Publisher Profile: Fantasy Flight Games

Wednesday I posted a link to Fantasy Flight’s announcement of some new Star Wars games.  It started me thinking about the personalities of the different game publishers, and what it means for the family and casual gamer.  While it’s not a sure fire way to tell whether or not the game will suit your tastes, it might help.  I thought I might dedicate a few posts to looking some of the game publishers and the common characteristics of their games.

The mere mention of Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) immediately brings one thing to my mind: Awesomeness Factor.  FFG spends a lot of effort on the artwork and production of their games, which is particularly important because FFG publishes a lot of heavily thematic games: games that tell a story as they play out.  A look at the top 100 (out of 53,000) games on BoardGameGeek will show fifteen are FFG titles.  Only Rio Grande Games has more.  Of those fifteen, eleven are fantasy themed and three are science fiction themed.  Many times these games have specific tie-ins (Lord of the Rings, Battlestar Galactica) or are set in a common fictional universe such as Terrinoth, a world that sets the backdrop for the games Runebound, Runewars, Decent and others.

This attention to production plays out in several different ways.  First of all, the artwork is top notch.  Secondly, all of the game components are well made.  Cards, typically a good indicator of the production quality, are always of the highest quality.  Many FFG titles come with miniatures, and though they are a monochrome plastic, many people take the time to paint their minis in keeping with the other artwork.  (I haven’t done this – yet!  I have bought some paints and brushes though.)  The attention to detail and thematic art helps the players feel as though they are in the story.  If that’s an important part of your fun, this company is hard to beat.

Painted Fury of Dracula minis by Kevin Duffy

The downside to FFG titles is that they are often complicated.  The simple reason for this is that stories are complicated.  If you are trying to create a game that feels like you are in the middle of the fight against Sauron, it’s not going to be simple.  After all, Tolkien told the story of the Lord of the Rings in three volumes.  This certainly isn’t true of every single game, but the more thematic (and in FFG’s case, the more popular) games are all pretty involved.  FFG takes a lot of flak about their rule books, and the fact that they aren’t particularly well written.  Personally, I think the level of clarity isn’t as good as some other companies' games, but I do think they are in line given the level of game complexity.   Fortunately, FFG is very good about publishing FAQs and other clarifying material on their website.

Excellent artwork and card construction are an FFG hallmark (Photo by Matti Luostarinen)

A couple of months ago, I would have said the second thing to come to mind about FFG was customer service, which was so far above “top notch” that it redefined the term.  However, their customer service department, which consisted of one person, recently resigned to pursue other opportunities in life.  (Thaad, you will be missed.)  We will see how well they do with her gone.

For the family or casual gamer, I am sorry to say that FFG productions are probably not what you are looking for in gaming.  They do publish games that are more casual, but generally the level of complexity might well be higher than is fun.  The rules take some getting used to.  We recently purchased Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, and I read the rules three times before I started to understand what was going on.  Even then, I went to BoardGameGeek and looked at the FAQ's to finish my education.  It’s a game designed to include solitaire play, so Saturday morning I hope to actually play the game.  I am sure I will end up reading the rules again afterwards, and seeing all of the things I did wrong. 

The practical upshot for the family or casual gamer is this:  make sure you do your homework before buying a Fantasy Flight game.  While the kids will probably get into the story line, think twice.  Read reviews, including comments made on BoardGameGeek.  Feel free to drop me a line and I will answer as best I can.  If you do purchase it, and it is more than you are “game” for, let me know.  Who knows, maybe your close enough that I can come teach it.  Or, you could send it to me to decipher…

It’s Your Move!

Related Posts:

• "Feel the Force"
• Gaming Resources: BoardGameGeek - the Doorway to My Demise

Links:

• Fantasy Flight Games Website

"Feel the Force"

I am not sure these will be family/casual games, but this is just too cool NOT to report.  Fantasy Flight games has just obtained the license for Star Wars products, and has announced two games are in the works:

• Star Wars: X-wing
• Star Wars: The Card Game

While the second is cool, the first sounds awesome!

Never Underestimate the Awesomeness Factor

I learned something this weekend about the need for Awesomeness; it is still incredibly important to my 13 year old boy.  It may very well be the difference between giving a game a chance or not.

 Battle Cry and it's great visual appeal - Awesomeness! (Photo by Joe Keller)

We have been playing Battle Cry, a game with a modular board that lets players set up various battles from the American Civil War.  The game has various miniature plastic pieces which represent infantry, cavalry, artillery and leaders. The play is very quick and very fun, but a little light (at least as far as wargames go).  Daniel loves it when we play, and I thought another Civil War game with a little more depth and complexity might work well. I asked, and he looked over the titles of my other Civil War games and picked one.

