Something sad, today.

Comic book illustrator Dave Cockrum died, Sunday:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/11/28/comic.death.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

=-(

-Adam!!!

New Year, New Prize Chips!

December will be the last opportunity to get the original CLINCH Promo Prize Chips for your CLINCH Tournaments*

When Hidden City Games returns from Holiday Break after New Years, there will be a new set of Prize Chips included with your CLINCH Throw-Down Tournament Kits. If you want to get a head start on guessing what the chips do, the art for the chips can be found on the Rally Medallions.

I'll be accepting requests for kits with the current prize chips for the next few weeks, but the clock's ticking.

* Sadly, a new Pirate chip was never produced, so the same 'ol tired Pirate prize chip remains in the set. The original chips will remain available as additional prize support for tournaments run by Hidden City Games. They will also be available to Venture Demo Team members for purchase with their Venture Points.

-Adam!!!

Gen Con So-SoCal?

The content of this post is completely colored by the fact I just spilled spagetti sauce down the front of my shirt...my NICE SHIRT! BAH!

After a year of running convention tournaments, you'd think I'd be better at it. I mean, I do fine, but it's rough when you realize you aren't doing it at the same level as the other companies around you. I'll wager Clout players had as much if not more fun than anyone else, but the attendance numbers don't lie. It was a small-ish show with small tournaments. Why?

First, Gen Con SoCal is a small-ish convention. It feels like it wants to be huge (I think because its format copies the huge Gen Con Indy, as it should) but it's not huge. Thursday, in particular, was dead dead dead. To be fair, Saturday had it going on.

Second, I have been long been confusing casual with minimalist. I have intentionally kept the complexity and logistics of running Clout convention events to a minimum. The computers and loudspeakers and podiums and over-the-top decor of the other companies are not only expensive, but, I felt, a distraction from the fun of the game. Those things are a good choice for *their* games, sure. Not what I wanted for Clout. This was sort of a mistake. Sort of. Clout needs DIFFERENT tools, decor, communication tools, etc. to succeed at conventions. What it needs exactly, I'm not sure of yet. If I could swing it, there'd be sofas and round coffee tables surrounding the tournament tables, and large magnetic boards keeping track of points and standings for all to see. And a ICEE machine. Ooh yeah, that'd be perfect. All Con tournaments should come with refreshments. It's stupid that they don't. Could you imagine filling out your Pizza order along with your stack registration so it'd be delivered between round 3 and 4? We'd just charge and extra couple of bucks for the tournament to pay for it. Yeah.

Lastly (and this is going to sound bitter, because I am a little.) all the publishers seemed to get creamed by Upper Deck's World of Warcraft TCG. I just want to say for the record: I DON'T GET IT. It's so been done. Fantasy TCG, big prizes, nice licence. Nothing out of the ordinary at all. I don't see the appeal. Don't get me wrong, the game's fine. Paul says they followed the WoW model for MMRPGs and built a TCG that didn't have anything wrong with it. Perfected the existing TCG model, as it were. That flies in the face of my "innovate or die" worldview, so I'm ticked that it's working so well for them. I *think* WoW TCG is a product with a short lifespan, because it has brought nothing new to the table. As soon as somebody does innovate in a way that registers with gamers, they'll move on. Even so, I'd kill to have buzz like they've got. If nobody does innovate soon, it follows they'll have a good long run with it. If so, good for them! (grumble grumble.)

Anyway, it's good to be back home. I'm catching up with e-mail as I often must do following conventions and holidays (particularly when they butt up against eachother!)

Until next time,

-Adam!!!

Gen Con SoCal good / 3-player games bad

As is normal for a convention, I'm getting back to a mountain of e-mail (only 67 flagged for follow, and a lot of them are internal e-mails. Phew!)

As most everyone knows, we were going to have a booth at Gen Con SoCal and at the last minute we pulled the plug. It was all there, in the back, just no people to put it together or maintain it. The amazing Gabe "Mondo" Vega allowed us some space in his booth in exchange for helping staff it. That allowed many demos to de done as well as gave the new players a place to purchase Clout. Again, Phew!

My job, of course, was to run the tournaments and run the tournament I did. Thursday was dead dead dead. Through event registration mishap we only had one event scheduled, but it was only attended by 5 players, so having one event seemed reasonable. Aside from Thursday we averaged about 14 players per tournament. Without a booth, I'm pretty satisfied with that. It was doubly hard because of the all the attention going to the World of Warcraft TCG. Heck, even Paul spent a day playing it! (Research, I think he said. =-)

I've about had it with 3 player games. They are hard to judge, hard to make matchups over several rounds, and when there are prizes on the line, people get steamed about getting ganged up upon. I heard many complaints about the format over the course of the tournament, so I may not host any more 3 player tournaments with meaningful prizes. Fun is fun, prizes, even modest ones like I provide, change the dynamics dramatically and not in a way that works well with 3 player multi.

