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I like Kickstarter. I have given money to three games and one thing where some Afghan guys are going to blow up land mines, but I check it out all the time (and let me say right now that unless your game has bad-ass miniatures and a fully realized prototype, I still don't want to review your Kickstarter idea). I love to see the new miniatures being developed as Kickstarter promotions, or the games that I know I never want to play, or the really weird stuff being developed by crazy people who should never have been allowed to own a credit card.

About a month ago, I found out about a Kickstarter promotion that I think fits best in that third category, except that the guys running it can probably be trusted with a driver's license. It's a game called The Emperor's New Clothes, and it's not a game at all. It's a box of white things.

I take it back, it is kind of a game. It's an elaborate game run by some guys with a very strange sense of humor, and while I probably should be ready to jump in and laugh along with them, I also don't know that I find it particularly amusing.

Here's the idea. These guys have the general impression that Kickstarter fans will back anything, even stupid things, so they said, 'here's something stupid, back this.' And they're kind of right, because a white box with a white board and a bunch of white cards and white cubes is a pretty stupid thing to buy for more than ten dollars. Yet more than 200 people have signed up to get a box of white things with no art and no game. As it stands now, the project is going to fund. They'll get the money and send people blank boxes full of blank pieces.

Now, I know this is a joke. Not only that, but I am routinely amazed at the worthless crap that gets funded on Kickstarter (and I know these games suck, because people keep sending them to me in the mail). So from the standpoint of saying, 'what is wrong with you people that will back any idiotic project that catches your eye?' I am completely sympathetic to the gag.

On the other hand, I think it's a dumb joke. In the early days, it was played up as a real game, and if you couldn't see the game it was because you were genetically deficient or something. They sent out review copies, and several reviewers actually described entertaining games that were not in the box because they were 'in on the joke.' I get that it was satire, and I get the satire. But I think it was a dumb joke.

A few days ago they spilled the beans and told everyone that the game's not real. However, they are still taking your money. You will still get a box of white things. I guess if you're going to create game prototypes, you're all set - but that's going to be kind of an expensive box of prototype stuff, especially since you're going to have to paint the wood bits and draw art on the cards and after that you're going to need a new prototype box.

I also question the decision from Game Salute to support this with their Springboard seal. That company takes heat all the time, and there are a lot of people who are just looking for an excuse to hate them. This was a risky move for a company that could use a little positive PR.

On the other hand, backing this thing took balls. It shows that the boys at Game Salute don't take themselves too seriously, and they're fine with you not liking them. I will say that Game Salute has been behind some very original games that would not have made it to my table without their help, and also Dan Yarrington is a prince, so I admire their stones. Not literally, of course.

It's been a month since I found out about The Emperor's New Clothes, and I still haven't decided how I feel about it. It ends tomorrow, and it looks very much like it will fund, showing (to me at least) that the joking point was well-made - people will seriously back anything. But then I gave it just a little more thought and realized that ultimately, there's no reason I need to feel anything about this at all. I am 100% confident that I will eventually get everything I ever bought off Kickstarter (except exploding land mines - I would rather those stay out of my living room). I don't back anything unless it's an amazing deal and I trust that I'll actually get whatever the thing is, so the joke doesn't apply to me. I don't need a box of white things, and I didn't give The Emperor's New Clothes any money, so I don't care if it's funny or not.

You've got until Monday night to check out The Emperor's New Clothes. You can see it here, and decide it you give a crap:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/springboard/emperors-new-clothes

I am not a fan of political drama. For me, The West Wing was about as interesting as a show about a bunch of attractive doctors who work in the same hospital and have sex all the time, which is to say, not interesting at all. The actual inner workings of my nation's capital bore me to tears. I just don't care. Yeah, pass a bill. Vote. Eat at the cafeteria and go to fundraisers. Whoop-de-friggin-doo.