Friday night I was in front of the TV with the family punching out the little cardboard squares that represent units, leaders, political influence and game markers and bagging them as I do.

For the People has more interesting game play, but isn't as cool (Nick Avtges)

My son says, "Dad, are those the pieces to the game?"

"Yes Daniel, though it's not just the units.  This game also incorporates the events and politics of the war, so there are markers for those, too."

"Oh.  Dad, it looks kind of, well, boring."

"Is that because it doesn't have miniatures?"

 "Um, yeah.  I am more interested in a game that has something that at least stands up and looks like the soldiers."

Oh well, I guess I will see if I can trade my copy of Combat Commander: Europe for Memoir '44 , which is in the same game series as Battle Cry.  That way WWII is still a possibility...

It's Your Move!

Making Your Games Bloom – Floral Stones

At times, ramping up the Awesomeness Factor on a game can get expensive.  Let’s face it; a custom made dice tower isn’t going to be cheap.  If the miniatures in the game aren’t pre-painted, and you can’t paint them yourself you just might as well give up on that upgrade.  There is an inexpensive alternative that can add some flair: floral stones.  And, should someone just happen to have a craft table (or a fish bowl) in the house, a few of these might be “liberated” for a greater purpose – gaming!  Here are a few ways to use them, in increasing order of Awesomeness: scoring, game copies, and replacing parts in existing games.

Using stones for scoring is probably the easiest and most common use.  Qwirkle comes with scoring rules that require a piece of paper and pencil to keep track of in the same way Scrabble is scored.  We printed out a scoring track from BoardGameGeek (BGG), and viola! – instant Awesomeness.  The best part about this is that scoring is always open information for everyone to see.  Ivanhoe is another game I own that I use stones for scoring.  This is a card game where the object of the game is to win several different fighting tournaments out of the number played, such as jousting.  Which tournaments a player has won is tracked by the player keeping different color tokens for each tournament type.  The tokens that come with the game are little poker chips that are, well, not impressive.  Different color stones serve the same purpose, have some weight, and just look better.

Creating a copy of a game is another use.  Before you get upset, I am talking about copies of public domain games.  Games like Brandubh, Nine Man’s Morris, Mancala and Senet are all ancient games that could easily be produced using floral stones.  (Stones were the original pawns.)  Rules can be found on the internet and boards for these games could be anything, including drawn on a piece of paper (though that does severely hurt the Awesomeness Factor).

Replacing tokens in already awesome games is another way to use them.  My favorite example is the fantasy game Runebound, which has heavy cardboard markers on the board.  These represent places “where there be dragons” – literally if they are red in color.  These markers are called “jewels”, but they really don’t look like much.  Now, replace these with translucent floral stones of the appropriate color, and the board is transformed!  The Awesomeness Factor goes way up.  Now I just have to find the time, and courage, to paint the figurines and my copy will peg the meter on Awesomeness!

Floral stones in Runebound (image by Richard Johnson)

Did you ever imagine that something so mundane could be so cool!  Go down to your closest craft table store and pick some up.  You can often find them on sale and in large bags with a mix of colors.  If you figure out some other uses, let me know!

It’s Your Move

Related Posts:

• Mass Market Marvel – Qwirkle
• Qwirkle wins Spiel des Jahres; 7 Wonders Kennerspiel
• My Favorite Game Movie and The Coolest Way to Roll Dice!
• Gaming Resources – BoardGameGeek: the Doorway to my Demise

My Favorite Game Movie and The Coolest Way to Roll Dice!

My favorite gaming movie is Dice Boot, which is the story of toy U-boat and its adventures before sinking in port from a bunch of small plastic cubes being dropped on it.  No, wait, I am confusing that with the movie Das Boot...

So, what is a dice boot?  Now that we have talked about dice trays and cups, its time to show the coolest way to roll dice:

This Chessex product is called a dice boot, which is a type of dice tower.  In general, dice towers are gaming accessories that are used to roll dice through internal baffles.  They come in all sizes and shapes, and are incredibly useful two reasons beyond containing dice and helping little hands; they help prevent "dice snatching", and they add to the fun.

