News: A pile of recent thoughts and issues

Today I am writing for the purpose of recording all of my gaming updates in one shot. My time for writing only continues to diminish as my family requires more of my time and attention. Thank you for continuing to follow Games on the Table when I manage to get something posted.

Stolen penguins!

During the Christmas break, I had accidentally left my copy of Hey! That's My Fish! in the staff break room where my gaming group plays board games every Wednesday at lunch. When I returned from the break, I was pleased to see my game waiting happily for me on the counter where I had forgotten it. I had brought my teapot to the break room to clean it, and so I set my recovered game box on the recycle bin right next to the sink. For some reason I can't remember now, I had set a paper towel on top of the box. After rinsing my teapot, I walked back to my office. Late that afternoon, I realized that I had left my game in the break room once again! I hurried back to retrieve it only to discover that the box was not where I had left it. It wasn't on the vending machines, microwaves, counters, or refrigerator. It was gone. I checked all lost-and-founds, which turned up nothing. I contacted the head of custodial services, who kindly checked with his crew to see if they had seen the game box, which they hadn't. My conclusion: someone swiped my game. Hey! Those were my fish! I had enjoyed 26 plays of that game before the pilfering. It was one of my favorite filler games, but I just can't bring myself to sink the cash on another copy. Goodbye, little penguins. I'll miss you.

Download the Dice Tower Theme

The orchestral theme I composed for Tom Vasel's podcast, The Dice Tower, is now available for download from the Dice Tower website. You'll only hear chunks of this 3-minute piece of music on the actual podcast, so go download the track to listen to it in its entirety! (Look for the March 11 news on the front page of the Dice Tower website).

My new favorite game

A few months ago, I purchased Donald Vaccarino's card game, Dominion. Back when this game was being developed, and was frequently hyped on BoardGameNews.com, I was following it with great interest. Well, the reports were all true - this game is fantastic. I couldn't have imagined any game being more enjoyable than my other favorite games, but once I played Dominion a few times, it jumped right up to the top of my list. After one play, I wasn't sure how I liked it. After two or three plays, I thought I was starting to like it. After several plays, I really liked it. As of 20 in-person plays as of this writing, and many plays on BSW, I love it. Coming this month or next is the expansion for Dominion. If I can get enough people at work to join a game order, I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on Dominion: Intrigue. Vaccarino's design is just brilliant. He can expand Dominion to no end, keeping it greatly customizable, and highly replayable. This game provides much of the pleasure of a CCG, without all the downsides. Thank you, Mr. Vaccarino.

RPGGeek?

I'm still tracking the development of RPGGeek as much as I can. There is very little information about it. The last I read, it looks as if RPGGeek is going to be incorporated into the already-existing BGG as we know it. In this post Scott Alden indicates that "Board Games" and "RPGs" will be selectable menu bar items. This makes one wonder if such a menu bar will eventually include the other proposed "geek" sites, such as Books, Movies, and Video Games.

Brief overview series

I know there are a number of you who are eagerly awaiting my next brief overview video. Thanks again for the encouraging comments you've sent - I appreciate them very much. I am still trying to find a minute here and there to work on the upcoming Race for the Galaxy video. I don't know how much longer it will be. So, the fact that this video is indeed coming is hopefully good news to you. Unfortunately, I think I will put the brief overview series on the backburner after this next video. I recently spent some time calculating my daily schedule, and my free time comes out to almost nothing. Because of the other pursuits and priorities in my life which come before board games (family time, music composition, reading) I am having a hard time fitting in time for other hobbies, including blogging and the brief overview videos. There are so many things I enjoy doing, but currently, I have a list of 3 abandoned hobbies/interests, 14 backburner hobbies/interests, and 10 current and ongoing hobbies/interests. And the one that takes the most time - wife and children - isn't even on the list. It's just reality - a pleasant one, mind you - but it's reality. My family needs me, and as the years go by, I find that I must abandon more and more of my personal pursuits for the sake of others. Thus is life.

The sweet taste of pulp

My background in the pulp genre, as I've explained before, was nil before I played the RPG, Spirit of the Century. Listening to the Red Panda audio drama (which I highly recommend) helped me to understand the genre even more. Then recently, I listened to a free audio book as a podcast from Uvula Audio. The book was The Man of Bronze, by Lester Dent. This is one of the early Doc Savage stories, and from what I've gathered, this actually may have been the first (correct me if I'm wrong). While I don't think the story has enough angst for today's audience, I actually loved the story. Doc Savage is the kind of hero I like - he doesn't seem to ever make mistakes. The guy has no weaknesses. He's better than everyone at everything, and you can always count on him to have a solution. He has a group of other skilled guys helping him, and they spend the whole story adventuring in . . . I don't want to spoil anything for you. So, if you're interested in pulp, Doc Savage, or adventure at all, go listen to this free dramatic reading of The Man of Bronze!

Where have I been?

I realize that I haven't posted for a while. The reason for this is that I only have so many time slots where I can write for Games on the Table.

One fact you may or may not know is that I am a composer. Lately, I've had so much music to compose that I've had less time to devote to Games on the Table. If you are a listener to the podcast The Dice Tower, you will know that I just finished the new orchestral Dice Tower theme music in time for episode 128. If you would like to hear this theme in its entirety (about 3:15 in length), Tom played it all the way through in episode 128. From now on, you'll only hear short clips in Dice Tower episodes and in Tom's Dice Tower videos. You'll notice that Tom's video reviews include jazz music. This is a jazz arrangement of the main melody from The Dice Tower Theme that I finished shortly after, per Tom's request. So head over to the Dice Tower podcast and listen to episode 128. If you like the Dice Tower Theme, I'll have it available as a download from my website in the future, and Tom might make it available as well. I still need to polish up the final release of this track.

Right now, I have two priorities for Games on the Table. First, you seem to enjoy the brief overview videos and I like making them, so I hope to keep producing those from time to time. Second, the Geek at the Table interviews have been really interesting, so I'd like to do more of those. I'm not sure how frequently I'll be able to post with the amount of time I'm spending in the studio, but I'll try to keep the content coming.

If there is some other type of content that you enjoy and would like more of, please let me know. And if you listen to the samples on my website and like my music, why not consider hiring me to compose for your internet media?

Brief Overview Series Ep. 7: Coloretto

It's been a few months, but I finally got around to finishing another episode in my Brief Overview series! This time around, thanks to a request on BGG, we're taking a look at one of my favorite games, Coloretto, by Michael Schacht.


Brief Overview series Ep. 7: Coloretto

You will notice that I've added a little theme music. Let me briefly explain. Long ago, my friend Jack and I were preparing to start a video podcast series called "The New Box" about board games, similar to what the guys at Obsessed With Gaming do now. Only, we were going to have discussion between the two of us regarding the game we were reviewing. We were well into working on the first episode when we were confronted with the difficulty of schedule matching and busy-ness. We decided to bail on the project before we got in too deep. We just couldn't realistically handle the load.

I had already composed and recorded the first part of a musical theme for the show. So, I remembered about this piece of music as I was working on the Coloretto video. I went up to the studio, touched the piece up a bit, cutting it down to one statement of the melody and ending it at that. I mixed the piece and exported it to audio, then I imported it as an opener and closer for the video.

So there you have it - a jazz theme composed by yours truly. This little piece is now the official Brief Overview Series Theme.

What will be the next brief overview video? I am always open for requests. If you would like a brief overview of something from my collection, comment here or email me at the address posted on the right side of this page.