Death of Monopoly

On The Horizon: Euphoria....

noreply@blogger.com (__ Eric Martin) — Wed, 15 May 2013 18:43:00 +0000

....or the full title - Euphoria: Build a Better Dystopia. (If you're not sure what a dystopia is, think the opposite of a utopia. Or just play the excellent video game Bioshock: Infinite.) The Kickstarter campaign for Euphoria launched today and I'd be promoting it just cuz the designers are such nice guys. But after having read the rules, I can happily say this one looks pretty darn cool, too, and dripping with theme. Yes, dripping with theme much like their previous game Viticulture... which should be arriving in the mail for me next week!

This upcoming game is a heavy worker-placement game like many designs out today, but its definitely got a few clever twists. The cleverest part of the design, in my opinion, is that workers are represented by dice (a bit like Alien Frontiers) and the higher the value of the die (knowledge) the better the actions it can do. However if the sum of your worker dice (knowledge) exceeds a certain amount, then one of your workers runs away. Aha! Get it, they're getting too smart for their own good and seek freedom. As well, there's buildings that once completed take away options from the players who don't help construct them. Nasty, and again totally integrated with the dystopian theme.

Definitely check out their Kickstarter campaign and take a look at the rules. The images so far are gorgeous and if Jamey and his team over-fund this campaign as much as they did Viticulture last year, then the bonus pieces will be just as magnificent.

Most Complicated Board Game Ever

noreply@blogger.com (Daryl Andrews) — Tue, 14 May 2013 20:05:00 +0000

Enjoy this hilarious video paying tribute to how complicated board games can feel sometimes.

''Learning to play a new game has never been so painful.''

Guest post - First play of Factory Fun....

noreply@blogger.com (__ Eric Martin) — Sun, 12 May 2013 22:34:00 +0000

We played this last night. It's a game of machine building, input and output power sources, and pipe laying. Vaguely reminiscent of the old school Waterworks, only way more technical. It doesn't sound like a lot of fun, and it definitely isn't one of the prettier board games I've seen, so I wasn't sure what to think. I don't know if it was the "post-birthday" sugar coma or the after effects of a house full of shrieking 5-year-old girls... but this one was a bumbling, brain fogging, head scratcher!

It took us about 90 minutes to play from set-up to completion. Two of us have never played it before so the initial rules and strategy explanation was slow and overwhelming. My husband caught onto the concept quicker than I, although he hit a major stumbling block when he cleared his factory floor completely and then couldn't reassemble all his machines the same way. His blunder, however, game me a good half hour to leisurely peruse the rules while he tried to lay his pieces again. I can't say that by the end of play, I had completely caught on, but I was taking more risks in grabbing machines.

We discovered a significant error on my board about halfway through the game, as well, where I had inputted into an output piece, or something like that. A few hastily purchased pieces of pipe fixed it right up, though. By the end I was letting my husband tell me what pieces to play where. In other board games, his habit of "helping" pisses me off. Last night, I actually found myself asking for his advice. From a fluke of luck, or my lack of impulsivity in the grabbing pieces round, I didn't come in dead last. The engineer at the table won, actually, so of course I accused him of stacking the odds in his favour. He insisted, "No, no, I normally lose," and "I'm not that kind of engineer!" Hmm... maybe he's a Ticket to Ride engineer ... but I digress.

Factory Fun is a puzzle game (I'd venture to say a very complicated puzzle game) and I love puzzle games. I'm generally quite good at them. And I did find myself wishing it was a few rounds longer as it started to make more sense to me. But I'm not going to judge it by my virgin experience... it was awkward, messy, and frustrating. It left me feeling unsatisfied and wishing it had lasted just a little longer. But I can already tell that it'll get easier, so it's definitely a game that deserves a second play.

- Laura Freeman, mother of 4, social worker, soon-to-be-published author, and all-around great sister

"Go directly to hell, do not pass go, do not collect 200 souls..."

noreply@blogger.com (__ Eric Martin) — Mon, 06 May 2013 22:08:00 +0000

Clive Barker has always been one of my favourite authors, although I know his particular brand of gruesome ain't for everyone. He has quite the library of fiction and film and you can tell he loves his fans because he is always featuring their artwork on his Facebook page. And some of it is pretty cool, like a recent post about this wicked Hellraiser Monopoly board made by fan Brian Sharp.

