Brewin' USA & Adam's Apple Games

We got another new game over at House DSG. Once again, this little beauty was backed on Kickstarter. A few delays, but at only 2.5 months late that's not bad for a first time publisher. Some backers were worried by the lack of communication, but the creator updated us when he had news and kept quiet when he didn't so I didn't mind too much. He also promoted the hell out of his game during production and will be hosting a #brewmaster contest soon for players (we will be partaking!).

If you haven't realized by now, one of us, and I'm not saying who >.>  <.<, but one of us may have a small Kickstarter addiction. That same one of us might be slightly obsessed with board game youtube channels and particularly board game youtube series. So naturally, that person had to watch season 2 of Tabletop Deathmatch (which, if you haven't been following along, is a contest Cards Against Humanity hosts to find a new game they will publish). The second season seemed to be a bit tougher for competitors, as this time only 8 games were presented and all got professional quality prototypes. Brewin' USA did not win, but as top 8 out of 300 games you know it's got potential. This makes our 3rd purchase from games featured by CAH.

In Brewin' USA, players are startup breweries competing to be the first to launch 5 beers at the inception of the craft brew revolution.This is done by vying for area control. Each area also has specific beer preferences, so players will develop strategies to determine which beer to launch in which city. But be careful! You may not be the only one launching your beer in a city, and you will have to compete with all other brewers in a brew fest to determine who wins the market region.

Season 2 featured play testing as part of the contest. The original design for Brewin' USA got a lot good reviews. It was viewed as a good entry level euro, and a few judges thought it was similar to Ticket to Ride. Everyone seemed to find it easy to learn and play, and really enjoyed the amount of player interaction. The bottle caps were also generally liked and really played to the theme. Speaking of which, the theme is very strong, but most felt it was an accessible themes vs niche (although this was a debated issue), and very marketable. Most criticisms existed due to the lack of play testing at the time. Judges felt the additives seemed a little random (all incentive, no consequence...the reality that some of those additives would create gross beers). There was also the potential to get stuck on your turn because everyone needs basically the same cards, versus different cards (like in Ticket to Ride). Other than that, there were just some nit picks about balancing the card values, working with the hand size and board size, and cleaning up some mechanics (at that point it was more tactical than strategic).

Having done more play testing and tweaking, Brewin' USA moved to Kickstarter. They dropped the hidden objectives, made the map out of interchangeable tiles, and all around polished everything up. It got almost double it's goal, and the designer was able to get a to of craft breweries to join up-you will see their beers featured on the cards. And now that it is in my hands, I will say the box is stunning! Admittedly, not at all what I was expecting in terms of shape. It looks like a wine (or large beer) bottle box, and the bottom slides out sideways (there's a little hole to poke it out with). The components are also great. The cards are a nice linen texture,and the cardboard tiles are nice and sturdy. The colors look great without being blinding. And finally, it comes with real bottle caps for you to play with (currency if you will, with 5 sets of colored caps for each player). Now I'm not sure if future runs will include these or not, as the game was a hefty $45 and the publisher may want to drop price for future runs and include cardboard, wood, or plastic tokens instead. This is just my speculation though, so we shall see.

So, have we played this one yet? No. It just arrived in the mail yesterday, and it was all I could do to behave and not rip everything open at work. Hopefully soon--maybe this weekend. All the bottle caps (100+) came in individual bags, so it's going to take me a bit to get everything unwrapped ;)


Links to check out:
CAH Tabletop Deathmatch (season 2)
Ticket to Ride on BGG
Brewin' USA on BGG
Brewin' USA webpage
Adam's Apple Games

One Step Closer...

Well we're geting there--almost ready for streaming and posting videos. Tonight was our intro session to an online 5e campaign. Not even sure if the sessions from this group will be recorded and edited for youtube, or eventually streamed live, but we took the opportunity to test a few things out.

So the good news, we've got a pretty good omni-/multi-directional mic that should easily pick up all the players at our table for a board game.

The bad news, I'm not sure camstudio is going to be the best recording program. First off, I still can't get it to record mic & speakers together. I got my mic input to play through my speakers, but it would still only pick up the mic. Played w/ some settings (also disconnected my headset, working on a laptop btw w/ built in cam/mic as well), and eventually got it to record speakers only. So I moved over to the table, muted my mic, and 3 of us used the good mic mentioned above. My sound settings are still all sorts of screwed up though. Also, the camstudio window at some point disappeared, although the flashing corners indicating my screen cap field were still active. Eventually, I pulled the window up through my notification area of the taskbar. It looked like it had already stopped recording, but recording data was still showing and I was able to stop. It took quite a while to save, but eventually I got the option. An error popped up stating the audio had been saved seperately. Now, my main file won't play and appears to be corrupt. I seem to still have my temp files but they also won't play (actually maybe the audio does). I think if we can merge them it will work though...

