Last night's playtest of The Last Supper rocked. As Christ, I was supported by the ever-faithful Judas, doubted by Jude, played referee between two Simons writing incompatible Bibles, had my church founded by Doubting Thomas, and was ultimately betrayed by (of all people) Philip. Let his name be as ashes in our mouths. Overall the game was a lot of stress but a lot of fun; Christ's role is very tricky, and the whole thing needs incentives to make the resulting world less a rehash of our own and more fascinatingly strange, and also needs more conversation-strikers like the "one of you will betray me" speech. Cards need to flow more freely and the order of certain events during play may need to be reconsidered. It's long, but aborts very well... if you simply lift the restrictions preventing the endgame scenes from triggering, then it all wraps up tidily starting from wherever you'd managed to get.

As good a first playtest as I have ever had, frankly. Draining!

Then when we were done (at 2AM), I got to come to the computer and check the final rankings in the competition. The winner is a game by Mischa Krilov called 1984 Prime, which is about fifties/sixties-sensibility young hopefuls emerging from fallout shelters into a post-apocalyptic world; the two runner-ups are Beneath a High Pillow by Jason Petrasko, which is about prohibition-era mob power struggles, and ... The Last Supper by yours truly. Woot! Honorable mentions include The City of Brass and Bacchanalia, two of my personal faves from the contest and the two that I really want to try out sometime soon.

All in all, it was a good evening to be Jesus. This is a long post - Read the rest.

Local crew: I will be running the first full playtest of The Last Supper next Saturday, July 30th, starting at 7PM. Anyone interested in participating should contact me via email or in the comments here - RSVP deadline is Thursday midnight. Because of the pot-luck supper portion, that's a hard deadline. You can find the game itself here if you're considering it and want to read over the game - don't worry, it's short.

Participants will receive credit by name in the finished edition, which will be printed professionally and distributed internationally. Yes, you must be willing to contribute to the potluck supper. Starting on Wednesday I will be coordinating the dishes for this. If this intimidates you then check out this link and the associated webring; if you're feeling more ambitious then something off of this link might catch your attention instead. Don't think of it as needing to cook - think of it as a small price to pay for some fabulous food cooked (inclusively) by gorgeous babes. And hopefully excellent gaming, too. This is a long post - Read the rest.

Welcome to the new Hellequin Games site! Obviously you already know this, but my blog can now be found here, instead of the old address. Several details of the new site are still works in progress, but overall I hope you're as happy with it as I am. Further updates - such as the damn IGC judges' decision! - will be posted as they arrive. This is a long post - Read the rest.