October 2023 Newsletter
The Future
Here it is! The moment that at least 2 people have all been waiting for: the first reveal of the confirmed (and yet also subject to change) schedule of games in 2024:
Click the image for a larger version
And for a non-image version of the above, and for a few more details, here’s the list:
Den of Wolves, Rivercitycon, Louisville, KY - 1/12
Rivercitycon is a new, small convention here in Louisville and I’m hoping to use this as a time to show some non-mega gamers what a megagame is. It’s still not fully confirmed but I’m talking with the organizers and they seem really excited to partner with us.
Deephaven, Louisville, KY - 3/9
This will be our first “main” event of the year, the huge 70 person game of Dwarves creating a new mountain home together. It’s very different from the games we’ve run before; it’s much more role-play heavy, very dependent on the players being creative and weaving their own stories. I’m really excited to introduce this to our players. Also, we have a new space this year - an amazing community space I’m excited to partner with and bring a little more attention to.
Den of Wolves, Ann Arbor, MI - 3/30
Some of our regular players drive all the way down from Michigan and so I’ve been working with them to bring megagames a little closer to them. Den of Wolves is the perfect game to bring to a new place - it’s easy to run and has good name recognition which allows us to work out the kinks of a new space and new audience.
Den of Wolves, Columbus, OH - 4/27
Both OH and MI used to have pretty active megagame scenes before the pandemic so I’m hoping to reinvigorate those communities. There are some very passionate mega gamers in OH and I’ve had some help getting this event organized, for which I’m very grateful.
It belongs in a museum, Louisville, KY - 6/1
Our second “main” event is It belongs in a museum. It’s an amazing theme - Indiana Jones, meets Tomb Raider, meets Warehouse 13, meets The Thing, meets any other pop-culture explorers you can thing of. Like Deephaven, it’s a little more role-play heavy than some of the other games we’ve run, but has a good structure behind it where adventurers are going on quests and where museums are building up to showcase all the exotic artifacts.
Gen con, Indianapolis, IN - 8/1-8/4
We haven’t finalized anything for Gen Con yet (it is very far out), but the Megagame Coalition is hoping to double its showing in 2024 and the Dukes need to step up! I’d like to put on at least 3 games this time but we’ll have to see.
It came from… The Skies!!!, Louisville, KY - 9/28
Watch the Skies is an incredible game and this is our new version of it. We ran a modified version of Watch the Skies in 2022 called “WTS: New Materials” but we’re drifting far enough away from the original formula that we needed to rename it. It’s the same theme - modern day world leaders having to deal with world issues when aliens show up and mess everything up. But I’m designing it in a way that we can bolt on different modules. The first in the “It came from…” series will be “The Skies”, but I have plans for “The Center of the Earth” and “Another Dimension” amongst others. Those will come later.
For those of you that have been reading my newsletter and blog for a while, you might notice that there’s something missing from it. I have been working on another game - it’s called The Blackwater Curse and it’s going to be a Lovecraftian-themed, mega-RPG. I’m still super excited for it but it’s a LOT of work and needs a lot more time. I was hoping that I’d be able to run it next year but essentially I have to write ~50 one-shot RPGs in a very specific format that can be run by people without an in-depth understanding of the entire story. And after running my own design last year (Gods of the Ancient World) I wanted to run some existing games from some other designers. So watch this space.
The Present
Now that I’ve revealed the line-up, you can see that I’ve been really busy setting up events, talking with event organizers, looking at spaces, reviewing game materials, etc. So while there’s not a lot to show right now, I’m still busy.
As you can see from the line-up, we have a significant number of games to run, and we’ll need a decent number of volunteers to run them all, especially Gen Con. If you are interested in helping control some games next year, please fill out this form: https://www.dukesofhighland.net/apply-to-control.
I’ll need to give preference to people that have been on the wait list for a while but I can almost guarantee that there will be availability at Gen Con next year.
So what are we videogames?
I started playing Void Train this week, an interesting base-building, crafting game where your base is a train! In a lot of ways, it reminds me me of raft - where your base is constantly moving and you’re gathering resources from what floats by you.
It’s a really pretty game, with the different voids offering cool surprises along your journey. It’s still in early access so don’t expect a finished game (yet).
I’m playing it as coop with a friend of mine and I think it works best that way as you can divide the tasks between each of you.
Right now I can’t STRONGLY recommend it, but it is a decent game and I’m excited to keep playing.
So what are we boardgames?
Last month I mentioned that we’re working our way through The Kings Dilemma. We’re also working on Scythe: The rise of Fenris, the campaign expansion for the original Scythe.
Scythe is an excellent, hard-to-describe game; a mixture of area control (but not really), worker placement (sort-of), achievement hunting game for 3-5 players. We’re playing with 4 but I think it’d play even better with 3. The campaign portion of it includes fun boxes to open before every game, adding rule tweaks and extra factions to play with.
The best part about Scythe is that it’s such a smooth, efficient game. Everything runs nicely and you always feel like you’re making progress. You also never have more than about 4 options at a time so it cuts down on analysis paralysis.
It’s great! I CAN recommend this one.
So what are we televisioning?
I just started watching The Strain on Hulu, a vampire horror series from 2016 which feels closer to a zombie show than a vampire show. I’m only a few episodes in right now but it’s good enough that I’m sticking with it (and that’s saying something these days).
-Tony