May need to find a new program if we want to do D&D. Definitely need something that will do screen cap, but also need to set an independant field as I'm not sure if this will be a single or multi-window view yet. It would be preferable to support simultaneous audio recording from my mic and speakers though, as I/whoever is recording may not always be able to share another mic. We're not exactly looking to invest in programs right now either, which makes things tricky. Also, I'm not sure what our tableop set up will actually be. I may not need a screen cap program where I can set a specific field to record, especially if we can get our mic and my sony handycam (hey, it was free!) to sync up and provide all the audio and video we need...the question will be how many cam feeds do we need/want for a board game? Currently the debate is between just one showing the whole table (unsure of angle, either top down to show playing space only or angled to get a good view of play space plus players/player areas), multiple (probably 2) cams to show a good view of the play space and probably player areas, or one cam for the board and one on each player (face/hand/tableau depending on game).

If you know how to fix the camstudio issues, have other recording software recommendations (general, twitch/live specific, screen cap w/ simultaneous speaker &mic support, etc.), or have a specific request for the board game live streaming visual arrangements (any of the above or another), let us know in the comments! Your knowledge and opinions are always helpful.

What's Brewing?

Are any of you hobby brewers? Or professional brewers? What do you like to make? We've got some friends who brew beer, another is just starting to give a go at cider, and our very own Wakowski brews mead. Currently he has about 40 gallons sitting in the basement. So what's he got brewing?

• Traditional Honey
• Orange Blossom Honey
• Vanilla Cinnamon
• Cherry Blueberry
• Coffee Chocolate
• Earl Grey
• Grape
• Cyser (made with cider from a local farm)
• Mango (short mead)

Some old flavors he's done in the past (but may or may not do anymore in the future, despite complaints from our friends) include:

• Cherry
• Christmas Cookie (spiced & sweetened)
• Metheglin (spiced)

Kickstarter: Tiny Epic Western

With the launch of their fourth game in the series kicking off today, it seemed appropriate to talk about Gamelyn Games and their next Tiny Epic game, Tiny Epic Western.

I am a Kickstarter junkie, and have backed quite a few games, as have many of my friends. It is a dangerous move, but so far I have not been left gameless or sorely disappointed with my purchases. One way to ensure an enjoyable Kickstarter experience is to go with reliable companies. There is some debate here as to whether established publishers should be using Kickstarter, but there are many that are small companies run out of people's homes and they need to capital to produce a new game so in that regard I am not really upset with their use of the platform.

Now, Gamelyn Games is one of those small publishers. Founded by Michael Coe, who has previous publishing experience with Crash Games before amicably splitting to pursue different visions, Gamely Games hit the ground running with their Kickstarter for Tiny Epic Kingdoms. the first installment of what would become a series of small, portable, strategic games. They flew past their goal in 1 day, and ended with 19x more than they needed from 8,979 backers. From then on the series was a success, and I just can't resist backing each new installment!

For those not familiar, the Tiny Epic series is focusing on small, portable, euro-style games. Their tag line is "tiny box, epic gameplay" and that is exactly what they produce. Designer Scott Almes puts a lot of work into his games and it shows. Each game comes in a 4x6 box, about the size of a large pencil case and easily fit into a cargo pant pocket (or stocking!), but packs enough punch for even serious gamers. With an average play time of 30-60 minutes these are great games to bring out and about, or introduce new gamers to a genre. The components so far have always been of great quality, and at the speed with which they fund there are so many cool stretch goals to be had with the Kickstarter versions. These games also get produced fairly quickly n_~

Tiny Epic Western combines worker placement with poker, and very strongly encourages player interaction/conflict. Each player gets a unique character card, accumulates property, invests in stocks, and manages a posse. Every bit of this game really gets you into the theme, from a wagon wheel set-up to mini poker hands every round. There are even special bullet shaped dice! If you are mildly interested in this series, check out their Kickstarter. The game is a steal at $18.


Learn more about the publisher & series:
Gamely Games
Tiny Epic Kingdoms & Hero's Call (expansion)
Tiny Epic Defenders
Tiny Epic Galaxy
Tiny Epic Western (Kickstarter Jan 11-Feb 6, 2016)

Booze Clues: Twists on Classic Cocktails

Our first round of Booze Clues on our own! Two of our own have come up with the theme for this month and, as the drinks are all twists on classics, there will be no tastings this time.

French 75 (twist on a mimosa)
2 ounces gin -- London dry gin
1 teaspoon superfine sugar
1/2 ounce lemon juice
5 ounces Brut champagne

Bijou (twist on a whiskey sour)
1 ounce London dry gin
1 ounce sweet vermouth
1 ounce green Chartreuse
1 dash orange bitters

And since we didn't try whiskey sours back in lecture 3...

Whiskey Sour
2 ounces of bourbon
¾ ounce freshly squeezed lemon juice
¾ oz simple syrup
1 or 2 teaspoons of egg white (optional)
lemon wedge and maraschino cherry garnish

We're taking February off, due to the Super Bowl, but we'll be back hitting it hard in March.