#robotgamesquad

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Tales from the Dining Room Table: Shadows over Camelot

We got a chance to play Shadows over Camelot recently and it had been way to long. We're certainly now in a golden age of cooperative board games but back in the mid-2000's there was not a whole lot to choose from. Much of the fun of Shadows comes from the players being able to work on different quests. Some of them are solo quests but others can have all the players join. Here's where the communication comes in. Sure you could just play with your cards on the table but then it's just sort of a puzzle. We have a good time skirting around describing our hands in a fun way. My family does not play with the Traitor rule but if your group is into it that adds a whole other dimension to the game. It was fun to get it on the table and I'm looking forward to our next game.

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Her And Reggie Fils-Aime

Our family has suffered a terrible loss as my Father-in-Law Larry Best passed away last week. This comic is dedicated to him and all the love and laughter he brought to our lives.

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Tales from the Dining Room Table: Planeswalker

The Planeswalker rules still throw me from time to time. Yes I'm just a casual Magic the Gathering player now. There was a time where I entertained "going pro" but that was a while ago. Now I enjoy playing with my kids and their friends mostly. I taught the game to Casandra when she was fairly young, weaning her off of Pokemon. We're now in the same pattern with my son.

It is an incredible game partly due to the number of different ways you can play it. If I never bought another card I could still play the game for the rest of my life. But, of course, I still buy new cards since one of the great thrills of the game is seeing new cards and thinking through how they fit in with the rest of the game.

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PAX Prime and Strip Search

I spend Sunday and Monday at PAX Prime in Seattle. It was my second PAX and this one was very special because of the Strip Search artists being there. As I said in my first comic post I would not have started this comic without the Strip Search web reality show and the awesome artists that participated. This year's PAX Prime had a full cast reunion with a awesome panel. Then a lot of my day Monday was spent along artist row where the strip searchers were set up doing sketches and selling merchandise. There was a fairly big crowd and I wanted to meet as many as I could so I decided to try to get them to sign my first comic. Since I do all my work on my Surface I brought it to get them to sign right in Manga Studio. Here it is:

Thanks to the artists: * Abby Howard @AbbyHoward * Alex Hobbs @AlexHobbs_WK * Amy Falcone @AmyTFalcone * Erika Moen @ErikaMoen * Katie Rice @katiejrice * Lexxy Douglass @Lexxercise (Lexxy is the only signature I missed - she had really long lines!) * Mackenzie Schubert @macschubert * Maki Naro @sciencecomic * Monica Ray @montiray * Nick Trujillo @MyntyFresh * Tavis Maiden @tavismaiden * Ty Halley @tyhalley

The Hosts and Editors: * Graham Stark @Graham_LRR * Kathleen De Vere @Kathleen_LRR

And Tycho!

While I was waiting in line Jerry Holkins stopped by the artists area to meet with attendees and I got his signature as well.

As I said the lines were long so I only asked for one sketch. Here is Abby's drawing of my daughter's robot from Robot Game Squad:

Thanks Abby and thanks to everyone involved in Strip Search.

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I'm so early on with my drawing that just about every comic idea I have presents a new challenge. When I finished the script for today's comic I knew the main challenge would be drawing a really ugly looking spider. I think I pulled it off! I was so excited for how it turned out that I made the mistake of asking my wife for feedback at the end of a very long day. She really freaked out. So - that was bad…but I knew the spider was pretty good.

After every PAX Tycho writes something to the effect that it will take him a week to actually think through everything that he experienced. Now I know a bit of what that feels like. I had an amazing time headlined by the time I got to spend with the Strip Search artists. I'll be posting about it over the next few days.

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My son has been playing Little League baseball since he was 4 and I've been coaching the whole way. Baseball is my first sports love and I'm glad that Cory likes it enough to play. But in the last few years Hockey has come on the scene for us. I'd been missing it from my childhood and it's harder to be interested in Seattle since we don't have an NHL team. But I'm a San Jose Sharks fan and a couple years back I started to really follow them. This past year Cory joined me and we watched at least some of just about every game - Internet packages are great when you don't live in the team's city so there are no blackouts. I was really surprised at how into it Cory got. He knew all the players and after I claimed not to be happy with a player he was quick to show I was wrong when that guy did something good.

All this is leading to the Roller Hockey league. Bainbridge Island has a really excellent roller hockey program that everyone who I've talked to has raved about. Cory was interested in trying it but I was worried about the three-week overlap with baseball. He eventually worked on me enough to let him give it a try. I was actually happy to have a sport that I could just watch and enjoy and not have to worry about coaching duties. Well, everyone was right, it's an amazing program. All the fans sit together and are supportive of both teams and it's really fun to watch. Cory's skating and overall game improved dramatically during the year. There were two high points. His Hat Trick game where his pals went out of they way to set Cory up and he delivered on three goals. And, of course, the Championship Game depicted in today's strip. Cory really was quite nervous about being goalie in the playoffs but he had some very good defense to help and the team got ahead in both games. It was a great team effort for the year and I’m really happy for their championship. I already can't wait until next year.

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Tales from the Dining Room Table: Rare Drafter

Today's is the first comic that needed a decoder ring for some of my early readers. I wrote up some definitions:

Magic: A card game/obsession/life style/addiction produced by Wizards of the Coast. It was to first card game to be sold in random baseball card-like packs with cards of different rarities. It is one of the most important and influential hobby games of all time.

Draft: Drafting is a way to play Magic without having to prepare your own deck ahead of time. Each player opens a new pack of cards ($$$ for Wizards of the Coast!!), selects a card and passes the pack to the left. Repeat this until all the cards have been picked and then build a deck and play.

Mythic Rare: A few years back Wizards decided that Magic was just not insidious enough yet so they added a new rarer-than-rare group of cards to each set called Mythic Rares. Sometimes they are not totally great cards but they are always impressive looking.

I keep track of the board games I play and Magic is by far the game I've played most. It is a complex game but in your first few plays most of that can be hidden. It's very easy to just start playing. After writing all this up I feel like having a draft.

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Pacific McRim

You know, looking back on my childhood McDonaldland was fairly messed up. There was a lot of weird stuff going on in that town. There are some surviving artifacts of McDonaldland if you have a McDonalds with a big play area.

I've seen Pacific Rim twice and look forward to getting the BluRay. It was definitely the most fun movie of the summer. After just watching Serenity I'm thinking about what makes some of these movies not match up with a big audience. Are big name actors to key to something like Inceptions success? I'm always happy to support an original story in a land of sequels and adaptations.