Board Game Madness 4/4

A day late due to work, but still here!

Fun:

• TableTop, the first show of Felicia Day’s new Geek & Sundry YouTube channel, has been posted. This is Wil Weaton (Wesley Crusher of Star Trek: TNG fame) leading other Internet/pop culture celebrities through a board game experience. The first episode is GREAT! Grant Imahara of MythBusters and a couple of Internet people I’ve never heard of play Small World with Wil. It’s really entertaining. They apparently do Settlers of Catan and Pandemic in the future. I’m not sure how often they will release this, but it’s a great way to popularize our hobby. Subscribe for regular updates.
• The Geek Madness tournament has reached the final four: Twilight Struggle vs. Power Grid and Agricola vs. Puerto Rico
• For fans of the old Cheapass Games, this guy was pimped for Dungeon Petz, but man he looks like our old friend Devil Bunny!
• Pimp My Game: This amazing work is for The Legend of Drizzt from WotC. Absolutely incredible craftsmanship…
• Pimp My Game 2: How about easels for Modern Art? Could probably be used for Pastiche too.

New Games:

• Sky Traders: Fantasy Flight’s new game is actually a Euro. A pickup and deliver game where you are a merchant sailing your airships, using influence and manipulating markets. Due June 2012.
• Power Grid: Quebec & Baden-Wuerttemberg: New maps for the four-time Geek Madness champion. This is a single print run so get it if you want it. April/May release date.
• The Mystery of the Templars: Play a templar and assign your knights to missions to gain balance trade, development and battle. Due in May, this sounds like a very interesting game from Stratelibri, an Italian distributor.
• Space Cadets: From Geoff Engelstein and the rest of his family (The Ares Project), Stronghold Games (Core Worlds) is releasing their new cooperative game with a sci-fi feel of being a bridge officer on a starship. You work with the rest of the crew to accomplish mission goals. Due in late 2012. Also, they are releasing a mob-play event game called Space Cadets – Live! that will support up to 30 players where everyone divides into teams for different functions of the starship. This will premier at DEXCON 15 in Morristown NJ on July 5^th.
• Recent releases: Zombie Dice 2: Double Feature, Caveman Curling, Pizza Theory, Zong Shi, Word on the Street: Expansion I

iOS:

• Nightfall submitted to App Store
• Le Havre due in May
• Ubongo Puzzle Adventure Lite released
• Shogun in development
• Thunderstone AID released – has card pics, randomizer, saved setups and a card creator

News:

• In the Podcasting world, a couple of shout outs. The D6 Generation, who gives a little Euro love, but mostly adventure and miniature gaming, just hit their 100^th episode. Also, Game On! with Cody and John just released their penultimate episode where they review Wiz-War and reveal their “gaming manifesto”. Both are very entertaining and should be honored.
• Interesting take on the history and evolution of the game Risk. I had no idea that it was released by a French company, not US. So much for Ameritrash…
• A Game of Thrones: The Board Game is reviewed by Time Magazine. Yes, that’s right. Time.

Recently Played

• We had I-CON this past weekend and it went pretty well. I ran games of Invasion from Outer Space: The Martian Game, Thunderstone (Epic variant) and Core Worlds as well as the annual Texas Hold ‘em poker tournament. Other than that, not much time to play games this week.

Happy Gaming!

Credits: BGG, Purple Pawn, Dice Tower News, Google News, Game Salute

Board Game Madness 3/27

Fun:

