Erkki

Some species wouldn't be able to survive without eating others and we used to be the same way. In the wild nature, the jungle laws still hold and will forever. And if any of us would have to survive in the wild tomorrow, I think nobody would oppose if you had to kill animals to eat. With domesticated animals raised with the almost sole purpose of becoming food, and the act of killing them abstracted away behind the supermarket, the ethics might be a bit more complex. And that applies to most of the meat we eat, so I totally see that someone would be ethically opposed to eating meat. I still like to eat it, though. And I only recognize the possibility that there might be some ethical issues (and definitely are if the animals are mistreated throughout their lives), but I'm not ready to accept that as a certainty. What if they discover that plants are intelligent too, or whatever along those lines that makes the killing of plants dubious -- we must eat something. What if the humankind as a whole suddenly decided to stop eating meat and started eating a lot more plants. Are you sure there would be no re-precussions, such as eating away the food of some herbivores low in the food chain, causing their numbers to wane, and maybe causing some carnivores higher in the food chain to die out completely.

I think what could save this game from mediocricity would be if there was a good story, maybe one with more connected cases (not necessarily serial murders, even just incidentally connected through some random thing). These are so far totally unconnected and are bland as self-contained short stories. I'm still in Traffic though, and I assume that near the end of the game the cases will be more connected. PS ThunderPeel, I'd still really like to learn that trick to understanding the game better if you can remember whereabouts that post of yours was.

Good news everyone! (also the video below the article looks sweet)

I love eating meat. And ditto what Nachimir said (except for the part where his parents fed him shitty meat). I'm totally for recognizing dolphins and whales and primates as having more rights, though.

Here's an in-progress hex board -- print on A3 if you can (and want to help play test). It can fit on an A4 too, but is a bit small (at least with Agricola components). It doesn't have the places for power-ups that the square one had, but those can be kept outside of the board. Maybe I'll introduce player sheets for those anyway. Rules are exactly the same as the square board. The black hexes are impassable, gray hexes are destroyable walls -- light is uncertain reward and dark is certain reward. Yellow is also certain reward, and triggers the end-game automatic power-up get. I haven't updated the rules doc yet (will do soon), there were a few minor changes: instead of getting all the killed player's stuff, the stuff is dropped on all free squares around the player (diagonally as well, as long as the square is connected to another free square around the player). Roll D6 for each space to determine what is dropped -- if the power-up rolled is no longer available, reroll or... if it's an odd number, put the lower-numbered available powerup, if it's an even number, put the higher-numbered available powerup. (this rule prevents someone from suddenly becoming too powerful, and also I decided that killing another player didn't require the additional motivation of getting all the power-ups, as killing others is the goal of the game anyway, and also makes the board safer for yourself) dead player's bodies are destroyed when hit by an explosion explosions pass through other players (this prevents a strategy provided a bit too easy kills) [edit] actually I updated the rules doc (PDF) now, but it may have a few goofs in it

Man, this game makes it a pain to replay the old cases. I've been trying to get better results at some. But you make a mistake, and to re-do it again you need to restart the whole case, watch all the stupid cutscenes, hear all the same dialogue again... a pain.

I tried to look for it but you had so many posts in that thread. Was it before or after this page: http://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/topic/6612-la-noire/page__st__220

I've driven the same Mazda for 10+ years. In the last 2 years there have been loads of problems, but nothing too horrible yet. Right now it just has some ominous noises in the <whatever it's called>. But luckily I don't get attached to cars, so I'll be glad once I have some money to get a new one and be rid of it.

Wow. Thief Gold on sale? Instabuy. I didn't even know it was available digitally.

Oops, didn't get to that printable board thing yet. I had some 4- and 2-player play tests at a board game night today, it seems the game might actually be between average and quite good! One additional idea I got was a hex board that would allow up to 6 players. I just tested this by myself and that seems even more promising and chaotic! Also more dangerous from the start, which is good, I think. And also yields initial power-ups faster*. The only concern is that it's more complex than the rectangular board, and even the rectangular board showed that at some point the game kind of slowed down due to excessive thinking time (but was still only about 30 mins). A sand clock was suggested. * I also placed a lot more walls than in the original rectangular version. Actually, I might try a similar wall placement in the rectangular one to see how that changes things.

