Puzzle Strike Missionaries

David Sirlin just posted this little gem to his blog.

I don't think I've ever heard a designer talk about his own game with such cult-like implications. Share the Good News of Puzzle Strike!

I also wanted to comment about "creating the perfect polished jewel of a game," but I'm not sure what to add aside from the fact that Puzzle Strike ain't it.

In the 1920's, President Wilson formed a secret agency known as Threshold to combat the forces of evil bent on awakening Cthulhu.

I would be absolutely fine with Threshold "adjudicating" Sirlin and his cult.

"Puzzle Strike Missionaries" sounds like a variant of "The Shocker", but from behind and with a finger in the eye...making her puzzled LOL

I'm less into expansions anyway and more into creating the perfect polished jewel of a game...though that's not exactly what keeps a game in the news

I'm done with Sirlin and his games -- I wouldn't be surprised if it was his attitude that was keeping his games from getting the press he feels like they deserve. Or instead of no expansions, it was the 3 editions that came out so fast, making the original supporters feel like they had bee duped as he had obviously had the new editions in the works for some time.

Usually, when you aren't achieving success, the first place to look is at your own product and in the mirror.

I believe he's going to call his next game (or at least the next edition of Puzzle Strike) "Bigger than Jesus".

Seriously, hubris much?

It just goes back to my exchange with him over Yomi...I gave it one of the best reviews I've ever given a game (one that I stand by to this day) and he was unhappy that I criticized the cheap-ass flimsy cardstock that had no business in a $100 game. There were like four or five emails back and forth, I think he was trying to get me to recant and revise the review. Wouldn't do it. Cardstock sucked.

He's obviously a talented designer, but he fumbles over the line between self-promotion and self-aggrandizement.

I usually never care about designers when I'm looking into a game, but I also somewhat irrationally sick of this guy.

He worships balance and tournament scene, an attitude I despise. He also belittled Knizia's game, take ideas from the said game and added to it to create his own. I don't like his attitude with "revisions". May be because he comes from video game background, and with video games you can just release patch to address game balance.

Sevej wrote: He also belittled Knizia's game, take ideas from the said game and added to it to create his own.

Yeah, was it really necessary to diss the game that you *ripped off*?

For me personally, though, it's not so much that I don't like the guy, I don't like his *games*, and that's primarily because of the tournament-competitive-mindset worship that seeps through to his game design, where it's the #1 design goal. Other than having I believed mentioned that he thinks that asymmetry makes a game fun, where has he ever talked about "fun" being something that he considers?

I agree with a lot of what Sirlin says. Incremental improvements, building on what's current, etc and so on. His personality could use work, but talk about the pot calling the kettle black if I belittle him for that.

The ONE thing that keeps me away from his games is the revisionist nature of his development style. Totally hypothetical: If I have Puzzle-omi 1.0, and I like Puzzle-omi 1.0 then good for me, right? Well, maybe. Even if I don't play in tournaments, if I meet some friends and/or newcomers on a game night and they're familiar with Puzzle-omi 2.0, then I have two choices:

1) Upgrade anyway and be a part of a growing player base.
2) Be that crusty curmudgeon bastard.

I don't want to pay to be the first person, and I'll pay for being the second. All it would take for me to buy in is a reasonable upgrade pack.

And to contradict myself, the OTHER thing that bugs me: Give credit where credit is due. There's no shame in standing on the shoulders of giants, but at least be man enough to admit that you're doing exactly that.

San Il Defanso wrote: David Sirlin just posted this little gem to his blog.

I don't think I've ever heard a designer talk about his own game with such cult-like implications. Share the Good News of Puzzle Strike!

I also wanted to comment about "creating the perfect polished jewel of a game," but I'm not sure what to add aside from the fact that Puzzle Strike ain't it.

Yeah suckers! The game that's so perfect I make you buy a new edition every year to fix how broken it is. Don't worry, just put down another $50 next year because the fourth edition is even, er, perfect-er!

Why playtest your game before publishing it, when you can find suckers to buy edition after edition, and pay to play test it for you? It's a perfect polished something alright.

SGT Dave wrote: Why playtest your game before publishing it, when you can find suckers to buy edition after edition, and pay to play test it for you? It's a perfect polished something alright.

Say what you will about Sirlin but his play testing process is probably one of the most rigorous ones outside of multiplayer video games. You're unlikely to find a board game designer who play tests more than him.

The real problem is his placement of tournament balance on such a pedestal that even a minor imbalance requires a new edition in his mind.

I find his outlook interesting in case study way as it is so far removed from mine. I'm not a particularly competitive gamer; I play to win but am more than happy to screw around and have fun. To him winning is the only point of playing a game.

Sir, you will have a hard time convincing me that Puzzle Strike has had more playtesting, or is better balanced than Dominion.

Sirlin's big attitude is not at all proportional to his design chops. Yomi is a fairly good game, but also pretty simple and unpolished. His other two games are blatant rip-offs where apparently he goes around dissing the original designers? I am actually a little ashamed to say that his personality is the primary factor for me trading off my Sirlin games, but let's face it - none of them were irreplacable anyway.