Jubilee-edition: Funfair

UUUhhhh - AAARghh - welcome at the Ghost Train:

Sun, 3 Oct 2010 11:11:34 +0200

darkness tucks you in. Jitters, ha, that´s for the Little ones.

Slap-bang: dazzling light, cobwebs in your face and big green and blood-shot eyes right before your eyes. That was is - with your self-control: "Eeeeeeh! - Aaarrghhhh!"

Our Ghost Train yet has cracked everyone. The Master of the scary art himself, Franz Vohwinkel, has sent his most ghoulish creatures to our funfair and is responsible for some pale faces.

Entering the Ghost Train you have to draw 2 cards with your personal nightmares.

And why holding on to your cries, if you get points when others guess your nightmares.
But how can you memorize all this while wetting your pants?

spine chilling greets from the editor´s dungeon

(Michael, we let you out now as you did a great job with that terrific gameboard!)

Tobias

Show you friends how you DO ring-the-bell!

Mon, 20 Sep 2010 15:27:54 +0200

Take a pile card and according to the pattern build a tower with some dice. The coloured spaces on the outside have to be seen and at the same time the colours of the upsides and downsides of the neighbouring dice have to be similar.

Quickly you can achieve the ranking of a "Superman" - or as a "Grilled Zucchini Chef"...

Tobias
game-editorial-office eggertspiele

I can see ... YOUR FUTURE!!!

Sun, 12 Sep 2010 17:15:36 +0200

"Now you are sitting inside my cosy tent, but in a few weeks you will be in a huge and noisy hall, which will be crowded by thousands of people. People, who just want to do one single thing: they just want to play."

At Madame Déjà-Vu´s you have to bluff and there are only 2 rules to obey:
1. you have to look into the eyes of your fellow player, as deeper as better,
2. you breathe out his destiny and you touch the hand of that player with the card of destiny.

And... will he grab it?

The fortuneteller is situated close to the entrance of the funfair. It is still quiet and relaxed here, but that will not last forever.

Mystic salutations

Tobias Stapelfeldt

Here we GO!!!

Sun, 12 Sep 2010 13:36:58 +0200

Howdy, party people,
it´s a while since we wrote you.
We had a rotten summer, but we are back in time for our 15th anniversary. And did we work at our game...

We are not sure, if we´ll make it with our Jubilee Game in time, but, boy,
since 15 years we love those tight deadlines.
See the puddles (in picture above), it did rain in Hamburg in the last weeks.
This is how far we have gotten. And now we are errecting the tent of Madame..
Catch you later and count the days to SPIEL.

More to come...
Tobias
game-editorial office of eggertspiele

Anybody can paint this – Count me in!

Sun, 25 Apr 2010 12:00:25 +0200

10cm...,20cm...,30cm. Now it´s just another half meter of the gameboard to illustrate. Briefly I look out of the cross-barred window of my cell and pause. Since weeks: only hot wine punch and candy floss. How did I ever get into a situation like that?
Everything started out fine. There was a harmless call from the “publisher of the hearts” from the far North.
“Hello, yes, alright, um um, new project, 15 years Eggert, alright, um, good idea, sure” and I say : “ This anybody can paint” . “Yes”, the publisher replies, “you, for instance”.
Cunning me, professional and master of the situation, I get it through his head that this time I will not admit to an oppressive contract. “No “, the publisher says, “no problem, we will leave out the contract ”. “Haha”, I laugh and do not think about it anymore.
Voice from outside: “Another break, Sir?”
“No!” I shout, adjusting my chains and pretend to keep on illustrating. “Only 50 cm”, I think. And then M.K. continues. And then all the others. Fortunately I was able to convince the publisher that it would be apparent at home, if I was upsent for some time (“where on earth is, um, … what´s his face?”) and it would be good to offer other illustrators a non-oppressive contract.
Voice from outside: “ Hey, will you finally finish the board today?”
“Yes, yes”, I mumble meekly. “Count me in!”

Michael Menzel

The race has started. Count me in!

Sun, 18 Apr 2010 12:00:02 +0200

It happened long ago. Apparently it was a hot summer, when I began the first race of my life, which I won, naturally. It was a widespread start of millions of spermatoza – and at the end I was the first. This probably was the beginning of my passion for races. Later, when I was about 10, I tinkered at my first horseracing game, which I played extensively.

Later in my life more and more horse racing games piled up in the cellar. And I was captured by trotter races on real turf, too. Unfortunately there was no trotter racing game on the market, which I thought was a challenge for me. I took all my favourite racing games, combined the parts I liked and added a shot of Duhnen´s mudflat race. After 3 years I finished my first designed horseracing game, Duhner Wattrennen..