"You fight like a ..." ... on second thought, lets not go there. "Your ears are fine, whatsisname, it's what between them that scares me!" "Go for the eyes, Boo!" etc. "Your momma sucks dwarf cock!"

There it shone pale as bone as I stood there alone and thought to myself how the Moon cast it's light on my heart's true delight and the reef where her body was strewn

Started playing this, finally. The interrogation is so broken. Truth & Lie seem the neutral options, while Doubt will often sent Phelps into an out-of-place rage mode. I don't think this system works very well or could work better. It would probably be better to do it as normal adventure game style dialog trees where found clues open up new options or something. There are some elements to this game that are promising, but so far the whole package as it is is kind of mediocre.

On the other hand, CoP has some amazing sections in Pripyat, that was totally lacking in the first game. The one place where you had to sneak up on the bandit stronghold or whatever was awful though -- stealth doesn't work in that game very well. Man... wish I had some time to replay the games... been wanting to do that for years.

Sounds fucked up. The messing up transport is a given though, isn't it? If the traffic is normally to capacity, sudden increase in the number of people moving about should pretty much guarantee jams.

Ok, here's a PDF of the rules, I'll create a printable board tomorrow, and probably a post play test questionnaire.

Is anyone interested in play testing this? If I ever decide it's good enough to try to get it published, your name will be in the rules! I have written a complete draft of the rules doc, and if anyone is interested, I'll also make a board that you can print out on an A4 paper. You would also need to use components from other games (I used Agricola's, but I assume some others would work as well). Components: 1 9x9 board to play on 12 light brown wall tokens (50/50 chance of reward) 8 dark brown wall tokens (certain reward) 1 white wall token (certain reward + end-game trigger) 15 black bomb tokens 15 yellow range bonus tokens 15 orange movement bonus tokens 4 player tokens 1 6-sided die You could also use single colored wall tokens (21 of them), as the board beneath them would have the reward info.

Hmm... just had an idea to change the movement rules to make the game more like the real-time Bomberman. Instead of everyone making a single 5+ step movement, players have 5+ 1-step moves, and they take turns resolving them. And there's no "narrow escape" phase. I tried it by myself, but I can't really trust what it seemed like since you have to react much more in this mode, and how do I react to myself? Slows the game down quite a bit as well, but on the other hand it is more like the real Bomberman -- now it's much more imporant how close you are to something instead of who has the next move. E.g. no matter if the other player goes first, I can get that power-up because I'm closer to it. I guess I will have to do play tests of the "real-time" mode as well, to see which one is more fun.

WARNING: It's maybe not the Modern Art you're thinking of. It's Modern Art: The Card Game, without auctions but otherwise similar.

Modern Art: The Card Game has received an update and it seems to have fixed most problems I had with it. I play it almost every day and it crashed often near the end of the game, but hasn't done that since the update. They also fixed a couple of interface issues. They added an ELO ranking system, which seems weird though, as you are ranked against the AI players and then your ELO score determines your rank in the Game Center.

Here's a photo of the board when the setup is complete. I'm using chits from Agricola, because that's what I had at hand. Orange things are +1 speed, yellow +1 range (firepower), black are bombs. The rest are walls and the first player token. The darker brown walls have guaranteed power-ups, as does the one in the middle.

Chris, you make good points but I still believe it can become a valid niche thing. If the suggested games are based on the survey that was open to •everyone•, that just represents the interconnected tubes or something, not the backer's idea of what it is. I'm not a backer and I voted (for Meat Boy and some other games not in that list)

Yeah, Robo Rally is somewhat an inspiration, but it's quite different - no simultaneous programming here. I think it works better as a separate game, but possibly some Robo Rally boards might work. Just did my first play test with another player. 2 player was not so good, but when we each controlled 2 characters it was already quite fun and chaotic. Will try to get some real 4 player tests going in a couple of days.

I agree, this could succeed. I think they need luck besides the kickstarter money, though, and to fix the colorblind issue.

I loved the game, mostly for the unique use of environment in combat (kicking Orcs into fires, spikes, down the stairs etc.), although it gets boring at one point. At that price, it's probably worth playing through the first half and not finishing it.