Life Goal Achieved

Published: Mon, 01/22/18

Hey !

Happy New Year's! What's that? I'm three weeks late?

Well, it's still January, so let's just embrace it. Sometimes you don't get out your newsletter with any sort of regularity or punctuality, and that's okay. Because you've been really busy, and writing newsletters is hard.

But let me start off this thing by announcing that Gloomhaven is now #1 in the BoardGameGeek.com rankings, which is very exciting to me! You probably already knew that, though, seeing as how it happened about three weeks ago, too. Still, it's what I lead every conversation with now, so it is to be expected that I would rave about it here as well.

I remember going to a journalism convention in high school, and I received a "Superior" award (basically 1st place) for my entertainment writing. I was so amused that the award was called "Superior" that I went around announcing to people that I was superior. Not, like, random people, but my friends, who I thought would be amused by it as well. I guess it wasn't as amusing as I thought, though, because one of them actually wrote in my yearbook: "It usually doesn't go over too well when you tell people you're superior to them, kidding or not." (This is the actual quote - I've got my yearbook in front of me right now to make sure, because that is what a superior journalist does.)

You better believe that being #1 on BGG will be the first thing I tell her about if I ever see her again.

...Okay, well, maybe not, that would be weird. (And, for the record, I don't remember ever saying I was superior to others, I just remember announcing I was superior - you know, in a general sense.)

But anyway, we've gotten way off track here. The point is that I am happy for the achievement. The BGG rankings mean different things to different people, but for me, the list was super-important when I was first discovering the hobby. I used it to determine what games I should try out, and some of those top games are still among my favorite: Agricola, Caylus, etc.

Ever since I started designing games, it has been a goal of mine to get into the top 100 of these rankings. I could never have even fathomed being #1 until about a year ago. It's like making an indie film in your garage and then expecting to get an Oscar - it wasn't even on my radar. Now that it has miraculously happened, though, I can say that it is the highest possible honor I could ever imagine.

Seriously, I'm not sure where to go from here. 

I'll just have to make more games, I suppose. Founders of Gloomhaven should be coming out in a few months, and that will be exciting, though I am still concerned about people expecting it to be something it is not because of Gloomhaven. Hopefully people will be able to appreciate it for what it is.

And there are many other projects in the works that I am excited about, one of which in particular I am hoping to announce soon (just so I don't get your hopes up, I'm not talking about the big-box Gloomhaven expansion). If you want to read more of my thoughts about upcoming projects, you can check out this blog post. (Also the previous post summing up the last year is a good read as well.)

Actually, if I aim to not repeat too much of what I talk about in those two posts, I'm not sure what else there is to say. Oh, well, if you'll permit me to continue to talk about being superior, I was thinking about throwing a little party to celebrate the occasion, and just inviting everyone who would be interested in coming down to Lafayette, IN, to party with me.

It'll probably be on a Sunday some time in the next month or two. I know that's not very specific, but at this point, I'm just trying to loosely gauge how many people would actually show up, so I can figure out a venue. If you would have an actual, serious interest in coming to Indiana and celebrating the success of Gloomhaven with me on a Sunday afternoon, just reply and let me know so I can get a vague idea of the scale I'm working with.

Maybe it's a little crazy, but I feel this is something that needs to be properly celebrated, and that I should invite all the people who actually made it happen.

Until next time!