I want to give special thanks to Daniel, Ben, and Stephen who came and volunteers all weekend as well as Craig who came and ran the Dragon Invitational on Sunday while I ran demoes and packed up the mountain of stuff we had stored in the back. I couldn't have done it without you! You guys ROCK!

I also want to thank April and the whole group of SoCal Clout players for the wonderful card they gave me. I was really, really touched. I can't believe how lucky I am to such wonderful people in my life. I wish I could hang out with you all more!

Derak won the Saturday night Clout Dragon Invitational! Contgrats Derak!

Chris won the Sunday Dragon Invitational but I bugged out too quick to take a picture. My bad!

-Adam!!!

Vacation with the Mouse

I freely admit I should have told more people I was going on Vacation, but since I was only missing Friday, Monday, and Tuesday, I didn't think I'd be missed. =-)

You've got to hand it to Disney. In a lot of ways, I'm in the same buisness they are. We both sell fun. The Disneyland fun machine is a work of art (literally, in a lot of ways.) I know it's not the same for everyone, but as soon as I walk through the tunnel onto Main Street USA, I've got a huge smile on my face. Part of it is nostalgia. I first went to Disneyland in 1976, for the bicentennial celebration. I was 6. The sights, the sounds, and particularly (this may sound weird) the smells of Disneyland bring me right back to the best parts of my childhood. I don't know if its the same for folks who go for the first time as adults, but from the smiles, I'd say it's still pretty good. If you have a 5-10 year old, and you can afford to go to Disneyland or Disneyworld, GO. They'll love it now, and they'll love it again in 20-30 years when they take their children.

If you went to Disneyland as a kid like I did, and want to relive some of those memories check out my favorite Disney fan site, Yesterland.

-Adam!!!

Server Reconstruction!

I've got e-mail again! I know a lot of stuff got bounced. I have no e-mail from Saturday through Monday. If you're not sure if a message got through or not, go ahead and resend. When I get behind like this, I group messaged by sender. If you request the same thing twice, I'll catch it!

Thanks!

-Adam

Server Destruction

Hidden City Game's e-mail server died a couple of days ago and I've been without e-mail all week. It *should* be fixed today, but the inability to get the files I need have delayed the Turkey Shoot kit construction. I'm still shipping this week, but not in time for this weekend. I hope nobody was planning a Turkey Shoot event this week. The plan is to ship them out USPS First Class by Friday, and they should arrive by next weekend.

CLINCH Marvel

'Nuff Said!

Bella Sara is GO!

With test market launches in Phoenix, San Diego, and Seattle ,HCG is soon to be something more than just the Clout company! Warning! If you're a die-hard gamer that bleeds Mountain Dew, this may be a bit of a shock:

www.bellasara.com

I've been aked to help with the web site's games and such. I hope I can find the time!

-Adam!!!

Up, Up, and Away

This graph shows the total event attendance over the last year. WooHoo!

April 133
May 334
June 124
July 285
August 483
September 608

Holiday Happenings!

Happy Halloween! My birthday is October 30th, so Halloween is my favorite holiday of the year. Pirate King kicked off the spooky season early with his Orange and Black Tournament, and now AIM in Pittsburgh is running one. I supplied both events with Rally-Level Medallions for the winner, as well as for Goblins and Undead.

The response to November's Holiday Turkey shoot has been tremendous, and with good reason. The idea came from Brian Wildrick and Lucio "mndwrm" Rodriguez and some amazing turkey art has been provided by Bobby "Pirate King" Doran. This Throw-Down level event is available to all Venture Demo Team members who want to run it.

Before the tournament starts, each player receives his or her three Turkey
chips.
Turkeys are all thrown into the play area prior to the start of the
game. Pick a player to go first and toss the turkeys, one at a time, going
clockwise around the table (as normal.) In a two player game, if a turkey is
thrown off the table, the turkey’s Clout value is added to the opponent’s score
at the end of the game. In a 3+player game, the turkey is re-thrown by the
next player, in addition to the turkey he or she would normally throw. Once all
the turkeys have been thrown into the play area, game begins as normal.

Gen Con SoCal

If you've been living under a Rock, Gen Con SoCal is coming!

THURSDAY 11/16
11 AM Clout Starter Tournament $3 – 3 hrs

FRIDAY 11/17
11 AM Clout Starter Tournament $3 – 3 hrs
2 PM Clout Rally Clinch $3 – 3 hrs
6 PM Clout Rally Clinch $3 – 3 hrs

SATURDAY 11/18
11 AM Clout Starter Tournament $3 – 3 hrs
2 PM Clout Rally Clinch $3 – 3 hrs
6 PM Clout Invitational $3 – 4 hrs

SUNDAY 11/19
11 AM Clout Invitational $3 – 4 hrs

All events except the Starter Tournaments will be CLINCH Rally-Level Tournaments. For players who know the game and want additional Medallions, I will run Throw-Down tournaments during the Starter Tournament slots if there is interest. Purchase event tickets as if you were attending the Starter Tournament.

