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Beat People Up!
Aug. 22nd, 2002 07:32 pmIt's scary here in Denver. Water falls again from the sky. The gods are angry at us and must be appeased.
On a more realistic note, the drought continues. By October first, Denver residents won't be allowed to water their lawns again until things improve - which means pretty heavy snowfall up in the mountains for a good part of the winter. I'm hoping it will happen soon - not because I'm worried about my lawn (which is a wreck anyway), but because of all the farmers here in Colorado. They're hurting already, and next year will be worse.
So, on to the title of this update.
Back at Gen Con I had the joy of spending lots of money at the Cheapass games booth. If you're not familiar with the Cheapass games philosophy, it goes something like this: Most games consist of some combination of rules, a board, cards, dice, money, and tokens. Every time you buy a new game, you get all of these pieces, even if you've already got some of them, and that's what makes board games cost so much. So at Cheapass games, you're buying the basics: the rules, a board if necessary, and cards if necessary. You can get the money, tokens, and dice out of the copy of Monopoly that's already sitting in your closet.
Because of this philosophy, Cheapass games are cheap, often ranging between four to eight dollars. And they're often very good, as head designer James Ernst is a fair hand at game design.
This time we picked up two board games. Freeloader involves running around a rich neighborhood and freeloading off of the legitimate residents for food, a place to stay, and fun stuff. Save Dr. Lucky involves trying to help Dr. Lucky off of the Titanic before it finishes sinking. However, it only counts if someone else sees you do it, and silly Dr. Lucky doesn't think he needs any help.
We also got a couple of card games. Nexus is an abstract game of creating networks and capturing them. Cube Farm is a game where you're designing your new internet company's office, and you're trying to keep all of your workers closest to the copier, coffee machine, and whatnot. Each of these is only five dollars, is pretty quick to play, and is a lot of fun, too.
Finally, I got a bunch of Button Men. Button men are an interesting game, based on buttons you wear on your shirt, or jacket. Most of the button is made up of a character's picture, but along the side is a series of numbers that describe a set of polyhedral dice.
The basic idea of the game is that everyone throws their dice, and then you steal dice from your opponent, and they steal it from you. The rules are pretty simple, and easily read on that site.
I got a whole bunch of Button men. I got the entire Dork Tower set. I get the Diceland set. I got the Lab Rats/Bunnies set, and an interesting Renesance set. I really enjoy collecting BM, although there's a number of promo ones I'll never own.
But I can play with them now, at least. I've found The ButtonMen Web Game. It's an online web site that allows people to play against each other online. You can start a game or join a game someone else is playing, and when it's your turn you get an email. You go to the site, use the very intuitive web page to target which dice you're capturing with what, and then wait for your opponent to play. I really recommend it.
And that's enough for today. Goodbye!
On a more realistic note, the drought continues. By October first, Denver residents won't be allowed to water their lawns again until things improve - which means pretty heavy snowfall up in the mountains for a good part of the winter. I'm hoping it will happen soon - not because I'm worried about my lawn (which is a wreck anyway), but because of all the farmers here in Colorado. They're hurting already, and next year will be worse.
So, on to the title of this update.
Back at Gen Con I had the joy of spending lots of money at the Cheapass games booth. If you're not familiar with the Cheapass games philosophy, it goes something like this: Most games consist of some combination of rules, a board, cards, dice, money, and tokens. Every time you buy a new game, you get all of these pieces, even if you've already got some of them, and that's what makes board games cost so much. So at Cheapass games, you're buying the basics: the rules, a board if necessary, and cards if necessary. You can get the money, tokens, and dice out of the copy of Monopoly that's already sitting in your closet.
Because of this philosophy, Cheapass games are cheap, often ranging between four to eight dollars. And they're often very good, as head designer James Ernst is a fair hand at game design.
This time we picked up two board games. Freeloader involves running around a rich neighborhood and freeloading off of the legitimate residents for food, a place to stay, and fun stuff. Save Dr. Lucky involves trying to help Dr. Lucky off of the Titanic before it finishes sinking. However, it only counts if someone else sees you do it, and silly Dr. Lucky doesn't think he needs any help.
We also got a couple of card games. Nexus is an abstract game of creating networks and capturing them. Cube Farm is a game where you're designing your new internet company's office, and you're trying to keep all of your workers closest to the copier, coffee machine, and whatnot. Each of these is only five dollars, is pretty quick to play, and is a lot of fun, too.
Finally, I got a bunch of Button Men. Button men are an interesting game, based on buttons you wear on your shirt, or jacket. Most of the button is made up of a character's picture, but along the side is a series of numbers that describe a set of polyhedral dice.
The basic idea of the game is that everyone throws their dice, and then you steal dice from your opponent, and they steal it from you. The rules are pretty simple, and easily read on that site.
I got a whole bunch of Button men. I got the entire Dork Tower set. I get the Diceland set. I got the Lab Rats/Bunnies set, and an interesting Renesance set. I really enjoy collecting BM, although there's a number of promo ones I'll never own.
But I can play with them now, at least. I've found The ButtonMen Web Game. It's an online web site that allows people to play against each other online. You can start a game or join a game someone else is playing, and when it's your turn you get an email. You go to the site, use the very intuitive web page to target which dice you're capturing with what, and then wait for your opponent to play. I really recommend it.
And that's enough for today. Goodbye!
