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jackI've been browsing the alexandrian blog with various roleplaying reviews and advice. He periodically reposts reviews he made 15 years ago for rpg.net. A couple are funny.
http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/category/board-games/page/2
A parody game, including cards such as "Wizards of the Coast. The publishers of a hot new card game. Though they have money, they aren't exactly in the same league as TSR. If they survive Magic The Gathering, look out!"
Which was a bit of a lame joke at the time, but after WotC became a fantasy roleplaying juggernaut buying most other related companies, is funny in retrospect.
http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/36320/reviews/rpgnet-review-settlers-of-catan
Settlers of Catan: "hex-based maps from every wargame you’ve ever seen; combinations of resource cards are basically a mechanic from Risk; maintaining diplomatic relations from Diplomacy; variable board set-up from Chess variants; and trading resources from many variants of Monopoly), but the true aficionado will recognize a whole which is greater than the parts."
It's strange to read a review where Settles of Catan is new and no-one knew if it would be as promising as it seemed yet :)
And from rpg exchange: http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/34825/whats-the-inspiration-for-the-owlbear
A question it hadn't occurred to me to ask, why does the rust monster look the way it does? Why the owlbear? Because the designer had a cereal-packet-style bag of mythical plastic monsters from japan that were supposed to be dinosaurs, but took their distinctive appearance for the new monsters :)
http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/category/board-games/page/2
A parody game, including cards such as "Wizards of the Coast. The publishers of a hot new card game. Though they have money, they aren't exactly in the same league as TSR. If they survive Magic The Gathering, look out!"
Which was a bit of a lame joke at the time, but after WotC became a fantasy roleplaying juggernaut buying most other related companies, is funny in retrospect.
http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/36320/reviews/rpgnet-review-settlers-of-catan
Settlers of Catan: "hex-based maps from every wargame you’ve ever seen; combinations of resource cards are basically a mechanic from Risk; maintaining diplomatic relations from Diplomacy; variable board set-up from Chess variants; and trading resources from many variants of Monopoly), but the true aficionado will recognize a whole which is greater than the parts."
It's strange to read a review where Settles of Catan is new and no-one knew if it would be as promising as it seemed yet :)
And from rpg exchange: http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/34825/whats-the-inspiration-for-the-owlbear
A question it hadn't occurred to me to ask, why does the rust monster look the way it does? Why the owlbear? Because the designer had a cereal-packet-style bag of mythical plastic monsters from japan that were supposed to be dinosaurs, but took their distinctive appearance for the new monsters :)