best damn japanese bowl of pee and runny poo I've ever eaten! eww...

jk, nah, actually it wasn't that great. I don't know what the mojo is all about. I've had better.

I dunno man. I don't think noodles ever LOOK that good in pictures, but they can taste amazing. What did you think? I think it looks like a runny poop w/ bowl of pee, BUT it's probably tasty.

| Noodle Brothers

Rude- let's do the game dev when I get back. Maybe we can brainstorm up something!

This particular Japanese noodle house had a line at 5:30 and is packed every night outside my hotel. Was I about to experience the best noodles this side of the hemisphere? Is this the ultimate bliss in a bowl?

You decide:

We are the iPad brothers... don't get along with others...

So far I've picked up Ticket to Ride Pocket (I had it from when it went free for a weekend recently) - the universal/"pocket" version is async while the iPad specific version is only live multiplayer. That's ridiculous to me. But anyways, TTR is so darned good.

Also got Caylus and Ascension so far. Probably gonna pick up Tigris and Euph this week as well as some others.

Draw Something is pretty awesome and it's cross platform compatible between Android and iOS (and I think Facebook). The company that puts it out just got swooped up by Zynga for what people are guessing is around 200 million bucks, god damn. My name on there (and for all game center games) is rudyriot.

Battles of Wesnoth is kinda weird! Is the iOS version good? I've played the tutorial on both PC and Android and while they SEEM cool, I've never stuck with it past 20-30 minutes in. Should I pick it up?

ipadboardgames.org/ seems like a cool site for these kinds of apps. I tried the lite version of Neroshima Hex and while it runs really well, something about the aesthetics bothers me. Look, Ghost Stores gots an app. Didn't you just get that one Jon?

Anyway, I picked up an iPad as well! I really like it so far. I got a bunch of recommendations for board games and had some already. They're all pretty cheap, too! Here's what I've got:

- Ascension: haven't played it, supposed to be real good.
- Tichu: I was super hooked on this for a long time, to the point where I deleted it, but now it's back! You can play online too.
- Disc Drivin: It's pitch car! One of the game group guys recommended it.
- Small World: I love this. You can't play it online, it's 2-player hotseat or AI, but it's a great port. Been playing a lot on the train.
- Roll Through the Ages: Another one I was super hooked on. Good port.
- Battles of Wesnoth: Matt loves this one so much.
- Caylus: This is kind of a long game IRL, but really good. Supposed to be a great port.
- Tigris and Euphrates: This is a classic that for some reason I HAVE NEVER PLAYED.

That said, what I've been playing most is Draw Something. That shit is addictive, free, and sometimes hilarious. Look me up at FirstnameLastname if you're interested in a game!

Wow, NICE photos Enron! The fisheye ones are pretty sweet but they're all really good. I went through and gave them all "Thumbs up!" (Unless they had you in them, of course. Or Aeryk. Can't let that guy get cocky.)

I HAVE LOTS TO SAY BUT IT'S TIME TO EAT

Next time, you can pick my brain a bit. It is kind of hard when there are games and drinks a plenty and ActionTeam jerks abound.

O rugs, I think you would enjoy the PitchCar game. Its like the old carom games place racing. Lots of fun with beers and jerks. Also, that Cake is teh Sw33t. Im way into the candle propulsion system. Also, I'm glad the boy likes the space ships. Pretty soon he will be using graph paper, pencil and dice. Ah Yay! Also, Happy B-Day to you. I didn't get to calling you :(

Good to know people liked the pictures.

D>M>

awesome pictures aaron, wish i could have picked your brain more on the subject

Loving the rocket cake! My first memorable cake was around that age and was a freakish cookie monster if I'm remembering right. That racing game is PitchCar Mini. There's a full sized version which probably takes up entire rooms, but I opted for this smaller one. It's pretty fun for a stand around drinking beer and playing game. My fiancé got me a new iPad, yowza! I'm all modern and hip now.

What's that racetrack game? That looks hella fun, lol.

Damn, I miss playing games :(

| Awesome Pics!