But for almost every setting, there's a story that will make it interesting. Nurse Jackie is an interesting hospital show. Legit is an interesting sitcom. And House of Cards is an interesting political show.

But then, House of Cards is not a normal political show. It could have been placed in the Roman senate, or the French royal court, or an Italian city-state. It's Machiavellian, a study of corruption and power and greed, where we get to watch an amoral sociopath scheme his way to the top. Kevin Spacey plays Congressman Frank Underwood, but he could have been a Chinese magnate making a bid for the emperor's seat (though he would have needed some pretty serious makeup to be convincing at it). Or, I don't know, a Danish prince.

The premise starts off big - Frank Underwood has just helped a dude become president in exchange for a promise of being elected Secretary of State, but once the guy gets the big chair and the round office, he changes his mind and screws Frank out of his dream job.

Some people might get pissed. Some people might rant and scream and plot revenge. But not Frank Underwood, because he's too big a man for petty vengeance. Instead, he decides that he was thinking too small, and he'll take all the power for himself and screw the ungrateful bastards who hosed him along the way.

And then he kicks ass.

As you start to watch House of Cards, you'll be delighted at the completely detached way in which Frank Underwood and his wife Claire destroy all opposition. They rescue people just to use them as pawns. They destroy lives as casually as you might eat a bagel (unless you don't like bagels, in which case it's as casually as you eat something you eat very casually). They plot every step, improvise as needed, and shirk from no unsavory task if it furthers their goals. And ironically, as they carefully destroy anyone who gets in their way, they totally love each other.

Which does not keep them from getting a little nookie on the side. Both of the Underwoods have affairs, but in this demented couple, they come home and tell each other about it. They explain how they're using the people they're banging. They'll stop if the other person asks - but the other person never really has a problem with it, since both Claire and Frank know it's all about the power play.

I'm hoping that, so far, I've made House of Cards sound irresistibly entertaining. Because I loved it... until about the middle of the show.

I guess they just couldn't keep up the killer scripting through the whole show, and decided they needed to add something weird, just to compete with HBO. As you get toward the two-thirds mark of the show, the sex gets awkward and a little uncomfortable. I get that they're trying to be edgy, but I think completely destroying an innocent man because he had the misfortune to get between you and your goal is edgy enough. We didn't need the messed-up sexual trysts.

By the end of the show, House of Cards gets back on track. The weird sex stuff mostly comes to an end, a few things get sorted, and then you're left with kind of a bad taste in your mouth. But the show goes on, only it seems like they might have run out of steam. The endgame is painfully predictable. Frankly, the end does not live up to the promise of the beginning.

However, House of Cards is still very much worth watching. If the only reason you watch is to see Kevin Spacey break the fourth wall and have entire monologues directly into the camera, it's time well spent. Robin Wright is a long way from the Princess Bride, but she is fantastic as the evil ice queen. There's a girl photographer on the show who has all the acting range of that bland chick from the Twilight movies, but most of the other actors more than make up for her uninspired monotone.

All things considered, House of Cards is definitely worth watching, even if there was a lot of unexplored potential. The dialog is great, even if the plotting is spotty, and Kevin Spacey will light your TV on fire. Best of all, you can get the entire season on Netflix and watch it all at one time. Downside? It's ONLY on Netflix. But what the hell, get it for a month and then cancel. It's worth it.

There are not enough post-apocalyptic comic books. It's one of my favorite story-telling genres, which explains why I tolerate so many zombie games (though the zombie apocalypse is not the same apocalypse as the nuclear apocalypse). And most after-the-bomb books tend to get silly, like that old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle game where everyone turned into animals. Because that's what would happen - nuclear holocaust causes an advanced case of Disney movie.

But even if post-apocalyptic comics were as common as superhero comics (and it's a damned shame that they are not), I would still heartily recommend Wasteland. It's mature and smart and exciting, and the author has created an immensely entertaining and believable world, and then spun a yarn that lets you feel like you're there. Only, you know, without the dying.

