I’m just still amused/annoyed that no one will officially explain how the algorithm “broke.” There’s a comment under the article that says FFG was hit by some ransomware, but I would have appreciated some transparency from FFG/whatever Christian Petersen’s new company is called, in explaining what happened with KeyForge.
Hard to trust a company that won’t explain what went wrong and what they’re doing to try to prevent that from happening again.
They probably aren’t transparent because it’s embarrassing.
Ransomware is the rumor, and is also the most likely and reasonable explanation.
The way I imagine it is that they had really poor development practices. Either they had all the source code in one central location, or even worse, they were live-coding on a single production server. They definitely weren’t using Git. If they were, this could not have happened. They also either had no backups, or every location where backups were stored were compromised simultaneously.
Yes, they are victims, but they are victims like someone who is victim of a burglary who had a house without doors. To admit the truth would be to admit incompetence, and that is why they won’t.
I haven’t listened to this podcast myself, but it was linked a while ago on a Netrunner Discord server I am on regularly. Supposedly here a former FFG employee confirms that it was a Ransomware attack.
So Asmodee can’t admit it because its both embarrassing and a potential stock price hit (traded in Paris publicly) and the new company that bought the rights back can’t say anything because then they get hit with a libel lawsuit for damaging Asmodee’s reputation with this information that no outside source has broken/can confirm independently as of yet.
I get that, but Christian Petersen could still say something like “We’re taking X,Y, and Z steps to secure the algorithm or whatever for the long term success/stability of the game.”
He could say what his company is doing to mitigate it from happening again without acknowledging why he needs to take those steps in the first place.
I’ve only ever heard negative things about that guy, so it’s no surprise that he continues to disappoint.
My sister got me Parks (2019) and while I’ve yet to play a game, I’ve read the rules and unpacked it and chefs kiss its so beautiful. Gameplay-wise its a more interesting/involved Hokkaido style travel game where you’re trying to have the best time (in this case see the most US National parks) as you hike through America in different seasons. All the feelies are high production value.
Enjoying listening Quinn’s talk about how he tried to make a video review of Mahjongg but ultimately scrapped it because the entire history and breadth of the game was too wide and deep to cover in their usual review format.
I suspect it is because that site is doing something to block image hotlinking. Download the image to your local device and then upload it into the forum post.
YouTuber Oats Jenkins made a couple of videos on Monopoly. The first video details his criticisms of the game (as well as a couple of spinoffs that improve the mechanics), and his second video shows his own version of Monopoly that he feels would make the game better.
He uploaded the rules and files for the board on Google Drive if you’re interested in trying it out yourself.
Someone already fixed Monoopoly.
I knew about Landlord’s Game, but Anti-Monopoly (and Anti-Monopoly II!) was new to me. The Monopoly people, suing a competitor out of existence. Can’t make it up.
Someone finally realized CAH design flaws.
I laughed way too much at this.
So you may have heard of the new-ish Ravensburger/Disney CCG called Lorcana. Pretty sure we talked about it on the show.
Obviously I’m not about to play a CCG in 2023, but I was curious to at least try it to see how it played. It looked like it actually had a chance to go up there with M:tG and Pokemon, and that seems to be panning out.
However, after PAX Unplugged, I’ve given up entirely on even caring about it.
There was already a situation where they were not printing enough cards. Nobody can get them at retail price basically anywhere. Ok, but then they released an expansion. The game has hardly been out for 5 minutes, nobody can even get the base set, and you are shipping out an expansion? And what do I read in the news now?
ANOTHER expansion?
Until you can keep your base set in stock at retail, you have no business shipping out expansions.
So what did I see at PAX Unplugged? Well, there was a Ravensburger booth. They actually did have a stock of Lorcana cards there, but I couldn’t really see which ones. I don’t know if they were base set, expansion, or both. But I did sit down at a freeplay gaming table to find some leftover wrappers from expansion boosters that some slob didn’t bother to put in the trash.
To their credit, they were selling them at retail price. But they had an entire separate line in the morning to sell these cards since demand was so high. And they didn’t save any stock for Sunday. They just let it all go on Saturday. They couldn’t even print enough cards to satisfy the convention demand.
And what else did I see there? I saw one attendee with an enormous binder that had like, all the cards. I don’t know how much that person spent to get all those, but I think they could have gotten at least a computer or two.
So yeah, Lorcana, RIP.
Instead, there is another CCG which is doing something interesting.
Ok, so this is still a CCG, so I’m not going to be playing it seriously beyond maybe getting some starters to try it out. However, they are doing something very fascinating.
First you open some cards, and then you scan them into the app. They then have a normal old database that tracks who owns which cards. They say they are not using blockchain/NFTs. That’s exactly what I’ve said people should do. Just use a regular old database. That record in the database shows who owns which card. If you want to trade with someone, you trade in the app.
Now here is the truly fascinating part of Altered, they are explicitly recognizing the worthlessness of cardboard.
