I sat down to write an introduction for our new digs here at Stately Play Manor with the hope that someday a wizened Justin Bieber would be asked to narrate my words for one of the technological advances in Sid Meier’s Civilization XXXII. Something like Writing or Literature would be fine, but only because Hubris currently lacks a slot on the tech tree. As always happens when I wax rhapsodic about my writing skill, the end result tends to fall just shy [if “just shy” means not even close -ed.] of my expectations. I’m sure that you will also find this to be true, but I ask you to stick with it until the end anyway. You’ve already made it this far, after all.
Some of you may know me, but many of you may not. My name is Dave Neumann and I wrote for another site for many years, Pocket Tactics. Apart from the writing, I was also the News Editor for several years and the Editor-in-Chief for a few minutes longer than a fruit fly’s lifespan. Pocket Tactics was created years ago by the mysterious and dashing Owen Faraday who saw the future of mobile gaming and the free-to-play nightmares it contained. Thus, Pocket Tactics focused on games for gamers. High strategy games, war games, digital board games with nary a paywall in sight. It was pretty great.
The object of Stately Play is the same: focus on games that require strategy and thought and less on Skinner boxes in disguise. Unlike Pocket Tactics, which only focused on mobile gaming, we’re going to run the gamut here at Stately Play. We’ll cover games for iOS and Android, of course, but we’ll also be covering games for PC and the tabletop. We might even cover stuff that isn’t related to games at all. I’m planning on writing a monograph on the analysis of different tobacco ashes. It should be a humdinger!
Who is this “we” that I keep mentioning. If you were a Pocket Tactics reader, many of their names should be familiar: Kelsey Rinella, Alex Connolly, Tof Eklund, Tanner Hendrickson, Jim Cobb, and Matt Thrower. Of course, we may have more as time goes on. What you should know is that none of us are beholden to any master. All of us are writing what we want, when we want with no deadlines or influences from any external forces. Kelsey is the one who fronted the cash (and behind-the-scenes manpower) to get the site up and running, and none of us are getting paid for our contributions. If that ever changes, you’ll be the first ones to know.
Anyway, I’ve talked long enough. Sit back, relax, and add us to your RSS feed. I hope to bring news to you every day, while the other writers are already hard at work to review games that you, serious gamers, care about.
Thanks for checking us out, and we hope you stick along for the ride.
You can reach Dave at dave@statelyplay.com with tips or comments. You can follow us here or on our twitter page, @statelyplay.
Hooray! We’re live! Special thanks to Kelsey for making it all happen.
Oh. You don’t want me to post. Okay. I get it.
This is awesome!!!
Welcome back guys!!!
Excellent–I’m so glad to see this site up and running!
Yes!
I’m not to late for the party! Good to see you all again bitches! It’s been some while. These forums feel immediately very very good !
Thanks Dave, Alex, Kelsey and all the rest…
The best news of the year.
Good to be home, it must be said.
I just have to say, seeing familiar names in this fully operational forum is giving me goosebumps. So happy to have you all here!
hello Kelsey,
now i can better understand why you wanted to or had to leave the TS tourney on PT.
ok, i gladly admit that having invested your time and energy to help installing this good looking new beginning was a great idea
Thanks to JammaTal for alerting me to this here presence.
It seems rather comfy and classy already … although the way my profile picture appeared automatically was rather spooky. Maybe that was a Discourse thing - picking up from other forums? Eh?
Now to consider the subtle distinctions between OBollocks and OhBollox. Although “subtle” is probably not an appropriate epithet there.
Hi guys
long time no see.
Woo! Thanks for bringing this to life. Looking forward to future posts.
great to have you back, Gosenbach!
Good to see you too
Yeah, I can’t believe it. Goose is back:grinning:
Aloha, bitches!
Man, I’m ready to talk about some mobile strategy gaming. Not naming any names – ahem – but I just don’t feel like these’s much of a place for that anywhere.
We should celebrate with like a vanilla Ascension tournament or something.
I swear–although I obviously didn’t post it–that when I saw the post from @Goose, I thought, “It’s great to see him! Now someone should track down Duke.” Glad to see you didn’t need anyone to track you down!
Hope some of our other “lost souls” come out of the woodwork soon.
My yay knows no bounds. Yay!
Hello Dukester! glad to “see” you again.
i had missed your sharp and always enlightening and inspiring writings and argumentations.
guys, i feel like sitting in a rocking chair before a crackling fireplace, in other words: at home, again
Nice to be able to waffle unfettered.
This is awesome! Thanks to JammaTal for letting me know about this.
Now I just need to go find my wizard avatar again.
Hi Everyone! Looking forward to our new community over here. Glad to see some familiar names.
Maybe a Star Realms new expansion tourney to kick this place off??
Guten Tag!
Nice to see the PT crew
@Athros! How are you my friend?
Already said this on Twitter, but it’s good to see you all “back”. Best of luck!
Indeed, Welcome! Thanks for creating this place. Looking forward to many hours of previews, reviews, tournaments and discussions.
Thanks @Blackfyre for the rather clever hint he dropped somewhere and then somewhere else.