Click to embiggen

If you've read The Hellbound Heart or seen Hellraiser, then check out the original post to see more of the awesome handmade Cenobite pieces.

A love letter to Love Letter.....

noreply@blogger.com (__ Eric Martin) — Sat, 04 May 2013 21:43:00 +0000

I'm starting to believe there is a bit of a renaissance occurring in board game circles, a rejection of the new and shiny and complex. The complexity of modern games has left a lot of us with a sour taste in our mouths. What happened to the simple, elegant brilliance of Modern Art or Ticket To Ride or even Power Grid? Or even short games like the excellent Coloretto or For Sale?

Okay, maybe it's just me. But still, I gotta think people are looking for more simplicity when gamers keep mentioning Love Letter in every second post and article I read. If you haven't heard of Love Letter, then you probably don't read too many board game blogs. So why is a game that costs $7, plays in about 5 minutes, and uses 16 cards and a few red cubes suddenly the darling of the game world? Well, maybe that's just it. Simpilcity. 10 seconds of rules explanation which yields, I daresay, a great half hour of fun, albeit very light fun.

So how does Love Letter work and how can it play so well with only 16 cards? (The cubes are really extraneous and serve only as scoring markers.) The rules are dead simple. You hold one card and on your turn you pick up a second card. Then you have to play one of your cards face up and do what it says. That's pretty much it. The goal? Be the last player left in the round or be the player holding the highest card when the draw pile empties.

It's overly simple but what makes the game interesting are the card powers. Cards are numbered 1-8 and the different values all have different actions. One lets you look at another player's card, some let you guess an opponent's card and eliminate that player if you're right, one makes you discard your other card of a certain type, and so on. Each option is simple but the interplay of the actions is what creates such an enjoyable little round. It's entirely possible to be eliminated on the first turn but when rounds can run under 2 minutes this doesn't really bother anyone. Shuffle 'em up, deal another one!

Yes, Love Letter has a hefty dose of luck but I've never seen so much fun packed into such a short, simple package. Do yourself a favour and pick this lovely little filler up - anyone can learn it and anyone can play it and everyone will love it. And for 7 bucks, that's a pretty awesome deal.

Sum Wars on Kickstarter...

noreply@blogger.com (__ Eric Martin) — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 14:00:00 +0000

My family has been subjected to many games over the years and there are a few that can get a bit rowdy, particularly with my mother. She's a sharp player and picks up rules very quickly, but throw a frantic game at her where everyone plays at once and she comes out swinging. HA! My sister and I can recall many rounds of Dutch Blitz which got way out of hand. Another game which was a frantic, violent favourite of ours is called Pick Two. It was basically Scrabble on speed. Players draw two tiles at at time to add to their crosswords and once one person uses them all everyone immediately has to draw two more, whether they want to or not. It's a riot.

Well, a new game Sum Wars is currently campaigning on Kickstarter and it's kind of like the mathematical heir to Pick Two. And since I loved Pick Two and I studied math in university for far, far too long, I am particularly interested in this game. In Sum Wars, the crosswords are now built with simple equations and you always have access to the addition, subtraction, and equal tiles. There are also bomb tiles which allow you to remove other players tiles and will add more to the interaction and nastiness.

I'm an avid supporter of math education and if Sum Wars does for numbers what Pick Two did for spelling, then I imagine it would be an excellent addition to any math classroom or even just your own board game collection. Check out the video above or the Kickstarter page here for more info.

My teenage years encapsulated in a picture....

noreply@blogger.com (__ Eric Martin) — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 16:52:00 +0000

A friend just posted a pic of my old homemade Settlers edition on Facebook which she has held onto for 10+ years. Back in '96 in northern BC, it was very hard for a 15-year-old to get a copy of Settlers of Catan without a credit card and before the current board game fanaticism brought everything to North America. So I made my own copy with the rulesets I found online. I think this picture foreshadows a lot. It's also a tad tragic - barns in farmland??? HA!