• I-CON is this weekend!
• The Geek Madness tournament to select the 2012 champion board game has reached the elite 8:
• Twilight Struggle (1x champion) vs. Dominion (my pick to win it all this year)
• Agricola (defending champion) vs. Caylus
• Puerto Rico (1x champion) vs. 7 Wonders
• Pandemic vs. Power Grid (4x champion)
• Pimp My Game: Somebody created FIMO major improvements for Agricola – very cute! And a close up.
• Stupid human tricks
• Now this is taking your games seriously…
• Origins, a convention that is very board game friendly, has announced the nominees for their awards. I don’t know what the cutoff is as Automobile is not a new game, but here they are:
• Best Board Game: Automobile, Dungeons & Dragons: Conquest of Nerath, Hibernia, High Noon Saloon, Pastiche
• Best Family, Party or Children’s Game: Bears!, Faux-Cabulary, Get Bit!, Scavengers, Space Mission
• Best Traditional Card Game: Cthulu Gloom, Nuts!, Star Trek Deck Building Game: The Next Generation, The Red Dragon Inn 3, The Struggle for Catan
• Best Historical Board Game: Band of Brothers: Screaming Eagles, Lost Battles, No Retreat! The Russion Front, Strike of the Eagle, Test of Fire: Bull Run 1861, World War II: Barbarossa 1941
• My two worlds collide! Someone put out a soundtrack to the novelization of The Settlers of Catan that can be downloaded as MP3s

New Games:

• Smash Up: From the makers of Thunderstone and The Adventurers, AEG is billing this as a “shufflebuilding” game. Take any 2 of 8 factions (pirates, ninjas, aliens, dinosaurs, etc.) and smash them together to get a deck of badies that you have to fight off and steal more bases than your opponents. Humor is the key here. Release date August 2012.
• The City-State of Tempest is a world created by AEG (see Smash Up above) that will be the theme to bind 3 new releases coming out in late 2012 and early 2013: Dominaire, Mercante, and Courtier. They plan on adding more, connecting characters and developing the world. Sounds fascinating!
• Uncharted: One of my favorite video games, the Uncharted series (present day Indiana Jones-like treasure hunting adventure) for the PS3 featuring Nathan Drake is now being released as a board game. I don’t know a ton of detail, but apparently it will retail for about $30. Also, it’s apparently going to be a Hollywood film.
• Dominion base cards: For those who never sleeved their cards, Rio Grande is releasing just the base cards from their popular game, although with new artwork. No word on date, but it will retail for $17.50.
• Recent releases: Pizza Theory, Oz Fluxx, Dragon Valley, Fealty, Ugh

iOS:

• Cities and Knights of Catan: April
• Rivals of Catan (2p card version): April
• Reiner Knizia’s Deck Buster: Released (poker meets puzzles by the Good Doctor)

News:

• Will Wheaton (Wesley Crusher from ST:TNG) has long been a celebrity within the gaming community. Now he’s taking on board gaming. He’s working with Felicia Day (The Guild) to create a new web series called “Geek and Sundry” which starts on 4/2/12. According to Wheaton (via Board Game News quoting his blog): “By the second day of production, our crew was grabbing games out of our games library to play at lunch. All of our interns and production assistants have become complete game fanatics, and whenever I edit a show, all I want to do is go home and play that game until my face falls off.” The trailer is online now.
• Boston.com has a good article on the “Board Game Renaissance” as they call it. This one is very in depth and looks at the history of how they came to the market and what different games have done for the industry

Recently Played:

• Board game night this past week: Citadels, Lords of Vegas, Cards Against Humanity
• Next day was a little word gaming with Plext
• Some more Core Worlds with the Mrs. She’s obsessed! (not that I mind…)

Happy Gaming!

Credits: Board Game Geek, ICV2, Dice Tower News

Board Game Madness 3/20

Fun:

