Games in some ways, like people, have personalities. Some, like Ticket to Ride, are friendly, fun, and easy to get to know. Others, like Two Rooms and a Boom, are gregarious and a little crazy; if you can handle the energy, they are very entertaining. Some are obtuse and a little intimidating, like a Phil Eklund simulation or a heavy wargame. And some are subtle, reserved, and a little introverted; they don't want to show you everything right away, and if you base your opinion on a first impression, you'll miss what's hidden underneath.
Ridere, ludere, hoc est vivere.
Wednesday, December 28, 2016
Saturday, October 1, 2016
Congress of Gamers 2016
Every fall there's a little weekend convention in Rockville, Maryland that I've always enjoyed. Hosted at the unassuming Rockville Senior Center, Congress of Gamers features a series of Euro tournaments, an auction store, and a game design room. The Games Club of Maryland sponsored the convention, and Break My Game ran the prototype testing event this year's session, which convened last weekend.
Friday, September 9, 2016
Collaboration
Monday, September 5, 2016
Summer vacation gaming
Our friends gave us access to their beach house in Rodanthe, North Carolina, for a week this summer. For me, the best part of a summer vacation is simply sitting without a care in the world and reading a book or playing a game, and we did plenty of both. I finished three books (including Girls on Games, reviewed in my last post), and we played games every day, including my sons, who are not normally enthusiastic gamers.
Sunday, August 28, 2016
Hearing Women Tell It: A Review of "Girls on Games"
At a time when the board game community has become gradually
aware of the unique experiences of women in the hobby, the gently feminist Girls on Games, an anthology on gender
perspective in gaming particularly and in geekdom more generally, successfully
Kickstarted in 2014 with over 900 backers. Elisa Teague - designer of games, events, costumes, and props - compiled 15 essays by women
and a foreword (by a man) and herself wrote six more plus an afterword. She also interleaved “Share My Story
Spotlight” anecdotes by two women, three men, and a girl, plus a poem – or
perhaps a song lyric – by “The Doubleclicks.”
And to read and hear women tell it, despite a consistently optimistic
tone throughout their essays, they experience some ugly behavior in our gaming hobby
– from condescension, to scorn, to challenges to their bona fides as game lovers. After
reading of these experiences, frankly,
I don’t know how they put up with it.
Friday, August 12, 2016
Fifth annual-ish "What to pack for a vacation"
This summer we're headed to the North Carolina Outer Banks for a week at a beach house. We just threw together a list of games to bring based partly on recent acquisitions, partly on old favorites, and partly on family stand-byes that we think we can get the normally reluctant sons to play. Here's this year's packing list:
Friday, July 22, 2016
Can one house rule make an old game new again?
Saturday, July 16, 2016
Kramer and Kiesling recommendations
A couple of weeks ago I tweeted my realization that I have no games in my collection that are designed by Wolfgang Kramer nor Michael Kiesling, arguably two of the biggest designer names of our time. They collaborated to design such high-flyers as Tikal, Torres, and Maharaja. Kramer also designed El Grande, Princes of Florence, and Colosseum. So I solicited recommendations from Twitter followers, and here are the titles that came up:
Tuesday, June 28, 2016
Perspectives on Origins 2016 - Saturday 18 June
Part 1 - Thursday 16 June
Part 2 - Friday 17 June
My last day at Origins saw more displays, demos, publisher pitches, games, and new gaming acquaintances.
Part 2 - Friday 17 June
My last day at Origins saw more displays, demos, publisher pitches, games, and new gaming acquaintances.
Sunday, June 26, 2016
Perspectives on Origins 2016 - Friday 17 June
Continued from Part 1, Thursday 16 June
East India Company
My primary purpose at Origins was to pitch "East India Company" to publishers. At noon on Friday, my first appointment went well, but the publisher had issues with some of the liberties I'd taken with history in terms of which commodities were produced at which colonies. I'd certainly made some "convenient assignments" in the interest of making the math work in the gameplay, but he seemed to think I'd gone too far and ought to revisit the historical basis of the game.
East India Company
My primary purpose at Origins was to pitch "East India Company" to publishers. At noon on Friday, my first appointment went well, but the publisher had issues with some of the liberties I'd taken with history in terms of which commodities were produced at which colonies. I'd certainly made some "convenient assignments" in the interest of making the math work in the gameplay, but he seemed to think I'd gone too far and ought to revisit the historical basis of the game.
Friday, June 24, 2016
Perspectives on Origins 2016 - Thursday 16 Jun
Keith Ferguson and I drove to the Origins Game Fair in Columbus, Ohio, on Thursday 16 June. Most of what I recorded at Origins manifested in the medium of tweets.
