Lucas Land: It's in the Cards

(Previous chapter: In the Belly of the Beast)

“Jim will see you now.”

These momentous words were uttered by Jim’s assistant Chris(tine) Butler—who would in time become a dear friend of mine—as I tried not to squirm too much in my chair right outside of the boss’s office.

Remember I had been flown all the way from Montreal to San Francisco and spent the morning going through four interviews on the hallowed grounds of Skywalker Ranch, before coming to a rest on the doorstep of the Marketing VP—the guy who would make the ultimate decision as to my fate within the Lucasfilm organization.

In a late-nineties world that was just learning to harness the power of the Internet, my future position as lead writer (and soon-to-be editor) of starwars.com fell somewhere between the Marketing and Web teams. That’s one reason the interview process was so grueling to begin with: managers tried to see whether the fresh recruit knew what to make of that new tool, how to use it to maximum effect, what pitfalls to avoid, and the kind of future-proofing the entire online enterprise might require—because there were myriad things in that area they didn’t quite know themselves. (Frankly, I wasn’t too sure about most of that stuff, but I believe I succeeded in selling my abilities well enough for everyone to trust that what I didn’t know, I would quickly figure out.)
They also needed to ensure I was someone who knew and loved Star Wars well enough, but that I would know not to behave like a delirious fanboy around the place, and could keep a professional composure around celebrities I might pass by on the Ranch, or else directly interact with in the course of my reportorial duties. (I came the closest to losing it when, half a year later, I spent an afternoon with legendary sound designer Ben Burtt in his Skywalker Sound studio—a story for another day.) They wanted to pick the right addition to their very exclusive family, and I couldn’t blame them. But it made the whole thing nerve wracking in the extreme.

When David West Reynolds, Steve Sansweet and I got back from lunch, the VP of Marketing was in the thick of things with some other concern; it sounded like he hadn’t even left his office to have a bite. By that point I could hardly breathe, so I asked if there was time for me to get back outside and clear my head a little before the big interview. Sansweet nodded with a smile: “Of course, kid.”
(He still calls me “kid” to this day, and I’ve racked up 49 revolutions around the sun at the time of this writing. Whenever Han Solo says it to Luke Skywalker in one of the Star Wars movies, I hear my friend Steve.)

I quickly went down the Brook House exterior staircase and took a few steps towards a copse of trees before the sight of the Main House stopped me dead in my tracks. I had laid eyes on the faux Victorian beauty many times since my arrival earlier that morning, but now it was talking to me.
And it was telling me I had already won.
Not that earning the position was a certainty, of course. But whether or not this adventure turned into a job, I had been flown to Lucasfilm on George’s dime, and I was standing right smack in the middle of Skywalker Ranch, that mythical place that’s never open to the public. How many people get to experience that? Up until a few weeks prior, I had been wondering if I’d ever get a chance to visit the Ranch in any capacity. And now I was there, magically transported into the heart of all things Star Wars and Indiana Jones, two universes that had fueled my childhood.
I believe that’s what saved me—the thought that even given a catastrophic outcome (not getting the job), I had accomplished something I never quite believed would happen. I started breathing again, I felt my entire body relax, and I walked back to the Brook House with renewed confidence.

Chris smiled at me as soon as I reached the mezzanine where Jim Ward’s office was located. “Have a seat. Shouldn’t take long.”
I sat in the chair she was nodding at, attempting to look cool and comfortable. The boss was still on the phone, sounding as agitated as when I’d left; I did my best to blank that out. Against the opposite wall stood a pristine Star Wars pinball machine, no doubt a gift from the manufacturer, and one that nobody ever used. Despite being plugged in and fully functional, its role was decorative—something I would eventually come to change with regular Friday pinball tournaments. (I only ever won a couple of them.)
Then the conversation on the other side of the heavy wooden door ceased, Chris got a quick call at her desk, and she turned to me.

“Jim will see you now.”

Back then Jim Ward was a beast of a man: tall, big and with a voice to make Zeus himself shake in his sandals. Saying he made an impression is selling the experience short. (He has since slimmed down a bit, which I’m sure doesn’t take anything away from his formidable presence.)  He also had smart, piercing blue eyes that connected with anyone he crossed paths with. A veteran of Apple, Nike and Microsoft, Jim didn’t take bullshit from anyone, and certainly didn’t spread any of it around. The first time you shook hands with him—when his large and powerful mitt swallowed your fingers whole—you knew the man was the real deal. You could quite literally feel it.

“Have a seat!”

We sat on a pair of short couches that flanked an elongated coffee table, between Jim’s desk and a small conference table. It wasn’t a large office by any means, but a comfortable one, with some nice windows and a small refreshments fridge in one corner. As with every enclosed space on the Ranch, it looked and felt much more like a living room than an office.

By that point the calming effect of my walk outside was starting to fade out like an 80s pop song, but Jim wasted no time putting me at ease. He proceeded to tell me about himself, asked about my studies (philosophy & literature!), my love of Star Wars, my trip to Tunisia, the morning’s four job interviews... and then pointed to a stack of Star Wars CCG cards on the coffee table between us.
Which I had noticed the instant I walked into his office, to be sure.
I thought Jim was following up on the Tunisia question, how the results of that game’s world championship had whisked me away to northern Africa, and so on. But that’s not what he had in mind.

I would later understand that everyone before Jim had vetted me on pretty much everything they needed to confirm about my abilities. The one, final matter keeping Jim on the fence was my capacity to clearly express complex concepts in English—because I had been raised in French. And the way he decided to go about figuring this out told me a whole lot about the man I was about to start working for.

“I never play games, I just don’t have the time for it,” Jim said. “So I’d like you to teach me—a complete outsider—how to play this.”

And so it was that my fifth and final interview involved teaching the Marketing VP of Lucasfilm the rules of the strategy game that had brought me there in the first place. To paraphrase an oft-quoted line from the original Star Wars movie, the circle was now complete.

It went splendidly: years of teaching all kinds of games to all sorts of strangers had prepared me for this like nothing else could have. And while I’m not sure Jim grasped every nuance of that rather complex card game, he seemed to understand the core concepts and some of the strategy.
At the end of my presentation, he stood up, shook my hand once more and thanked me for teaching him. (How often do you hear something like that in a job interview?)

“We’ll be in touch.”

