what is the best mouse for gaming

To be perfectly honest, this article was supposed to be a review of one of Fantasy Flight's newest releases - Android: Netrunner.  I was probably going to glow about how they managed to capture the magic in from the old collectible card game, while cleaning up the mechanics and rules a little bit.  The review was likely going to be an embarrassing drool-fest.  Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view), due to Fantasy Flight's popularity, and my adventures in trying to get to GenCon (which you can read about here) I left without the game.

So, I thought I would go back a little bit, and look at an earlier Fantasy Flight game.  

Before we go back to 1997, let's take a second to see where Fantasy Flight is today.  They are one of, if not the biggest name in the hobby-gaming industry right now.  They proudly hold the banner high in the world of "American-style" games.  With many Fantasy Flight games, you will get deep thematic elements, beautiful graphic design, and engrossing game play.  You will also get the opportunity to buy an untold number of expansions for your games at a later date (but I digress).

Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition (Pic by Martti R. on BGG)

Now, according to their website , their first game release was 1997's Twilight Imperium.  Today, Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition is the gold standard for epic space war games (6-8 hours a game is the play time most people I know have said it takes).  But I want to take a look at another Fantasy Flight game released in 1997.  This game was designed by Christian T. Petersen - founder of Fantasy Flight, and designer (or co-designer) of such games as Twilight Imperium, Starcraft, and Game of Thrones.  However, this game has all but vanished from Fantasy Flight's history.

That game...is GolfMania.  The game of CRAZY Golf.

Pic by Raiko Puust / BGG

Jesse Catron is a man with whom we don't get to talk nearly enough. Read interviews he's done with various websites, peruse articles he's written about design, or casually glance at his twitter feed and you'll realize that the intricate machine that is his brain operates at a very high level. I first became aware of Jesse's game Pond Farr (now Salmon Run) through an UnPub post by John Moller.

The theme made me laugh out loud, but the more I researched the game, the better it sounded. It has great underlying mechanisms to it and doesn't seek to be just another DBG. In the interview below, Jesse outlines the process of designing Salmon Run, thoughts on Kickstarter itself, his top 5 favorite games, and his take on positive/negative feedback loops.

We'd like to thank Jesse for taking time out of his schedule to answer these questions for us. Scott and I are both on board as backers and encourage you to head over to the campaign site and plop down some clams for fish makin' babies. And, if you like this interview and think the game sounds great... stop back in a few weeks when we take a prototype of Salmon Run for a whirl.



1.) The idea of Salmon racing upstream is a wonderfully creative and unique theme. What inspired
it, and how did it change from initial concept to what Backers/Customer will receive?

It started with my desire to design a game that I, as a gamer, would enjoy playing with my nephews and
nieces. I looked to nature and animals for a universally appealing theme. I remember thinking that there
had to be a compelling theme in nature that hadn’t been done before. I thought of mass migrations and
eventually salmon and their quest to spawn. Salmon probably came to mind because I had worked on a
small game about tides and fishing a few months earlier.

While many early concepts have remained the same (or at least very similar), Salmon Run has undergone
a number of significant changes mechanically. Early versions used simultaneous turns and a fixed board.
The simultaneous turn concept did nothing to speed up the game and made card play too much of a
guessing game. Currently, the turns in Salmon Run are streamlined and flow quickly from one player
to the next. Downtime is minimal. Changing to a modular board system made a huge difference for the
game’s variability and therefore its replayability. The river now offers a new experience each game and
can be customized by both difficulty and length. This gives Salmon Run a huge amount of flexibility in
tailoring the game to new and casual players as well as experienced gamers.

Another significant change was the mechanics of the river’s current. For those who haven’t played, the
hexes on the board have an arrow or arrows to indicate the direction that the water flows. When the current
is activated each salmon moves downstream along the current. At first the current was activated after each
round of simultaneous play. This made for a very long and frustrating game. At one point, the current
was activated by a die roll at the end of each round. This lessened the frequency of the current but was too
random. Eventually I moved the activation of the current to a card. Not only did this speed up the game, it
also gave players control and provided some nice tactical decisions on when to play it.

