News Digest 138
This is a copy of the “script” we used to organise Brainwaves Episode 138. It is not a full transcript but should give you an overview of the news as we reported it. Quotes are in italics.
Headlines
As D’Or Winners announced
https://www.tabletopgaming.co.uk/news/french-board-game-award-winners-announced
- The As D’Or is the French equivalent of the Spiel des Jahres award.
- Every year it is given out at the Festival of Games in Cannes.
- The award is split into 4 categories.
- An overall game of the year, that is aimed towards lighter games.
- A children’s game, aimed at 3 to 7-year-olds.
- An intermediate game. This refers to games played by a regular audience seeking more challenging mechanisms.
- An expert game, complex games with sophisticated mechanisms.
- The winners were
- Trio for Game of the Year,
- Designed by Kaya Miyano, published by Asmodee
- Puzzle Adventure, Children’s
- Designed by Antonin Boccarra & Romantic Galonnier, published by Blackrock Games
- Faraway, Intermediate
- Designed by Johannes Goupy and Corentin Lebrat, published by Blackrock Games
- La Familiga, Expert Game
- Designed by Maximilian Maria Thiel, published by Neoludis
- Trio for Game of the Year,
- Congratulations to all the winners
Cardboard Edison Awards
https://cardboardedison.com/award
- One of our favourite awards is back for its 2024 run. The Cardboard Edison awards seek out unsigned designs and highlight them to the wider community.
- The finalists have been announced and they are
- Caminito by Designer Pedro Ometto
- Cart’nage by Loic Lamy
- Chroma by David Walsh
- Comic Book Boom by Dan Nichols
- Crime Scene Party by Leo Taylor
- Crowded Frontier by Myles Wallace
- Enemar by James Mapes
- Kells by Anne Meyer
- Lily Hop by Matthew Hocker
- Single-Sort by Corey Andalora & Donnie Colman
- Snowy Peaks by Yuri Morroni & Gabriel Toschi
- Soothsayers by Jeff Grisenthwaite
- Starlite Diner by Jay Bucciarelli & Liberty Kifer
- Tokamak by Alexander Simon Thrysoe
- You can check out more about each of the finalists on the Cardboard Edison Award page we will link to in the show notes.
- The finalists have to send a prototype to the award committee by the 11th April and the winners will be announced in May
- We spoke to the winner of last year’s competition, Sabrina Culyba, back in cast 123. Sabrina’s game Diatoms was kickstarted successfully
- We hope to bring you a similar interview with the winner of this year’s competition.
Prospero Hall folk start a new studio
https://www.tempestworkshop.com/?trk=public_post-text
- A couple of episodes back in cast 136, we covered the sad demise of games design studio Prospero Hall.
- The owner of the studio, Funko, sold it to German games and toy company Goliath, shedding most of the staff that had made Prospero Hall such an icon in recent years.
- Prospero Hall had bucked the trend of bad movie tie in games with titles like Jaws and Top Gun, and had a huge success with their line of Disney Villainous games.
- Game development lead at Prospero hall, Chris Rowlands, posted to their Linkedin profile recently that they were launching a new studio called Tempest Workshop. From that post
- Our previous team was the best in the world at what we did, and many of our former colleagues have moved on to other positions in the industry or are pursuing their own projects. This means that Tempest Workshop is by no stretch the entirety of what our team once was, but I have complete faith in the folks we’re assembling to bring beautiful and amazing experiences to every table. Trust me, we’ll prove it to you. We love making games. We believe they can change the world, we sincerely do. It is an absolute honor and privilege to be able to make amazing products alongside this team. The best is yet to come.
- The studio is offering services such as game design, development and testing as well as production and project management.
- There is an email in the post we will link to that will allow you to get in touch should you be interested in engaging this new venture.
News
Shipping woes
- Over the last few years, the games industry has suffered from regular disruptions to the way products are moved around the globe.
- From enormous price rises during the peak of the pandemic to ships getting stuck in the Suez Canal, it seemed that everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. Many companies suffered when these incidents hit their profits and we saw several go under during the fallout.
- Now a new problem is bringing back memories of those bad days.
- Attacks on vessels in the Red Sea from Yemen’s Houthi Rebels have led to a massive increase in global shipping costs and a new threat to the health of the board game industry.
- In a piece on site Boardgamewire, Tory Gardener, freight manager for crowdfunding fulfilment service Gamefound said
- “Before going into how difficult this has been for us, it must be said how terrible this entire situation is as a whole. We hope they can come to a resolution soon.
