Hacker Remix

Kurt Vonnegut's lost board game published

339 points by musha68k 3 days ago | 98 comments

JoeDaDude 2 days ago

The path to getting this game published was not easy. At one time, Barnes and Noble rejected the idea of publishing and selling the game because “Not enough people know who Kurt Vonnegut is” [1].

[1]. https://web.archive.org/web/20211201220314/https://www.getre...

Daub 2 days ago

> "Not enough people know who Kurt Vonnegut is”

Barnes and Noble can go take a flying fuck at a rolling donut [1]

[1] Vonnegut, Kurt. "Slaughterhouse-Five, or, The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death". Delacorte Press, 1969. p147

JoeDaDude 2 days ago

Indeed! Why [doesn't Barnes and Noble] take a flying fuck at the mooooooooooooon? [1].

[1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slapstick_(novel)#Anthropologi...

dosinga 2 days ago

By now I wouldn't be surprised if more people know who Kurt Vonnegut is than Barnes and Noble, at least globally

mmooss 2 days ago

I walked into a B&N in a wealthy neighborhood of a major city. I went looking for the literature section, couldn't find it, and was finally directed to a narrow set of shelves at the end (i.e., the narrow edge) of an aisle. That was all they had.

Why and when did we discard all that literature?

bunderbunder 2 days ago

This from the store that commissioned a portrait of Vonnegut (among other authors) that featured prominently in their branding and store decor?

https://www.behance.net/gallery/15574393/Barnes-Noble-Author...

jgalt212 2 days ago

At large orgs, the left hand rarely knows what the right hand is doing. Meetings, in general, are a waste of time, but there's something to be said about keeping everyone on the same page.

grahamplace 3 days ago

For any Vonnegut fans who find themselves in Indianapolis, I recommend checking out the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library: https://www.vonnegutlibrary.org/

When I visited for the first time this year, I learned about GHQ and the upcoming release

0xEF 2 days ago

The nearby city of Bloomington, home of Indiana University, also hosts Granfalloon each year. I believe it's in July? I just happened to be in town for work and caught it.

cableshaft 2 days ago

I also recommend it. I was in the city for Gen Con last year and decided to go and it was a very interesting museum.

Lots of letters and interesting artifacts and tidbits about his life.

pragma_x 2 days ago

I'm not saying they are in any way all that similar, but if you're doubting what an 8x8 grid can do for a turn-based wargame, may I suggest Into The Breach:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/590380/Into_the_Breach/

RunSet 2 days ago

Or a game you may have heard of called "Chess".

soperj 2 days ago

Is it new?

senkora 2 days ago

Half-off on Switch right now. I might pick it up.

WickyNilliams 2 days ago

It's excellent! Sort of like chess but with mechs. And if chess had multiple classes of pieces with different movesets. I played well over 100 hours on switch. Each class requires a different strategy to use effectively, and it's fun feeling your way through them. Highly recommend!

100k 2 days ago

It's quite fun, I played a lot of it during the pandemic. It's sort of like Advance Wars, but when you lose you can choose to send one of your leveled up characters back in time, which lets you use them again in a new game.

xoxxala 2 days ago

There is also Godzilla Voxel Wars, which is pretty much the same gameplay as Into the Breach, if you prefer that theme. Both games are good.

donio 3 days ago

BGG entry: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/422478/ghq

How-to play video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfXPIhvFPjw

Space-Biff review: https://spacebiff.com/2024/09/25/ghq/

snarf21 3 days ago

All credit for this go to Geoff and his efforts to bring this to life. He is a well-known game designer with dozens of published games and founder of the podcast Ludology (no longer an active host after 100s of episodes) that posits that Games are worthy of study.

He is also a co-founder of the TTGDA (https://www.ttgda.org/) that aims to be a guild like resource for designers. It is his connections that got this into Barnes & Nobles. Also of note, the TTGDA has recently convinced B&N to list game designers on all detail pages and search results in the same way they do today for books and writers. He also runs a free newsletter called GameTek (https://gametek.substack.com/) that is a continuation of an old podcast format he did where he does deep dives on specific games and game concepts. In short, he's awesome.

slowhadoken 3 days ago

Thank you.