2.) In an article written for Grant Rodiek's Hyperbole Games website, you touch on something known as "positive and negative feedback loops." Can you give an explanation of what these are and how they were instituted in Salmon Run?

Sure, I‘d be glad to. A feedback loop occurs when the output of a system affects its input and consequently
changes subsequent outputs. With positive feedback, the output of the system creates greater subsequent
outputs. Positive feedback results in an ever amplified output. Left unchecked, positive feedback loops are
unstable and spiral out of control. On the other hand, negative feedback results in a diminished output of
the system. These tend to be stable systems. Applying negative feedback to a positive feedback loop is a
useful way to keep the positive feedback system under control.

Salmon Run (and deck-building games in general) use a positive feedback system. In Salmon Run, the swim deck is the basic system. As movement cards are used to move onto special hexes, more powerful cards are added to the discard pile (output). When these cards are eventually cycled back in, the system now has an amplified capacity to obtain better cards (enhanced movement). The subsequent output of the system is greater and will increase with each cycle. The problem with positive feedback loops in a game is that it can lead to a runaway leader. The player who gets an early lead gets more and more powerful and can’t be caught. This is unacceptable in a racing game like Salmon Run. There needs to be a way to enable players to catch the leader.

One limiting factor to the positive feedback system is that rewards (the more powerful cards) are not just
limited to the first player to reach them. If the lead player swims into a Double Swim hex to gain that
card, later players can also swim there to gain the card. To really keep the positive feedback system in
check and to prevent a runaway leader problem, I used a negative feedback loop. This is in the form of
the game’s fatigue mechanism. The more a player exerts themselves to get ahead quickly the more fatigue
cards accumulate in their deck. These fatigue cards function to jam up the player’s swim deck to limit
their options and slow them down. Another additional way to prevent a runaway leader are the player
interactive cards like the current, rapids, and eagle. Player’s who are behind can use these cards to hinder
the leader. I am happy to say that nearly all games of Salmon Run I have played have been close races!

3.) Between 3012, Ascension, Penny Arcade, Nightfall, and numerous Superhero iterations this year at GenCon, some people feel there is a saturation of DBGs in the market. How does Salmon run differentiate itself from other DBG (i.e. mechanisms, etc.) ?

I agree that there are a lot of deck-building games out there. Most of which are clones or near-clones of
Dominion and don‘t really offer anything new. I feel that for DBGs to stand out, they need to be games
that utilize a deck-building mechanic as part of a greater game and not merely deck-building as the game
itself. Salmon Run is a racing game that uses deck-building rather than a just a deck-building game. To
me, Salmon Run is a unique application of the deck-building mechanic. As far as I know it is the only
deck-building race, and the only game with a path-dependent deck-building mechanic. The real “currency”
in Salmon Run is movement. The path you choose upriver determines what cards you can add or remove.
The deck-building mechanic also enables the fatigue mechanic to function. In a lot of DBGs negative
insertion cards are not a big part of gameplay. In Salmon Run the fatigue cards are an integral and
important factor and occur from multiple sources.

Another more subtle difference is that Salmon Run has a much greater hand management factor. In most
DBGs, you must discard whatever cards you don’t play from your hand. In contrast, Salmon Run allows
you to keep those cards for future turns. This allows players to have much more control of their path
upriver and provides a strategic decision point.

4.) I first heard about your game via John Moller's UnPub program. How important was this
program to you, and what advice would you give to people looking to get involved with playtesting
program(s) and pitching to publishers?

The UnPub program is fantastic and is getting larger and more and more impressive. John and Darrell do a
tremendous job. Taking my prototype to UnPub was absolutely worth it and I would highly recommend it
to any aspiring (or established) game designer. Even though I was already signed with Gryphon, I received
a lot of great feedback from both gamers and designers. This was valuable assurance for me that Salmon
Run was really ready for publication and only needed some minor tweaks. However, the relaxed and
constructive atmosphere of the Unpub program is very conducive to provide help for a prototype at any
level of completion from very rough to very polished. I look forward to attending as many Unpub events
as I can. I have also heard good things about Protospiel.