What follows are a few highlights, and as the opportunity arises, I may
elaborate on some of them.
Sunday, June 5, 2016
Dice, Dexterity, and Tactics: A One-play Review of "Barrage Battle"
The application of dexterity to combat resolution in modern game design appears to be an emerging phenomenon, the Western-themed Flick 'em Up the most notable example. Raechel Mykytiuk and Matthew Kuehn bring a new innovation by blending dexterity with the card-character skirmish format of such games as Up Front and Summoner Wars in the fantasy-themed combat game Barrage Battle, currently on Kickstarter with a funding date of Friday June 24.
Friday, April 29, 2016
Gaming in a hospital room - revisited
A little over four years ago, I wrote a couple of posts on what works and what doesn't when playing games in a hospital room or waiting room. We find ourselves in a similar situation this week, although the medical circumstances are decidedly more serious. All the same, it is helpful to revisit the principles that make for a good pasttime under such trying circumstances - portability, compactness, simplicity, humor, interruptibility, and brevity. What follows is an amalgamation of highlights from the two posts.
Friday, April 22, 2016
Games for a one-armed mother-in-law
My mother-in-law was in a rather severe car accident a few weeks ago. She is home from the hospital and recovering from surgery to her elbow, arm, and hand. We plan to visit soon, but we are faced with a dilemma: What three-player games are appropriate when one player can't easily hold a hand of cards and really only has use of one hand?
Friday, April 15, 2016
UnPub 6: Adjustments to "East India Company"
"East India Company" demo at PrezCon 2016: (l. to r.) Darrell Louder, T.C. Petty III, Paul O., Matthew O'Malley, Jessica Wade Photo by Chris Kirkman |
Friday, March 18, 2016
Ninja Countdown: A one-play review of San Ni Ichi
In the quintessential neo-tradition of first-time game designer/publishers, Ironmark Games has successfully crowd-funded and released debut designer Mike Sette's rather fascinating little trick-taking game with a Ninja martial arts theme. San, Ni, Ichi, whose title translates from Japanese as "Three, Two, One," features simultaneous card play with a rock-paper-scissors resolution mechanic.
Friday, March 4, 2016
PrezCon 2016: Pillars of the Earth final
(c) Mayfair Games Used by permission |
Sunday, November 29, 2015
2015 Holiday Gift Meta-guide
Plenty of people have plenty of gift ideas for the holidays, so rather than compile my own list to add to the rest, I've assembled my second annual collection of holiday gift guides with recommendations from all over the blogosphere. At the end, I'll highlight the most frequently recommended games from all these lists.
Friday, October 23, 2015
Controversial themes
This week I happened across an old State of Games podcast in which Chris Kirkman, Nat Levan, and the Dice Hate Me crew discussed the potential backlash from Nat's whaling-themed game, New Bedford. The discussion addressed why people might have difficulty with a game based on hunting and killing whales. For my part, I'm very fond of the game, and I think its historical setting and the chit-pull mechanic that models the depletion of the whale population lend the proper respect to the topic. In short, it's not a controversial theme for me.
Friday, October 16, 2015
Boardgames in the Backyard 2015
Friday, October 9, 2015
Bachelor weekend
My wife is at a writers' conference in North Carolina this weekend, which means it's just us guys in my house - my 19- and 14-year-old sons and me. I'm thinking Friday night is Star Wars X-wing, with the 19-year-old as Boba Fett in the Slave I against the 14-year-old and me flying X-wing and Z-95s against him. Two against one, but we're not afraid. [Update: We did indeed play X-wing, although I flew a Y-wing rather than Z-95s. There was no escape for Boba Fett this time, as a proton torpedo from my pursuing Y-wing delivered the fatal blow, even as he deployed a mine in my path.]
Friday, September 25, 2015
Kickstarters that should have funded
The proliferation of boardgames on Kickstarter is no secret. In preparing the Dice Tower News Kickstarter report, week in and week out, I find countless boardgames and card games that don't fund. Many fail to fund for understandable reasons - many never coming close - but from time to time a campaign that seems to have everything going for it somehow falls short of the mark, goes unfunded, and has to return to the drawing board. I thought it would be interesting to reflect on a few of those "projects that should have funded" as cautionary tales that remind us that nothing on Kickstarter is a sure thing - and perhaps to begin to understand why.
Friday, August 21, 2015
Fourth annual-ish "What to pack for a vacation"
Each summer I'm in charge of deciding which boardgames to take on family summer vacation. The last time I looked at this question
was August last year. This year we are going on our first cruise, so packing space is a premium (and perhaps table space as well). My first thought for games that are easy to pack are card games, and then I brainstormed a few other ideas. I shopped the list around my family and dropped the ones they weren't interested in. We settled on the following:
Friday, August 14, 2015
WBC 2015
Keith Ferguson and I drove up to Lancaster, Pennsylvania last Thursday for our annual pilgrimage to the World Boardgaming Championships.
