Japanese Players Enjoying SF HD Remix

Here's a video of Japanese Street Fighter players (including Otochun and Aniken) playing SF HD Remix. Skip to about 1:05:00 or so for when they finally get going.

They are having such a good time that it makes even more fun to watch. They all laugh (in happiness I think!) when Vega's wall dive doesn't knock down, and when someone lands a fake slide into throw with Bison. They also get excited that Ken can now do his super as a reversal.

With Daigo and Tokido both saying good things about the game, Muteki, Yuu Vega, and Jodim all playing on XBLA, and videos like this one, it seems they are pretty into it. Aniken said this (to Masa) in the comment thread about an HD Remix event there:

> Masa
I also think it would be interesting and fun to have HD at the game center
but we have to face reality, there's nothing we can do about it!

For Ken, Remix Ryu and Sagat are very difficult opponents, it's fun!♪
Looking forward to seeing you at Sunday's tourney!

Too bad the game isn't actually released in Japan, it seems like it would do really well.

Puzzle Strike and Dominion

Sometimes people ask me about the differences between Puzzle Strike and Dominion, so I'll put it all in one place for reference. Even though Dominion inspired Puzzle Strike, the games are quite different. Puzzle Strike fixes what, in my opinion, are numerous problems with Dominion. Now, before you get all bent out of shape, you are free to enjoy and love Dominion. I'm not stopping you or telling you that you didn't have fun playing it. I'm just saying there are several things I consider problems and that I thought I could turn all those things around with improvements on many fronts.

Form Factor

Both games involve a lot of shuffling, and I do mean a lot. Some people are really bad at shuffling and that slows the game down quite a bit. Even those who are good at it can feel bogged down. Changing the form factor to chips that you shake up in a bag makes this easier and faster. Some people tell me this is the most important difference between the two games, but I disagree. I think it's actually the least important difference of anything in this post.

Characters (aka Variable Player Powers)

Playing a symmetric game just feels flat and boring after having experienced so many asymmetric games. Street Fighter with only one character? Starcraft with only one race? Magic: the Gathering where we all start with the same deck? Yes, I'm aware that *during* a game, things can diverge even in a symmetric game, but really that's miles away from a true asymmetric experience. If a given pool of cards has a best strategy, then everyone should be going for that strategy. With different characters (who each have different gameplay), everyone has different strategies even within the same pool of chips.

It's also worth noting that there are more unique character abilities in Puzzle Strike than there are different chips in the bank! Or Kingdom cards in a Dominion set! The point is, there are a lot of them and they greatly expand the replayability. In a 2-player match, there are 45 different possible character matchups (or 55 if you count mirror matches). And 210 matchups in a 4-player game. Multiply that by the millions of starting conditions from the bank chips, and it's a crazy amount of gamespace to explore.

By contrast, Dominion has 0 characters (meaning no variable player powers) and zero different character matchups. Or you could say 1 character and 1 matchup, I guess. Now, balancing 45 (or 210) matchups is a hell of a lot harder than balancing 1 matchup, but we had months of tournaments to do so and I think the balance turned out great. Exploring the dozens of character matchups is one of the greatest features of the game.

Faster Start

In Puzzle Strike, you start with three character chips in your deck, while in Dominion, you start with three cards that do literally nothing during gameplay. I like getting to the fun stuff faster, and starting with 3 actions instead of 3 blanks really helps.

Interactivity!

Puzzle Strike increases the interactivity a ton over

Click to read more ...

Yomi and Puzzle Strike (2nd Printing) Pre-orders

At long last, you can finally pre-order Yomi and the 2nd printing of Puzzle Strike. Both the games will be available in January. This is the first release ever of Yomi after 6 years of development. I already released Puzzle Strike, but this new version will finally allow the game to be available in large quantities and at a lower price (with cheaper shipping in the US, also).

I made a couple videos that show the components of the games. I don't go into the awesomeness of the gameplay in these videos, so you'll just have to take my word that they both have pretty awesome and balanced gameplay. Or you can play the early-in-development online versions for free at fantasystrike.com/dev and see for yourself. (Players there will be happy to teach you, I'm sure.)