Here is my advice for pitching to publishers:
- Make sure your game is unique in some way. It needs something to make it stand out. Preferably
mechanically and thematically
- Make sure your game is thoroughly tested and ready (including blind testing)
- Don’t spend to much time or money on art, focus on gameplay
- Make sure your game needs only a reasonable and realistic number and type of components
- Do your research on which publisher is a good fit for your game; theme, target audience, and complexity
- Craft your pitch to that company accordingly, clearly spelling out what makes your game unique and why
it’s a good fit for their company.

5.) In your opinion, what makes a good game? What are your top 5 games, and did any of them
influence the creation of Salmon Run?

There are a lot of things that go into a good game. For me the essence of a good game is that it provides
players meaningful decisions, invokes palpable tension, and elicits fun and a desire to play again from its
players. Free will in game decisions is vital and those decisions must affect the outcome or progress of
the game. Tension amplifies how players feel in making each of those decisions and how the weight of
their series of decisions accumulates over the course of the game. Fun is the result and the ultimate goal of
playing games.

I have never before thought of my top 5 games but I will give it a shot (subject to change, in no particular
order, and excluding my own designs):

1.) Settlers of Catan: this is the game that introduced me to Euro games and the one I have played the most.
I know there is some amount of randomness that causes frustration, but experienced players can often
mitigate/overcome this. The interactivity of trading is great fun. A sentimental choice.
2.) Steam: This game just works so smoothly. A great blend of form and function.
3.) Zooloretto: perhaps an odd choice. I love and greatly admire the elegant simplicity of the design. The
rules are quite basic and easy to learn but elicit great tension and decisions. Its sum is much greater
than its parts. (I could substitute Ticket to Ride here instead)
4.) King of Tokyo: maybe because it is shiny and new for me, but this game exudes FUN! This is the
quintessential light game and the light game that all light games should aspire to.
5.) Revolution!: This blind bidding/area control game with simultaneous turns is quite fun. The
psychological aspect of reading your opponent makes for some great tension. This is probably
heightened for me because I usually play against my brothers. We think alike (mostly) and can often
play RPS for 10 or more rounds before there is a winner! Victory in sibling rivalry is that much
sweeter!

I imagine every game designer is influenced on some level by the games that they have played. I had not
played Steam or King of Tokyo before Salmon Run. The earliest version of Salmon Run had simultaneous
turns so it was probably influenced by Revolution! in that regard. I can certainly tell you that my desire
to keep Salmon Run elegantly simple and yet with hidden depth was forefront in my mind due to my
admiration for Zooloretto and Ticket to Ride.


6.) Finally, your game is currently on KS. What are your thoughts on the Crowdfunding site and what things have you and Eagle/Gryphon done to assure success in your particular campaign?

That's right; Salmon Run's campaign is currently underway and runs until October 28th!

I may be biased, but I am very glad that Kickstarter exists. Without it Salmon Run would be in the Gryphon
Games’ queue for another 3 or more years. Sure, there are a lot of sub-par games on Kickstarter, but I
believe in free markets. People can choose what project to back and accept the risk or not. Of course there
is some risk that the game will be terrible or that the backers will be swindled, but if people do their due
diligence the likelihood is minuscule. I only back projects where I can read the rules, I know the designer,
and/or the publisher has an established record. Plus I do enjoy helping others fulfill their dream. I am not
big on exclusives but see them as sort of a necessary "evil" (evil may be too strong of a term) to attract backers.

I wish Salmon Run’s success was assured! One good thing is that our funding goal is very low and
obtainable [ed note: obtainable indeed. Salmon Run has already Funded with 50+ days to go]. Another is that Gryphon has a good reputation for putting out a quality product with top notch components, and a timely delivery. I have demonstrated Salmon Run at two Unpub events, my local game store, and the Dice Tower Con. I wish I could have gone to larger Cons but my day job occupies a huge amount of my time. I am a marketing novice but I have conducted a number of interviews on Salmon Run and game design. I spend a good amount of time on twitter talking about games and game design, not to sell my game but because I enjoy it! However, networking with others doesn't hurt! Gryphon has purchased advertising as well. Hopefully it will be enough!

