Practically Dope

Good evening friend.

It's good to be around again. I am so excited that October is upon us, you have no idea! The weather has swung into fall mode: mid 50s and drizzly during the day and chilly, chilly nights. I thoroghly enjoy my walks to work this time of year.

I did take a few days off of life and work due to a sickness, but I'm back on the road of life eager as can be! I'm planning out the novel I am writing this year for National Novel Writing Month in November, and I'm getting some great ideas. This will be my first year doing it, but I've got some great buddies going along for the ride.

I just roasted another batch of coffee and got all of my dishes caught up (my least favorite chore), and now I'm all pumped and ready to get more done around my apartment... at two in the morning. My guess is that my neighboors wouldn't appreciate that too much. So I decided to sit down and write a bit.

What I'm very much excited for tonight relates to one of my favorite past times: tabletop gaming. I discovered upon logging into the internet today that one of my favorite games, Elder Sign, has an expansion on the way! This game takes place in the same universe as Arkham Horror (rereleased in 2005  by Fantasy Flight games) universe. Much of the theme and content derives from the works of H. P. Lovecraft and his contemperaries. It features a heavy horror theme mixed with science and the incomprehensable nature of the universe in which we live. Elder Sign is sometimes reffered to as Arkham Horror lite because you get a bit of the Lovecraftian horror elements in half to a third of the time as Arkham Horror (I've spent five to six hours playing Arkham Horror before).  If you want a quick demo on Elder Sign in play this episode of Tabletop is a great introduction.

I've picked up about half of the eight expansions available for Arkham Horror, and the only expansion available for Elder Sign. And now this! I was concerned that Fantasy Flight (who also publishes Elder Sign) wouldn't release another expansion to Elder Sign. It's been over a year since the last expansion came out and they are actively adding expansions to another game, Eldritch Horror (also in the Arkham Horror universe). I took this to be a sad sign that Elder Sign would just be set on the shelf with just the one expansion.

Don't get me wrong, I love the first expansion for Elder Sign. It adds a lot of new cards, as well as a couple of new mechanics that change the game, but not drastically enough to make it difficult to pick up. Now Fantasy Flight has announced a new expansion due out in the first quarter of 2015: Gates of Arkham. In this press release they talk a lot about what the new expansion will offer.

It looks like the defining component of the game is called Streets of Arkham Mode. Now, in Elder Sign, you play as an investigator looking for clues about the Ancient Evil threat. You go through rooms of a museum gathering useful items and clues on how to lock away the Ancient One using Elder Signs. In the new Streets of Arkham Mode, it seems to me that the investigators will now be able to go into the town of Arkham and have adventures there. This mode features a new deck of encounter cards as well as beefs up decks from the base game. It does appear, however, that several things from the base game won't be compatable with this new mode of gameplay.

For me, this begs the question: why change the basic components in an already good game when you could just release another game? It could be Elder Sign: Arkham Edition. From what it looks like so far, that almost seems like an easier solution than cramming more elements and locations from Arkham Horror into an expansion. That aside, I'm super pumped for this expansion. I'm a huge fan of the Lovecraft mythos and theme, and I love the way Elder Sign encorperates it. Fantasy Fight will be demoing the new expansion at a few events they have coming up in October and I really wish I could go see what it will be like.

I cannot wait until the first quarter of 2015. That could be March! Ah! Sigh. It'll be okay. I'll be sure to tell you about it the moment I can preorder it. Until then, I'll be re-reading this press release a few more times to see what other details I can glean from it.

Oh, and I'm listening to Dope off of Lady Gaga's most recent album. I've heard her joint album with Tony Bennett so much recently that I pulled out Artpop and gave it a listen. This song seemed strangely appropriate for this blog. What can I say? We all have our vices.

Have a great night, my friend.