Double-click to embiggen the gloriousness

(Thanks, Shannon, for holding on to this piece of history!)

Reflection on the 2013 Gathering of Friends...

noreply@blogger.com (Daryl Andrews) — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 18:22:00 +0000

Last week I got to experience my first ever Gathering of Friends, an invite-only board game event hosted by Alan Moon. It took me the last 5 days to recover from this amazing experience. I didn't pace myself well. I ended up getting sick when I got home. Guess I was desperate for some sleep, home cooking, and getting back to a regular routine.

Me with Alan & Janet Moon.

This was honestly the best board game experience of my life. I did some number-crunching and it looks like I played about 70 games total (a mix of prototypes, published games, and coming soon games). Of the 70 games, 40 were unique titles. And of those 40 titles about 30 of them were new to me. That's a lot of games!

One of my favourite games at GoF13 - Rialto by Stefan Feld

It was so amazing to get to try a bunch of games that are not out yet. I discovered some great games that are coming soon. Some highlights for me include: Terra Mystica, Brugge, Spyrium, Rialto, Tzolkin expansion (post coming), Russian Rails, Black Spy, Clubs (post coming), etc, not to mention all the great prototypes.

Quarantine by Mercury Games (Coming Soon)

A neat success story from last year's GoF is the game Quarantine by Mercury Games. Last year my roommate Jay Cormier pitched this game by Mark Klassen (fellow Game Artisan of Canada) to a new board game company Mercury Games (Canadian company!) at GoF12. Well this year, Mercury Games had a couple advance copies to preview at the event. I got to try the finished product of the game even before the designer! The game is tons of fun, and hopefully I will be able to get the game (reviewers copy?) in the future.

Vlaada playing Cards Against Humanity with GAC

However, the Gathering's real highlight is the people. As a member of the Game Artisans of Canada, I hadn't met many of the west coast and prairie members. What a great way to meet them! Above you can see us playing a game of Cards Against Humanity. Vlaada also joined in. But the list doesn't end there. I got to meet so many great people. Some of the more noteworthy examples are the publishers and designers I got to meet. I already mentioned Vlaada & William. I dont have pictures, but some of the other highlights include getting to do dinner with great designers like Kevin G. Nunn (1955: The War of Espionage, Rolling Freight, Zong Shi) & Kevin Wilson (Arkham Horror, Android, Cosmic Encounter, Descent, Elder Sign, Fury of Dracula, A Game of Thrones, Sid Meier's Civilization, etc). Also got to hang out with a variety of amazing board game reviewers. Basically every writer for Opinionated Gamers was in attendance at the Gathering.

Game Artisans of Canada (GAC) being interviewed

One of the more unique experiences of the Gathering, atleast for me, was being part of a documentary. As many of you know, I am a big movie fan, and really love documentaries. Well, it looks like I might be part of a board game documentary. Doug was able to capture many of my pitches to publishers and he said there is a good chance my story will be part of the finished product. So keep an eye on Kickstarter as he plans to crowd-fund his documentary. I honestly sometimes forgot I was being filmed and I know Doug managed to capture some amazing moments. From live pitches from a variety of designers, to back room interviews with publishers, to insider tips from industry experts, if you like board games, or are just curious about insider business tips, you will need to watch this film.

Sails To Steam presented to Hans Im Glueck & Z-Man

Talking about pitching games, I havent mentioned some of the great success stories GAC experienced at this year's Gathering. The main goal of GoF is not pitching games, but thankfully Alan Moon is okay with it happening at his event. The amazing thing is, the entire experience is very casual and personal. Instead of it feeling very rigid and business like, the entire pitch process is fun. Publishers like to hang out with designers, and listen to pitches over dinner or even a beer. Its a real win-win environment. I give all the credit to Alan for creating such an amazing atmosphere.

At this point I wont go into much more detail about some of the GAC games that got picked up, because I wouldn't want to get in the way of any contract's being negotiated. However, I will be sure to mention them in the future, as paperwork gets signed, and designers are open to me sharing.