A few hours later, while I was enjoying an early evening at my friend (and future coworker) David’s place about 30 minutes away from Skywalker Ranch, the phone rang and David picked up. He went through a series of “yeses,” “okays” and “got its” before hanging up and turning to me with a straight face. “The job is yours if you want it,” he announced, his face lighting up like a Christmas tree.
IF I wanted it? I’d never wanted anything that badly in my life.

* * *

The next few weeks flew by in a blur. I had to get ready to move, say goodbye to my old life and prepare to start a new one, and go through the legal process of earning the right to live and work in the US of A. Which boiled down to Lucasfilm needing to demonstrate that nobody else in America could do the job (!), and my having to wait for the immigration department to approve my papers—at the airport, while I sat in the adjoining room (!!)—and grant me a work visa. (I believe I sweated more during the half hour I waited there than during my entire day of job interviews at Lucasfilm.)

It all worked out in the end, with Lucasfilm not only paying for my relocation (which included movers packing up all of my stuff and loading it onto an 18-wheeler that would meet me in San Francisco a month down the line), but also setting me up with a hotel room and a rental car for a few weeks, until I could find an apartment and acquire my own vehicle.

I showed up at the Skywalker Ranch gate—on my own—for the first time on a sunny Thursday morning in the early autumn of northern California, having just driven through a forest of giant redwoods where they shot the speeder bike chase sequence for Return of the Jedi. The simple fact that the guard at the gate let me through was exhilarating enough, but the sentiment paled in comparison to the bone-rattling thrill I felt driving out onto the grounds of the Ranch.
I had made it.
Yet, despite everything I had to brave to win my small place inside George’s empire, it was clear to me that my Lucasfilm adventure was just getting started. I had an entire universe waiting for me.

My old Mazda 626 parked under the Carriage House, I walked across the Ranch’s backyard and made my way to the Brook House. My Brook House, I found myself trying to think. I still felt like an impostor, mind you, but I was working hard to convince my stunned brain that I belonged in that fantastical, otherworldly place.
As I got close enough to hear the titular brook trickling under the building, David stepped out onto the landing at the top of the stairs and spread his arms in a welcoming gesture. His mouth broke into a gleaming smile as I climbed the steps that would take me to my office and my first day of work as a Lucasfilm employee; his extended right hand seemed all at once like an offer to help vanquish the few remaining stairs that separated us, and a congratulatory demonstration.
I can still remember the look in his eyes when I reached the top of the staircase and took his hand. He only said, “Welcome home.”
And then we went inside.

(Next chapter: Stag Night)

(Full series here)

# # #

Lucas Land: In the Belly of the Beast

(Previous chapter: The Call)

I've already explained how strange twists in my life made it so that in the late nineties, I got invited to fly from Montreal to San Francisco and interview for the position of web writer on starwars.com—at a time when most people would have asked, “What the hell kind of a job is that?”
This chapter is all about actually getting there.

My friend David West Reynolds—an archaeologist who had about a decade on me—picked me up at my hotel on that fateful Friday morning (in his Delorean, I’ll have you remember), just north of San Francisco, and drove me straight to Skywalker Ranch for my five interviews. Five. Interviews.
He knew the way very well: he’d been working there for about a year, shouldering the growing responsibilities of starwars.com’s web editor. I’m sure I was trying to admire the rolling landscape as our time machine snaked its way up the hillside that was about to change the course of my life—it was September, when everything’s in full bloom over there—but I can’t remember a thing. I was petrified.
We must have talked: I must have asked questions, looking for any edge with which to arm myself in order to survive the ordeal that day had in store for me. Maybe we listened to some music? I’m telling you, no idea. Whatever transpired in that mythical car, it went into one ear and evaporated before it could even make it out the other one. (I still feel a pang of nervousness as I’m typing this, more than 20 years after the fact.)

At the tail end of a trip that couldn’t have lasted more than 30, maybe 45 minutes, Reynolds pulled up to a nondescript wooden gate and touched a magnetic card to a reader. I watched as the bulky barrier opened without a sound, swinging on massive, oily hinges. The address was 5858 Lucas Valley Road.
I am not kidding.
To be fair, that road had been so named back in the 1800s, an eon before some young filmmaker would hit it out of the ballpark with his little space opera movie, and build up the scratch needed to purchase 4,700 acres of prime, northern California land. Even so, that name was a portent of things to come. And if there were any doubt in my mind as to my destination, everything around me was setting me straight, right down to the goddamn local toponymy.

A dozen meters in stood a small, unassuming gatehouse with a friendly looking security guy. He stepped into the morning sun with a smile on his face and addressed my driver by his first name. “Hey David! Who d’we have here?” Reynolds smiled back. “Francis Lalumière—he should be on your list. He’s here for a bunch of job interviews.” The affable guard, built like a college wrestler with a neck that could stop a baseball bat, fetched a clipboard from his desk and looked me up. “Right! You’re all set. You can go in. Have a nice day.” The Delorean lurched forward, following an asphalted ribbon that weaved between dense foliage. My head swivelled to and fro; but try as I might, I couldn’t make anything out. I felt like I was at the start of a ride, waiting for mechanical surprises to jump out at me. And they sure did.
A minute later, Mother Nature’s curtains parted and my jaw dropped. There it was, basking in the early morning light: the famed Main House of Skywalker Ranch.

I took this picture about a year later, when two relatives came over for a quick visit.

We drove by a small body of water. “That’s Lake Ewok,” Reynolds said. “And right there is Skywalker Sound,” he added, jerking a thumb at a nearby red, winery-looking brick building—fronted by actual grape vines—which I knew housed some of the best sound studios in the world. It was Skywalker Ranch as far as the eye could see, and I was able to take quite the gander. Lush hills all around, with a smattering of low, respectful buildings nested in the middle of the whole thing—and never open to the public.
I must have held my breath the entire way in. The car veered in front of and around the Main House, before slipping under the Carriage House (home to Lucas Licensing, where many future adventures would take me). There a hidden parking lot kept most cars out of sight: only the occasional VIP was allowed to park out front, along the Main House’s curved driveway. We emerged in the backyard, a large and pleasant area where footpaths crisscross between the handful of buildings that drive operations at the Ranch. I followed Reynolds as he headed for the Brooke House, the prettiest of the backyard buildings, and thus called because it straddles an actual brook. My friend talked as he walked, while I tried not to trip over myself amidst all of my gawking around. “So five interviews in one day, eh?” Reynolds said more than asked. “You’ll do great.” He flashed me his best the-plan-is-proceeding-apace smile. “One of them’s already done.” I understood that to mean he was one of the five, and naturally he was already sold. That didn’t quell the feeling of panic building in my throat as we neared the Brook House, which sheltered the entire marketing department.
(So they’re all called “houses,” and they do look the part. Every office space feels like it was unfurled in a guest bedroom. Hell, the office destined to be mine was a cozy octagon with a working fireplace built into one of its eight sides.)
We climbed the wooden stairs as I shot a glance at the brook babbling right underneath us. I thought, “I can’t believe I’m here” and I must have said it aloud, because Reynolds replied, “You better believe it.”