Wasteland spins a wide-spanning yarn by telling us about lots of different characters. One issue we're following Abi and Michael as they search for answers to their difficult questions, and then the next issue we learn what's happening in the city of Newbegin. There are some weird things, like super-healing powers or people who don't age, but mostly, the entire thing is incredibly believable. The supernatural stuff only serves to make the realistic stuff stand out brighter.

And just because a particular character can throw rocks with his mind does not make that dude the only character worth watching. There are plenty of normal characters, from the tough ranger who protects his village to the council member who plots to free his people from institutionalized bigotry. There are plenty of plotlines to follow, but they're not just free-floating and unconnected - everything matters, even if we can't see it at the time.

Wasteland also gives us tons of mystery. Every time some new tidbit is revealed, it only serves to raise more questions. We meet mysterious characters with involved pasts - in some case, pasts they themselves don't even remember. There are invading hordes of terrible monsters, cities populated by hideous mutants, and no small number of just plain rotten human beings.

Remember when I said that the author has developed his setting really well? You should, it was like three paragraphs ago. If you've already forgotten when I said that, don't bother reading comics. Concentrate on coloring books.

The author of Wasteland finishes every comic with a full written page by Ankya Ofsteen, a traveler whose mission is to discover the world and document it. In these stories, Ankya takes us from one end of the world to the other, meeting wildly varying people and relating experiences that we may never see in the comic itself. These tales serve to ground the entire world, to bring it bursting off the page in full color and cinematic 3D (which is funny, because the book itself is black-and-white).

You don't have to trust me on this one. If you're reading your comics on Comixology, you can download issue 0 for free. If you don't agree that Wasteland is worth your time, then you've saved yourself a bundle of money. If you do, then I have cost you about $84, which is how much it would cost you to get completely caught up. The author has stated more than once that he intends to finish the title with issue 50, and the latest book is issue 43, so there are seven left.

The only downside is that since Wasteland is kind of an indie book, it doesn't really update once a month. I think we'll be lucky if the last seven issues are done in 2013. I hope so, because I would love to find out how this incredible story ends, but I'm not holding my breath. However, even if it doesn't update regularly, hell, even if he never finishes the story at all, Wasteland is worth reading. It's the most intelligent post-apocalyptic comic I've ever read, and one of the best comics, period. Seriously, it's worth a free download to at least try it out.

Here's the Comixology link:

http://www.comixology.com/Wasteland-Vol-1/comics-series/1166

Oh, one more thing - get the individual issues. Yes, they cost more than the collected volumes, but that way you get the Ofsteen stories. They left those out of the trades.

I know this is starting to sound like a broken record, but I really love the idea behind the Tempest games, where you unravel a story that is told through a series of games. Each game is a completely different, stand-alone game, and each recreates one period of struggle in the history of the fictional city-state of Tempest. The last game in the series, and the best of the batch, is Dominare.

In Courtier, players compete to sway the king's ear. Then the queen is arrested for treason, and so in Mercante, the merchants rise up to grab some power. But the whole time they've been manipulated by the people behind the curtains, the people who will eventually control all of the city and run their own shadow governments, and then they will set up security stations where minimum-wage losers will grope your privates before you can get on a plane. You play the shadow government. Though you would probably have sense enough to disband the TSA.

Dominare has a similar feel to its two predecessors, being a very involved and Euro-style game with limited actions, some cube-placing, and gallons of fantastic art (I went to art school, so I can verify that art is typically measured in ounces, so gallons of fantastic art is lots of great art. Hyperbole, on the other hand, is usually measured in yards). Many of the elements that make Courtier and Mercante enjoyable are found in Dominare, including cutthroat interaction, careful planning, and special actions.