• What would life be like if Ticket to Ride were real? John Kovalic of Dork Tower fame has imagined it.
• About.com is running their awards for best board games of the year. Nominations are:
• Strategy: A Few Acres of Snow, Dragon Valley, Eminent Domain, Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, Mage Knight: Board Game
• Party: Befuzzled, Crappy Birthday, Dixit Odyssey, Faux*Cabulary, Furt
• Family: 1^st & Goal, City Square Off, Kingdom Builder, Say Anything Family Edition, Quarriors!
• Children: Angry Birds: Knock on Wood, Bug Out, Color Stix, Hoot Owl Hoot!, Knock Your Blocks Off
• Kickstarter Game/Campaign: Carnival, D-Day Dice, Dragon Valley, Eminent Domain, Rise!
• iOS/Android: Ascension: Cronicle of the Godslayer, Carcassonne, Disc Drivin’, Ticket to Ride, Words with Friends
• Local Game Store: Atomic Games (WI), Gateway Games & More (OH), Myriad Games (NH), Rainy Day Games (OR), Zombie Planet (Albany, NY)
• Online Game Store: CooStuffInc, Funagain, Game Surplus, Starlit Citadel, Thought Hammer
• Twitter Account: @dicehateme, @thegameaisle, @gamewhisperer
• Facebook page: Dice Tower, Fantasy Flight Games, Monopoly
• Use of other Social Media: Dice Tower Podcast, G*M*S Magazine Podcast, Game Whisperer: Funding the Dream Podcast
• Dominic Crapuchettes is trying to influence your vote by giving out copies of Say Anything Family edition and Crappy Birthday if those games win
• The Swiss gaming awards have been given out and game of the year is Glory to Rome, with Castles of Burgundy and Helvetia coming in 2^nd and 3^rd respectively
• In case you ever find yourself in a nuclear bunker and are in for a game…
• And the world dies. Again.
• Beautiful war scene. I may not be a war gamer, but some of the terrains and minis are just amazing.
• Someone in my gaming group was asking about 2 player games. This married couple has posted their top 2 player games from 2011 – there’s 40 of ‘em, from all over the map. I think these people do nothing but play games!
• Hilarious list of games that if you remove the first letter of their name become something new entirely. My favorite is Uno – “Everyone sits around a table refusing to play”

New Games:

• Small World Realms: This got announced as a new expansion for the Days of Wonder area control franchise. Here you get to modularize your map and play a number of scenarios. It’ll work with either the base game or Underground (2012 release)
• Wrong Chemistry: This abstract card game has you changing molecules in order to create new elements on the periodic table. (2012 release)
• Crooks: Another card game where you are a mafia boss and recruit, steal and amass money. Quick 10 minute game. (March 2012 release)
• Project Pandora: Grim Cargo: Sci-fi 2-player dice game where you play either the evil human corporation or the alien rats. Modular board where you move miniatures, explore your surroundings and try to solve scenarios set forth at the beginning of the game
• Ascension: Immortal Heroes: New expansion for the Bobby Brady of deck building games (June 2012 release)
• Recent Releases: Lords of Waterdeep, Munchkin 8: Half Horse, Will Travel, Nuklear Winter ‘68

iOS:

• Fealty – April
• Charadium II (Pictionary-clone) – March

News:

• How do you compare children’s games to the stock market? This Canadian news site does.
• How about blaming a Ouija board for stabbing a friend with a knife?
• I debated whether or not to give this item “press”. Yesterday it was reported that a Dutch television network posted a downloadable version of Settlers of Catan called Settlers of the West Bank. There’s a lot of anti-Semitism in the game and obviously there’s a lot of anger.
• A bunch of girl scouts worked more than 875 hours to create a life-sized Candyland board to promote cancer awareness.

Recently Played:

• Core Worlds has become the game of choice in the house with the Mrs.
• Played some more Quarriors! with my son
• My Blood Bowl team took 2 games this weekend to pull into first place in my division

Happy Gaming!

Credits: Board Game Geek, About.com, Dice Tower News, Wired.com, Purple Pawn, Google News

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Board Game Madness 3/13

Wow, my biggest hiatus to date. Work and sick and life and all that, but let’s get to it already.