The very cool Octagon (my future office) at one end of the Brook House

Inside, everything looked, sounded and even smelled family-like; I could have been visiting an uncle in his country home. (Except then I wouldn’t have been about to soil myself.) My host introduced me to a few enthusiastic colleagues; I shook hands and stuttered some niceties, got offered refreshments from the full kitchen in the back and then ushered into the aforementioned octagon to face my first interviewer, Steve Sansweet.
Back then Sansweet was Lucasfilm’s Head of Fan Relations, but I knew (of) him as the craziest private collector of all things Star Wars—with a mind-blowing collection that now includes the original cantina door—and the guy who had penned the definitive book on action figures from a galaxy far, far away. Sansweet eased himself into the interview like someone who was born to talk to strangers and made me more comfortable the second he opened his mouth, speaking slowly and deliberately in that rich baritone of his. He was frank and open, asking questions but also volunteering generous information: what it was like to work at the Ranch, the fun stuff and the not-so-fun stuff, and what I should expect if I decided to take the job. (IF??) He was the perfect interviewer, and someone I would often think about later, especially when sitting down to a job interview: I wish they were all like him. There’s something about Steve that makes you want to become his friend, to hug him and break bread and share stories with him—just to be around the guy, frankly. He’s absolutely great.
And I think he liked me too.

Next on the list were Marketing Project Manager Jeanne Cole and Head of PR Lynn Hale, both sharp and business-like, but also charming and caring—not an easy combo to pull off. (They welcomed me into a set of “offices” you could see yourself relaxing in on a Saturday afternoon.) Each of them asked a couple of tough questions, but knew to phrase them in a way that made you want to hit it out of the park and earn a permanent place on the team’s roster. Both interviews ended on a high note, with a “Hope to see you around” topped with a wink, and a firm handshake that said you’re almost there, don’t you fuck this up.
I imagined I was on a roll, and I might even have been right. But would that roll keep with Jim Ward, VP of Marketing? I could feel the drain on my batteries; by then a few hours had trickled by—much like water underneath the Brook House—and Ward was to be my fifth and final interview, like a boss fight at the end of a long level in a grueling videogame.

Reynolds grabbed me as I exited Cole’s office and announced it was lunchtime. He’d nabbed a table for three in the Main House dining room, one of the few facilities serving food around the Ranch. “Steve would like to join us, if that’s okay with you.” (Again with those improbable ifs.)
That meal earned me my first look inside the Main House, which, just like the rest of the structures dotting the Skywalker Ranch landscape, looks nothing like a collection of offices. Its appellation is not contrived: it really is a house, except one where people happen to work.
Getting to the dining room felt like a pilgrimage, with each step of mine that echoed through the hallways threatening blasphemy—I was afraid to breathe wrong. We passed a tall glass case that displayed one of C-3PO’s metal gauntlets (glinting with defiance in the dimmed lighting), a toy-sized speeder bike model, and a remarkable miniature of Yoda. All authentic props, of course. I fought hard to keep a tight grip on the geek inside and broadcast only professionalism; I’m not sure I succeeded. (I couldn’t even begin to imagine the entire week I would one day spend in the heavily restricted Lucasfilm archives, marvelling my way through relics and icons from each of the LFL productions. We’ll get there.)
In another corner stood a massive fireplace designed to look like it had been rebuilt time and time again to secure old stones shaken loose by a century of earthquakes—even though the house itself was only a few decades old. The Main House is a Victorian wonder, snatched through time and space and brought to rest somewhere deep in San Rafael’s bosom.

We soon reached the dining room. Apart from a small team of servers—discreet enough you could miss them if you blinked too hard—the medium-sized area could have passed for one of the common rooms in an old (albeit expertly maintained) boarding house. It held a pastoral atmosphere, as well as one elongated table, plus a handful of smaller ones. Ron Howard happened to be sitting at the big table, talking with energy to half a dozen collaborators. Eh, another day at the office.
I can’t for the life of me recall what we ate. I have no doubt it was delicious, but there was only so much my addled brain could process. I remember I was starting to feel like I was home, and I didn’t want that feeling to stop. At some point Reynolds looked at his watch, swallowed one last gulp of water, and grabbed my shoulder: “Alright Marty, time to meet your new boss.”

(Of course, he was talking about Marketing VP Jim Ward, not George Lucas. I would cross paths with George only twice in the two years to come, but one of them would prove memorable indeed.)

(Next chapter: It's in the Cards)

(Full series here)

# # #

Getting it Back

Right before the 2021 holidays, director Peter Jackon bestowed upon us all (as long as we were Disney+ subscribers) one hell of a Christmas gift: the 8-hour-long Beatles documentary Get Back, which chronicles the meandering creation of the last songs the Fab Four would ever record together.
The adventure began a long time ago, and would unfurl personal ramifications I did not suspect at all.

In early 1969, director Michael Lindsay-Hogg joined Paul, John, George and Ringo on a film soundstage (before the band eventually relocated to a proper recording studio) to shoot and record the musicians as they worked. The crew accumulated 50 hours of film and over 150 hours of audio throughout the creation/rehearsal/jamming/bickering sessions meant to give birth to classic songs like Get Back, Across the Universe and Let It Be, as well as spawn a live TV concert, a film documentary, a musical journey aboard a cruise ship, a mythical show amidst Roman ruins in North Africa—you name it. 
In the end, the footage was turned into an 80-minute "feature" that, back in 1970, helped fuel the tale of strife and general hatred surrounding the final Beatles album.