However, Dominare ratchets up the intensity to an incredible degree. Every time I've played, the game comes down to the last turn, the last few actions, and one person grasps their way to the top while the rest are trampled pitilessly. The competition is fiercer than in either of the other games, and every play is memorable. In fact, you'll be fighting tooth and nail for just one more spot, just one more plot, one more Lay's potato chip (nobody can eat just one).

You know how most games have multiple phases, but the game is really all about one part, and the rest is just maintenance? That's not Dominare. In Dominare, you first have to add an agent to your conspiracy, and this part is absolutely critical. Choose well, and you'll have an edge. Screw it up, and you're going to regret it.

Then you get paid and distribute your influence throughout the city. This part is ALSO absolutely critical. Grab a majority of one important district, or whittle away at an opponent's power base. Spread yourself out, to have plenty of options, or swoop in and establish yourself as the undisputed master of a particular neighborhood. Control the senate to make your districts more valuable, or control the church to send missionaries out and establish your domain throughout the city. Or run the canals, and control everything for as long as you can afford it.

Then you have actions, where you send your agents into the city to sway minds and hearts (and in one case, genitals - that's right, there's a hooker in this game). Disable opposing agents by tying them up in meetings. Or remove them altogether by sending your knife-wielding assassin out to hose down your foes. Steal money. Build your power base. These agents can do awesome things - but you can't use them all, and so like the other phases of the game, this part is also absolutely critical.

In fact, every decision you make in Dominare has ramifications, and sometimes you won't know what those consequences might have been until you're sitting two hours later, still talking about how much you loved the game, discussing the game-breaking maneuver that your friend pulled off at the last minute, the one that forced your hand and made you over-commit so that you didn't have the resources to snatch that one last block that would have won you the game.

And Dominare seems to know when it should end. Any shorter, and the stakes wouldn't be as high. Any longer, and it would get old. Every time I've played, it builds to a fever pitch with an explosive finale. You're just invested enough to love the battle for the top spot, but it's not like you spent eight hours on a game that you ended up losing.

OK, so here's the warning - Dominare is very dense and very European in flavor (even though I'm pretty sure it was made by Americans). You can see people get killed - we had a public execution in one game, and an assassination in another - but it doesn't happen a lot. If you're looking for blood, you won't find it here. But you will find intensely deep, exceptionally entertaining gameplay that will have you plotting and scheming and backstabbing.

Reading the cards for Dominare, I realized how much I would really love to read some novels about Tempest. You could have a bunch of them, written by different authors and covering different characters. The city feels alive, and the characters are brilliant. I want to know more about Tempest, and when that happens, it means the theme is coming alive while I play.

I liked Courtiers, Love Letter and Mercante. But I love Dominare. If you're only going to get one of these games - well, don't do that, get them all - but if you're dead set on picking just one, Dominare is utterly magnificent. If you don't like Euro games, it might not be for you, and if you have trouble grasping complex rules, you'll probably be frustrated. But if you want to play a game so deep that you'll need scuba gear, you want Dominare.

Summary

2-6 players

Pros:
Plot and scheme and plan (all of which are essentially the same thing)
Great art
Deep theme that draws you into the game
You'll be talking about it days later

Cons:
Complicated rules
Super Euro

Coolstuff Inc is not my new sponsor. I don't actually have one any more. But they do have this bad-ass game for just forty bucks, so I would totally go get it:
http://www.coolstuffinc.com/p/165352

SOS Group - Majukan Perusahaan Anda Bersama Angkatan Kerja Handal SOS


SOS Group - Majukan PerusahaanAnda Bersama Angkatan Kerja Handal SOS - Adanya perubahan -
perubahan yang bersifat fundamental dalam dunia bisnis menciptakan perubahan
yang sangat dramatis pada kriteria - kriteria penting sistem sumber daya
manusia (SDM), hal ini sekaligus menunjukkan betapa pentingnya peran sumber
daya

Beli Baju Wanita Harga Murah, disini Saja !


Beli Baju Wanita Harga Murah, disini Saja !