Aaron's got dem fancy lenses! :)

In other news, the boy requested a "Rocket Cake" for his birthday yesterday. Not being any kind of baker or qualified what-so-ever, I decided to make one anyway! lol

I managed to burn the sheet cakes, so that took a good 15 minutes to shave off the top layer with a knife. haha

Here we have the cake, pre and post launch. The Safety Officer issued a stern warning over the propulsion / booster design, but Captain Dad pushed the launch button anyway.

Haha, not gonna lie, there was a bit more flame than I had bargained for. But I think it was worth it. There was much rejoicing!

And yeah, the entire back end of the cake was a loss :)

| Cabin Collins Documented

For all of you chaps looking to see some Bachelor 2012 photos, pop on over to Polychromatic. As usual, the same password: Something Batman punches the joker into, no spaces, no caps.

D>M>

if we had still done our show, we could have at least gotten on the dice tower network. and if we were bigger, maybe nerdist or smogcast networks. now we are destine to make our own sad empty network.

did my taxes last nite, not a fun time

cant wait to see evryones pics

It was a fun time by all. And yes, the "no gaming blues" certainly were not fun.

I will try to get to the photos tonight, as well as my Taxes. Oi, the tax man cometh. The Iceman too.

I like how I look like I am photo bombing the group shot. As if I was some douche bag that just wandered into the frame at the last minute. Eyyyyy, I am an asshat!

D>M>

| Great!

Awesome photos, yo! I want to see 'em all from everyone who shot anything! Enron, Denis, RudyRiot - me wants!

Also, Geek and Sundry sounds like the perfect home for The Electric Cardboard Mayhem - too bad a) we are not connected b) stopped the show years ago c) suck.

Looking forward to almost everything on the G&S channel, thanks for the pro-tip broham!

| brain dump

There's gonna be a new board game web-show hosted by Wil Wheaton called Tabletop:
LINK
Should be pretty awesome. I see Dixit on the list of games they'll do. A blurb said "think celebrity poker meets board games" - me likey.

***

I put a pic up from our first nights Resistance game on BGG: Here
Somebody who's not me gave it a thumb (now we have 3 thumbs)! We're The Action Team Celebutards. When MTV gives us our own show, that's what it will be named.

***

A game idea I was thinking about a while back: Caravan Guards. You know the old trope from so many D&D games - you're hired to guard some caravan. I keep coming back to the damn Rummy game mechanic, but it's only because it's easy as a jump off point. I'm like a poor man's Reiner Knezia, minus any math skillz. Anyways, if it was using some kind of tiles/cards system with numbers (or classes that represent numbers ie fighter/wiznuts/rogue/cleric) and you'd build up caravans by attaching your tiles/cards/units to them as long as it fit - so if the caravan is a 5, you'd need 3-4 on one end and 6-7 on the other. Then when you felt it was secure enough or when you dump all your cards/tiles or if you just don't wont anyone else to score that caravan, you "send it out" and then it has to pass a series of challenges or something. I dunno, it just sounds like D&D rummy. We'll see!

***

Even if no one else gets married next year, we should still continue the bachelor cons regardless.

Cabin Collins/Cayukos Con/Bachelor Con 2012

Oh hay... there's everyone! I was like... the guns... they've... stopped.

Sounds like hella fun was had. Hope I'm in a financial / responsibilities position soon to start attending some of these too!

| SW on V

Hey Elrock: We should try Summoner Wars over Vassal sometime! Here's a guide on how to work it: http://www.plaidhatgames.com/sum_forums/showpost.php?p=13079&postcount=1
Haven't tried it myself, but we both know the game is basic enough to probably be pretty painless. It's also how Colby and his team playtest the new factions. You still need to "own" the game to know the setups, but I can just give you that info for the factions I have from the starter box.

Hey Jael: Be safe in Taiwan! As far as the game goes, I feel like already you have way too many mattes. I don't know how you're visualizing things, but I think a central board and maybe 1 player board per player is about as fiddly as it should get. Anymore than that and it'll look like Agricola (which I like, but I wish didn't sprawl so much). Also, what do you have in mind for combat? You mention dice. I love dice, but I think it's a fine line between random luck fest and something fun and meaty.

One idea that pops to mind that could be fun is the more you train a fighter, the higher you risk injuring him before he even makes it to the arena. OR, if you increase certain stats (or even just his fighting +bonus on a die roll), there should be a trade off in either his health or stamina or some other crucial stat. Because otherwise, you'd just train them to max stats.

