This week, the classic game of mergers and acquisitions: Sid Sackson’s Acquire.
So take a break from your ticker tape, or cancel your plans to defenestrate, and give a listen.
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This week, both The Fury of Dracula and Fury of Dracula, the horror hunt game from Games Workshop and Fantasy Flight. Pull up a comfy chair, it’s a long one. Because of that, I’ve added times to the show notes so you can skip around a bit, if you want.
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As part of their push to clean out inventory, ToysRUs/Amazon has been selling items at a discount. Of interest to vintage gamers, Acquire is on sale for $39.99, and Cosmic Encounter is on sale for $29.99.

Unfortunately, Diplomacy is still unavailable. A travesty.

Until the next episode of the Vintage Gamer, here’s some news from around the web to give you your vintage gaming fix:

I somehow missed the start of publication of The Escapist e-magazine, and I find it strange that the way I found out about it is through board game blogs as it is mainly a computer gaming rag. It’s also headquartered here in Durham, NC. Small world.

However, in the past two weeks they’ve had three articles of some interest to vintage gaming types. One is a broad history of games by Greg Costikyan. Another is a very Vintage Gamer-like look back at Last Express, an adventure game developed by Smoking Car Productions and published by Broderbund in 1997. And the third discusses the possibilities of game rules as art, with a look back at some classic board games.

Speaking of computer adventure games (a vintage style if I’ve ever heard of one), the Gnome’s Lair has a review of the next installment of the Bone adventure game series. I’ve been playing the first one with my daughter (or for my daughter, as it were) and I’m definitely going to have to pick up this one at some point.

As a final note, if anyone knows why Parlett’s Oxford History of Board Games has suddenly shot up to $180 per copy, I’d appreciate knowing. If it ever drops down to $100 again, I’m definitely getting it. A reprint would also be a wonderful thing. Until then, to the library I go.

Heavens to Betsy, it’s a Vintage Gamer promo. Call the cops, alert the media, all that overreactive metaphorical stuff.

Or you could just play it. Thanks.

This week, the paragraph-based solitaire game Barbarian Prince. If that’s not enough of a mouthful, it’s also a Dwarfstar game.

Sorry about the delay on this one.
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I’ve done most of the prep work for (what was to be) this week’s show, but between recovering from my trip, adjusting to two time changes, and spring allergies I haven’t quite found the oomph to finish it off. I should be able to record this weekend, which means it should be up by Tuesday.

To satisfy your need for vintage games until then, I’ll point you to the latest episode of my friend Jason’s podcast, Random Signal, where he spends part of the time reviewing the Schmidt Spiele/Parker Brothers game Survive!/Escape from Atlantis.

More from the Game Developer’s Conference in San Jose, California. This covers the remainder of the conference, focusing mainly on the MMBG I mentioned earlier and the game developer’s rant. As before, it’s presented raw and wrrrriggling.

Update: added pictures to my Flickr account.
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This week I’m at the Game Developer’s Conference in San Jose, California. Schmoozing and learning are on the schedule this week (yes, in that order), but I’m taking a little time out to do a few podcasts. This one is mainly about the first three and half days of the conference. There is a little content here for vintage console game players (in the the Nintento talk).

A few caveats: I would have pictures, but apparently the drivers for my camera didn’t end up on this laptop, so I’ll upload those later. And I recorded this one outside using a small hand-held mic and an iRiver, so audio quality will be a bit different than normal as well. And no editing — just me in all my raw glory.
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