Transmuting Confusion Into Fun? (January 2020 newsletter) (Patreon)

Hey folks, haven't had the chance to play a lot of games this month, but there are a few big things to talk about. First off, I'd like to tell you that I'm proceeding apace with the Dune tutorial, but due to some difficulties with the publisher, I'm going to have to wait a bit longer on that. Everything should be fine, but it does mean that the video will come out at the end of April instead of March. Now, because that sucks a lot, I'm going to be making two How to Teach videos that I'll be releasing between now and then. The first of which is going to feature Trismegistus (shown above), a game about alchemy and becoming the best Megistus who ever Tris'd...wait, no that sounds awful. Forget that part.

I got to play Trismegistus for the first time recently and good lord that game is complicated. It's not that any specific rule is hard to understand, it's that every single rule is connected to another one, so to explain almost anything you have to either explain several more things or just tell people to hold on for a minute and you'll get back to that part. I definitely want to play it again, despite being absolutely destroyed in my first game. But I'm curious how you folks are finding it?

I also got to try out Jaws, which I quite enjoyed. It's a game in two parts, the first being a hidden movement game for the Jaws player, with the human team trying to track down and fight the toothy fellow while also keeping swimmers safe, despite their insatiable urge to swim through shark-infested waters. The second part is a bluffing game, with the results of the first part affecting the starting conditions. We did very well in the beginning so we had an advantage, and from what I hear, the shark player really has to play smart if they ever want to win this game. Have y'all had a similar experience?

And lastly, you may have seen this picture floating around Twitter a few weeks ago. Myself, Amir (who helps film RTFM) The Brothers Murph, Kiki of Girls Game Shelf, and Paula and Lawson of Things Get Dicey all met up to discuss some very exciting possibilities. And while I can't share too many details yet, know that we are all very pumped about it and you can expect to see some collaboration from us going forward. A good example of this is Paula guest starring on the Murphs' latest Dark Tower sketch, which if you haven't seen yet, go check it out!

That's all for now. Hope 2020 is treating you all well so far.