A gaming group I once belonged to had one player whose dice vice was “snatching”.  Having rolled, this player would snatch the dice right back up, declaring the result but not allowing anyone to see it.  After a while, it gave, well… a poor impression.  While no one ever accused him of cheating, there certainly were some very timely rolls!   With a dice tower, not only can the group have the rule that only the next player may pick up the dice, but the dice tower itself will make dice snatchers think twice about risking damage to the tower.

Lastly, many of them add to the Awesomeness Factor of a great game!  Come-on, who wouldn’t want o play an epic fantasy game with one of these for rolling dice:

My palms are already starting to itch…

Not being the craftiest person in the world, though, our house has two purchased towers.  The first is a dice boot, as in the video, which travels well because it can be assembled and disassembled.  (See a video here.)  It is a bit noisy though.  The second is a permanently assembled mini-tower from Blue Panther.  I haven’t used it much, but it is a little quieter, and is always ready to go on my game shelf.  Either of them can be purchase online for about $20.00 (USD).  I may paint this one as the Dark Tower in Lord of the Rings, but I also like the look of the natural wood.  It may just stay the way it is.

Some day, I want to design a dice tower to look like the ghost towers of the Delaware coast, which are part of the old WWII coastal defense system.

Some day…

It’s Your Move!

Bait Games – Getting your family and friends to play

Since you are the one reading this post, it would be natural to guess that you are the one most interested in playing games in your family or group.  In fact, you may be the only person interested.  It may come as a surprise to you, but I feel your pain.

Most of my gaming is with my gaming group that meets once a month.  I would certainly like to play more often than that though.  That leaves me three choices, playing solitaire games, playing online or getting my family to play.  I have a few solitaire games; it’s really not the same experience.  Playing online is great for chess, but leaves me cold for other games.  Let’s talk about the last option; playing games with those friends and family you spend most of your time with.  There are three things that help draw people to the game table: great looking game bits, how fast the game plays, and a theme that appeals.

Because I like sports games, I have two football games.  The first is Bowl Bound, a college football simulation that is the sister game to Paydirt, which some of you may remember.  Bowl Bound was originally published by Sports Illustrated in 1973, and is faithful to the game of football.  It features lots of charts and tables and one little flat football.  Last week I picked up Battleball (which just sounds cooler) from the thrift store.  Published by Milton Bradley in 2003, it is the “future of football”.  Which is the better football game?  To a football fan (me), that would be Bowl Bound.  To a 13 year-old boy (my son), it’s definitely Battleball, because of the truly cool figurines. “Wow, miniatures!”, Daniel says.  “When do we play this?”  The Awesomeness Factor is definitely a pull.

Battleball - All kinds of awesomeness! (Photo by Henry Durand)

This works a little differently for my wife.  She likes games that are visually balanced and/or beautiful as you play.  It’s actually more important than winning to her.  Scrabble games must fill the whole board, which is aesthetically appealing to her.  Another favorite is Carcassonne, which produces a beautiful map of cities and countryside by the end of the game.  Players build it as they go, and it never looks the same way twice.  Again, the visual appeal gets her to play this game more than others.

The Carcassonne Countryside (Photo by Mecandes)

Time commitment will often be another factor.  The “speed” of the game has three pieces to it.  First of all, most people who play more casually are looking for a game they can learn fast.  Secondly, they want a game that keeps them involved, without a lot of “down time” between actions.  Lastly, and most obviously, they may not want to commit to a four hour marathon even if there is time.  Ask someone to describe Monopoly in one word, and you will most likely get the word “long”.  At first, a game should probably last less than an hour.  Once your family and friends realize this is fun, they will have the patience to learn longer and more complicated games.

The final factor is theme.  Most people like playing a game about a topic they like.  Daniel likes fantasy themes, which shouldn’t be a surprise with him being a boy his age.  In fact, his favorite game is War of the Ring, which has a fantasy theme, figurines and a huge map of Tolkien’s Middle Earth – go figure.  My wife, being a school librarian, almost immediately likes word games.  We were introduced to Bananagrams over this past Christmas, and she immediately wanted all three games in the series.  Those are the two types of games I can almost always get them to play.

War of the Ring (Photo by Christopher Bartlett)

I will admit those themes are worlds apart.  Getting all three of us to the table at the same time isn’t easy.  Taking turns is the rule for picking games as well as playing them.  I can be persuaded to play almost anything, so that helps a little. Flexibility is important.

I would love to hear what works for you and yours.  Please let me know what themes work for your family.  There may be a theme that appeals to you that will help someone else find a game for their family and friends, and you may find a new theme too.  Until then…

Keep rolling along!