Also a hearty “Hulla!” to some of the lost souls (and also to the ones who toughened it out ;-P)
I do not want to start a PT rant, but I am glad to leave it behind me. I had felt totally “lost” with the changes 2015/2016. What kind of bothers me is, that this guy “ElCJoe” whoever he was named before in “old PT” seemed like a decent guy. Can’t help the feeling it’s not him to blame the old site didn’t attract me.
I absolutely agree that Joe seems like a solid dude. I think his background gives him a perspective I don’t relate to all that well, but it also helps him relate better to industry insiders. To a substantial extent, Owen’s original version of PT and now our SP run on the illusion that the market doesn’t have to go the direction it’s manifestly going. While I still have hope that our niche can not only persist, but grow and draw in new gamers to introduce to the joys of the sorts of games we like, I have the impression that Slitherine want to at least remain somewhat abreast of broader trends. I doubt they’ll abandon their crunchy wargame roots, but I get the impression they want to draw in at least a part of the crowds attracted to more competitive and/or free-to-play behemoths. If that involves some productive cross-pollinating of ideas, I’m all for it, but obviously I’m also worried about any move in that direction. But if that’s the audience they want to cultivate with PT, I think it makes sense to suspect it’s because they’ll be trying to release games more suited to that audience in the future.
It will be interesting to see how many of the old timers come over here. I have posted my own feelings on the changes and I understand some of them.
Looking forward to finding a place to rant in any case.
I prefer SP already, amazing job guys! As a simple consumer of gaming with no horse in the race, I will still read PT too. I’m sure the irony doesn’t escape anyone that PT originally carved out its niche by focusing on a very specific type of games and gamers amongst a flood of general mobile gaming sites, and now SP is that niche and PT is stretching out to a wider market. But that’s not a bad thing, just progress. I sincerely wish both both websites the best, I’m all about the love of the games!
Where’s the “donate for review” button?
J/K.
Curious, do you think metacritic will pull in your reviews?
Oh so that’s where you were hiding
Glad I found this site. I was actually trying to find where ex-PT writers had gone, is anywhere, then found the link in Dave’s Twitter bio… Also good to see you now write about more varied topics.
Well alright! I actually never got over to PT much back in the day, but I’ve been an avid reader of the iOS feed on BGG for years.
Let’s do this thing.
So this is where the party went! Nice to once again see many of the old faces.
And congratulations to the hale and hearty mutineers!
Hey! Just stumbled across this site thanks to Dave mentioning it at BGG. Glad to see this site is up with all those great writers.
My first thought was “I must inform all the old-PT members”, but when I joined this site’s forum I immediately felt at home. Very nice to see all your familiar faces/avatars/names.
How am I just finding out about this site now?! There’ll be no work done at all today while I catch up on the articles… Great to see all the old PT faces together again!
Konnichiwa bitches!
As par of the course, it took me a lot longer to ‘discover’ SP. Fortunately, a recent article on PT mentioned the “other forum”, so naturally I have gravitated over here to discover all of the ‘old’ TA/PT crew.
Good to see @ShaunMusgrave on SP. His RPG Reloaded column is one of the best gaming articles I have read, period. I have never been a console otaku, thus had almost zero knowledge of Japanese RPGs before iOS and discovering the FF series via TA. From dipping my toes into FF (I am still on the final dungeon in FFIII 4 years after I bought the sodding game in the Christmas sale. Seriously), I have discovered Visual Novels.
I’ll let JapanNewbie know about the new site.
thumbs up for @ShaunMusgrave’s RPG RELOADED column on TA!
an absolute blast. always a pleasure to read. great insights. fair ratings. a piece of passion.
fully recommended!
Hi all - happy to have found this site at the weekend!
Now who can tell me wtf is going on with Lost Cities MP nowadays? Seems to all “break” on my iPhone…
It’s pretty much GameCenter, which Apple has abandoned. Most online-multiplayer games now have longtime players scratching their heads when they can’t seem to find past opponents.
It is, frankly, verging on the ludicrous how happy I am to have finally turned up here. Thanks to JammaTal for letting me know that we, the exiles, have a home. stiff upper lip, manly handshakes all round
A fair few names in here from ye olde PT. It feels good man.
So this place has no security at all, is that what we’re saying? Not ONE security guard?
50/50 says @Neumannium just left the door open again.
I closed the door, but the key is just under the mat.
Wow! Everyone’s here! It took a while, but I made it. Is this real? pinches self
Awwwww. Feels like… home.
EDIT: A working “Like” button? I may faint.
Welcome!!!
Good to see you again. Find us on Discord too.
Done!
Ok. Let’s try this again almost 2 years later.
Been in our house for 2 years, our Little Man is 28 months (growing my own board-gamer), I am Apple and almost Google free (except my doddering iPad 2, as well as removing all Google products as possible due to Project Dragonfly), have almost zero time for gaming.
At present, I’m managing the odd hour or so on late Friday and Sat evening to play The Longest Journey via Steam.
I’ll try and pop in every now and then, although latest releases mean very little when I playing through an almost 20 year old point & clicker!
Welcome!