Fun:

• Contest: If anyone is interested in naming the Pandasaurus mascot, you can win a lifetime subscription to every game they publish (I’ve never heard of any of them)
• The annual Geek Madness poll has started! A la March Madness NCAA basketball, this is where all the games pit against one another to see who’s everyone’s favorite. Last year Agricola took out Power Grid and won the championship by just a few votes. Will this be the year Dominion takes the crown? Will Power Grid get one for the thumb? Will the war gamers put Twilight Struggle back on top? Or is there a dark horse out there like 7 Wonders? You get to vote!
• Pimp my game: Notre Dame gets a facelift as someone made all custom components (except the cards). Absolutely gorgeous. Look at the castle up close!
• Pimp my game too: Castle Ravenloft with 3D castings using dental plaster. The detail is exquisite.
• Pimp my game thrice: One night in Bangkok? Well, how about a route from Bangkok to Vietnam in this self-made Thailand map for Ticket to Ride?
• Must. Get. This. Shirt. If you look at the comments, he got it as a punishment for forgetting his anniversary. That’s priceless! (as is the card)
• Never too early to start the kids on gaming, although Citadels may be a push. What if she takes the Assassin role? What kind of example are you setting?
• More baby pics – I think they just called this kid a hag (Quarriors! joke)
• Long ago, in a galaxy far far away, the stormtrooper got bored. Unfortunately, she beat him.
• If I was into board gaming in college, this would have been my doodling too (although not nearly as good)

New Games:

• CO2: Taking you through the boom of Ozone Layer depletion, the 70s, this game begins to take a look at stopping the increase of pollution by utilizing different types of power plants, increasing knowledge about using clean and sustainable energy and even applies the Carbon Emissions Permits economy. Sounds very interesting, although I’m not sure if/when an English version will get published. Right now, it’s still under development, no release date.
• Race to Adventure: The Spirit of the Century Exploration Game: A quick game simulating a scavenger hunt taking you all around the world. A modular board simulates the race and lots of simultaneous actions. Apparently will play 8 and up. Release TBD from Evil Hat Productions.
• Saint Malo: The Alea box set (also including Puerto Rico) gets a new dice rolling game to the series. Here you are using dice to gain resources to get characters and buildings. You also have an eraseable white board where you draw a grid of your city to personalize your town. That part sounds really interesting. Oh, and watch out for the pirate attacks. They say this is a light game. Release April 2012.
• Milestones: More building cities. Interesting difference here is that you build together, but you have to develop your own trade networks. Fairly quick tile laying game due out in April 2012.
• Recent releases: Thunderstone Advance: Towers of Ruin, The Manhattan Project, Antartik, Rocket Jockey, White Water

iOS:

• Nightfall: April
• Summoner Wars: May
• Agricola: Summer
• Le Havre: April
• Through the Ages: May
• Eclipse: 2012
• Stronghold: 2012
• Haggis: In development
• Cities and Knights of Catan: Almost ready for beta
• Rivals of Catan (2 player card game): In beta
• Troyes: Fall 2012
• Alien Frontiers: In development, no date
• Ubongo Puzzle Adventure: Released

News:

• Z-Man Games has chosen to use a single distributor which will now mean their games may be harder to get, but in theory will be more reliable and possibly even cheaper
• Hasbro is cutting 170 jobs, mostly in the US. No word on what departments.
• Anyone want a job in the board game industry? Tasty Minstrel Games is hiring
• Purple Pawn completed their annual survey of the board game industry for 2011. Not much has changed since 2010 and the industry is still very strong. Unfortunately 7.5% of their respondents closed their doors last year.
• The Boston Globe takes on the board game industry and looks into two designers
• What financial lessons can you learn from playing Monopoly?

Recently Played:

• Oh my, 3 weeks of games… hmm… Blood Bowl, Quarriors!, Core Worlds (these have been stand-bys lately), Prolix, Pandemic, 25 Words or Less, Caylus, Elder Sign, Ticket to Ride, Space Alert, and probably a couple of others I can’t remember.

Credits: BGG, Dice Tower News, Purple Pawn

Happy Gaming!

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Board Game Madness 2/21

CRAZY busy at work, so short edition this week.

