A Civilized Goblin Slayer

We love civilization games – we, as NSKN Games and (dare I say) we, as gamers in general. Since the success of Francis Tresham’s Civilization almost 35 years ago, civilization games have always turned heads of most people finding pleasure in tabletop gaming. The only question is: why?

Image source: 
BoardGameGeek

A few days ago I listened to the 160th episode of the D6 Generation, a podcast I’ve been a fan for the last few years. Russ Wakelin and Craig Gallant invited Tom Vasel to sit in the third revolving chair (now being a trademark of the show) to review Star Wars: Imperial Assault and talk about the mechanisms in dungeon crawling games. After creating a list of rather obvious entries (like HeroQuest and Descent), and making some surprising exclusions (most notably Wrath of Ashardalon and the whole D&D Adventure System), they arrived an what I found to be a particularly interesting conclusion: the story and character building is what makes a dungeon crawl what it is – and a good game in general.

This is an interesting conclusion, as it would seem that a dungeon to crawl, some monsters to kill, and some heroes to kill the monsters with would be all you need to enjoy a true dungeon crawling experience. The character development is probably not the component most people would come up with instantly, but it’s also something most of us would mention along the way. And whether we agree with the D6G genre assessment or not, it seem that ensuring some options for the heroes to “ding!” is essential to enhance a game’s staying power.

If we take a small sidestep and enter the adventure game territory it will become rather obvious that character development is one of the key things we are after. And stepping even further – far enough to cross the boundary that divides American and European style games – it will quickly become noticeable that one of the things we seem to love most about gaming is improving things. So, in general, whether we’re talking about a barbarian getting better and better at slaying goblins, an economic engine more and more effective at cranking out victory points, or a nation built from a humble settler now able to flood the world with its armies or dominate the lands with its ruthlessly adorable culture, we will arrive at the same concept: development.

Image source: 
BoardGameGeek

It’s true that there are gamers who enjoy destroying, confronting other players and generally wreaking havoc (right from turn one if possible), but even they are not impervious to the lure of a bigger gun. And whether those gamers like it or not, the temptation to see something of their own grow, become faster, stronger or simply more lethal falls in line with a base desire we all seem to share: a desire to build, to improve and to watch our creation grow for the benefit of (or to destroy) all who lay their eyes upon its glory.

But all of this is not really a surprise. After all, we love growth and development not only in gaming. A book or a movie is also far more enjoyable if the characters change and evolve, if they learn new things, if they lose something (but usually also gain something in the process). Thus, it would be unwise to ignore development as an important factor of any creative endeavour – be it one the audience can observe, or one it can actively participate in. And that is probably also why we like civilization games so much – and why we need more games that take cues from what seems to be one of the most basic drives when it comes to gaming.

Also, if anybody asks, this is why NSKN loves games where you get to build and develop so much. And this is why we made will keep making them.

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Live from Spiel Essen and Exodus makes it to Tom Vasel's top 100 games of all times

Spiel Essen is already fading from our memory and yet we find every day something from this amazing event which makes us smile.

G*M*S Magazine has interviewed us during Spiel Essen and while I must say that my English sounds a lot better in my mind than on tape, it's still cool to see the outcome. Just jump to minute 49:05 and watch us go wild.

On a different note, we've just discovered that Tom Vasel has included Exodus: Proxima Centauri in his Top 100 games of all time, the 2013 edition. At the time of shooting the video, he had not opened the Revised Edition, so the ranking is based solely on the first edition of the game. Again, jump to minute 5:42 and see what Tom, Sam and Zee have to say about Exodus...

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On the way to the top?

Exodus @ Spiel '12 Essen

When I was working on the design of Exodus: Proxima Centauri and I saw the game growing under my eyes, I set quite high expectations. It was my third game and my most important project, something in which I strongly believed. But... (there's always a but) NSKN is still a small publisher with limited reach to distribution channels and that prevents our games to be in the spotlight. So, I had to dial down my expectations and set my hopes to a realistic level. 

Just after Spiel '12 was over, I asked the other member of out team where would they see Exodus in half a year on the BoardGameGeek charts. The most optimistic answer was somewhere around place 2000 if we're really lucky. I dared a more optimistic estimation, hoping to see Exodus reach top 1000 before the end of 2013. 

It's January, a long time before the end of the year, but the progress Exodus has made up the charts is significant.