Enter Peter Jackson, 50 years down the line.
His team of wizards spent years cleaning up the footage like you wouldn’t believe: watching this on a 4K screen, you feel like you’re right there in the studio with the boys. But as miraculous as their achievement was on the visual side of things, what they accomplished with sound defies the imagination. Using artificial intelligence and machine learning, the team taught computers to train themselves in recognizing a human voice, an electric guitar, a drum kit, ambient noise, and so on.

You see, one of the problems with the original material was that everything was an aural jumble, with conversations constantly drowned by one musician or another noodling on his instrument. What the Peter Jackson treatment made possible was to “demix” the audio and build a multi-track recording decades after the fact. Want to lower the volume of the drums—or mute them altogether? No problem. You’d like to hear exactly what John is playing under that loud crash of crockery? Here you go.

Armed with those magically restored findings of visual and audio archeology, Jackson then put together the shortest cut he could that featured everything he deemed essential in understanding the creative process of the Beatles, circa 1969. The result is a can’t-miss, once-in-a-lifetime happening.
Yes, the blasted thing lasts over eight hours, but I’d have stared at my TV screen for twice as long with excitement and fascination. It’s that good.

I’ll spare you any kind of insight or analysis: the web is overflowing with those. What I wanted to put in writing was my personal reaction to that exceptional document.

Of course I was thrilled to see the Beatles up close and personal. To hear Harrison express his desire to have more of his songs appear on Beatles albums (and the secretly taped Lennon/McCartney conversation about how George was right); to see how much Starr was the backbone of the band, always the first to show up in the morning, never missing a step, 100% devoted to the band; to witness the creation of Get Back, from nothing to an almost finished hit song in a scant few minutes; to blink in disbelief at just how good Billy Preston was at the piano, completely unfazed by the presence of his iconic hosts; to see that charming and disarming Lennon smile, like the guy was still 10 years old and dreaming of becoming a music legend. It was an exhilarating journey all the way through. What I wasn’t prepared for—at all—was listening to the Let it Be album after having watched the Jackson documentary.

And so, about a week after that momentous event, I grabbed the black album off the shelf and popped it into the player. (Yes, I still listen to physical music, which sounds way better than those crappy MP3 files.)

The first thing that struck me was the humor. Of course, I’d heard Lennon’s antics before and after a variety of songs on Let it Be countless times: each intrusion is part of the actual track when you play it. But this time around, I remembered “being there” when the joke happened, watching Lennon look straight at the camera and mutter something silly under his breath. Before, I’d always thought those quips had been thrown in to add some color after the fact, but I knew now they’d always been there, spontaneous utterances let loose during the recording and which they’d just decided to keep on the master.

One of those jokes struck me more than the others. Right before McCartney launches into Get Back, Lennon says, “Sweet Loretta Fart she thought she was a cleaner, but she was a frying pan.” (Whereas the actual lyrics are thus: “Sweet Loretta Martin thought she was a woman, but she was another man.”) It always sounded to me like a joke someone would make after hearing (indeed, playing) the same song over and over again. But to us, the audience—at least the first time you hear it—the track is brand new: you get a parody of the song before you’ve even had a chance to listen to it. And that feels very strange, almost like an editing mistake.
Well, that was back then, before the Jackson revelation. Now? It makes perfect sense. Lennon goes into his “Loretta Fart” joke precisely because he’s been playing the song over and over again in the studio, and we’ve seen that happen. Brilliant.

I started to get emotional when I heard the three tracks recorded on the roof of Apple Music on that cold January day (One After 909, Dig a Pony, and I’ve Got a Feeling). I remembered seeing the actual setup, with passersby in the street wondering what the hell was happening, neighbors stepping out on their own roofs for a peek at the action, and the ever-so-polite English cops banging at the door and asking if perhaps, by any chance, they could cut that racket out. I listened in amazement—feeling like I was hearing those songs for the first time in my life—thinking about the band playing in those silly fur coats, McCartney hurling his voice against the wind, Lennon’s fingers freezing on the strings, and always that smile of pure joy to just be doing what they were doing, against all odds (many of them of their own making).
How glorious is that Peter Jackson presentation of the rooftop performance, showing us multiple camera angles simultaneously? It’s an idea that nobody back then could have conceived of (except maybe Abel Gance with his avant-gardiste Napoléon—but that’s a story for another day), and yet a risk-free proposition in an age when most people have at least one giant screen hanging somewhere in their homes.

The Long and Winding Road started to tug at my heartstrings with a little more insistence, and by the time Get Back rolled around, tears were flowing down my cheeks, into a graying beard I was still decades away from growing when I heard the album for the first time. I was crying. Because I was discovering something new in that old collection of tunes. Because I could better understand where they were coming from. Because it was the ultimate destination, the final resting place of a long journey, many hours of which I had been privy to.
But mainly, and I could feel this in my gut, because I was free.
I realized then what I’d always held back before: that each of my innumerable listens of Let it Be had taken place with guarded ears and veiled heart. Remember, we were always told that the final Beatles album had been created amidst animosity, with band members at best tolerating each other’s presence, and recording sessions held together with chicken wire and a hefty supply of duct tape. So how could I in good conscience let myself bask in the joy and love I imagined oozing from every track on that album? It was show business, smoke and mirrors. I felt I owed the Beatles some respect for their creative suffering, and thus unconsciously kept my enjoyment of their last opus locked up in my brain and away from vital organs, as a cerebral experience that I quite enjoy on the occasional Sunday afternoon, thank you very much.

But it was all a lie. What Peter Jackson showed us was the happiness and camaraderie and brotherhood plain as day, on vibrant display as far as the internet can reach. When Lennon closes the album with “I'd like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves, and I hope we passed the audition,” it’s not a crack aimed at livening up a broody atmosphere, but rather a genuine expression of joy at the conclusion of their rooftop escapade. Not only are we all allowed to see that, but we also understand it, because we were along for the most significant moments of the ride.
And so I cried. Not an unstoppable torrent of tears; rather, a silent trickle of deliverance and gratitude.

What I myself "got back" from all of this is the right to listen to Let it Be, the last hurrah of a band near and dear to my heart, without feeling an ounce of guilt for enjoying the songs so much. How can I ever thank Peter Jackson enough for this?
If I ever cross paths with the man, I’m liable to kiss him on the mouth.

