I wanted to try with Nathan. Those being High Score and Viva Java the coffee game the dice game.

I’m not going to go into much detail about them here. I’ll save my discussion about them for my game dev posts.

Nathan won High Score. Although I think he may have manipulated the dice once or twice!

Viva Java I won.

After the games I finished off our tea of roast lamb. The gravy was amazing. And I thought the lamb went really well with my 5 or 6 bean stew that I made. Sadly a combo Nathan did not get to enjoy as he doesn’t like beans.

Our lunch has been curry wurst a German street food I belief. Basically it’s bratwurst with a curry sauce, with some chips. The origins of the curry sauce recipe goes back to after the Second World War where legend goes a German lady was challenged by a US soldier to come up with a recipe/sauce using ketchup.

After tea was spent watching season one of Reacher. Which Nathan hadn’t seen before, followed by the start of season one of Jack Ryan.

It was a chill day with my son. Just what I needed.

I’ll do anything for money but I won’t do that!

father son gaming, Game day

My first full day with Nathan saw a favourite of his (and mine) Star Wars Outer Rim with the Unfinished Business expansion hit the table.

I think the last couple of visits we’ve not managed to get Outer Rim to the table. So it was nice to get this to the table again.

Nathan started setting it up. And by that I mean he put the outer rim segments together before asking me to finish off the setup.

Setup and tear down is a doddle for me. I have seperate deck boxes for the various decks, baggies for the tokens and standees.

Nathan chose Boba Fett (again, as a Renowned Smuggler) and I went with Doctor Aphra (Living Legend).

Through out the game I felt Nathan had the credit advantage, and he did manage to upgrade his ship twice. Whilst for the whole game I never upgraded my ship.

Play was interrupted for a roast chicken thigh and Yorkshire pudding tea.

After the food break I seemed to edge ahead by completing two of my three ambition objectives before Nathan had completed one of his. But a late surge from Nathan meant we were both racing to complete our final objective and win the game.

Sadly a good dice roll by Nathan on a final job I needed to complete to get me the funds to trigger my final objective denied me that one more turn I needed, as he finished his final objective on his next turn after I completed the job.

It was a fun afternoon and evening spent with Nathan in the Outer Rim.