Prototype designed by Stephen Sauer & I

I will share a brief summary of my pitching experience. I managed to present Londonderry to 7 publishers at the Gathering of Friends. I was actually a little shocked they were willing to meet with me, as I am an unsigned designer. Each of them are amazing companies I would be honoured to work with. It is easy for me to say that I liked them all, when all of them had many great things to say about Londonderry. Even the one publisher who outright said he was not interested (yes, most of the companies said to keep in touch), did say the game was "flawless!" What?! The publisher said it wasn't his taste of game, but really nothing major should change about the game because there is a market for this game.

Overall, of the 6 other publishers who expressed interest to keep talking, we decided to move forward (at this stage) with two of them who were most excited about the design. A couple of the publishers I talked to even suggested I move forward with one of these two companies as they thought it would be a good fit. One thing I learned from this experience, is that publishers really work well with each other. I find this very admirable about the board game industry. That does not mean either of them will for sure sign the game. But at this point, they wanted prototypes of the game to be able to give it a more thorough evaluation. If both publishers decide to pass, then we will pursue another publisher. I really look forward to getting past this stage in the process - and focus on developing and making this game incrediable.

Alan Moon & I with the prize I brought

Last but not least, the prize table. At the end of the Gathering, we have a big ceremony and people earn prizes. Everyone gets to walk home with at least one prize because everyone brings a prize. Above is a picture of the prize I brought (thanks to my co-designer Stephen Sauer for providing me with an amazing prize). Alan Moon liked the prize so much he placed it on his main table of his favourite prizes. Woohoo! Many of the prizes on his table went to tournament winners (I played in 4 tournaments and sadly never won. I did manage to get to the finals in 3 of them). But I ended up getting a pretty amazing prize, a jumbo version of Blokus (generously donated by Kevin O'Brien!) However, after the event, my friend Ben (owner of Snakes & Lattes) was heartbroken I scooped that prize on him, so I traded him the prize for a couple games. I know it will get lots of love at Snakes & Lattes, and I can visit my awesome prize any time I go.

A lovely little poem....

noreply@blogger.com (__ Eric Martin) — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 13:36:00 +0000

My dear sister is a writer in her off-time (although I don't know how she gets off-time with 4 kids and a full-time job!) Lately she's been writing poems for a contest and she dedicated her latest to me. It's a pantoum and she explains what that is in her original post .

Once you've read the poem, I think you'll start to wonder about our family. Thanks, Laura....

#9 - To Play the Classics
An honourable opponent,
She chose the thimble, I the shoe
She lived for the moment.
She rolled the dice, her roll was true,

She chose the thimble, I the shoe,
Thimble moving in a blur,
She rolled the dice, her roll was true,
The dice, they favoured her,

Thimble moving in a blur,
Properties collected,
The dice, they favoured her,
It was as I suspected.

Properties collected,
She played the banker, too
It was just as I suspected,
As her hotels and houses grew,

She played the banker, too,
I watched from my spot in jail,
As her hotels and houses grew,
Roll doubles; epic fail.

I watched from my spot in jail,
Gleeful, she grabbed Park Place,
Roll doubles; epic fail,
Smug grin upon her face.

Gleeful, she grabbed Park Place,
My heart sinking lower every roll,
Smug grin upon her face,
Her stack of money flush and whole,

My heart sinking lower every roll,
I slowly approached the blue,
Her stack of money flush and whole,
What was one to do?

I slowly approached the blue,
So close was I to losing.
What was one to do?
A final act of poorest choosing.

So close was I to losing,
I stood and tipped the table,
A final act of poorest choosing,
The legs must have been unstable.

I stood and tipped the table,
She knew what it really meant,
The legs must have been unstable,
For, I'm an honourable opponent,

- Laura F -

Well, the good times continue at the Gathering of Friends....

noreply@blogger.com (Daryl Andrews) — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 06:33:00 +0000

Last night my friends Al Leduc (designer of Frankendie), Jay Cormier (co-designer of Belfort + Train of Thought), and I (designer of no games published) were looking to play a game in the late hours and noticed a person sitting solo. So we decided to ask him to join us in a 4-player game of Hanabi. Its a great game with a completely unique game experience. It uses an interesting interpretation of making a co-operative game impossible to be dominated by a single player. I personally love the game. I had tried Hanabi one time before, at a cottage with a bunch of board game designer friends (Game Artisans of Canada invite-only event, "Cardstockawa"). The game is all about giving each other clues, however collectively the players have very limited clues to give. The main way to win the game, is when the clues you are giving say more in what you dont say. However, you have to trust others will interpret what you dont say, the same way as you intend. Brilliant game with a simple ruleset.

