Sad News

TransamericaI was saddened to hear of the death on Sunday of designer Franz-Benno Delonge, due to cancer. He was just age 50.

I’ve played several of his games and enjoyed most of those I’ve tried. From the two player games, Hellas and Fjords, through Goldbrau, Dos Rios and Big City, to the excellent Manila and especially Transamerica, he has provided us with hours of enjoyment. He was preparing for the release of a new game at Essen, Container, which I’m certain to have a good look at while I’m at the fair.

Maybe we’ll dig out Transamerica on Friday as a tribute.

Counter #38

Counter 38The latest issue of Counter is out and runs to 80 pages this time. Included are interviews with Caylus designer, William Attia and Antike / Imperial designer Peter Eggert, both of whom give tasters of what is coming up at Essen. Gordon Lamont continues the Fragor story and Ivan Hanley previews their new release Antler Island – the rutting season is almost upon us!

There are reviews of a few games we’ve played recently: Notre Dame, Wikinger and Age of Empires III, as well as Phoenicia, Trapper and Cash-a-Catch (FangFrisch) which we’ve yet to play. I’m also intrigued by Mayfair’s Before The Wind, which receives a big thumbs up from Greg Schloesser.

As you can tell, there’s plenty to read as the nights start drawing in.

Game of the Month – August 2007

Shogun

Not too many new games played this month as I was on holiday for half of it. In fact, there were only two: Candamir, which we played at the start of the month and Shogun, which was at the end. It could be argued that Shogun is not a new game, as it is a re-make of Wallenstein set in Japan but it’s such a long time since I played the earlier version that the new one felt new still. Neither Candamir nor Shogun quite hit top notch for me but both are pretty good, with Shogun getting the vote by a smidgen.

The holiday saw me playing older games like Diamant, Coloretto and Zero but the highlight of the month was getting re-acquainted with Wyatt Earp and teaching it to Jan and Chris – both of whom liked it a lot. It is a very nice game and we will have to play it on games club night soon.

Linking websites

I’m doing a bit of experimentation at the moment to try and get my posts in Spiel to appear in my Trickylight site, using RSS feeds. A bit technical but it will be nice if I can get it to work.

New Bitz Quiz

Bitz Quiz

A bit of time on my hands, so I decided to put together a new Bitz Quiz. Bitz Quiz 7 has 20 puzzlers for you to think about and can be found on my Trickylight website http://www.trickylight.co.uk/

I’ll lay down my usual challenge that no-one gets them all without clicking on the answers. Any comments on how easy or hard it is can be sent to me at garry@trickylight.co.uk or posted to this thread.

Have fun!