# # #

Solo Ruleset: Snow Tails

Version 1.1

NOTE: You can download a PDF (complete with illustrated examples) HERE.

The following rules are intended to run sleds that no human player controls. They can be used for a solo game proper, but also to fill out the roster of racers when fewer than five players are involved. Just roll the dice for every “bot” riding a sled, and enjoy!

• All regular rules apply: the bot rules function as a layer on top of the existing ruleset. Some exceptions do exist, and will be highlighted accordingly.
• No rule is modified for human players. Only cardboard opponents are afforded some leeway...

The Dice

Each bot is activated with a roll of two six-sided dice (2d6), in two different colors. One of them is the Movement die, the other the Control die.

• The Movement die indicates the bot’s Speed—how many spaces it will move.
• The delta between the two dice shows how many drifts must be performed during that move. If both dice are equal, no drift occurs: the sled is balanced! (And it does benefit from its movement bonus.)
• In some situations (see below), the Control die also indicates in what direction drifts will take place. In those cases, the bot will drift towards the outside of the track (in relation to the next curve) when the Control die is higher than the Movement die, and towards the inside of the track when the Control die is lower than the Movement die.

Movement

Move each bot-driven sled as far as possible within the confines of the game’s regular rules. Prioritize distance (towards the finish line) over angle inside a corner. This means that sometimes a bot will drive itself into a dead end rather than go for a better position for next turn; that’s ok. If two different destinations are valid, prioritize the one most on the inside of the track.

• A bot’s minimum Speed is always its position in the race. If you roll a speed that’s lower than a bot’s position, physically rotate the Movement die so that it shows the correct number. (So a bot in fourth place can roll 4, 5 or 6—if the Movement die shows any other result, rotate it so that the 4 is showing.)
• If the sled starts on a corner piece, apply drifts towards the inside of the corner.
• If the sled’s move would take it onto a corner piece (even if another sled blocks the intended path—imagine the track is empty for this visualization), apply drifts towards the inside of that next corner.
• If both situations apply, prioritize the next corner.
• In any other contradictory situation, prioritize the current corner.
• (You might see that rare occurrence with two consecutive but opposed corners, where going inside the current corner takes you to the next track piece, but moving towards the inside of the next corner would leave you on the current track piece.)
• Note that the above points also apply to obstacle pieces such as the Snow Drift. In that case, replace “inside of the corner” with “safe side of the track.”
• Otherwise, apply drifts according to the Control die (as explained above).
• Once a drift direction is determined, it remains the same for the entire turn.
• Delayed Drift: If a drift would take a sled outside the track, move it forward instead. (That drift becomes a forward movement.) Bots are not stopped by the sides of tracks.
• Should the sled then reach an opening that allows it to drift, resume drifting as prescribed by the dice roll.
• A bot that reaches a dead end must stop.
• If a sled starts its turn in a dead end and gets a balanced dice roll (both dice are equal), it’s allowed to drift 1 space towards the inside of the track and then keep going if that move freed the sled. (And still use its movement bonus if applicable!)
• That initial “free drift” doesn’t count as a direction change, and so the sled could conceivably start drifting in the other direction during its move. This is the only case in which a bot could be viewed as zigzagging.

Movement Exceptions

• Bots are not restrained by speed limits. (Those guys are fearless!)
• Bots never incur damage.
• Bots ignore trees in their path.
• Bots are not stopped by the side of a track, but are stopped by other sleds.

Difficulty Adjustments

The rules outlined above should provide plenty of challenge and chaos. Sometimes bots will roll great, sometimes poorly, but overall the resulting race should be fun and exciting.
However, should you desire to up the ante, you can pull one or more of the following levers.

• Instead of selecting your start position at random, place your sled in a higher number (not necessarily 5!).
• Give a +1 or +2 move boost to any bot that starts its turn behind your sled.
• Provide bots that start their turn in a dead end with 2 free drifts instead of 1.
  (Warning: this makes bots REALLY powerful.)

Design Notes

There’s not much to say here, except that I’ve always wanted a way to play Snow Tails with five sleds on the race track, no matter how many friends I have around the table.
I like that the 2d6 mechanic mimics the pull of the two dogs on the sled, like the card play does for human players. There’s nothing that duplicates the effect of brakes, though; but since bots don’t care for speed limits, they don’t need to slow down.
Also, because the minimum Speed of a sled is equal to its position in the race, it tends to force stragglers to swerve towards the inside of the track (which is, of course, the ideal move we all strive for). You will sometimes get an incompetent bot in 5th place who will manage to roll a 6 on the Control die and drift against the curve: enjoy those occasional blunders, because bot-operated sleds never stay behind for very long...




# # #

Lucas Land: The Call

(Previous chapter: The Door)

I have previously recounted how I found myself whisked away to Tunisia on a quest for the original Star Wars shooting locations. It was on that trek that I met our intrepid guide, archaeologist Dr. David West Reynolds, who would take us through the looking glass and back, safe yet sated with blue milk and myriad intergalactic memories. 

And so it was on the road to Tatooine that Reynolds and I discovered that we had much more in common than an abnormal passion for Star Wars. Any unexpected twist in the conversation found us nodding our heads in agreement, exploding in shared excitement, or else grow solemn together in silent contemplation. For one thing, we realized we were both Back to the Future freaks, which gave us three more movies to obsess about together. (Did I mention Reynolds had just purchased a Delorean?) Despite a 10-year age gap that attempted to exert some distancing power over us, we grew surprisingly close over the course of our short two-week stay in that galaxy far, far away. So much so that, as our trip was winding down, I realized that what I imagined as the end of an incredible journey might in fact only be the beginning.

A scant few months prior, Reynolds had landed a job as editor-in-chief of starwars.com, and had his office right in the middle of the fabled Skywalker Ranch, nested in the rolling hills of northern California. Unbeknownst to me, he had since been on the lookout for a right-hand man (or woman, as the case may be): someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of the Star Wars universe, a sense of adventure, a willingness to jump into a ocean of unknown perils and tumbling dangers—and who also happened to have the chops to serve as lead writer in the coolest place on earth.
Me? I had been writing magazine articles for a couple of years, and published in just enough venues to prove that I was worth my salt when it came to typing stuff. (Some years later, a colleague in Virginia would start calling me “wordsmith”—still one of the very best compliments I’ve ever been paid about my writing.)

