Boardgames News & Reviews RPG

News of the World #2

In March I announced that I wanted to start an irregular column with news from all over the RPG scene. For some reason I totally forgot about this. So without further ado, here’s issue 2 of “News of the World”. Zwinkerndes Smiley

Designers & Dragons is on Kickstarter
ad9897d603761151a8da5eea1038ae8f_largeA couple of days ago Evil Hat started its Designers & Dragons Kickstarter and unsurprisingly the goal was reached on the same day. Designers & Dragons will be a four-volume history of the roleplaying industry starting with the history of TSR and ending with more recent developments. Each book has been written by Shannon Applecline and if the first book (which every backer gets immediately as a PDF) is an indication, the whole four books will be about 1600 pages in total! I already backed this and I am currently reading Issue #1 The ‘70s on my Kindle. If you are just barely interested about what happened and still happens behind the scenes of the RPG industry, you should check this out!

Fantasy Flight Games will release a XCOM boardgame
Ok, this is a bit off-topic but it’s still something I am totally excited about. FFG obviously secured the boardgame rights for Firaxis XCOM computer game and is releasing a board game based on the franchise in the future. In the game the players take on various roles within the XCOM organisation and cooperatively fight the alien invasion.

XC01_layout

The boardgame requires you to use a free companion app for your smartphone or tablet, which might either be pretty great or a hassle. Let’s just hope they release it for all major operationg systems at the boardgame’s launch.

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johnkzin

I wont be buying the XCom game. I mean, I wasn’t a huge fan of the franchise back in the day, so I’m not disappointed about it. But, when I choose to play a board game, I’m probably ALSO choosing NOT to play a computer game for some reason. Like, maybe I’m on vacation at a mountain retreat that doesn’t have signal. Or I want to play something with nostalgia from my childhood (ie. a 30 year old game).

A game that requires a companion device available today will be obsolete by the end of the decade … and unplayable in 30 years. I remember in the early 1990’s, when VHS companion games were a fad (a board game that you play alongside a VHS “movie” playing the background). Those games aren’t playable these days. You probably can’t even sell them on ebay anymore.

That’s what this game will be. But, with the current rate of the march of technology, it will take less than 25 years for that to happen. This game is designed to be a quickly self-obsolescent niche product.

I’ll pass.
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