As far as this being a completely "original" game, I don't think you're going to be able to completely avoid influence from other games. There are just great basic mechanics that resurface all the time and you don't need to run away from them.

BONUS EDIT: I'm bored here at the end of my shift and I was playing with fake d6 as far as trying to find a cool balance of hits/miss/defends for a fighting game. First thing I thought of was the dice from Zombie dice which come in 3 colors, green yellow and red - they represent difficulty in that the green easy die are mostly positive outcomes while the red hard dice have more bad outcomes. Also thought of some kind of "deck-building" aspect towards making your fighters. Like, each fighter you get has his own deck of cards which hold moves - and if you want to buy nicer moves, it will cost you more - then when you fight, you battle it out with the different fighter decks. That might be too deck-buildy, but I'm less excited for dice. Example, all beginner dungeons/crack fields fighters have the most basic attacks and defenses and could THEORETICALLY beat a more advanced fighter, but not likely. But if you spend time and money to train your dude up, his deck will have more sweet cards in it. If you wanted to make it even simpler, it could be something like Slapshot, Gladiator edition. :)  Slapshot was fun.

I'm good like that broham. Ok, well, leaving for TW in about an hour, so no more dillying on blogger.

Hopefully, I will be delightfully suprised to some good contributions.

Peac out.

It's like you saw the lie past my words, and into my heart.

so ur suggesting a boardgame about capturing a mass group of slaves to collect wood, brick and sheep to build into cities... Whereas we can even simplify the equation and just say it's slavebrick cities? And that robbespierre be just called DBones?

You know what could be awesome? Gladiator Revolt! Co-op game, you vs the slavers. Maybe with a traitor to mix things up!

Great point Rude! Especially for a kids game. (you should have seen my original version... I had women and children slaves... yikes!).

V1.01

"You will buy, hire and train Macedonians, Germanians, Gallic, Numidians and Carthaginian warriors and turn them into the hardest gladiators, and then profit from their deaths" ...

edit: This will be completely original, so won't be taking any ideas from other games.

Everyone should contribute at least 1 idea to be a contributor. To be a designer, be involved in the process! Okay - Go!

I totally agree with everying Elrock said. I'm in a post-con funk as well. It's the good life! Wish we could have got more SW in. We'll have to do mini-series of matches in the future, like bests of 3 or 5, because 1-2 isn't enough.

Jael: I like the ideas so far, but SLAVE jumps out in a bad way. Everyone knows they were slaves, but maybe it could be handled differently. When you're back from Taiwan, let's try it out! I totally feel like making games after our conventions as well. I even bring a bunch of index cards and pencils JUST IN CASE we decide to do a brainstorming session. :) Wish we could have played a few more of the games that didn't hit the table, like Dungeon Petz or even Stone Age. Gladiator game sounds like it's got similar elements to those games (worker placement, for example) and it might give you some more ideas. I've never played Dungeon Petz, but you buy baby monsters (slaves) from a market - they all have different stats - then you have you raise them - then you can fight them - or sell them (just like the slaves!)

I ordered the new Lords of Waterdeep game. I guess it's like Caylus but lighter and D&D themed. Looked at the rulebook and it looks like a lot of fun. It also has worker placement elements, but the "resources" you acquire are adventures that you then can turn in to complete quests. The theme seems to fit it pretty well and it looks fun.

That was my testing post.... for a while there google didn't allow blogger posts, but now it does!

Everytime I leave the con, i always have these game-making ideas (and some sad feelings). Don't ask me why and it's not that I like buying games. In fact I leave that task onto everyone else. But I just do enjoy making games. And I want to make em. so back on track to the Gladiator game, I had some new ideas for the theme. A lot of you might not like it, or agree with it, or what not, as we all have different likes/dislikes, but here, let's compromise. Welcome to add in thoughts / improvements . The goal here is to establish the actual framework of the game itself. I've only left the gameplay open, and I'll continue to update thoughts onto this living rulebook v1.0

Title: GLADIATOR: Batiarus Rudus

Game Description:

Become the richest and most prestigous Batiarus of Gladiator schools in all of Rome! You will buy, hire and train slaves and turn them into the hardest gladiators, and then profit from their deaths by gambling, politicizing and smoozing with the richest and finest men and women of rome or using them in the Arena! Lots of Violence, Blood, Plotting, Cunning and Humor.