Beli Baju Wanita Harga Murah, disini Saja ! - Apakah anda seorang wanita?, jika iya anda tidak salah membaca artikel ini. Wanita yaitu makhluk ciptaan Tuhan yang suka bersolek serta pingin senantiasa tampak anggun serta menarik. Tidak heran bila kaum hawa tersebut rela makan dengan lauk sederhana

I've always said that I'll play anything, if it's fun, but I have developed something of a reputation as a big fan of games where people get killed a lot. And that's fair, because I am a huge fan of games where people get killed a lot. I even designed a t-shirt that says, 'real men play games where people die' (that's kind of a plug, since you can buy that shirt). So it may seem odd, but I have really fallen for a series of games that could not be more European if they came with free healthcare.

Mercante is the second in the Tempest series of games, or the third if you count Love Letter, which apparently the publishers do not, because there's a big '2' on the side of the box. It furthers the story of the evolution of the city-state of Tempest. In the first game, Courtiers, players ponce about and plot to exert subtle influence over the city by gaining the king's ear - and then someone succeeds and the queen gets arrested for treason. In Mercante, the merchants rise up and decide it's about time someone listened to them. Money brings power, I guess, and so you're all trying to elevate your positions by getting rich and powerful.

It might seem like Mercante should be very similar to Courtiers, since they're part of a series, and there are certainly similarities. The art, for one thing, is obviously created by the same artists who made the first game. The setting is the same, except for the obvious difference of the imprisoned queen. But the differences are much larger - and more important - than the things that are the same.

For instance, instead of limited cube placement and cautious card play, you've got bidding wars and limited actions. The game feels very much like it belongs in the trilogy without being the same game with a new varnish. You'll bid on goods to store in your warehouse, try to sell goods to make money, and fill delivery contracts for certain items, like pigs and jewelry. Hopefully not at the same time, but there were some twisted people in Tempest. Some of them might have been into that. You're not here to judge.

You are here to get rich and powerful, though, and while there are several ways to get power, the more effective way is to just go out and buy it. At least, if you're merchants. If you're politicians in modern America, the best way to get power is to lie to a bunch of people and promise other people favors if they'll fund your reelection campaigns. But this isn't a game about American politics, it's a game about the rising merchant class, so in this case, money means power.

Mercante is as brilliant and involved a game as Courtier. The rules might take a couple read-throughs, just to make sure you got them all, and I'm pretty sure we still played wrong. But these meaty rules provide you with a game that is as strategic as it is tactical, smart and tricky, and full of great opportunities to screw your friends.

In fact, that friend-screwage is one of the highlights of the game. So much of Mercante is about bidding, and you can totally hose someone just by bidding them up and forcing them to pay more than their win is worth. You can hire thugs to rob their warehouses. You can close markets just as they go to sell their goods. Over and over, there are excellent chances to make other people miserable, which make Mercante good, clean fun best enjoyed by people who don't take it personally when you treat them very poorly.

I really hope these Tempest game kick off a trend. This idea of connecting games in a series, telling a story through the games, is so much fun I can barely stand it. It's like you get to be there to witness the city-state changing before your eyes. These are not expansions. They're more like sequels. They're similar, but not identical, and each game can stand on its own - but seriously, if you're going to get one, get them all. They are fantastic.

Like all the games in the Tempest series, Mercante is involved, very European, and low on dead bodies. But it's marvelously fun, if you're into this sort of game, and shows just how much innovation the board game industry can come up with. I highly recommend it. And in two days, I'll tell you about Dominare, the best of the bunch.

Summary

2-5 players

Pros:
Involved and smart
Tons of interaction
Heavy without being dull
Tense and hellacious fun

Cons:
Very Euro (not a con for me, more of a heads-up)

You can get Mercante from Coolstuff, Inc., and I am flabbergasted that you can get it for a price this amazing:
http://www.coolstuffinc.com/p/165353