So one night, as we were actually huddled around a fire—would you believe it— Reynolds turned to me with a glint in his eye and uttered a few chilling words: “You know, you’re exactly the kind of guy I’d need at the Ranch.” I must have looked too stunned to answer, or else Reynolds didn’t feel like waiting. “I believe I have the perfect job for you,” he continued, explaining that there was a ton of writing to get done in order to feed an official Star Wars website that was still in its infancy, and that finding the right person to accomplish that Herculean task felt like subbing for Sisyphus himself. But his quest might be at an end: if he could arrange it, would I consider a position as web writer at Lucasfilm?

To be honest, it sounded like a pipe dream. I was 23, still in college working on my Masters (literature/philosophy—talk to me about 18^th century thinkers one day), and I hadn’t held a real day job yet. What was this guy selling me?
Sure, it sounded like a position I would have killed for, but perhaps in a parallel universe. Because in order to hire me (a Canadian), Lucasfilm would have to unholster a fistful of lawyers and prove to the American government that nobody else in the U.S. of A. could do the job like I could. Fat chance. And yet, what if that Rube Goldberg machine ended up producing that unlikely result?

Upon our return from our mythological odyssey, Reynolds promised to keep in touch—and that he did. I never once imagined he and I would forget each other, being as we felt like long-lost brothers, but I have to admit that the prospect of a job in California quickly faded from my horizon. I was back from the dream, and reality was calling. Still, once in a while, I would receive an email from my faraway friend saying he was still working on the job description, that our “project” was still on, and that he couldn’t wait for me to get over there.

Time flew like an angry river, with my hanging onto classes and papers like I would a disintegrating raft. About a year down the line, late in the summer of 1997, my inbox chimed the arrival of a message from a Lucasfilm HR lady asking for a copy of my resume. Reynolds had told me two days prior to expect such a communication, but I was still dumbfounded. Could this thing really be happening? I promptly fired an email back, with my resume (groomed to death 48 hours earlier) in tow. I remember looking at the screen after the communication went through, wondering what kind of a rollercoaster I had just boarded.

Less than a week later—on a Monday—I got a call from Lucasfilm. Not an email: a bona fide phone call. That same HR lady was asking if I were available to interview for the position of web writer, at Skywalker Ranch in Nicasio, California. They would have a plane ticket with my name on it that very Thursday, and a car waiting for me at San Francisco Airport. That one Reynolds had not prepared me for. (He’d always had a sense for the dramatic, and I would soon discover he wasn’t done yet.)
I somehow managed to stutter that yes, I’d be delighted to go out and meet with them, and that Thursday was perfect. (At that moment I couldn’t recall what my calendar looked like for the near future, but I was pretty sure nothing held a candle to the offer I had just received.) “Great!” the lady exclaimed, as if mortals refused an invitation to Skywalker Ranch on a regular basis. “I’ll email you everything.”

Two minutes later, I had indeed been emailed everything. I would land in San Francisco on Thursday night, sleep at a hotel halfway between the airport and the Ranch, go through five interviews (FIVE?!) on Friday before spending the weekend in the Bay Area, and finally flying back home on Sunday night. Reynolds called me while I was still going through my travel arrangements, and I could hear the devilish smile in his voice, bright like a church bell ringing next door. “So, are we meeting on Friday?” he asked. I replied with a conspiratorial grin: “You bet your ass.”

Try as I might, I can’t remember the handful of days leading to my departure. I know it turned into a peculiar blur of hazy preparations and trying to think of something else (to no avail). I do recall sitting on the plane, en route to SFO for the first time in my life, and being asked by the elderly San Franciscan couple seated on my right where I was going. “Well, I’m going to interview for a job at Lucasfilm,” I replied after a beat, not quite believing it myself.
(Ever seen the movie Sleepless in Seattle? There’s this scene where 8-year-old Jonah, having flown to New York on his own, climbs aboard a cab to try to reach the woman he desperately wants his father to date. The driver asks him where he’s going, to which Jonah replies excitedly, “I’m going to meet my new mother!” I’m convinced I sounded just like him when I told that sweet couple where I was headed, and that for an instant I looked not a day older than that kid.)

The plane touched down a few minutes before midnight. My hotel was just on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge, so I had to drive through San Francisco at night (remember this is 1997: no smartphones to the rescue), cross the famous bridge with my mouth agape, make it to the hotel closer to dawn than dusk (yeah, I got lost), and then attempt to go to sleep. But Orpheus refused me for what felt like an eternity, and when my alarm clock started yelling in the morning, my face wasn’t sporting a single pillow crease.

Reynolds had suggested he come and pick me up, and he showed up right on time—behind the wheel of his Delorean, of course. As the gullwing door rose up and my friend started walking towards me, I couldn’t help but blurt out “Hey Doc!” Reynolds grabbed my trembling hand with one of his, put the other on my shoulder, and smiled like Doc Brown demonstrating his flux capacitor for the first time.
    “Hey Marty. Ready for the ride of your life?”

I knew he meant both the trip aboard the Delorean and my day at Skywalker Ranch.
But I couldn’t know how right he was.

 

(Next chapter: The Belly of the Beast)

(Full series here)

# # #

Expansion review — Tank Duel: North Africa & Tank Pack #1

With any new, intended series of games, you’re never sure you’ll get past volume 1: it all depends on what the good folks out there think of your first offering. But it didn’t take long for GMT and designer Mike Bertucelli to realize that their fun tank battle opus Tank Duel had legs—or tracks, as it were. Now come two expansions released together, with the promise of several more to come.

NORTH AFRICA

Welcome to the place any tanker doesn’t want to be: the scorching heat of North Africa, where sand and sun conspire with the enemy to smother any and all of your belligerent intentions.

NEW TANKS

You want tanks? We got tanks.

North Africa ships with 16 double-sided tank boards that feature all-new machines, from the Italian M13/40 and Semovente, to the British Valentine and M3 Grant (armed with two guns!). Also thrown into the mix are the open-top German Marder II and the agile eight-wheeled armored car, the 8-rad. That’s a lot of cool, new vehicles to duke it out with.

Two minor gripes here.