Thank you for some great questions and taking your time to interview me.

Thank YOU Jesse. We look forward to following the success of Salmon Run, keeping up with you online, and paying close attention to anything you might design in the future. ~ G&G

I don't know if this is true for other designers, but I always feel more creative in the Autumnal months: Temperatures dropping and giving way to crisp evenings, the Pumpkin Festival Show in my hometown. For some reason, my brain just clicks better this time of year; and when it does, it seeks to game-ify everything.

If you'll remember, I started this whole "Brainstorm Challenge" thing as a way to keep my brain fresh in those non-Autumn months. It's lead to some hilarious light fillers (Octopy Wall Street) and a game--Gyre--that I'm working to further develop and pitch to Publishers like Talicor, Mindtwister, and Nestorgames. While some suggested changes to Gyre have caused it to simmer in the back of my mind for a bit, other ideas for games have been popping up left and right. Listed below are just some of them.

Stop, Police! -- Living in rural Ohio has it's benefits: clean air, the ability to see the stars at night, and fresh produce straight from the farm to the plate. However, with these positive aspects of life also come rednecks with giant trucks and the inability to obey traffic laws. This penchant for vehicular manslaughter led me to an interesting thought though. After seeing multitudes of drivers merging into the wrong lanes, speeding through yellow lights, and cutting others off without turn signals, my thoughts of "I wish there was a cop here to give them a ticket" turned to I wonder if there are any games where you could take certain actions if another piece wasn't present in the game or in a particular zone.

From what more knowledgeable gamer friends tell me, there is something like this present in Illuminati and El Grande, so I'll have to check those out. The first thing my mind went to--and I know the theme has been done to death--is something Gangster related and worker placement-esque. A large majority of worker placement games have static workers, i.e. meeples that simply act as triggers for resource gain when placed in a certain area. I'd really like to see a placement game where each of the workers were dynamic. In this case, maybe 3 gangsters that have a hierarchy, a double agent, and a policeman. Resources could be "cheated" out of particular zones at higher rates depending on the rank of the gangster placed there, but would be reduced dependent on the number of policemen there. The role of double agents could then be defined based on the level of cheating that has occurred there in previous rounds.


Slide Rulers -- I played a LOT of Rummy with my relatives while growing up. I also played more games of Boggle and Scrabble than I care to recount. But the one game I think I've played more than anything else is Mancala. There's just something elegant and accessible about that game. (It also helped that my mother is a shark at it, which caused me and my competitive nature to figure out strategies faster than normal). Even today, I own 4 mancala boards--travel, 2x normal size, and a custom carved board--because I enjoy the game so much.

After so many plays, however, Mancala does lose something. You can start the game with differing amounts of pebbles in each pod, but at its core, the game is just a math equation that's relatively simple to figure out for experienced players. My though, much like the game above, focused around "what would happen if you made each of the pods have a variable power or made the pebbles that moved around the board different?" To answer this, I made the pebbles blue and pink dice (to represent boys and girls) and changed the banal pods into playground equipment or locations you would find in an elementary school. Players would get 2 blue dice and 2 pink dice and attempt to move them across the playground into their "home base." Each space moved would subtract one pip from the die; if a kiddo ran out of pips, he/she was exhausted and could be rejuvenated through a secondary game resource known as lunch money. Lastly, would be black dice known as bullies. If one of your dice came upon a bully, he/she could bypass it if the number showing on the die was higher, otherwise an amount of lunch money equal to the difference would have to be paid. End game scoring would be 1 point for a singular boy or girl on the home base, 5 points for a boy/girl pair, and the square of a group (i.e. 3 boys = 9pts).