Video Killed The Radio Star

Is this the coolest video I've seen...ever?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeEnrxdRnUE

Okay, not Battlestar Galactica cool, but still pretty cool!

-Adam

Another Wildcard Weekend

I didn't compete this week, but I was the lone judge of the combat robotics portion of the show

That's right. Winners and Losers were decided at my whim (and a complex set of judging criteria.) The FOOLS!

Check out the photos of Robothon 2006. I'm the chubby guy in the red and black shirt.

-Adam!!!

Unique, and proud of it!

Well, that didn't take long.

After posting here and on the CloutUS Forum regarding the use of a 3rd party organized play website, and to some extent, their system, the results were clear:

No Deal.

I'm happy about. To some extent, it validates what I've been doing for the last year. CLINCH is being embraced by Clout players, and with new promo prize chips due out in January, the new Marvel set due in February, plans for the next Clout genre just starting, and talk about what we want to do with fantasy AFTER the next fantasy expansion is released next year, it's all good.

I should e-mail Al and tell him that after consulting with the fans and the rest of HCG, we're going to support our OP program on our own.

Thanks everyone!

Unique vs Efficient

I spoke with a fellow named Al a couple of days ago. Al represents an Organized Play website called Creative Gaming Events

To make a long story short, CGE seems to provide OP services similar to Wizard of the Coast's DCI, including rankings, event calendars, reporting, and the like. In short, it duplicates every other OP program ever done.

If we were to use CGE (and with Marvel on the way, I'd be foolish not to consider it!) it would mean:

Players would probably need ID numbers.
TO's would have to send reports via the website.
I would automatically get reports of new events being "sanctioned", and would use those reports to send out kits.
Whether we used it or not, there would be a rating/ranking system similar to other games.
Clout would be listed with the other participating games, perhaps gaining additional exposure.
Clout would be included in marketing targeted at member gamers. I was assured this was an Opt-in/Opt-out messaging.

CLINCH and the CLINCH Medallions would still the be the central mechanism for Clout OP. By automating the 'sanctioning/reporting' part of OP, I can keep the rest of our interactions relaxed and personal, the way I like things, even as the game grows larger. I'm honestly worried that the current system (simple, but labor intensive) won't be sustainable if Marvel is the success we expect it to be.

They also have some additional tools on the way in November, which I spec'd out for the HCG website, but we decided we couldn't afford. I'll keep the specifics to myself, just in case it's not public info, but it's cool.

All that and I'm still not at all comfortable with the idea of homogenizing Clout's OP program. I don't want to dive in and then realized it's not working and have to shift gears again.

Assuming we can keep the system going as-is (I think we can, really), what's more important. Remaining Unique or Becoming Efficient?

Mixing it Up

What a great Monday of tournament reports. Great? Reports? In the same sentence? Yep!

Fngrz ran a rochester style event in Nebraska. All the booster packs went into the middle and were drafted from the one common pool. The games used 27 point, multi-factional stacks.

Mattimao in South Carolina ran a 3-stack tournament. I'm pleased to report it went well. I want to run one at Gen Con SoCal, though I haven't registered any of the events as such.

Blkthrn in Tennesee ran a team event. Again, it went well.

This weekend, Pirate King is running his Halloween event (you saw the poster a few posts ago.) with just Goblins and Undead.

Some of the formats will work, others won't. Right now the forum's talking about Big Games, more points, more chips. I can't wait for the event report when the first Big Game is reported.

-Adam!!!

Heroes

I love it. I've been waiting all summer and I wasn't disappointed. Now I'm watching Studio 60, which I'm liking too, but as nobody flies or teleports, it'll be tough fo rit to match up.

If you missed it, don't miss it again. The real world, now. A very few people have super powers, and a very few people know (or suspect) it. The people in question all have real world problems that super powers don't help with. Oh, and the heroin addict guy who can paint the future has painted a picture of a mushroom cloud destroying New York just prior to overdosing.

I can't wait for the next episode!

-Adam!!!

Wikimania

We all have Jirel to thank for this, the Clout Wikipedia entry.

Now, I'm a big geek for web-tools, particulary ones that I can apply to Clout. This one is special in a couple of ways. First, as per the rules of the Wikipedia, it's neutral. Now, it may surprise people, but I LOVE that. It's hard for somebody like me to (or anyone at HCG, I think) to step back and be neutral about Clout. I know it took a couple of tries, but Jirel really hit it out of the park, getting the gist of Clout across in text, which I can tell you isn't easy.

Could it be better? Of course. Everyone who's savvy enough to read a blog like this one knows that Wiki entries can be modified by anyone. Check it out. Make it cooler. Keep it neutral. Expand the entries that relate to Clout (like Goblins, for example).

-Adam!!!

Roll 'Em!

If you don't get it, I can't explain.

Found on Boing Boing