Vlaada & Jay thinking about Hanabi

I guess I left out one awesome details from my story above. Who was the 4th player?! None other than Vlaada Chvatil (designer of: Through the Ages, Space Alert, Galaxy Trucker, Dungeon Lords, Dungeon Pets, & Mage Knight, but to mention a few). To put that in perspective: he has designed 2 of the top 9 all-time designed boards games on the planet right now (according to boardgamegeek.com)

Jay, Chris, Matt, Vlaada, & my belly (Daryl)

And I guess we didnt play too poorly because Vlaada decided to play another game with us today. This time Vlaada Chvatil joined us in a game of Cinque Terre designed by Chris Handy. He also decided to join us and play the game too. I got to hang out with Chris a couple days ago and do dinner with him & Jay, so it was great to finally get to try his game out. Cinque Terre is a game I know not only will my wife love, but so will Eric (main writer here on deathofmonopoly). It was super fun and simple to understand, but difficult to master. A game all about efficiency. Ofcourse Vlaada beat us all. However, Matt Tolman (game designer of 2014 - news still coming) made a massive comeback and only lost by 5 points (I lost by 35 points). Here is one last picture of the colourful board of Cinque Terre. Doesnt the score track around the border just make you want to smile?!

Daryl chats with William Attia at GOF...

noreply@blogger.com (Daryl Andrews) — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 08:37:00 +0000

Daryl Andrews & William Attia (Gathering of Friends 2013)

Where do I start?! I have spent the last 4 days at the Gathering of Friends and it has been beyond amazing. I confess I am not even sorry for not posting much about it, because I have been busy enjoying it too much. So many highlights to share. Where do I start?!

Today, I played a prototype copy of Spyrium designed by William Attia (maker of the great game Caylus - basically the best classic heavy euro game of all time). You can see a picture of us above. First off, the game is amazing! It does everything I love in games. Its deep, with tough decisions and never enough turns to make them all. Every turn is fun, and even in your downtime you are engaged and care what other players are doing.

Jay Cormier teaching us (Ian, Debbie, Jeff, & I) Spyrium

However, this was not the highlight of my interaction with William. Later I found out that he is also keeping an eye out for games for Ystari publishing AND he wanted to see my game Londonderry that I co-designed with Stephen Sauer. WHAT?! We played the game and it was tons of fun. Thanks to Gord Hamilton & Ian Mackey for joining us. William expressed Londonderry is not necessarily his taste in games, but offered great feedback and encouragement. My bias but favourite comment after he found out I liked the game "Rialto" by Stefan Feld, "well I can tell why you like that game because this game reminds me of it very much, but I like your game more."

After I came back down from cloud 9, William spent a significant amount of time sharing his story, talking about his progress as a board game designer. It was so amazing to hear a candid and personal story from such an accomplished designer about his journey. From a simple beginning of organizing a Puerto Rico tournament in game store in Paris, meeting the shop owner that hosted the tournament, becoming friends, helping him develop a game called Ys, which lead to his friend starting Ystari board game company, to initially starting to design Caylus in January 2005 and having it out in print by October 2005. And still today most would say its the greatest worker placement game ever designed.

I doubt Londonderry will get published by Ystari, but after such an amazing experience meeting William, and hearing about all the care and development Ystari puts into their games, I must confess I really hope some day I have the honour and privilege to work with them in the future. They sounds like a great company that cares about games and wants to work to make the best products possible for their customers. And you can tell when you play Spyrium, it is amazing. I plan to buy that game. And every person I have at GoF who has tried the game, is planning to buy the game too. Its that good!

