The best kept secret on the internet
Chaz Marler from the Pair of Dice Paradise covers the EOG in his own inimitable way!
Sarah, our first competition winner, mentioned that she’s heard about the Esoteric Order of Gamers on a site called Pair of Dice Paradise. Well, as usual, I went and checked it out, expecting a text mention and a link perhaps. Imagine my surprise when I discovered an entire four-minute video dedicated to the EOG!
It’s an entertaining overview of my site, and it’s great to see the EOG described as “the best kept secret on the internet”. Right, time to start spilling the secret folks!
Chaz mentions something that I’ve received several requests for over the years: black and white versions of my summaries. Now, I’ve always resisted doing this for several reasons: one, I thought the access to colour printing was pretty ubiquitous these days, and pretty cheap (especially for people happy to sink fifty to a hundred bucks on a boardgame); two, one of the main ideas behind my sheets is to match the design of the game to which they belong; and three, it would be a huge job for me to go back and recreate 219 summaries in B&W, not to mention saving them, uploading them, and creating links for them on every game page.
That’s not a job I’m eager to tackle, especially as it will take valuable time away from creating new sheets (like, oh, for example, Star Trek Fleet Captains). However, I have had it in mind over the past couple of years, and have been designing sheets with much lighter and less-obtrusive backgrounds to facilitate greyscale printing.
It is possible however that I might go back and make so-called ‘printer-friendly’ versions of some of the older sheets that had stronger backgrounds. What do you think? Is it worth doing? I’m very interested to hear your opinion on whether this is worth the time and effort, and whether it is difficult for you to print in colour.
Thanks again Chaz for such a great video, and for spreading the word about the Esoteric Order of Gamers!
I like the full color that matches up with the games.
So do I! Never fear, those versions are here to stay. 🙂
Please don’t waste your precious time. We won’t always have our Universal Head, so I’d prefer to enjoy more new summaries instead. Life is too short to print in black and white.
I’m thinking that I might do this for just a very few particular popular sheets, like Arkham Horror for example.
Though I heartily agree with you, life’s too short! 🙂
Not nessecary. A good reason to get one of the plenty cheap color printers and you find es well good used ones on ebay. And if not yet owning one, than now’s a good reason more. Beside when you like to craft and creat new things for your boardgames (and this page is dping great about that). Isn’t a colored Printer which maby prints also on carton a must have?
btw. srry for my bad english…
I’m one of the people that has asked for black-and-white version before. Not everyone has access to a good quality (read: laser) color printer. Frankly, copy shops charge way too much money for just a few sheets to be printed. And even if someone does own a color printer (even a cheap one), many of these sheets (like Arkham Horror) use a TON of ink. (A cheap ink jet is actually worse as you will quickly spend more on toner printing out a few of these reference sheets than the original cost of the printer.) Having a lot of full color artwork also reduces the readability in low lighting or for people with poor eyesight. (Some pages have very small print and are visually very busy.)
I understand not wanting to go back and redo ever reference sheet for greyscale (I can’t imagine how long that would take!), but designing new sheets so they look good in greyscale and/or have less (not none) artwork would be nice.
Now I can get behind this for future consideration. If there are subtle adjustments that can be made to make these more printer-friendly while still remaining attractive, I support the petition for those who are “enhancing on a budget.”
…and mind you, I’m really talking about those games going forward, as I do agree that it’d be a bit of a task for all of the past games.
I’ve done an experimental one for the next game which is Expedition: Northwest Passage. I’d be interested in everyone’s feedback on it.
Why I understand your concerns Dave (and you make some excellent points), one thing I must mention is the fact that you’re paying the cost of an inkjet printer in consumables is part of the manufacturer’s plan. Inkjet printers cost a pittance these days purely because the companies make them so cheap in order to recoup the money in customer purchases of paper and ink. It’s an annoying business model, but it’s unavoidable. There are far more affordable alternatives out there to branded ink and paper however.