Thanks Ron

["mschoessow" <mikeschoessow@...>]

Thanks for the kind words about Shopping Mall and Globular Cluster.
We were quite pleased about Shopping Mall. I agree that the theme
isn't gripping, but it does fit very well; the game mechanic, to me,
simulates people shopping at a mall with different types of stores in
a single location with crowds of people. But yah, it is a pretty
pedestrian theme:-)

Globular Cluster was kind of a rush job with negligible play-testing.
Our thoughts were that since the mechanics were so similar to Tikal
we could trust that the game would play well. Having said that, we
have improved the Globular Cluster rules somewhat compared to what we
submitted, especially regarding the beginning, which was potentially
unbalanced. Although we didn't play much with the mechanics of the
game I feel that the new theme is perhaps a better fit than the
jungle exploration theme of Tikal. I was never happy with the "secret
paths" theme aspect of Tikal, which felt like a "fix" theme-wise, and
we felt that the "warp transfer stations" worked better for
explaining instantaneous transfer from one location to another.

I look forward to trying many of the new games!

Thanks Ron for a great contest!

-Mike