kevinwilson42.bsky.social
Boardgame designer best known for Arkham Horror, Descent: Journeys in the Dark, A Gentle Rain, and the Kinfire series of games. Now Director of Game Design at Incredible Dream Studios. He/him.
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I have backflipped out of so many business meetings with "idea men" who wanted me to buy into their game idea, design it, use my name to publish it or get it published, and then split the money with them. They're as common as garbage in a landfill.
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I'm gonna be that old man in a rocking chair on a porch somewhere muttering, "Back in my day, the internet was at least colorful while it tried to kill us!" while my neighbors die from crap AI recipes involving ground up apple seeds or something.
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Eventually, every search is just gonna be like, "Kinfire? Oh, you meant to search for 'GREAT DEALS ON VIAGRA!'". Here are your 80 kachillion results, enjoy!
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Part of what I do professionally is keep an eye on public responses to my games to see if certain questions or complaints are common. But of course, like everything digital these days, it's getting harder and harder to prod the various garbage heaps of the internet into useful action.
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I'm sticking to "angy". They don't deserve that r.
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I seem to vaguely recall there was an angy man somewhere on the internets, and the boss flipped out and the fluff text writer had to redo it with the sound of my rolling eyeballs rattling in the background.
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Some folks just have no empathy - they cannot imagine a world outside their own opinion, so they think "Oh, I'd do this in a cynical way, therefore this person has as well, because everyone is me."
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“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Truly.
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...is that a Roman turtle carrying the Colosseum on its back?
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Looks like I canceled at the right time.
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A small group complained a lot about Kinfire Chronicles' price as well, and it was like, hey, sorry, but that's what it costs to manufacture it and turn enough of a profit to keep making games. It's not loaded with minis, but other things cost money too, including assembly labor.
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Some folks on KS just really don't understand what things cost to manufacture, nor do they understand economy of scale, inflation, fluctuating shipping costs, tariffs, or paying living wages. They just want dirt cheap toys and anything else is "price gouging". KS really needs basic moderation tools.
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Well, just be aware that you're not alone in your cursing of Scorn. I was also thinking of the posts I've seen about Kinfire Delve when I wrote that.
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Player A: This co-op game is way too simple, I never lose. I'm not sure it's even POSSIBLE to lose.
Player B: Day 43. Life has lost its luster. I need to stop playing this game, but it holds me in its cold, MERCILESS clutches. Someday I will win it, but today is not that day.
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I would skip uploading it since it makes you uncomfortable. Peace of mind is important.
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Thank you! Simple is so much harder than complicated. I doubt I'd have ever come up with A Gentle Rain if I was designing it for publication at the time, honestly. But I had very different goals for a game I was making as a little Christmas present, and that worked out really well ultimately.
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I've had a digital version in my itunes library for ages, but as I make sure I own physical copies of my faves, it's one of the ones that turned out to be a bit of a hassle to get.
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Oh yeah. That's why I'm fussy about author's copies, usually, so I have a final version to refer back to, complete with any mistakes that crept in.
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Oof, yeah. Folks sometimes still ask me Arkham Horror questions about specific cards, assuming I know what they say, and I have to be like, "I'm sorry, that was 20 years ago and god knows how many game designs back..."
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It's not that deer bleps are rare, mind you. It's rare that I capture them in a photo.
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What can I say? I really love "storytelling" songs with a bit of a narrative rather than just vibes and/or a catchy chorus.
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I think my favorites on here are Pancho and Lefty, The Highwayman, and Seven Spanish Angels, but there's a lot of great stuff on this compilation album. I note that the case has a "As Seen on TV" sticker on it, which is probably why it was so hard to track down.
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It's been a good day. Had a new game idea pop up, have gotten some work done, listening to good music, had a nice sammich for lunch (using Red Dragon cheese, which is really good), and I'm gonna go for a walk in the park in awhile. Recharged my batteries a lot this weekend.
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I actually picked up several. I have one of their greatest hits cds and I'm working on converting that to having their individual albums instead, including Kilroy was Here and The Grand Illusion.
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The little place down the road does a terrific lo mein, and I had their wonton soup and egg rolls. I had a terrific roast beef sandwich, and I ended the weekend by getting a pizza from Little Caesar's. We always got that when I was growing up, so to me, that's how pizza tastes. I'm a cheap date.
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But my favorite 2 finds are the Essential Willie Nelson, which is a cd my dad has in his car's cd player that I really liked but which was a pain to find, and Ken Nordine's spoken word album Colors, which is a really deep cut and felt kind of wild to come across, and which I immediately snapped up.
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Among my favorite finds were Joy Oladokun's Observations From a Crowded Room, which I'd been looking for for awhile, the new Ghost cd, Skeleta, some Imagine Dragons, Death Cab for Cutie, Dar Williams, Mazzy Star, Cage the Elephant, and Styx...
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I had an amazing roast beef sammich for lunch. Haven't eaten at Maverick's in ages, so that was delicious. For dinner, I ordered from the lovely Vietnamese place down the street I've been ordering from for like 20 years. The main music shop I got to today was the Electric Fetus, a landmark here.
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I'm on the Incredible Dream discord fairly regularly for rules questions and Kinfire-related chats and such.
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Thanks, Calvin. I'm glad too!