Michael O’Connell ➡️ PAX Unplugged
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anarchytabletop.bsky.social
Michael O’Connell ➡️ PAX Unplugged
@anarchytabletop.bsky.social
1.2K followers 710 following 3.3K posts
Anarchy Game Studio is a Seattle-based father-son team that makes tabletop boardgames that spark conversation and inspire creativity: anarchygamestudio.com I am Michael. Co-designer of Finspan. Once wrote and published comics. Adoptee. Neurodivergent.
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Reposted by Michael O’Connell ➡️ PAX Unplugged
This is just to say

I have looked on
the works
that were in
the desert

and which
you were probably
thinking
would still stand

Forgive me
they were trunkless
so vast
and so old
Once upon a desert sandy
As through winds the trav'ling man he
Spied the face of Ozymandy
Lying, simply lying there
Suddenly there was some writing
Pon the plinth that he was sighting
That the sand and time were blighting
Quoth the statue, "Now despair"
There was an old man you could gaze
At his works in despair in a daze
If you looked upon them
And were mere mortal men
'Ozymandias mighty', it says
Reposted by Michael O’Connell ➡️ PAX Unplugged
Whose land this is I do not know
The statue fell down long ago;
No one will mind me stopping here   
To watch the sand o’er ruins blow.

My camel friend must think it queer   
To rest with no oasis near   
And precious little shade these days   
Gives Ozymandias, I fear.

(1/2)
This is just to say

I have looked on
the works
that were in
the desert

and which
you were probably
thinking
would still stand

Forgive me
they were trunkless
so vast
and so old
Once upon a desert sandy
As through winds the trav'ling man he
Spied the face of Ozymandy
Lying, simply lying there
Suddenly there was some writing
Pon the plinth that he was sighting
That the sand and time were blighting
Quoth the statue, "Now despair"
I am not at Essen, but Flossenschlag (Finspan) is apparently being well received.
When you get to play an additional fish, it doesn’t cost you a diver (but you do have to pay the fish’s cost). It’s always one diver per turn, no matter what you end up doing on a given turn.
You can only put an egg on a fish that doesn’t already have one.
All benefits are optional in the game - in whole or in part. They are all “may.”
You only get the dive site bonus at the bottom of a given dive site the first time you dive there each week. But you can dive in the same dive site multiple times in a given week.
Yes. A fish with a young or a school can still hold 1 (and only 1) egg.
Ah, yes. You get 6 divers each week. (Each represents a “day” of work.) Each turn, you use 1 diver to either play a fish or dive, leaving the diver on the mat.
What assumptions did you have to make? We tried to make sure the ruleset was complete.
True. I’ve just become so sensitive to everything always trying to market to me, hoping I will fall in love with…whatever. At this point, most campaigns kind of lose me before I can feel much of anything.
It is a rough time for finding professional work, for sure. I have people from my last couple jobs who have bought the game. Still feels weird.
Thanks! I'm trying to get used to having a normal job again.
Even destroying the Whitehouse feels like marketing at this point.
The part that is strangest (to me) is how any kind of business success in this industry feels stratospheric - but only when you are in the industry. I only know a few people who have had actual financial success in board games as it's understood in the normal business world, and I live in Seattle.
There was one guy on the call (of probably around 60 people) who everyone was asking, "Hey, you like board games, Kenan... What's that one you like to play?" And before he answered, I knew he was gonna say Catan. The whole thing felt scripted.
I’m at a new company. At the virtual all hands, they introduced me, and my interesting fact (these days) is that I design board game with my sons. It's funny how unknown the whole industry is to the average person.
I have generalized anxiety, and you were not intimidating (to me).
Cartoons used to be more clever, for sure. (Playboy was meant to be a sophisticated magazine.) I’m curious what the other images were.
I think she’s trying to get the “cobra” to rise by playing a snake charmer tune. But that’s informed from looking at the other glasses.