Tzolk'in expansion??!?!

noreply@blogger.com (__ Eric Martin) — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 13:15:00 +0000

Exciting news about my favourite game of the past year! This coming from the latest Gathering of Friends (where our giddy contributer Daryl just spent the weekend):

"Tribes and Prophecies"

Looks like special starting powers for the different players

You should check out Dale Yu's complete article at OG for more details about a few other games....

Gathering of Friends 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Daryl Andrews) — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 16:50:00 +0000

Wow - one more day until I (Daryl Andrews) attend the "Gathering of Friends", an invite-only 9 day board game event hosted by Alan Moon (board game designer of great titles like: Ticket to Ride, San Marco, Elfenland, Union Pacific, and many more). I feel so honoured and excited to attend. Looking forward to meeting lots of great people and playing amazing games.

Many of my favourite designers will be in attendance like: Alan Moon, Vlaada Chvatil, Tom Lehmann, Christian Leonhard, Kevin Nunn, Ted Alspach, Dominic Crapuchettes, Mike Gray, Andrew Parks, Chris Handy, Dale Yu, and many more. And of course I got to mention my fellow Game Artisans of Canada designers who will be attending (also many are my fav designers too): Jay Cormier, Sen Foong Lim, Josh Cappel, Rob Bartel, Catrin Berghoff, Gavan Brown, Martin Ethier, Gord Hamilton, Mike Kollross, Al Leduc, Jasen Robillard, Roberta Taylor, Matt Tolman, Michael Xuereb (hope I'm not missing anyone).

Plus other board game legends like Scott Nicholson (Board Games with Scott), Zev Shlasinger (Z-Man), and Scott Alden (co-founder of BoardGameGeek) will be in attendance. And many publishers will be in attendance including: Stronghold, Asmodee, Repo Productions, Filosofia, FRED/Eagle, Rio Grande, Hans In Gleuck, Abacus, Czech Games, Mattel, North Star, Toy Vault, R&R, Mercury Games, Grey Ghost Press, Eggertspiele, Academy, Valley, 2F, Hasbro, Z-Man, ThinkFun, Ascora, etc.

So any photos of upcoming games I can share (with their permission) I will to post on here. Also, you can follow me on Twitter @darylmandrews (+ Instagram too). Also, I hope to find a publisher who is as excited about Londonderry as I am (it's the game I co-designed with

Stephen Sauer). Thanks to everyone who has playtested and helped with the design. You can see our sell sheet below (front and back):

Holy guacamole!

noreply@blogger.com (__ Eric Martin) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 14:48:00 +0000

The great thing about writing a blog about the fairly niche topic of board games is that once people know about it, they start sending links to you. Sure makes it easy to come up with posts.

Like this little animated video from last year shown to me by my friend Richard, which also happens to be the shortest film ever to be nominated for an Oscar.

It's the first day of April....

noreply@blogger.com (__ Eric Martin) — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 14:39:00 +0000

...and I heartily recommend you check out the Boardgamegeek website. It's pretty hilarious.

Buried in the sands of time....

noreply@blogger.com (__ Eric Martin) — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 12:33:00 +0000

Will we still be playing board games in a few millenia? Check out this article about game designer Jason Rohrer, who won a design contest after burying his board game in the Nevada desert. Seriously.

Rattling off a list of board game materials that would be unlikely to last the intended passage of time (wood, cardboard, aluminum, glass), Rohrer ultimately decided to make the game from a resilient metal. He machined the 18-inch by 18-inch game board and the pieces future players will use out of 30 pounds of titanium.

Rohrer laid out the game's rules diagrammatically on three pages of archival, acid-free paper, hermetically sealed them inside a Pyrex glass tube — which were then housed inside a titanium baton — and set about burying them in the earth.

Although some 900 clues were handed out at the conference, Rohrer suggests it could take 2700 years to finally unearth the game. (I imagine the desert will have expanded greatly by then.)

Sadly, no one but a computer has actually played the game or seen in it in its entirety which seems like a waste. It definitely makes it impossible to predict whether it'll be a candidate for the 2736th annual Spiel des Jahres award or even whether the Kickstarter campaign will get funded. Sigh.

(Thanks for the tip, Sibs...)

