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).
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| 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.
GolfMania is a light card game where players are trying to score points (in the form of golf holes). They do this by playing negative cards on their opponents, and positive cards on themselves. After all cards have been played, each player rolls a die, and compares this die to a number on the left side of the current hole card. If they roll equal to, or below to this number...they succeed at the "drive" on that hole. Everyone else is out for this hole. The remaining players then roll the die again, and the lowest roll wins the hole, and scores the points shown in the ball. First person to 18 points wins the game.
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| Pic by Raiko Puust / BGG |
And that's basically GolfMania. To be blunt, it's not a very good game, especially the random "whoever rolls lowest wins" way of deciding holes. The drive roll at least has some take that action, and ways to modify the dice to make it more interesting. The winner of the hole is just whoever rolls lowest on an unmodified roll? Really? There's probably a good reason why Fantasy Flight has all but disavowed all knowledge of this game's existence.
However, for me, this game holds a little more of a place in my personal gaming history. This was the first game I ever bought at Origins that wasn't Magic: the Gathering. I'd gone to Origins the year before for a day, and basically bought a bunch of Magic singles, while giving very short shrift to every other game company there. If they didn't have Magic, they didn't matter. In 1997, though, I had experienced Settlers of Catan, I saw there was more out there than Hasbro games and CCGs...so I went to Origins with my eyes more open. Now granted, I probably missed out on a bunch of incredible games, while being drawn to stuff like GolfMania (probably why I love bizarre themes to this day)...but still, a little game like this was one of the sparks that led me into the hobby.
I hope readers enjoyed this peek into the dark, hidden past of Fantasy Flight Games. I'm sure if I look, I can find other releases by big companies / designers that they hope will be erased by time...and I'll be sure to share them with Games & Grub readers.
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