From a modest beginning of a small school of gladiators, you will build and venture forth into the great profession of romes finest flesh entertainment industry.

Players – 2-6

Playing time: 2 hours

Box Contents –

Slave cards (reverse side – Gladiator profile)

Wealthy Noble matte

Event Cards / Playing Cards

Gold Denarii coins

1 Playing Matte

6 Player Matts (schools)

Dice

1 Arena Matte

1 Bathhouse Matte

1 Slave Matte

Setup –

Every player receives 10 gold denarii’s

Each player receives 1 player matte. This matte will be upgraded for improvements, keep track of score etc.

Place 8 gladiators in the Slave matte

Plate 8 roman wealthy elites on the bathhouse matte

II Turn Progression –

1) Choosing a location – Each player chooses a location to go. When all players are ready, show location they went to.

Location 1 – Docks

Slave Trading and Bidding

Flip up 8 slave cards on the 8 slave matte slots representing the new boat of slaves taken into the docks of rome. Players takes turns to bid on the slaves. The highest bidder takes then slave. Each slave has a starting stat on their cards. Remember, some of these slaves are meant to die, others are meant to win! You need both.

After each player has spent their coins, everyone goes home, happy, sad, contented, or furious.

Location 2 - Trainery

Training Slaves – Here all the slaves in your pit is trained, at the tradeoff of coins and time

Location 3 - Bathhouse

Players can visit the bathhouse to buy favor with the roman elites, find sponsors and even buyers for your gladiators for coin!

Location 4 - Arena

Settling business in the Arena

Location 5 – Armory

Here you can buy the weapons and armor to equip your gladiators

Location 6 – Improvements / Constructioneer

Location 7 – Missions

III Challenging and Fighting in the Arena –

dafafsdfas

| Post-Collins Blues

As always, after leaving a convention I have the blues. Living independently of responsibilities with nothing to do but eat, drink, laugh, and play games makes commuting and dealing with work somehow, less palatable....

News and Notes from CayucosCollinsCon:

- Loved the prizes!
- Fun to see Risk Legacy play itself out. Me no likey Risk, so the next parallel universe should not include me in the first few games...
- Always like watching Hicks successfully fight of an alien then kill himself with acid spray on the first square, of the first turn of Aliens. It did not go well for the poor Marines...
- Had a great time playing some quiet morning Summoner Wars with Rudy Riot. Cards, coffee, and crashing surf FTW!
- Ridiculous meat.
- Picked up Kingdom Builder and Flash Point online last night - hoping they arrive before the weekend to play with the neighbors! Another sale for Sales Rep Action Team! (I also picked up Galaxy Trucker because I can no longer hope someone else brings it to the table, I need to GUARANTEE it makes the table and bring my own!)
- I need to throw a party at my house soon - I have almost 3 cases of beer leftover, not to mention the case of IPA I already had in my garage...
- Speaking of beer, I think next time it will be a coffee, special beer, and spirits con. I think a handful of exceptional brews, along with some gin/scotch/etc. and loads of coffee is more where The Action Team is heading. Loads of beer just make for a bunch of tired (and fat) old men.
- Artemis was neat, and despite it causing so much technical anguish, I think it was a fun, and totally unique experience which I'm glad I was a part of.

| danke

thanks for a great cayukos con weekend everyone. I am beyond tired at work tonight but it was worth it. I'll pour out a little coffee for all the unplayed games and undrunk booze from this weekend. Appreciate everyone coming out and making it such a fun weekend. Enron, hopefully you can get your pics from it out soon - I especially want to see the Pitchcar Mini shots.

Special Thanks again to Enron for being our awesome chef.

Games Played (that I remember):

PitchCar Mini
The Resistance
Wizard
Wiz-War
Mondo
Haggis
Risk: Legacy
Kingdom Builder
Junta
Flash Duel
Summoner Wars
Quarriors
Reverse Charades
Dixit
Aliens
Flashpoint

Artemis

Frisbee / Boomerang