It’s always a little bit magical when a creation surprises its own creator. Today we share some love for current products, celebrate award nominations for our prior creations, and share links by other creators that are making us happy this week.
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Being part of a creative team has a magical property of seeing an idea transform into a plan, a plan into a prototype, and a prototype into something wilder than your dreams. For most of us, we only get to see pieces of this process, and it’s always a joy when something sneaks up on you in its final, stunning form.
After weeks of previewing Your Best Game Ever content in both web articles (like Matt Colville’s essay!) and our video series, I was still completely unprepared for how big and gorgeous this thing is to touch, read, and display.
Tammie and I were drooling over the system-agnostic Player and GM Notebooks, too. Picture previews just did not do justice to the various subsections, the front pocket folder, and the lightly gridded background of each page with a slightly darker horizontal line, giving the effect of both gridded and lined pages! We’re both unapologetic dorks for this kind of thing.
Even Monte, who oversees the creative direction for all our products, can get gobsmacked sometimes. Receiving the wooden Path of Suns board was precisely one of those moments.
The final form of these beauties comes from our Art Director Bear Weiter, currently nominated for an ENnie Award for Best Layout and Design of Secrets of Silent Streets! Speaking of award nominations . . .
MCG Products Nominated for Nine ENnie Awards
We always focus on making products that we’d want to have on our shelves and at our gaming table, but nothing beats getting to share in that love with other people.
We’re honored to be nominated for 9 ENnie Awards, spread over six products:
- Invisible Sun:
- Best Art, Interior
- Best Production Values
- Best Setting
- Product of the Year
- Numenera Discovery and Destiny Slipcase Set
- Best Production Values
- Slaves of the Machine God
- Best Adventure
- Numenera Ruin Deck
- Best Aid/Accessory – Non-Digital
- Secrets of Silent Streets
- Best Layout and Design
- Cypher Play Numenera Season 18-2: Building Amber Keep
- Best Organized Play
Vote for the ENnies before voting closes on July 21st! There are some incredible games being made in this industry, and it’s a delight to be among such shining competition.
Secrets of MCG Await You at Our Gen Con Seminars!
We’re deep in prep for Gen Con 2019, where Monte and Shanna are the Guests of Honor!
Our official MCG seminars are now live, so snag your tickets to these cool events before they’re gone:
- Thursday, 7pm: An Evening with Monte Cook Games
- Come hang with Team MCG in an intimate, unique experience. Join us to celebrate another great year, the launch of Your Best Game Ever, the Cypher System Rulebook, and plenty of Numenera and Invisible Sun releases!
- Friday, 3pm: How to Have Your Best Game Ever
- Join members of Team MCG and Your Best Game Ever contributors to get tips on having the best RPG games ever. There will be GM tips, player tips, & game stories with a positive spin.
- Saturday, 10am: Instant Adventure with Monte Cook Games
- Work with designer Sean K. Reynolds to create an adventure from scratch, transforming an idea into a complete adventure in just 30 minutes. Then watch it run live for an unsuspecting panel of players!
For the full list of events and panels that we’re running and guesting on, check out our Gen Con Appearances Page.
If you’re looking to fill out your schedule, come GM some games with us! You can get cool swag, our eternal appreciation, and even a badge. Bruce Cordell, ENnie-nominated writer of Slaves of the Machine God, wrote this year’s Numenera and The Strange adventures for Gen Con, so you know they’re excellent.
- The Board Game Kid reviews games from a kid’s perspective, and for her hundredth review she took a look at No Thank You, Evil! This review is informative, insightful, and an excellent analysis of the game. Check it out!
- What if your phone contained multiple foldable screens, like a book? Google filed a patent for exactly that idea, and I for one welcome our adorable booklet-phones.
- If you’re exploring the changeries of Invisible Sun, you might want to try out theriocephaly–”the anthropomorphic condition or quality of having the head of an animal.”
- Your Best Game Ever has a whole section on cool recipes for game night, but it looks like we missed a good one: Flayed Flesh Antipasto Platter. Mmmmm.