Whack-A-Mole -- After punching out the chits to Mage Wars and Small World Realms, I couldn't help but wonder what could be done with the sheets and sheets of leftover punchboard most gamers probably just throw out. In seeing the Cardboard arcade idea good friend Chevee Dodd came up with, an idea for a super cheap filler game based around Arcade Favorite whack-a-mole dawned on me.

If you could find a leftover punchboard that was roughly 8 x 8, you could give each player a pawn that he/she would place on the grid somewhere. From there deal out 7 cards from the deck (which, ideally would consist of 13 each of up/down/left/right cards). Finally, roll a d8 and a custom die with letters A through H on it.  The combined result (e.g. E6) would be where the "mole" popped up and players would race to play a sequence of cards that would take their pawn from their current space to the location of the mole. First one to play the correct sequence gets a point. Incorrect sequences would be penalized by a 5 card hand rather than a 7 card hand. First player to whack 5 moles wins.


I am NOT a Crook -- The last idea I had was inspired by the RNC and DNC that have taken place over the last couple weeks. Instead of stories that focus on what the candidates can do for our country, all I've heard about is the LIES LIES LIES rhetoric and bipartisan mudslinging. This got me to thinking: most candidates, when confronted with campaign shortcomings will either deny any wrongdoing or claim that they don't know what you're talking about. This got me thinking about a Hanabi style bluffing game with political themes and undercurrents.

Each player would be dealt one of 10 potential candidates that only they would know. They would then be dealt 4 "campaign promise cards" that would be visible by every other player but them. Each candidate would have certain attributes like charisma, funds, etc. that would help them throughout the game, but the basic crux would be that each candidate would be making campaign promises to voters based on what they THINK is in their hand, and then other candidates could make counter claims based on the public information. Rival candidates could expose a lie told by a rival, but in doing so would allow them to turn over a campaign promise in their hand, thus giving them increased knowledge about their potential campaign promises.


Splatter Up! -- With the success of DreadBall on Kickstarter, I really want someone to make a Baseball version of Blood Bowl. I played a bit in college and also loved the Mutant League series of video games when I was in Junior High. I think, with his pedigree and experience in game design, that something like this would be right up AJ Porfirio's alley.

Overall, I think Dark Ages is a worthy addition to the Dominion canon, as it plays nicely with other sets and provides lots of things for aficionados and completists to discover. If, however, you are looking for a set to purchase after an initial pick up of Intrigue or the Base set, I would look elsewhere first. For what it’s worth, here are my favorite Dominion expansions:

1. Prosperity
2. Seaside
3. Intrigue
4. Hinterlands
5. Dark Ages
6. Cornucopia
7. Alchemy
   
   
   
   
   As a fun challenge a few weeks ago, I challenged Dominion fans to make a Kingdom set based around their favorite movie(s). We had a few great submissions that we'd like to share with you: 
   
   
   GOONIES (Submitted by Rich Sommerer)
    Adventurer, Cellar, Secret Chamber, Wishing Well, Pirate Ship, Treasure Map, Goons, Bag of Gold, Tunnel, Band of Misfits 
   
   HUNGER GAMES (Submitted by Scott Bolderson)
   Tribute,Horn of Plenty,Mining Village, Forager, Scheme, Hunting Party, Tournament, Black Market, Cache, Spoils 
   
   
   PULP FICTION
   Ill-Gotten Gains, Golem, Goons, Thief, Band of Misfits, Conspirator, Herbalist, Highway, Contraband, Armory
   
   David Copperfield (book, not movie)
   Beggar, Coppersmith, Count, Moneylender, Cache, Tactician, Cutpurse, Mountebank, Highway, Bridge
   American History X
   Possession, Cultist, Mercenary, Minion, Rabble, Torturer, Black Market, Conspirator, Graverobber, Junk Dealer
   
   

Farming.  When I hear the word, I imagine early mornings, and late nights.  I imagine hours riding giant machines, going back and forth down a seemingly endless supply of carefully laid paths of dirt.  I imagine the late summer fields of corn waving in the breeze.  I imagine it being tough work, but kind of boring.

