Puzzle Strike on Kickstarter!

Help bring Puzzle Strike to the people with our kickstarter project!

The standalone expansion to Puzzle Strike as well as a redesigned base set have been a long time in the making. The online version at www.fantasystrike.com has been adjusted and adjusted based on both tournament play and casual play, and I'd really like to lock it down and get the physical version totally in sync with the online version.

Puzzle Strike Shadows has 10 new characters, 24 new puzzle chips, new gameplay modes including a free-for-all mode with no player elimination (wowow!), a 2v2 Team battle mode, and a customization mode. Hopefully it will have even more components too, depending on how the stretch goals go. The base set has been retro-fitted with all that same great stuff, and the puzzle chips powered up to be more useful than ever.

Thanks in advance for supporting the kickstarter campaign, current and future Puzzle Strikers!

This Week in Sirlin Games

A lot of stuff has happened in the past week. First, there was the Game Developer's Conference, and you can read (a whole lot of words) about my personal experiences with it here:

• GDC 2012, Indie Game: The Movie
• GDC 2012, The Day Before Day 1
• GDC 2012, Day 1
• GDC 2012, Day 2
• GDC 2012, Day 3

Next, Yomi received a Best Card Game award from Bestcovery. Yomi stands among Dominion, King of Tokyo, Apples to Apples, and UNO on the Best Card Games list on Bestcovery.com.

Games With Two also reviewed both Yomi and Puzzle Strike in the last week:

• Games With Two Yomi Review
• Games With Two Puzzle Strike Review

And there's more! PAX East will have both an official Yomi tournament and an official Puzzle Strike tournament on the convention's tournament schedule. There will also be demos of Sirlin Games at the Game Salute booth. We could use your help in running those tournaments and in doing demos of Yomi, Puzzle Strike, and/or Flash Duel, too. If you're interested in helping out, please sign up at gamesalute.com/volunteer. You can also sign up to help out at other conventions such as GenCon and Origins at that same link. I think our whole community would be grateful to anyone willing to be an ambassador to introduce new players to our games, so thanks in advance.

And one more thing. Sirlin Games has had a distributor in Canada for some time now: Lion Rampant. And now we have a distributor in Germany, too: Brave New World. German stores (or stores anywhere in the world) can still order from Game Salute at gamestorelocator.com, but now German stores can go through the channels they're more used to going through, and they can probably save on shipping cost, too. If you're in Germany, now's your chance support your local stores, and tell them to sign up with Brave New World and carry Sirlin Games if they haven't already.

It was quite a week! And thanks to all of you for making Flash Duel our latest success!

This Week in Flash Dueling!

I see the guys at Penny Arcade liked Flash Duel 2nd Edition. Gabe says "it's a rad game." Will Tycho redeem himself in a rematch though? Maybe Tycho should play as the Dragon or something, lol.

Also, Rodney at Watch It Played is doing a series on Flash Duel 2nd Edition. His first episode is up where he covers the game's Simple Mode (the tutorial mode before you get to the character abilities). He does an awesome job of covering several rules nuances and showing how it all works. Here's Episode 1:

I'm really looking forward to the rest of this! I also admire what Rodney is doing in general, by the way. Sometimes in games (both the video game kind and the board game kind) a "review" is so shallow (not the favorable reviews of my games though of course, those are well-researched and glorious!). A reviewer often doesn't have time to really get into the details and depth of a game. The Watch It Played series is going a different route, and it gives full explanations of exactly how a game works, then shows that game being played right in front of you. A "review" isn't really necessary because it becomes evident what is good about the game (or what is bad), and you'll see if those good points match your tastes. Check out other WatchItPlayed stuff on Youtube for other games, I found it very helpful personally. And I can't wait to see Flash Duel in 2v2 mode or against the Dragon on WatchItPlayed!

Oh yeah, if you wanted to comment on this on Boardgamegeek.com, here's the thread about it. And here's another thread about people's favorite characters in Flash Duel.

Flash Duel Update

I just wanted to let you guys know that all ability cards in Flash Duel 2nd Edition are up in the gallery now. That's all 20 characters plus the Dragon. You can get a sneak peak at the 10 new characters in the upcoming Puzzle Strike and Yomi expansions, because all three games have the same characters.

Also, shipping costs to Canada are down slightly, so Flash Duel (from www.sirlingames.com) costs $8 shipping instead of $10. I think it was even $20 originally, so there's been a lot of progress there. Also, heavier orders to Canada that were recently $20 in shipping are down to $15.

Here's another review of the game, while we're at it.

I hope you guys are enjoying all the modes. I'm kind of curious which modes people like the most, and if it's still the 1v1 mode.

Flash Duel 2nd Edition Reviews Are In!

Here's two reviews of Flash Duel 2nd Edition. Looks like it's a hit! First up, Tom Vasel from the Dice Tower:

Somewhere in there, Tom said there's 16 characters in the box. There's actually 20 characters plus the Dragon!

And then there' Marco Arnaudo from 2d6.org. He gives long explanation of the workings of the game, but I'll link you to the actual opinion part:

Maybe my "too much value" initiative for Flash Duel 2nd Edition is paying off, since it's getting such good reviews! It's in stock right now and ready to ship right away. You can also look for it at your local game stores. You can also discuss the game (and rate it, explain your delight, etc) at the boardgamegeek.com entry.