- “We started seeing knock on affects in early December. At that time, it appeared as though the main issue would be longer timelines. For example, prior to this, my China to UK shipments were sailing on average around four weeks. As the situation developed, it quickly extended to at least five, with a full possibility of it ending up closer to six weeks.
- “Mutterings about pricing changes started happening mid to late December. As the year came to an end, it became apparent that we were in for a rude awakening. By the time we came back from the festive break, the entire process had shifted.
- “As you noted, prices absolutely shot up, and became completely unrecognisable to the previous prices quoted at the end of 2023. In addition, quote validity timelines had also reduced from a month to a week, and eventually extending to a two-week period.
- “Collecting quotes, confirming bookings, and finding sailings within the price validity period has felt like an impossible task.”
- “Overall, processes have been taking longer and costing significantly more. With this aside, I do hold out hope that the year will improve.”
- Reports from the US indicate that they are yet to see major impact but that it was coming.
- Noted in the article on boardgamewire is that the Red sea is not the only issue hitting global shipping. Water levels in the Panama canal have been at record lows making it difficult to get ships through.
- All this has coincided with Chinese New Year, a period of time where many Chinese factories shut down. Savvy companies will take this into account, but cannot predict the other events that have befallen them.
Rascal
- As regular listeners will recall, at the beginning of 2023 there was a huge controversy over Wizards of the Coast walking back the Open Gaming Licence. This was what allowed people to produce D&D-related products without having to seek specific arrangements with Wizards of the Coast. The person who broke that story was Lin Codega who had a brilliant year reporting on all aspects of the RPG gaming space.
- Lin’s employers were stupid enough to sack them towards the end of last year.
- Now Lin, Chase Carter and Rowan Zeoli have formed a new RPG-focused news site called Rascal
- From the Rascal launch announcement
- Rascal is a tabletop roleplaying game and culture outlet striving to sustainably publish voicey journalism that is compelling, deeply-reported, and fearlessly honest. We’re also a little cheeky.
- Our tagline, “Alternative, Independent, Roguelike” embodies the kind of work we’ll be doing and our ethos. We’re not the only option, we’re an alternative. We’re fully worker-owned, and entirely independent not controlled by anyone but ourselves, with zero strings attached to VCs, advertisers, or investors. Roguelike pays homage to Rogue, the first text-based game that utilized a computer to randomly generate dungeons. We aim to put up new work every day, to be slightly unpredictable, and do things a little differently.
- The site has been uploading content on a daily basis. This includes interviews, editorial and looking at products across the tabletop RPG space
- While you can get a sample of the work for free, reading a lot of articles on the site will require a monthly or yearly subscription.
- We wish them the best of luck for the future.
- Discussion: What is the future of tabletop journalism? How can it be supported.
- Vice has just collapsed. Executives getting fat rewards while firing the people that make the places work.
Jobs, Opportunities, and Events
https://www.facebook.com/groups/TabletopJobs
Roleplay for Ukraine
https://linktr.ee/roleplayua?fbclid=IwAR2Bj78x6y1VTvvjh7Z_w1ujo9Pgim8KwR5w9kO8SY72N__siGrCY_cxbLk
- Coming in May this year is the Roleplay for Ukraine event. Running from the 3rd to the 5th of May this is an online event raising money for medical supplies to Ukraine.
- You can find out more on the Discord organised for the event and participate in a wide range of roleplaying games to raise money for this worthy cause.
Diana Jones Emerging Artist Award
- The Diana Jones Award is an annual award for excellence in gaming. Since 2021 it has expanded with an emerging designer award as well.
- They have recently announced that the 2024 Emerging Designers Award is open for submissions. From that press release
- The Emerging Designer Program provides both access and support to those designers that have historically been excluded from the larger industry conversations. While we recognize this program is only a first step in that process, our organization is committed to pushing forward, learning from mistakes, and improving the industry we love.
- Designers who are selected as finalists receive a free badge and hotel room at Gen Con, up to $2,000 travel reimbursement for both domestic and international travel, a $75 per day food stipend, a $2,000 honorarium for presenting their work, and a prize package of game design resources. They’re also showcased as a Diana Jones Award Emerging Designer at Gen Con.
- The deadline for submission is the 2nd of April and you can find all the details at the link we will provide in the show notes.
Patreon Shoutouts
Kevin Bertram
James Naylor
Shaun Newan
game-a-lot.fun/en
facebook.com/gamealotboardgames
Our Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/thegiantbrain
Metallic Dice Games
Promo Code: ROLLWITHBRAINS
Sir Meeple
Outro
Where I will be in the next month conventions wise.
Airecon, Harrogate, England, 14th – 17th March
Gothcon, Gothenburg, Sweden, 29th – 31st March
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