Friday, July 24, 2015
UnPub 5 Saturday - playtesting other prototypes
[Apparently I'd written this entry last February after UnPub 5 but never posted it. Then this evening I accidentally published it. For better or for worse, here it is.]
After two playtest sessions of "East India Company," it was time for me to make the rounds at UnPub 5. The great thing about a convention like UnPub is the people you meet. I spent a good part of the weekend chatting with Bruce and Mike of The Party Gamecast and playing a few games with them, including Red 7 and Marcus Ross's Discount Salmon (which was fun though not my style of card game). I had the opportunity to talk with Chris Kirkman of Dice Hate Me Games, Andy Looney of Looney Labs, Luke Peterschmidt of Fun to 11 Games, Mike Lee of Panda Game Manufacturing, and Diamonds designer Mike Fitzgerald. That is what a convention experience is all about. But I also played some games:
After two playtest sessions of "East India Company," it was time for me to make the rounds at UnPub 5. The great thing about a convention like UnPub is the people you meet. I spent a good part of the weekend chatting with Bruce and Mike of The Party Gamecast and playing a few games with them, including Red 7 and Marcus Ross's Discount Salmon (which was fun though not my style of card game). I had the opportunity to talk with Chris Kirkman of Dice Hate Me Games, Andy Looney of Looney Labs, Luke Peterschmidt of Fun to 11 Games, Mike Lee of Panda Game Manufacturing, and Diamonds designer Mike Fitzgerald. That is what a convention experience is all about. But I also played some games:
Friday, June 5, 2015
Importance of theme in a cooperative game
In a way it’s like a cooperative version of Blackjack, with much better art and a few special powers thrown in the mix. But that’s what it really boils down to in a sense: trying to hit a maximum total card value without going over.
Friday, May 22, 2015
Enchanted Grounds
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
Star Wars X-wing family shoot-'em-up
Last week my oldest son was in town to visit, and I was glad
to get to the table Star Wars: X-wing
(designers Steven
Kimball, James
Kniffen, Corey
Konieczka, Jason
Little, Brady
Sadler, and Adam Sadler; publisher Fantasy Flight Games) for the first time since I acquired it last December with a Christmas gift
card. My whole family enjoys Star Wars, so I was optimistic that I
could get them interested in playing. I’d
supplemented the base game with Slave I
and two Z-95 Headhunters, and my wife gave me a Y-wing for my birthday, so we
had enough ships for all five of us.
Sunday, May 10, 2015
UnPub Mini Fredericksburg
Saturday Jarrett Melville organized an UnPub Mini event at The Game Vault in Fredericksburg, Virginia. This event was a nice informal gathering of game designers and playtesters at a friendly local game store that turned into a solid success.
Friday, April 17, 2015
Worker placement inventory
Part of Kathy's killer combination |
Saturday, April 11, 2015
Shep's Games
Monday, February 16, 2015
UnPub 5 Saturday - East India Company
Saturday 7 February was the first full day of UnPub 5, the unpublished game prototype playtesting convention that has grown dramatically in the last four years. I split a Tag Table with Tony Miller, and by mutual agreement, I took the table first on Saturday. I was glad to do so because I really wanted Lesley Louder to get a chance to play "East India Company" before she had to leave the convention early. When Lesley's husband Darrell, the convention director, heard that I was setting up a game of "EIC," he had Richard Launius (Arkham Horror, Elder Sign) join us. Rob Weaver made our fourth.
Saturday, February 7, 2015
UnPub 5: Friday
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Boardgame news of the week: Exploding Kittens
Okay, stop the presses. This is the news item that we'll be talking about all year. Out of nowhere, a card game has taken Kickstarter by storm and attracted (at this writing) over 106,000 backers to drop a modest $20 to $35 each - totaling over $4.1 million - on what amounts to a wacky-themed push-your-luck game - Exploding Kittens (designed and published by Matthew Inman, Elan Lee, and Shane Small). It has already broken crowdfunding records for board and card games and shows no sign of slowing.
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Thinking ahead
Our first game of Legacy: Gears of Time |
Thursday, January 15, 2015
Statistical review of seasonal effects on Kickstarter funding
Lately, as I've been compiling notes each week for the Kickstarter report on the Dice Tower News podcast, I've come to notice an evident seasonal pattern: fewer boardgame projects tend to fund on Kickstarter this time of year. In recent weeks, the number of projects likely to fund has been particularly low. Do longer-term statistics bear out my recent observations?
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