Print your cards on demand
Trade, sell, or buy from collectors worldwide using your smartphone. At any time, select cards from your collection and have them printed and delivered to your doorstep, brand new and in your preferred language. Print decks for yourself and your friends. Stolen or lost cards, proxies – the possibilities are endless.
The record in the normal old database is what indicates ownership of cards. Cardboard is just a representation to use for playing the game. As long as a card is yours, you can print as many copies as you need, for a price of course. But presumably for the price of paper, ink, shipping, labor, and profit.
This is absolutely fantastic. Of course, the downside is that if the company dies or stops supporting the game, the app and print-on-demand facilities will also vanish. As long as you get all the cards you need before that happens, you can securely play the game. That assumes the game is worth playing, which is TBD. Still, I applaud the effort, and am excited to see how it goes.
And to see how it goes they have free print and play decks!
I wish the art style for Altered TCG was more distinctive, just getting generic Fantasy MMO/MOBA F2P game vibes from it.
I know for me personally, and a good chunk of others, the art is a major aspect of the appeal of a CCG/TCG/LCG with MTG or Netrunner as standout examples.
The art is very important in games like this. If the theme doesn’t appeal to people, they probably aren’t going to play the game even if the game is great. No matter how good the Disney CCG is, someone who doesn’t like Mickey Mouse isn’t going to play it.
But even though it’s sort of a generic fantasy theme, Netrunner was mostly a generic Cyberpunk theme. If you can get people to play the game, you can start to build the lore and get people to start caring about it.
I’m gonna circle back to Aegean Sea now that the game has actually been released and other people have experienced it.
First: for those who are interested, I made an implementation on Screentop.gg, which IMO is the better way to play it; Screentop is browser-based, and Aegean can be played fully asynchronously (there are zero off-turn decisions), so it’s very convenient like that.
For those who (unlike me) don’t have an absolutely unhealthy obsession with these weirdo games and thus may not be keeping up, you should know that Aegean Sea has been getting some mixed reviews, to say the least.
I disagree with most negative review conclusions, but I can’t exactly say the mixed reception is unexpected or entirely unfair, either; the game has a steep learning curve (steeper than Mottainai), the language of card powers is incredibly specific and actually counter-intuitive in places, and the asymmetry (which I previously and erroneously said was not that extensive) is actually strong enough to create wildly different games based on specific matchup. It’s very different than his usual approach, and thus combined with opaque and punishing language, it’s a difficult row to hoe.
I’ve connected with 3 other turbo-nerds and we’ve been regularly playing 4-player games and analzying the thing, so I have an assemblage of random thoughts:
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At 2 and 3 players, this is close to an expected Chudyk experience - something like Mottainai, except with built-in asymmetry that changes how you might choose to play. At 4 (and presumably 5) players…it changes into something else entirely. Politics enter the game, and it becomes almost like Root in the extent of the interaction between the factions. It’s clear that each of the factions has a “job” and an expected playstyle, and the game feels like it was actually balanced around having all 5 operating at the same time. At 4 players, you will find yourselves realizing what the one missing faction would be contributing to the game.
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The asymmetry is very strong. Not all matchups appear to be actually balanced, and different factions wax and wane in power at different player counts. Athens, for example, is relatively weak and passive in a 2-player game, but in our 4-player games, we have yet to find a way to stop them. The evolution of this game over its player counts is unlike anything I have found in other Chudyk games.
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The game appears very tightly designed. In every 4-player game I’ve played, the winner is literally ahead by one turn at the end of the game - that is, if anyone else had 1 more turn, the game state would be very different, and likely would have a different winner. It does this very consistently and I’m not sure what that means in terms of game design.
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It seems like a wargame in which you move through a series of linked scenarios. Often, on your turn, you will be faced with a scenario that emerged from the previous turn, and your actions will create a new scenario for the next player. It’s like playing a campaign of a wargame.
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The card language barrier is rough, but once you learn the internal logic of the various card powers, it clicks pretty well and you start to see paths emerge. I cannot emphasize how important it is to actually learn that language first, though; if you try to learn by playing through trial-and-error, I think you will wind up frustrated. Read the BGG forums and check out the player aids that have posted to the Files section, trust me on this one.
In summary: I think this is a really brilliant game that is hampered by obtuse language choices and made more challenging by a departure from previously-established Chudyk norms. The departures are good, but I have actually found that my previous Chudyk experience got in the way of me learning it efficiently. It’s better to start with a blank slate and try learning it from the ground up.
I cannot emphasize sufficiently how extensive the asymmetry is. I think that’s really cool, and it has created situations where table talk is desirable, and multiple players clearly need to coordinate to stop the winner. But the action space is so tight that you are constantly trying to balance between cooperating with others and advancing your own agenda - fragile alliances built on flimsy foundations.
If you are willing to climb the learning cliff, I think there’s a really worthwhile game in here.