Newsletter #12 (December 2018) (Patreon)

Happy New Year everyone! 2018 has been a pretty crazy one, but I'm so thankful to all of you for allowing me to keep RTFM going. Before this year I was just making videos when I was motivated enough and whenever I could wrangle my friends into helping me, and that was nowhere near often enough. Having the support of all of you wonderful Rules Lawyers, both old and new (and hello to all of the new ones that have been popping up the past few weeks, lovely to have you), has been so amazing! Knowing that people really do enjoy the work that I put out is not just financially helpful, it keeps me enthusiastic about working on something new every time. And because I want to make sure that you guys are getting what you're paying for, I'm going to be sending out a quick survey in the next few weeks to see what's going well and what needs improvement. I'll try to keep it quick.

In case you missed it, the Spirit Island video is up! I keep saying this, but it's one of my all time favorite games, so making this video was an absolute pleasure. The strategy video will be a little late because I've got a post-holiday trip coming up, but as soon as I'm back I'll be getting to work on that. In the meantime, here's a picture of my production partner Amir and his obelisks of light.

Just FYI, this is the closest I'll ever get to teaching Catan, as there are wayyyy too many videos doing that already, but it was a lot of fun to bring it in for a minute. 

I've been playing a lot of old favorites this month. A lot of Star Realms, Eldritch Horror, and of course Spirit Island. Cooling off on Gloomhaven a bit, but mostly because it's been hard to find the time lately. I've played a couple new (to me) games though. Finally got my hands on Azul and it definitely lives up to the hype.

I'm ok at it, though I definitely think I can be better. It feels like there's a lot of depth to this simple tile laying game and I'm excited to go deeper. I also got Railroad Ink, but my "drawing" is so bad I shudder to think of sharing photos of that game. And on New Year's Eve Eve I got to play a game that is probably my favorite title I don't own, Galaxy Trucker.

As always it was delightfully silly and I lost half of my ship on the first run. Such a dumb game (in the best way).

Lastly, a postmortem on my 10x10 list. I didn't get it all done. Not even close. The final tally stands as such.

Dead of Winter - 0

Castles of Mad King Ludwig - 1

Eldritch Horror – complete!

Spirit Island – complete!

Race for the Galaxy – complete!

Star Realms – complete!

Pandemic Legacy Season 2 - 2

Above and Below - 1

Cosmic Encounter - 1

Splendor - 7

I'm a little sad that I never got to play Dead of Winter, but that, Castles, and Pandemic are games that are either owned by or require the presence of a friend of mine who got very busy this year, and I can't be mad at him for that. I was a little too optimistic about Cosmic Encounter, but I could've gotten Splendor and Above and Below if I tried harder. However those games really fell out of my rotation this year, so getting them to the table wasn't as much of a priority. I don't mind that though because I've gotten tons of play out of every game here, and this definitely taught me a lot about how much I do play the games that I have. I don't think I'll be doing it again, but I recommend it for any of you, if only as a good way to reflect on things at the end of the year. And what a year it's been. Thank you all for being here. I look forward to what 2019 has to offer.