Two short reviews of the excellent Toc Toc Woodman...

noreply@blogger.com (__ Eric Martin) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 23:18:00 +0000

I must admit that recently I have become quite a big fan of dexterity games. Perhaps I'm just getting sick and tired of explaining long boring rules over and over again. We've played a ton of Riff Raff recently (which I highly recommend) and I love flipping crepes in A la Carte. So I was happy to receive a copy of Toc Toc Woodman a few weeks ago from Mayday Games although I must admit I didn't quite know what to expect.

Assembled!

The premise is simple: build a giant tree made of plastic pieces with a central core and outer bark. Then use the plastic axe to knock the bark off for positive points. Careful how hard you hit, though, as each piece of the core that falls off is worth -5. And that's it. Obviously this is a game geared more to kids then adults so I decided to provide two perspectives - one from the perspective of some innocent children and the other from a group of rather inebriated friends of ours.

First, the drunken adults: Having counted myself one of this group, I can happily say that this game is a riot. It's far more clever than can be seen at first glance. In fact we were all a little dissuaded when we first saw the sticker on the box stating "The Smash Hit Korean Game!" (that I've never heard of....) But after setting it up, we immediately saw how clever the toy/game design. Each level of the tree has a central piece with outer bark connected to it loosely. When stacked everything is very stable but once a level moves out a bit from the others, the bark actually falls off quite easily. It's a bit hard to describe but elegantly simple once you see it in action.

Setting up the tree

Every turn you get two hits with the axe which seems simple. But every hit you make doesn't just move the one piece but the whole tree. And as it sways more and more, of course the game is just that much more entertaining. The only drawback to the game, I'd say, is that you have to set the tree up every time but that takes no more than a minute and you can get chopping again.

Getting precarious....

Now, the target audience - the kids: The next day, one of said inebriated adults (now not inebriated) brought the game home for his kids to play. His 6-, 3-, and 1-year-old all loved it despite all having very different experiences. For the 6-year-old, it was a good introduction to negative and positive numbers (4 pieces of bark + 1 piece of trunk = 1 below 0) and he realized quickly that there really would be no game if the centre trunk pieces had a positive value. Smart freaking kid.

The 3-year-old understandably didn't get the points system but seemed to understand not to knock the trunk pieces off as they were "bad". The 1-year-old just whacked the shit out of the tree until it fell. Awesome.

Overall, the response was that it was easy to set up, clear goals even if the points system is too complex, and quick playing which allowed many rounds.

So in summary, this game is awesome. That's kind of it. Us adults loved it and it sounds like the kids did, too. A simple, quick diversion that seems like more of a toy than anything else but I would heartily recommend at the end of any evening. Highly recommended.

(The video below is sideways but it gives you some idea. And he was lying. He loved it.)

WANT!!!!

noreply@blogger.com (__ Eric Martin) — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 12:15:00 +0000

Best boardgame table ever?

...Huh.

noreply@blogger.com (__ Eric Martin) — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 17:22:00 +0000

.......................................This.

The 6 worst board games ever made...

noreply@blogger.com (__ Eric Martin) — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 05:12:00 +0000

...and what you should be playing instead are compiled in this very funny article from Cracked magazine. My favourite paragraph describes how Connect Four perfectly:

"Also, it's not a game. There's more multiplayer strategy in sudoku. Connect Four was entirely solved, twice, two decades ago. The first player either wins or is an idiot. There's a sequence of utterly unbeatable moves, meaning this isn't skill, it's extremely crude abstract pointillist color-it-in. Even without the unbeatable moves, it's built entirely around mutual spoiling tactics. You don't work toward cunning victory -- you repeatedly frustrate each other's attempts to get anywhere until one of you screws up and the other finally gets to win and leave. That isn't a game, it's a simulation of a failing adulterous marriage."

Can you guess which game came out as the worst? C'mon, just guess.

(Thanks to Robby for the link.)

Tabletop Day, March 30th!

noreply@blogger.com (__ Eric Martin) — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 14:12:00 +0000

If you haven't seen the TableTop videos on YouTube, you should try taking a look at their channel here. It stars Wil Wheaton (yes, of ST: TNG fame - and who we saw at Origins last year) and Felicia Day, who is well known among fanboy circles for her work on Dr. Horrible and The Guild.