1. The aforementioned Marder and Semovente tank boards are misprinted—the Move and Fire levels are not where they should be on the left hand track. Not a big deal and you can easily fix that yourself; one way is to print out the stickers GMT provide on their website.
2. The back printing here was done differently from the base game, with new tanks flipping left-right, whereas the old tanks flipped up-down. It’s possibly the ultimate nitpick, but I’m a consistency nerd. Plus it seems I’m always flipping tank boards the wrong way now, no matter what I decide to do.

NEW RULES

The new rules take up half of the North Africa rulebook, with entries covering new terrain card sets (more sand than you can lose a stick in), new weather conditions (dust everywhere, with sandstorms that’ll slow down tanks and stop infantry altogether), heat haze and fatigue (higher cover but lower morale), minefields (clear with a recon vehicle or enter at your own risk), night combat (bring your flares, or use the enemy’s muzzle flashes), multiple guns, small guns, and open-top vehicles.
GMT also overhauled the rules that pertain to anti-tank guns and infantry. Now anti-tank guns sometimes deploy hidden, can only fire at targets spotted by a friendly vehicle, and can use a Flank card to indicate they’re shooting into the side armor of their prey. In the case of infantry, the new rules create an actual battle between soldiers and metal monsters, whereas infantry acted more like a die roll modifier in the previous ruleset.
And yes, Robata rules have been been updated to take all of that new stuff in stride.

I quite enjoy the new rules, especially the weather conditions, which work well together to create a proper desert feeling for the new scenarios. The new battle cards also dovetail nicely into this—and I don’t mind switching them out as required—but in many cases, I found myself replacing a bunch of cards with exact duplicates, minus the desert theme (the name and illustration of the cover element) and the infantry symbols that represent the forces in action (so you’ll get British instead of Soviet, for instance). If you’re like me, you’ll play a bunch of North Africa scenarios in a row anyway, so you can leave those desert cards in there for the duration. But if you like to bounce back and forth between theaters, “cosmetic” card replacement might get a little annoying.

NEW SCENARIOS

North Africa offers 11 new battles (three more than the base game!), five of which are proper historical scenarios, plus one hypothetical, with a set Order of Battle—while the original box only featured two of those. The other five scenarios use a “create your own matchup” prompt.
The new fights offer a nice variety of situations and problems to solve, some with infantry involvement, others without, and are built to progressively introduce new game elements. Scenarios 1 and 2 include vehicle dust and heat/haze rules, scenario 4 throws minefiels into the mix, and so on.
Also, all of the new scenarios can be played with Robata. Solo wargamers rejoice!

There’s one element I mentioned in my review of the base game and I’ll stick to my guns here: the matchup thing doesn’t really work for me, mainly because it’s too loose and vague for my taste. In fact, North Africa seems to take a step back: whereas the base game gave us a table of suggested tank matchups, the expansion just recommends using vehicles “with similar armor or penetration values, or vehicles from similar years.” It does go further, suggesting players balance those matchups with different crew qualities, anti-tank guns and multiple tanks to one side; but without something like point values attached to those scenario-building elements, the enterprise feels too much like guesswork to me.
I want balanced scenarios that task me with digging myself out of a hole (or maintaining an apparently advantageous position), or else very clear guidelines to ensure we’re not just building a death trap for one of the players. In short, I’d really like a scenario generator, or at the very least a sturdy matchup generator—and the designer has hinted online at exactly that, coming with the next expansion (Normandy, right?). If I had that, I’d be delighted to roll the bones and go, “Alright, a pair of KV-85s!”

Some of the helpful new markers provided in North Africa

  

TANK PACK #1

I enjoy the two different expansion formats: one a full-fledged box full of stuff, the other a bunch of scenarios and tanks shipped in a ziplock bag.
Tank Pack #1 belongs to that second category.

NEW TANKS

Eight new double-sided tank boards await, featuring the Churchill, the KV-1 and the really fast Puma, to name but a few. Together with the base game and the North Africa expansion, that brings the total of tank boards to a whopping 40! They can all fit in one of the game boxes if you want, but you’ll stick nothing else in there. Also, watch out for back pains.

RULES & NEW SCENARIOS

The booklet included in this package only features a handful of the rules necessary to use the new tanks. Interestingly enough, they are numbered according to the actual rulebooks for ease of cross-reference. (So the rule for small guns, even though it’s the very first rule in this booklet, bears the number 5.4.)

The rest is all new battles! Six of them to be exact, all of which are historical and sport dedicated Orders of Battle. (Yay!) We’re having great fun fighting our way through them, although scenario 6—Knight’s Cross—seemed like a foregone conclusion as to the victor: barring a couple of lucky shots, we just didn’t see what the Soviets could do.

A warning about the new scenarios. The front of the booklet states that some of the scenarios require ownership of the North Africa expansion, whereas in fact five (out of six) of them do require the expansion. So if you’re getting just this Tank Pack and not North Africa, be aware that you’ll only be able to play one of the six scenarios contained herein.
(Sure, you can replace scenario-specific tanks with hardware you already have in your inventory, but that sort of defeats my above point about set Orders of Battle…)

PARTING SHOTS

If you enjoyed Tank Duel, you’ll love North Africa and Tank Pack #1. It’s more of the same action-packed goodness the original game had to offer, with a great new setting and plenty of new toys to keep the lead flying.

 

  

# # #

 

A Year of Boardgaming, 2021 Edition

  

For me, 2021 ended on December 19, when I suffered a sports-related accident that resulted in a myriad of bumps and bruises, plus a serious concussion. (As of this writing I still haven't recovered; in fact, writing this—over several short sessions spanning a handful of days—is a doctor-ordered exercise aimed at retraining my brain vis-à-vis computer screens.)

The rest of the year was a literal blur.

This not only impacted my entire plans for the holidays (farewell home-improvement projects) but also the rest of my winter activities (adieu ski season), not to mention getting back to work.

Boardgaming was also thrown out the window. (A week after the accident, I attempted a game of Comancheria—a medium-complexity affair which I'd played before—and couldn't manage it at all. I had to wait almost another week before my mind could stomach a re-read of the rules.) As as result, some of my self-imposed challenges and late-December gaming days (entire days, I'm telling you) were lost in the wake of the ambulance that carried me, unconscious, to my friendly neighborhood hospital.

And writing about boardgames as the year was coming to a close? Forget it.

So here we are, almost done with the first month of the new year, and me droning on about what I played during 2021. Reminder: I'm just counting physical boardgames, and none of my digital plays.