Here's a video showing what's in the Yomi box:

And here's one showing what's inside the Puzzle Strike box:

This is the culmination of years of work of design, balancing, tournament playtesting, art creation, packaging design, and exacting manufacturing preparation. When I saw the finished product and how well it turned out, I was supposed to feel excited, but really I just felt relief. Now it's your turn to get excited though.

I hope you enjoy Yomi and Puzzle Strike.

End of First Run Puzzle Strike

Orders for the current version of Puzzle Strike will end around October 31st, and then I'll transition to taking pre-orders for the second printing (and for Yomi, by the way).

A few things about the current and second printing. Both versions have the same game data on the chips. The latest sets from the current run switched to a different printing method after hearing many complaints about blurry chips or wrong-colored chips. Now, large sheets of wood are covered with a white label sheet , and printing is on THAT, so that it turns out brighter and less blurry. Then whole thing is cut into circular chips so that the image is exactly edge-to-edge with nothing hanging off the edge or anything like that.

Also, every single chip back is now laser engraved! This upgrade is partly to avoid using the printing hardware that had such variation in quality, but actually the original plan was to laser engrave them anyway as a perk. The regular version has a fancy "PS" engraved while the bigger chips of the deluxe have the Puzzle Strike logo engraved.

Orders for the current version of Puzzle Strike will end up shipping in the first, second, and third week of November, depending on when the order was placed and where you happen to live.

The second printing will be on chipboard, not on wood like the current sets. It's pretty thick chipboard though, 1/8th of an inch, and still very sturdy. It will be $59.99, which is $15 cheaper than the current regular version, and also have free shipping in the US, so that's actually more than $25 cheaper for most people in total. International shipping will be more expensive than before for several countries (sorry), but the game will also finally be available to retailers through standard channels, so if you tell your local hobby shops (in any country) to carry it, they'll be able to stock it like any product. sirlin.net/contact to get info on ordering as a retailer or distributor.

The ship date has kept slipping due to the specs being being refined and iterated several times. At first the Yomi cards were going to be printed on very thick cards, but after consulting with players, I changed the spec to a thinner card with a sturdy core (similar thickness to playing cards), and with playing card coating. Playing cards are they way they are for a reason, and it makes them easy to shuffle and more durable than the standard uncoated, less bendy CCG cards.

There was also some iteration on getting just the right material for Yomi playmats, for aligning the box art just right on Puzzle Strike, getting the internal storage tray for Puzzle Strike to go exactly to the top of the box so that you can turn it upside down without making the chips go everywhere inside, for revising the rulebook of Puzzle Strike at the last moment to match www.sirlin.net/ps/rules (with a change to a FAQ entry for Lum's Poker Winnings), and like 100 other details that all needed approving. It was honestly long and grueling.

Because of all that, the ship date might end up being January. I think December is still doable, and it might be before Christmas if we're lucky, but it would be safer to just claim January and then be pleasantly surprised if it turns out to be early. Whenever it is, all orders of Puzzle Strike and Yomi will ship at the same time though, it won't be a trickling out of orders over time as the current Puzzle Strike has been. It will be so great to have lots of inventory and reasonable shipping times once this new stuff is ready.

So again, you have until around October 31st for orders of the current version of Puzzle Strike, then you can expect pre-orders for the second printing to replace that. And Yomi pre-orders at about that same time.

Flash Duel Review and Sale

Here's a review of Flash Duel from what my Finnish friend describes as "the biggest boardgame website and authority in Finland." You might need Google Translate.

And for an American take, here's Fortress Ameritrash's review. Both sites said 4.5/5.

And while we're talking about Flash Duel, both versions are on sale at Amazon for a week for US customers. Deluxe version $39->$29. Regular version $15.99->12.99. Usually I'd say it's better to buy from my site, but Amazon has this crazy policy where they automatically disable your seller account over the holidays unless you sell 25 copies of something during September and October. I can't sell Yomi there yet because it's not manufactured yet, but I won't be able to list it there over the holidays unless I sell some Flash Duel there now. So now would be a good time to help out! Yeah it's weird. And again, this is only a US thing.

Thanks!