When it comes to farming in games, it's about the same.  I can only think of a handful of farming games off the top of my head, the main one being Agricola.  Agricola is one of the top games on Board Game Geek, but in all honesty, while I enjoy an occasional game... I find it tough work to do well, and I end up being a little bored by the end of the game.

Designer Grant Rodiek, laying the smack down on me

Fortunately, up and coming game designer Grant Rodiek decided that what farming needed was a good swift kick in the overalls.  Farmageddon takes the basic concept of planting, fertilizing, and harvesting crops - and turns it into a fun-filled battle to the farmer's market.

In Farmageddon, players will be battling over a limited amount of farmland, with a goal of having the most money in your harvest pile by the end of the game.  Of course, it isn't going to be easy.  Your opponents are armed with a litany of action cards, many of which are going to do some bad things to your crops.  If you are lucky enough to have a crop survive an entire cycle of the table, and it is fully fertilized, then you can place it safely into your score pile.

The basics of the game are, well, basic.  Each player starts the game with two crop cards and three action cards in their hand.  The three Planting Field cards are placed in the center of the table, and you're ready to play.  On a turn, a player starts by drawing two crop cards.  The player can then do a number of things in a turn:

Plant Crops - Take a crop card from your hand and play it on an open Planting Field.

Fertilize Crops - Take a crop card from your hand, flip it face down, and place it on a planted crop.

Play Action Cards - This action is only allowed to be done twice per turn.  Action cards can be played on any legitimate target.

Harvest Crops - If a crop is fully fertilized, and it is not the turn it came into play, then you take the crop card (and any monetary bonus or penalty cards on it) and place them into your harvest pile!  Hooray points!

A player can do all of those (save for playing action cards) as many times as they can and/or want to in a turn, they then draw two action cards, and pray their crops don't get destroyed or stolen in the next couple minutes.

The game goes until the last crop card is drawn, at which point each player except the one that drew the cards gets one last turn.  Most money in the harvest pile wins!

There are a couple things I've found refreshing about Farmageddon, in the sea of "take that" card games it is bravely sailing into.  The most obvious thing I love is the art.  Farmageddon has some of the best drawn card art I've come across in a while.  I love the cartoonish crop animations.  Major props to Brett Bean.

Some of that great card art.

I also greatly appreciate that there are several different strategies to success you can follow towards victory.  One of my hangups in most "take that" style games is that there's only one way to play and win the game.  Here, there are some different paths to victory, though admittedly there's still a lot of randomness and luck involved.  You can try to be the big cash crop guy; playing nothing but Wary Squash and Grumpy Melons, and trying to keep them alive by defensively using Foul Manure cards.  There's a rather fun "Chaos" strategy I've seen pop up which involves trying to horde all the fields the entire game, and focus all actions on stealing / destroying other's crops.  My favorite strategy is to play Captain Quiet: humbly planting smaller crops like Sassy Wheat, and sitting idly by watching the chaos around me.  I then strike out late in the game (with a metric ton of cards in my hand), stealing as much as I can, and scoring other people's crops.

Farmageddon is a fun, fast-paced farming themed game.  There's a sentence I never thought I would type.  Even if my friends do things like this...

It may be hard to see, but that's a Pesticides card, worth -$5, played on my Stinky Truffle, worth $3.  My friends are not nice people.

~Ed. Note: Before I even had a chance to get my hands on the game, I purchased a ticket to play in the 1st annual Smash Up tournament at GenCon 2012. I didn't have any impression that I'd win, but I thought it would be a good way to socialize with other players and to get the G&G name out there. That was the plan at least. The reality is that I spent the day prior playing games in Hall E and the JW Marriott until about 4am. That being the case, I chose sleep over the tournament (I know, I know, start flaming...). Luckily, Jason Slingerland of the awesome Building The Game podcast is far more awesome than me. He sacrificed sleep to brave the perils of the tournament to smash some bases, revive some zombies, summon 8 robots a turn, and make a spectacular run. Oh, and he wants Sharks to be a Smash Up faction too.