Tales from NecronomiCon: bloody hands, Cthulhu Wars, stretch goals, and more!
over 10 years ago
– Tue, Aug 25, 2015 at 05:21:03 AM
Oh man, so much happened in the last few days. On Thursday afternoon I rode a bus through a village called Mystic and into Providence, Rhode Island, home town of H.P. Lovecraft, for a very special NecronomiCon celebrating the 125th anniversary of his birth. The weekend was fittingly dramatic. My phone is having trouble at the moment so I can't show you pictures yet, so I'm going to send out more than one of these emails, with pictures and more information, so keep an eye out!
We hit the $40,000 stretch goal, making it so that Two Player Mode is included in every copy of Cultists of Cthulhu. What's more, we also made the Hotness on BoardGameGeek! I'll have to think of something special to celebrate having gotten both of those. You guys are amazing, thank you.
I got to see an amazing variety of scholars and academics and gamers and readers and fans and some amazing cosplayers, ranging from period clothes to Cthulhu, byakhee, and more than one shoggoth. All sorts of people united in their love of Weird Horror. It was really something beautiful, in a horrifying way.
At one point I looked down and there was blood smeared across both of my hands. I had no memory of it getting there. This is not a joke, this really happened.
I played a French mobster in a Live Action Role Playing game where I drank real absinthe and was killed by a Hound of Tindalos.
I played Cultists of Cthulhu with some of you who'd already backed the campaign, and with some who backed it after having played it, both of which are great.
And perhaps most exciting of all, I got to meet a titan of both the Cthulhu and tabletop gaming worlds, Sandy Petersen, the designer of Cthulhu Wars and the Call of Cthulhu RPG, and got to play Cthulhu Wars with him! Cthulhu Wars is a fantastic area control board game where each player plays as one of the Great Old Ones and their army of minion monsters and cultists. I was Shub-Niggurath and along with two other players lost handily to Cthulhu, but had a blast doing it. It's got a really great engine running in it that really entices you to be aggressive and just destroy the world and chase each other around, slaughtering one another in the wreckage of what was once Earth. It was tons of fun.
Plus, in addition to being a great game, it comes with an amazing set of miniatures. There are a ton of them, they're enormous, and they're surprisingly sturdy: one of my opponents accidentally knocked my Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath off the table and it landed upside down tentacle first and was fine. I got some cool photos of us playing this and I'll post them soon.
Cthulhu Wars did great on kickstarter the first time, and it's coming back soon with an expansion called Onslaught Two. You'll be able to get the original there as well. I highly recommend checking it out, it's a very cool game that is sure to do well.
Did this never get posted??? Today is H.P. Lovecraft's 125th birthday. Also, Stretch Goals!
over 10 years ago
– Mon, Aug 24, 2015 at 03:59:32 AM
The kickstarter app seems not to be posting updates. Please comment or like this so I know if it goes through; it should have been posted two days ago.
Early tomorrow morning I will be leaving New York for old Howard Phillips' hometown of Providence, Rhode Island, for NecronomiCon (http://necronomicon-providence.com). I'm excited to see all of the people celebrating everything he created and everything he inspired. This is my first time deliberately voyaging to the birthplace of an author to pay them homage, so it seems significant. I'll get to see his house! Which is also where Dr. Willett lived in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, which always intrigued me. Was he daring readers to show up on his doorstep? It's oddly appropriate that it wasn't published until after he was dead, and here I am, showing up also after he's dead. Though it would be more fitting for me to travel back in time and show up before he died...
I'll be talking about my humble contribution to the ongoing story of cosmic horror with Cultists of Cthulhu on Saturday, so come say hi if you're in town. I'll also be tweeting from @SixpenceGames (https://twitter.com/sixpencegames) about all the things man was not meant to see that I'll be seeing.
In other news, here we have three Stretch Goals!
We're so close to two player mode being included with every copy of the game. I really want to get one player mode in there too. What I'm most excited about, though, is this "you guys design a scenario" idea. The idea is, you all suggest anything you want for a scenario - could be a specific Lovecraft story, or a story by someone else, or something entirely original, as long as it's either original or in the public domain or we have permission to use it (and, of course, I get to veto dumb things) - and then I put up a poll that only backers can vote on, and then you all vote which one to make. Then we work together, designing the scenario, and when it's ready it gets included in the final version of Cultists of Cthulhu, and you get listed as a guest designer in the rulebook!
Let me know what you think, and hopefully I'll see some of you at NecronomiCon!
We made the first stretch goal!
over 10 years ago
– Sun, Aug 23, 2015 at 03:10:20 AM
We made it to $40,000 which means every copy of the game will come with two player mode! Up next: one player mode at $45,000 and all of us collaborating on a new scenario at $50,000!
Now if you'll excuse me, I must return to the Cthulhu LARP wherein I am an absinthe-sipping French gangster (with real absinthe!)
A call to greatness
over 10 years ago
– Wed, Aug 19, 2015 at 09:12:34 AM
I've posted more images on BoardGameGeek. If you haven't yet, give a thumbs up or comment on them, there's never been a better moment! If you have already, go check out the new ones for bonus points. Let's get that single player mode! And to $40,000 for two player mode!
Now that we've passed the goal, however any of this ends up, we're going to make this game a real thing that you'll be able to play. I am just incredibly proud of what Cultists of Cthulhu has grown into, and I really can't wait to get it to you and hear the stories you come up with with it. I'm incredibly grateful to you for helping me to make this real. I couldn't do this without each and every one of you. I feel like a wise old wizard handing you a box I've packed, full of adventures: I've set things up, now it's up to you to grab it and make it real. Thank you for taking up the quest.
Board Game Geek and SINGLE PLAYER MODE!!!
over 10 years ago
– Mon, Aug 17, 2015 at 09:20:38 AM
Okay, here's the plan. By now you know about BoardGameGeek, either because it's the most useful, most popular boardgame related website out there, or because of the update I sent out two days ago. Part of the front page is called the "Hotness", and it shows whatever games people are paying the most attention to right now. Our goal is to get Cultists of Cthulhu on the Hotness. If we succeed, then every game will come with Single Player Mode for free! We're all going to need to work together to get this up there, but I know we can do it! You're the best backers ever, and I know you're just as dedicated to this as I am, so let's do it!
Here's how we're going to do this.
- Become a member of BoardGame Geek, if you aren't already (and if not why not man, it's great)
- Search for "Cultists of Cthulhu"
- On the search page, if you've played Cultists of Cthulhu, please rate it! You can also rate it based on the reviews and gameplay videos and other information you've seen, but it's especially important that if you've playtested or demoed Cultists of Cthulhu that you rate it here. Higher numbers are better, but be honest!
- Click through to the image gallery and thumbs up and comment on as many pictures as you can
- Finally, on the main page for Cultists, become a fan! The button's on the right hand side, or ctrl+f "fan" to find it easily
That's it! We can definitely get on the hotness, and then we can all get that single player mode. Let's do this!