On each episode, they play through a modern board game and then subsequently the game sells out across North America and the game company is quite happy (this is partially why I couldn't find a damn copy of Pandemic this past Christmas). I imagine they now get sent a LOT of review copies....

Anyways, on March 30th, they've declared it TableTop Day, a day across North America where people get together at local board game shops, libraries, and friends' houses to, yes, play lots of games. And despite the mild bit of hubris it takes to declare a special day after your own web series, it still will be kind of cool if it brings more people into the hobby and more events to your FLGS.

Check out the video below for more details.

I'm totally not famous at all, but a 'Death Of Monopoly' day could be fun, too. People could trade in copies of Monopoly for real board games donated by companies and then we could play them around campfires made from the burning of old boards and Monopoly money.

Burning Monopoly money... boy, that would make me feel so rich.

GODZILLA!!!!!

noreply@blogger.com (__ Eric Martin) — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 16:51:00 +0000

Current favourite dice game: King of Tokyo. I hesitated to buy it last year and now I don't know why - it's King of The Hill meets Yahtzee with a bunch of crazy super-powers thrown in. Too, too much fun. Oh, and the art design is spectacular. Here's a bunch of pictures with shouting captions....

The King and Gigazaur!!!! SMASH!!!!

Alienoid!!!! LAZERS!!!!!

Even bigger!!!!!!!!!! OH MY GOD!!!!

Pandakai!!! Killing with cuteness!!!! FROM THE EXPANSION!!!!

BEST BOX INSERT EVAR!!!!! DICE!!!!! AAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!

Card sleeves are AWESOME!!!!!!!

Mayday Games was kind enough to offer up some card sleeves for us to try out. They happened to fit perfectly with KoT and they work like a charm, especially with this game where you only shuffle at the start. Highly recommended if you're like us and beer and wine often gets spilled on things. And King of Tokyo is totally a spilled beer kinda game!

First play: Eclipse....

noreply@blogger.com (__ Eric Martin) — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 21:30:00 +0000

Nothing like throwing one's back out to totally knock you off of your regular habits. A few weeks ago I went from very active (teaching 8+ gym classes a week) to very old (needing my partner to put on my socks for me). Unfortunately this blog was set aside for a bit as I hobbled my way back to a healthy back again. Surprisingly, there was gaming that still happened with the help of a lot of standing up and walking around during other people's turns.

And I even got in my first game of Eclipse. If you haven't heard of Eclipse, it's basically Twilight Imperium if it were designed by a German - that is, a big space exploration with lots of Euro cube pushing mechanics. It's a big, long game (our 4-player game clocked in at 4 hours without the rules explanation) and it's quite involved. The rules are quite daunting but actually come together quite nicely once you start playing. It helps that the goals in the game are fairly clear from the get-go: mine planets, get awesome spaceships, destroy the ancients, and then if you can, destroy everybody else.

Oh yes, it's THAT kinda game.

Player elimination is possible, probably unlikely, but in a 4 hour game this is one of a few problems I have with it. Another is that everyone seems to explore the map separately so despite the randomness of the tile draws, I feel like the story arc of the game will be quite similar, one game to another. It doesn't seem like there would a be a lot of variety. I suppose the extra alien powers will add to the way players expand their technologies but I still imagine the first half of every game consists of everyone expanding out from the center in their own little direction until the tiles finally run out.

But what do I know? At Tao of Gaming, Brian Bankler says he's played the game at least 25 times and he's pretty darn fussy. So I would definitely play it again but not with more than 4 people. An hour a player is more than enough and I don't see it getting any quicker as were moving pretty fast in our first game.

Our current favourite game....

noreply@blogger.com (__ Eric Martin) — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 23:57:00 +0000

From Nuremburg 2013.

(via BGGNews)

Local teen game night...

noreply@blogger.com (__ Eric Martin) — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 21:24:00 +0000

If you've got teens (or are a teen) and you are local to the Kitchener-Waterloo area, my good friend Kelly has helped organize a free teen drop-in night on Wednesday evenings. And if Kelly's involved, I am pretty certain there will be a bunch of board games available for playing there.