In October, Exodus was ranked 4800th on the BGG games chart and there was only one preview out. Today things look completely different. Exodus benefits from more than 10 reviews in 5 languages and the famous Tom Vasel ranked the game 3rd in his preferences for 2012 after giving it a great review (9.5/10).

http://www.dicetower.com/top_ten_lists/current-top-ten-list-top-ten-games---2012.html

On the BGG charts, Exodus has climbed up to place 3500 in the beginning of December last year and yesterday it just broke into top 2500,a ll these without reaching the hobby stores in the United States. With and average rating of 8/10, I am have reason to hope that the ascension of Exodus will no stop here.

For a major publisher this would not be a significant accomplishment, but for our size and history it's something to be proud of.

I am hoping that the end of this year will prove me right and that more and more people will open and play Exodus: Proxima Centauri and that all of them will be just as content as the games who have already played and expressed their opinions.

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More about NSKN Legendary Games on the website | Facebook | Twitter | BGG |  ScoopIT Magazine | Blog

Warriors & Traders can also be found on its own website | Facebook |  BGG
Exodus: Proxima Centauri: website | BGG
Wild Fun West: website | BGG

Follow us on Twitter: Agni, Alexandra, Andrei and Vlad 

New video reviews

The holidays season brought us a few gifts, some quite unexpected. After the release of Exodus: Proxima Centauri and Wild Fun West we gave a few copies to experienced reviewers all over the world who would in exchange share their opinions, pointing out what they liked and disliked about our board games. If last year it took a long time to see impressions about Warriors & Traders, this time things moved a lot faster and we got these unexpectedly quick gifts.

Wild Fun West caught the attention of Tom Vasel from The Dice Tower (English review)

Exodus was analyzed by Alex from ce-jucam.ro (Romanian review)

Last but not least, during Spiel '12 Essen, the NSKN booth was visited by Andreas from cliquenabend.de and who talked to our team about every single one of our board games and expansions, Exodus: Proxima Centauri, Wild Fun West, Warriors & Traders and the Italia expansion (English/German)

The video of Warriors & Traders is slightly too long to add it here, so please have a look at the original link http://www.cliquenabend.de/news/992500-Essen-2012-Neuheit-Warriors-Traders.html.

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More about NSKN Legendary Games on the website | Facebook | Twitter | BGG |  ScoopIT Magazine | Blog

Warriors & Traders can also be found on its own website | Facebook |  BGG
Exodus: Proxima Centauri: website | BGG
Wild Fun West: website | BGG

Follow us on Twitter: Agni, Alexandra, Andrei and Vlad 

An expert opinion

Yesterday evening we had a very pleasant surprise. It came from Tom Vasel, one of the most famous board game reviewers in the industry, who posted his Dice Tower review of Exodus: Proxima Centauri.

Without any further introduction...

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More about NSKN Legendary Games on the website | Facebook | Twitter | BGG |  ScoopIT Magazine | Blog

Warriors & Traders can also be found on its own website | Facebook |  BGG
Exodus: Proxima Centauri: website | BGG
Wild Fun West: website | BGG

Follow us on Twitter: Agni, Alexandra, Andrei and Vlad 

Exodus for Jack Vasel Memorial Fund

As some of you most probably already heard the annual Jack Vasel Memorial Fund started their auction on the Board Game Geek. The auction is running till November 18th, 2012.

I will let you read the words of the founders of Jack Vasel Memorial Fund, to understand better what is it about and for:

"One tragic event and two acts of generosity brought the BGG community together: the result was the Jack Vasel Memorial Fund. In January 2011, Cate Pfeifer (Cate108) posted an auction for Tom Vasel and his family to help with the unfortunate loss of his son, Jack. The generosity of the BGG community was amazing. Tom was touched and wanted to pay the kindness forward so he created the Jack Vasel Memorial Fund. He used some of the money that BGGers donated and spent to build this fund. The fund is a not-for-profit with a simple goal: raising and distributing funds to help gamers in their hour of need."

We would like to encourage you to support the auction in any way you can. If you cannot bid, simply spread the word, share the link or just give a "thumb up". Every participation counts!

We, NSKN,  have donated the brand new Exodus: Proxima Centauri from the personal collection of Agnieszka. Personally we count on your generosity as the goal here is to be the biggest spenders possible.

Let's spread some love and hope, for those who lost it...
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More about NSKN Legendary Games on the website | Facebook | Twitter | BGG |  ScoopIT Magazine | Blog

Warriors & Traders can also be found on its own website | Facebook |  BGG
Exodus: Proxima Centauri: website | BGG
Wild Fun West: website | BGG

Follow us on Twitter: Agni, Alexandra, Andrei and Vlad