Thursday, July 25, 2019

Four Tribes Review

I've been enjoying a game I bought recently. It's from fellow indie designer Jason Glover at Grey Gnome Games over the last couple of days. It's called Four Tribes, and it's available from The Game Crafter here.



The game is a light two-player card game with some additional components. It's got a fun mechanic, plays quickly, and involves some nice strategy, along with some luck. The art is really great, as it is for all of Glover's games - he's a great artist in addition to doing the designing. I'm still figuring out the best strategy, and I'm not always seeing why some options are possible (e.g. why I would put any cards on the opponent's side of the river other than the special cards I have to place there). I like the winter village set because I think the higher number of buildings makes the strategy more interesting. Some games have been decided pretty much by luck, but most of them have involved some cool strategic decisions and management of cards. The design is elegant and uses its pieces well, and there's more than enough randomness and variety that the game feels different each time. It fits nicely in the new medium boxes from TGC, although I wish there were a slightly larger bag for fishing around in - it seems not quite big enough to randomize or to fit my giant meaty fist into. I've ended up using an alternative hidden building choosing technique that's working better. My daughter (pictured above) would prefer that the chiefs you're recruiting didn't use the same colors as the buildings, since they're not related to each other, but that's a minor quibble. I also find the special cards, which have interesting abilities, are often just used as wild cards for their numbers, but sometimes the special powers matter and are fun to use.

Cool, unique game, and well worth the purchase for me.

Sunday, July 21, 2019

Diggity from Sugar Dice

I have no idea what they're saying, but it's really neat to see people in another country enjoying (I hope) my game.


Saturday, July 20, 2019

It's nice to write to creators

I got two emails today that made me feel good about this project. One was from a person asking if she could get the completion stickers I made for Doctor Esker's Notebook for people to use on their Escape Room Passports (see here for details: https://wetheenthusiasts.com/). That was neat, to see that she cared enough to memorialize the event, and that somebody actually wanted one of the stickers I made.

The other email was from a guy my age who just wanted to say that he enjoyed playing the game with his kids. Very kind thing to do - he didn't need to, but he just wanted to let me know that he liked it. This is important to remember - there's always somebody on the other side, at the creative end of whatever you're using for entertainment, and if you can let them know you got something out of it, that's always worth doing. They'll be happy all day.

Wednesday, July 17, 2019

Sequel is at the printer

I've got the art submitted to the printer, both for a reprint of Doctor Esker's Notebook, and for the sequel. Very exciting! Waiting on proofs.