Time was short as I wanted to sell it at the next racing day in Duhnen. There are unique races at the mudflats near Cuxhaven and it only takes place once a year. I produced 150 games and the calculation was easy: there are 45.000 visitors coming to the race and if only one out of 300 visitors buys my game I am sold out and then will do a larger second printrun for Spiel in Essen. As we were running out of time we sorted the game components on our way to the race and the first boards were cut on the dike, as we arrived 2 hours before the first race started.

The 45.000 visitors did attend that race day, but only one lady bought a game as a present for her grandson and I stood next to those piles of games. Fortunately a bunch of friends were there with their big cars and helped me to transport the games back to my house.

Things at the fair in Essen ran smoother and every second hour I could call home to state that I had sold a game. Maybe the playing time of six hours was a bit long and the price of 100 DM was at that time a little out of the ordinary, but all of those games have been sold and now, after 15 years I am excited to create another horse-racing game, which is considerably faster and cheaper.
One minute should be pretty sufficient. If I can squeeze that into the jubilee edition then you can count me in.

Peter Eggert

Using Jenny they talked me into joining them. Count me in!

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 12:00:06 +0100

Game-designer: a life on the fast track, plenty of money, fame and leisure time. And of course you attract women. This ist the myth which is widely spread of when you are talking about well known designers. BALONEY!
The truth is that you are tinkering and constructing prototypes all night long as there is no time during the day in which you have to earn your living. Fame and honour you might get by a handful of students who like in turn to drag you into hours and hours of strategy discussions and grab free copies. And women only see you as a nerd without any friends and you do not have any chance.
Therefore I was very sceptical when I was invited by the Eggert-gang to come to Hamburg to assist in designing a new game. Do I really like to stress myself?

Oh well, in the end I went there, got invited to a business meal (and just got - an ordinary currywurst) and listened how these publishers wanted to slave-drive the designers again. At least a visit to Hamburg´s Dom was scheduled. I was disappointed as it turned out that this Dom was not a beautiful church but just a public festival.
But there it suddenly happened: at the bumper car hall a young lady started to talk to me. And even after I told her that I was a game-designer she still showed strong interest in me. Nearly too good to be true, I thought. Furthermore she truly looked gorgious, she was very nice and enjoyed the funfair with me. And she convinced me that I really should get going designing games in bundles. Short and crisp: during a kissing-break I called up Peter Eggert and confirmed my collaboration for the new game, deeply impressing Jenny.

The next day I signed the contract at Eggert´s at once, not even blinking at the fine print. The main thing was that Jenny was proud of me. For this lady I would do anything. Being a game-designer is just out of this world. And then I was off to the Dom again where we were going to meet again.

Well, I was hanging out at the ghost train, where we were supposed to meet, but she did not arrive.
Worried I started to look for her. I hoped that nothing had happened to her. Or being totally in love might she had lost her way? I was shocked, when I finally saw Jenny canoodling at the bumper car hall (at our bumper car hall!). Her tongue was pressed 5 inches into his neck! I confronted her at once. She seemed not to mind at all. Meanwhile there were a bunch of people gathered around us and they were fairly amused. Apparently Jenny was well known there and I was not the first idiot who was taken in by her. When I remarked that she seemed to be fascinated by game-designers (the other guy was the type of „man of the motor trade“) the laughter rose. A bit later she was fed up of our conversation and she admitted that the Eggert-gang has approched her to force me into signing the contract. Humiliated I left.
Of course I could not get out of the contract. I should have read it completely before signing it.
Well, I am caught - and now I am in.
Hear my words, although it is generally affirmed not every lottery ticket holds a prize and it is always another one who wins the jackpot.

Stefan Stadler

Does pig´s stomach (from the Palatinate) increase your sillyness?

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 15:08:17 +0100

Every region in Germany has ist culinary specialities. The Swabians have their Swabian pockets and tripe, the folks in the nothern regions mostly eat fish, the Hesse love their marinated hand cheese. But there is no German delicacy which has such a bad reputation as the pig´s stomach of Palatinate. This can be the case, because former chancellor Helmut Kohl always declared this as his favourite dish. But there are other voices that state that pig´s stomach reduces the activities of the brain.
We wanted to check this out with a scientific research and sent a test group into the Palatinate Forest to have a feast on pig´s stomach. Here is an excerpt of the minutes of the actual video footage.