Mainly because of the ongoing pandemic, but also a bit due to my accident, 2021 turned out to be my worst boardgaming effort since 2006.

GAMES

I played 87 different titles (down from 101 in 2020, an ominous trend), for a total of 356 plays (down from 384—when I used to routinely hit way more than 500 plays in a single year!). I spent 399 hours poring over mapboards in 2020, versus 450 hours in 2020: another sinking metric. Still, that's a bit over 16 full days devoted to boardgaming bliss. Could have been worse, I guess.

Out of those 87 titles, 49 were new to me (up from 42 in 2020—I suppose I felt a bit more adventurous). 

Here are the 10 games I played the most in 2021:

1. Wing Leader (28 plays)

        Second year in a row where Wing Leader earns the top spot in this recap; this WWII air combat game just won't let go of me. And since one of my wargaming buddies and I are replaying the entire war using the game's scenarios, I'm far from done with it. (Our aircraft are just starting to get radios installed...)

2. Arkham Horror: The Card Game (20 plays)

        A card-based cooperative game of absolute horror and creeping insanity, with artwork that will both amaze you and keep you up at night.

3. GIPF (20 plays)

        I hadn't played this classic abstract in many moons, and it felt great to get back into it. The GF and I intend to (re)work our way through the entire series.

4. Friday (16 plays)

        Really clever and challenging (and fast!) solo game, from a designer I usually don't favor.

5. Pandemic Legacy, Season 0 (15 plays)

        By far the least enjoyable of the series. We finished the campaign, but we were glad to be rid of it.

6. Can't Stop (13 plays)

        My youngest daughter discovered this thrilling push-your-luck dice game, hence its resurgence.

7. Black Sonata (12 plays)

        I can't say enough good things about this solo, hidden-movement game. Genius is no hyperbole here.

8. MicroMacro: Crime City (11 plays)

        I never thought I'd enjoy this simple, visual crime detection game, but it ended up in third place on my list of Top 10 games of 2021. Pure fun.

9. Combat Commander: Europe (9 plays)

        Only NINE plays of my favorite game in 2021? What a travesty.

10. Hallertau (9 plays)

        My favorite game of 2021, and one of Uwe Rosenberg's best. About farming, it goes without saying.

PEOPLE

During 2021, I explored the boardgaming world—mainly from my home—alongside 13 different players, down from 36 in 2020 (and 55 the year before). This is catastrophic.

Still, here are the 10 people with whom I played the most last year:

1. Suzie D. (132 plays)

2. Jean-Luc S. (66 plays)

3. François P. (49 plays)

4. Ophélie K. L. (21 plays)

5. William L. (13 plays)

6. Gustavo A. (6 plays)

7. Daniel S. (3 plays)

8. Doris L. (3 plays—my mom, for crying out loud)

9. Héloïse K. L. (2 plays)

10. Diego R. (2 plays) 

To give you an idea, a typical year would have me play about 15 games with the person in 10th place... The situation is starting to feel pretty bleak.

But the GF is hanging on to the top spot, and for the fifth consecutive year. (Which of course makes sense during a pandemic, considering we live under the same roof.) And three of the kids are on the list this year—only Béatrice is missing! 

LOCATIONS

The number of different places where I played boardgames tumbled from 17 in 2019, to 12 in 2020, to only eight in 2021. And that included FaceTime as an alternate home location (with mirror boards duplicating the moves of remote opponents), as well as my frikkin' car—during a particularly long traffic jam due to a harrowing crash on the freeway.

Yes, I always have some kind of game on me.

69% of my gaming was done at home, 20% over FaceTime, and then some games here and there at friends' places when the lull in the pandemic made that somewhat safe. 

Quite a shit year. And I'm not holding out much hope for 2022.

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS

I broke my decade-long streak for my yearly H-index: it went down by 1, to 9. 

(In this context, my H-index is the number (h) of games which I've played a number (h) of times.)

I narrowly failed to accomplish my 10x10 challenge in 2021 (play 10 games 10 times each): I was only missing one play of Combat Commander and one play of Hallertau, both of which would have been stupid easy to pull off were it not for that concussion thingy. So that challenge stays at 10x10 for 2022.

I did clear my other two challenges: 50 solo plays, and 75 wargame plays. This means the 2022 editions are going up to 55 solo plays and 80 wargame plays, respectively.

My favorite game, Combat Commander, currently stands at 454 plays. By now it feels like I've been saying "almost 500 plays!" for years, and I hope that changes soon. I seriously doubt I'll crack that mythical number by year's end, despite my ongoing project to replay the entire second world war through Combat Commander scenarios. One more reason to look forward to the stormy pandemic skies finally clearing up, so I can sit down with my usual opponents on a regular basis.

I launched 2021 with a play of the heavy Clinic, and closed it out with the very light Wits & Wagers (fighting through the concussion-induced fog and confusion). Hey, at least I was able to play *something*.

So what am I looking forward to in the coming year?
I was pretty enthusiastic last time around, anxious to play the new Kanban (brilliant design), Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps! (a steaming turd of a game and my biggest disappointment of the year), Bonfire (an instant classic), Caesar: Rome vs Gaul (enjoyed my single play of this, but need to play more), Imperial Struggle (same!), Dominant Species: Marine (fine but ultimately not for me), plus Stellar Horizons (sadly unplayed, and I don't even have the concussion to blame for that).

In 2022, I'm awaiting delivery of three Kickstarter games: Weather Machine (from the always brilliant Lacerda), Free At Last (Civil Rights movement in the 1960s), and Dutch Resistance (solo Netherlands underground during WWII). Also on the docket, the much delayed 303 Squadron (Polish fighters during the Battle of Britain), Horseless Carriage by Splotter, Alexander Pfister's Boonlake, and Messina 1347 (now that the excellent Praga has put Vladimir Suchy on my radar).

Rounding out the wishlist, a bountiful harvest from GMT Games: Into the Woods (finally gonna try that ACW system, just because this covers the battle of Shiloh), Charioteer (one more racing game!), Mr. President ('cause I'm lucky to have a table that's big enough for that monster) and Red Dust Rebellion (Sci-Fi COIN game set on Mars? I'm in...).

I'll also be spending considerable time further playtesting a prototype of mine; more on that later.

Happy gaming!

 

# # #