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According to an article in ICv2.com, WizKids has decided to end support for High Stakes Drifter.

WizKids also said that it will no longer support its High Stakes Drifter CCG, which did not receive enough support to justify continuing it.

This is no surprise to me. I had breakfast with WizKids’ CEO Jordan Weisman at the GAMA Trade Show last week, and he apologized to me for how the company had stumbled on the launch of the game. It was the first CCG that WizKids published, and there were some growing pains. However, they’ve learned a lot from it, and I suspect that their upcoming Battlestar Galactica CCG will profit from it.

For my part, I bear WizKids no ill will at all. We all wanted the game to sell better, and they risked far more on the venture than I did. Hopefully the game (or at least the best parts of its mechanics) will appear someplace else in the future. Jordan and his crew treated me wonderfully throughout the entire process, and I’d love to work with them again sometime soon.

I just saw (nearly two months too late) that About.com’s games section picked High Stakes Drifter as one of the Top 10 Stocking Stuffers of 2005. Perhaps this time of year, you can think about stuffing a game in a Valentine’s Day present instead.

WizKids has posted the prizes for the February events for High Stakes Drifter. It’s good to see them supporting the game so strongly, both with tournaments and cool prizes.

I also got my designer’s copies of the game in the mail today: a couple displays full of starters and boosters. It looks to me like these might make great gifts this holiday season, just to share the High Stakes Drifter love.

InQuest Gamer has nominated High Stakes Drifter for Best Collectible Card Game of 2005. Get on down to their website and vote! (Please.)
I used to write for InQuest way back in the day. Mostly I handled industry news and the like, but I wrote one article about how to break into the industry that Robin Laws congratulated me on for its candor. There were others, I know, but that’s the one that sticks out in my head now.

It’s wild to see how far the magazine has come since those days. They’re on issue #129. Has it really been over 10 years?

As posted on the WizKids website:

November 23, 2005 (SEATTLE) - WizKids Inc., creator of the runaway hit games HeroClix and Pirates of the Spanish Main, is proud to announce the release of High Stakes Drifter, the company’s first collectable card game (CCG)!

“High Stakes Drifter is the fast-paced game of Wild West action,” said Mike Samora, vice president of Sales and Marketing at WizKids®. “The game uses betting-and-bluffing mechanics to simulate a series of challenges with historical personalities like Billy the Kid and Wyatt Earp.” The game adds elements of luck to each challenge as well, with a unique kicker chip mechanic that can add a random effect to each showdown.

Each card features vintage photography and a western feel. The game play has been described as a mix between a saloon-style betting-and-bluffing game and a spaghetti western shootout.

High Stakes Drifter is sold in Starter Sets (MSRP $9.99) and Booster Packs (MSRP $2.99), and is available in hobby and specialty game stores.

Founded by 25-year game-industry veteran Jordan Weisman, WizKids is a Seattle-based game developer and publisher dedicated to creating tabletop games driven by imagination. Its MechWarrior® and HeroClix CMGs and Pirates and Rocketmen CSGs are among the most successful games on the market today, and the company has sold hundreds of millions of game pieces worldwide. For additional information, visit http://www.wizkidsgames.com.

They also have a fully searchable card gallery up on their website, just to make it easy to complete your collection. So, when you’re out shopping this Black Friday, be sure to pick up some High Stakes Drifter for yourself. Then come on back here and tell me what you think of it. Thanks! And Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

If you’re looking for something to play during National Games Week, you can’t go wrong with High Stakes Drifter, the latest collectible card game I’ve worked on, published by WizKids. The game should be in stores across America and beyond on November 23, this Wednesday.

High Stakes Drifter is set in the American West. You play characters called “dudes” and equip them with gear cards and other cool things. You pay for these with poker chips—and special chips called “kicker chips”—which you can also use to bet and bluff on the outcomes of each showdown.

I designed three or four versions of this game before I came up with something close to what will be published. The original brief was to create a poker variant with a game that you played after the showdown. I pulled it off, but it was awful. The most climatic moment in a poker game is the showdown, and if you have to play another game after that to come up with the real winner, it destroys the beauty of the game.

Eventually, Jordan Weisman and I sat down and asked ourselves what the best parts of poker were and how we could apply those to a collectible card game. We decided that the betting and bluffing bits in the game, along with the showdown, could make the leap, and that became the basis for High Stakes Drifter.

See for yourself this Wednesday—and beyond!

The November 2005 issue of Game Trade Magazine has a High Stakes Drifter dude card bagged with it: Jesse Woodson James. While there’s nothing else about the game in the issue, the catalog portion shows details for my upcoming novels Dead Ball and The Road to Death, both of which arrive in stores in January.

Only 10 more days until the official HSD release date though. Be sure to hit your local store on November 23 and ask for it by name.

I got my copy of InQuest Gamer yesterday, and it included a promo card for High Stakes Drifter: none other than George Armstrong Custer. If you’re interested in High Stakes Drifter promos, hunt this down. Custer is one valuable dude. (Appropriately, though, he has only average Smarts and poor Luck.)

It seems that the people at WizKids have taken advantage of the slight delay in releasing High Stakes Drifter to post one bonus preview of the game. Stop by and see what “Cavalry Support” can do for your deck.

This is just after Gen Con So Cal, but I suspect if you stop by the WizKids booth during the show, you might be able to persuade them to part with a few early decks and boosters. I won’t be at the convention myself this year, barring any unforeseen emergency trips to California in that time frame. It’ll be the first time I’ll have missed the show in the three years it’s been running, but it can’t be helped. To those who do go, have a great time!

Due to some problems with getting the custom poker chips for the game made, WizKids has pushed back the official release date of High Stakes Drifter until November 23.

In the grand scheme of things, waiting a couple weeks to get great components for a great game is no big deal. In the meantime, WizKids has also posted its final preview of this collectible card game. This features not one but three new cards for the game. It’ll give you something to wring your hands over while you wait for November 23 to roll around.

The fine people at WizKids have posted another preview of an important card in the upcoming High Stakes Drifter collectible card game I designed for them. Check it out!

WizKids has announced plans to sell early starters and boosters of High Stakes Drifter at Wizard World Texas. That’s November 4-6 in Arlington, Texas. I believe this will be the first chance to get your hands on copies of the actual game (as opposed to the demo decks used at Gen Con Indy this summer). Supplies should be tight, though, as WizKids will only sell each attendee one starter and three boosters during the show.

To whet your appetite in the meantime, WizKids recently posted details on another special card from the game: Quick-Draw Artist.

WizKids just posted the latest version of the rules for High Stakes Drifter, along with tournament rules, and PDFs of a demonstration deck and a set of kicker chips. Download the whole shebang and try the game out for yourself, nearly a month before it’s due to hit shelves. There’s also an article on how Side Bets work in the game too, in case you still hunger for more after devouring the demo game.

Over the weekend, WizKids posted pictures of the prizes for High Stakes Drifter tournaments held in November. These are all limited edition kicker chips, which can have incredible affects on the game. It’s great to see WizKids giving High Stakes Drifter the full treatment, including supporting organized play.