Mummy's Mask and PAX West

Looking awesome. Super excited to see this.

Cameltrops - love the name.

Sounds like a great time; can't wait for the preview and hopeful for this next set. Wish I could come, although -as awesome as PACG is - I'd be eager to get into the Acquisitions Incorporated session and have in fact already bought tickets to see it in a local movie theater.

Is Paul Peterson doing a lot of designing for other properties these days post-Wrath? Will you be demonstrating Thornwatch, too?

Mummy's Mask has some really awesome stuff in it. I can't wait to get my copy. :)

Paul works on a lot of games, including Mummy's Mask, Ninth World (another Lone Shark Game), Smash Up, and others. He's a gaming Titan.

It'd be mighty odd not to demo Thornwatch at PAX. ;)

How does the difficult compare to the previous sets? I'm hoping it's not as hard (and certainly not harder!) than Wrath?

Well Keith says they've got Paul Peterson on the case...

Liz will explain all kinds of things, but she's a lot more focused on telling a story and providing a wild and crazy ride than she is on a grueling or difficulty experience :)

If you don't play Mummy's Mask and have multiple "Whoa" and "That's crazy cool" moments, you're doing it wrong!

"We had to build new tech just for reading cards."

I believe the New Tech you're looking for is called a Magnifying Glass.

How does the difficult compare to the previous sets? I'm hoping it's not as hard (and certainly not harder!) than Wrath?

We specifically rebuilt the difficulty curve for Mummy' Mask to be better for people completely new to the game and those who haven't played in a while. The first five scenarios are specifically designed to introduce new mechanics at a fun, bite-sized pace. After that, we've got some tough scenarios, but they are mixed in with wacky, story-focused ones. For this set, I wanted to focus on creating more variety and strategy in gameplay, rather than boosting difficulty alone. Wrath still stands as the hardest PACG set by a long shot.

Wrath still stands as the hardest PACG set by a long shot.

Hmmmm. Wrath has the hardest B scenarios, and is nearly impossible if you have to beat armies with the wrong group of 5-6 characters. Or if you draw too many Demonic Hordes/Arboreal Blights.

Other than that, in my experience, it's not harder than S & S. Mythic-powered characters seemed to overpower most challenges in the late game.

"We had to build new tech just for reading cards."

I believe the New Tech you're looking for is called a Magnifying Glass.

Actually, the Magnifying Glass is an awesome Item card...

We had to build new tech just for reading cards.

This is really cool. It's like a cutout frame with a golden translucent film in the middle. And the shape of the frame is a magnifying glass. You read the cards without the secret decoder then with it. Amazing!

So it's basically like the square of red translucent plastic they used to include with every Transformers figure so that you could read their tech specs?

So it's basically like the square of red translucent plastic they used to include with every Transformers figure so that you could read their tech specs?

That is exactly what I pictured when I first read that sentence. Except not that exactly because I didn't know the Transformers one existed. I just meant one in general.

We had to build new tech just for reading cards.

Mike, I can teach you French for just a few dozens of promo cards ;-)

Calthaer wrote:

So it's basically like the square of red translucent plastic they used to include with every Transformers figure so that you could read their tech specs?

That is exactly what I pictured when I first read that sentence. Except not that exactly because I didn't know the Transformers one existed. I just meant one in general.

Very similar to this.

Except it's circular with a golden film instead of red and has a "handle" to simulate a magnifying glass. (It's still made of cardboard.)

Calthaer wrote:

So it's basically like the square of red translucent plastic they used to include with every Transformers figure so that you could read their tech specs?

That is exactly what I pictured when I first read that sentence. Except not that exactly because I didn't know the Transformers one existed. I just meant one in general.

The copy protection for The Colonel's Bequest was a red film magnifying glass that revealed fingerprints. (My copy's in a box somewhere along with a bunch of my other Sierra games.)

Yellow (gold) isn't a good color for that sort of obscured printing, but perfect for a "magic wand" that reveals invisible ink on the cards.

So it's basically like the square of red translucent plastic they used to include with every Transformers figure so that you could read their tech specs?

Not at all like that, but it does involve the color red....

emky wrote:

How does the difficult compare to the previous sets? I'm hoping it's not as hard (and certainly not harder!) than Wrath?

We specifically rebuilt the difficulty curve for Mummy' Mask to be better for people completely new to the game and those who haven't played in a while. The first five scenarios are specifically designed to introduce new mechanics at a fun, bite-sized pace. After that, we've got some tough scenarios, but they are mixed in with wacky, story-focused ones. For this set, I wanted to focus on creating more variety and strategy in gameplay, rather than boosting difficulty alone. Wrath still stands as the hardest PACG set by a long shot.

Does this mean you're a Timmy (in the Timmy/Johnny/Spike sense).

I feel like "experiences" are a major focus based on the scenario I playtested last year. I really like it, even though I like the hard slog of Wrath as well.