18:00 The group arrives in jovial mood in a tavern and orders beer and pig´s stomach.
18:02 The waitress comes back from the kitchen and asks: “You really want pig´s stomach?”
18:05 The cook steps out of the kitchen and asks: „Are you sure?“
18:17 Another round of beer gets delivered. The landlord approaches the regulars´ table and apparently tells a joke.
18:18 The eyes of the regulars unbelievingly turn to the test group. All guests are laughing.
18:21 As the laughter of the regulars is just calming down the waitress is bringing a huge plate of Sauerkraut and a gigantic pig´s stomach. At once the babble of the regulars rises.
18:29 The testers help themselves and start eating. The comments are favourable: „A successful combination of roasted meat, potatoes with a touch of marjoram”, “Delicious” and “In the aftertaste a trifle hefty” are the first remarks.
18:36 Some participants are hogging into their second portion. Their rating: „Tastes real good“, „meaty“ and „Oh wow, tastes a bit like, …um, well, ….definetely…um, … tastes“.
18:43 More beer is being brought, all probands grab their mugs. With the words “More of that brown stuff, please” more gravy is being ordered.
18:48 The first participants surrender, the conversation becomes more monosyllabic: „Gosh!“ or „Um, Schnaps“ Unanimously it is decided not to count the rounds of beer anymore as counting gets difficult.
18:52 The cook brings another plate of palatinate specialities although half of the pig´s stomach has not been finished yet. A Nothern German participant contemplates: „Fat. Tomorrow fish or I´ll burst“.
18:59 The last one puts away knife and fork, rolls his eyes and undoes the upper botton of his pants. The only thing to be heard of him is:”Whoaa. Aoohhh“
19:16 The group pays and sets off to their lodgings, 4km distant. Some look for their parked cars.
19:22 The driver finds his car (right infront of the tavern), some jousting starts as 3 participants make it to the front passenger seat.
19:28 Departure to the lodgings.
20:17 After the driver lost his way 5 times on the dead straight road the group arrives at their accomodation. The testers drop down on the couches.
20:33 Two persons imitate an electronic device. Apparently nobody takes any notice of their curious behavior.
20:37 Another one cries out loud: „No! No! No!”, a young lady replies: „minus 5“.
20:58 In front of the toilet a queue has formed. But nobody realizes that the entrance of the toilet is on the other side.
21:13 Two participants sit on the couch and while bouncing up and down they utter noises like „ratta, ratta, ratta, hm“
22:36 Suddenly there is a bottle of whiskey on the table. One participant is kindly asked to join the drinking group, just with a midget glass.
23:03 The whiskey glass of this test person is still full (or has it been refilled?). He does not succeed in following any talks as those are constantly interrupted by laughter every 2 seconds. In between you witness silly early childhood behavior and hear stone age noises.
But the group seems to harmonize and to have fun.

Conclusion: Without doubt there are changes to be realized in the behavior of our test group. As the test set-up might be valued as faulty and a repetition without any alcohol seems to be advisable we cannot determine for sure that the effect is related to the pig´s stomach. At any rate this group seemed to have had heaps of fun.

Elegy - count me in!

Sun, 7 Mar 2010 12:00:31 +0100

Birgit Stolte

Where do all these crazy people come from? - count me in!

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 12:00:35 +0100

Here it was, my empty desktop. What was my boss thinking? I still can hear him: "We have to celebrate our jubilee with an extraordinary game. Mind that it has to be cheap, but still very big and the box has to be filled to the edge with materials, of course. The theme should be special and the mechanisms innovative, simply out of this world. Think about our peer group. As we are celebrating, the most important thing is that everybody should have a good time with this game."

Oh boy, my dear desktop, an awfully empty deal of space. And next to it there is this huge cabinet full of prototypes and - again I have to think about some ideas of my own. And that´s what I need, definetly a very good idea, soon.

... nothingness, absolute emptyness...

... cabinet of prototypes ...
Bingo! That's it: Let the others, the experts, do the thinking for me. :-)

I have a book filled with addresses of designers and illustraters, they should use their brain for me. I only need to ... hmm ... the first one I will get drunk ... an easy chore, for the second one, I will invest in some hot and spicy curry sausage, he never refuses any kind of food. ... and to the third one I just have to send Jenny ... wonderful.

I started rolling. A few moments later I had a list of the names of 16 persons. Well, with a jubilee-edition there is no need to restrict ourselves to a few people. There will be a heap of games in our jubilee-edition.

Thrilled by my genius I constantly produced new ideas. Only the theme was missing. Suddenly I envisioned - music, different smells, cheerful people ...

At once I saw everything bright and right before my eyes.

3 months later at a secret place:
one of the designers is sleeping next to an empty bottle of whiskey. Our most important illustrator lies in bed, having a terrible headache. The floor is plastered with hundreds of tiny plastic and wooden pieces that prick my feet. The table is full of paper scribbled with notes and parts of game boards. The part "bringing fun into the game" was very successfull, but I hardly remember how we did it. The tiny house was full of people with really good ideas for games, but all of them are a bit crazy, aren´t they?

Nevertheless: I'm in.

Tobias Stapelfeldt