Fun:

• Thank you Laura for this Baby Blues comic
• Hysterical 5-second silent reviews: Dominion and Dungeonquest
• Pimp my game: GMT is offering plastic tokens for Dominant Species

New Games:

• Recently released: Locke & Key: The Game

iOS:

• Heroclix in development
• Survive expected out next month
• 7 Wonders in development, no date
• Evo in development, no date
• Wits and Wagers in development, no date

News:

• Board game nights are all the rage now. Maine, Madison Cty NY, Texas
• Some med students at Western University in Canada developed a board game to be used in school to teach how different medical disciplines approach health care

Recently Played:

• Didn't have an opponent at our monthly Blood Bowl meetup, so I taught Quarriors! a few more times and for the first time in my life I finally played Cosmic Wimpout. It was actually fun, in a really lucky sort of way.
• More Quarriors! for friends and a little Dominion thrown in for good measure.

Credits: BGG, Purple Pawn, Daily Ink, Google News

Happy gaming!

Board Game Madness 2/14

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! What game are you playing with your sweetheart tonight? Slaying the dragons in Runebound? Finding out where Jack the Ripper is in Mr. Jack? Or trading goods in the Mediterranean in... er... every Euro ever made?  

I kid because I can...

Fun:

• In the spirit of Valentine's Day, last week I put up a link to a geek proposal card from Ascension. I didn't realize there was a video too. This is awesome and the guys from Gary Games were involved too.
• Also for Valentine's Day, stories of how board gamer couples met, in only the way BGG can present: A geeklist
• Adding wildlife to any game automatically makes it better
• Someone pimped out Quarriors to get a little flavor from Board Game Geek
• Interesting look at some games that due to political pressures or just plain offensiveness in design and have been censored in some way
• Pimp my game: City models for Settlers of Catan (only on kickstarter, not in production yet)

New Games:

• Recent releases: A Fistful of Penguins, Hawaii, Last Will

iOS:

• Touch Arcade predicts Dominion (the RioGrande version) to be released this week
• Hive released this past week

News:

• I put out pictures of Lego: Star Wars: Battle of Hoth. Looked awesome. That's as close as I'll get to it. Apparently there's licensing issues preventing a US release according to W. Eric Martin of BoardGameNews
• Crossover alert: World of Warcraft and Starcraft 2 will now be board games. Only not what you think. How about Monopoly: World of Warcraft and Risk: Starcraft
• Popsci interviews a Seattle game store owner on the German Board Game Phenomena

Recently Played:

• Got together with a few friends for an impromptu game of Milles Bornes followed by Pandemic (where as usual, it looked good for a while and then shut down in a hurry – sorry world. You're all dead)
• Played game 2 of the Long Island Blood Bowl League's 2nd season and my beloved Death Rockers went down to the NY Knicknevins 2-1. It was painful. I'm now 0-2.
• Taught my son how to play Quarriors! He loved it.

Credits: Board Game Geek, Touch Arcade, Google News

Happy gaming!

Board Game Madness 2/7

Congratulations Giants fans. Thanks for beating up on the Pats. (I'm a Jets fan...)

Fun:

• Awesome list of fictional board and card games from movies and television. My favorite is Don't Whiz on the Electric Fence from Ren and Stimpy. I remember when that aired!
• When NOT to follow instructions
• And on that day, the Meeple's heart grew 3 sizes larger...
• What happens when the #2 game on BGG (Agricola) meets the #2 computer game (Minecraft)?
• My son got one of those claw vendor boxes you see at arcades and such. This guy wants to turn it into a dice tower...
• Another geek proposal
• Life sized boards: Scrabble, Monopoly and Battleship
• Funny geeklist about some of the worst names for games
• I missed the first round of this, but if you are interested in a March-Madness-style tournament of your favorite game designers, the Derk Cup is in the second round

New Games:

• Recent Releases: Hex-A-Gon

iOS:

• Ticket to Ride owners got flashbombed the other day with news that the pocket app for the iPhone now has asynchronous multiplayer (a la Ascension). The iPad version however does not. That's upsetting. The reason why Ascension gets more play than any app on my device is solely because of asynchronous mode. Hopefully they'll fix that.

News:

• I'm not sure how this one escaped my attention. Shame on me. There's going to be a board gaming documentary called "Going Cardboard", which happens to be the old BoardGameNews section where they tracked new games that were coming out. It takes a look at the entire industry and the designers and players and how board gaming is not only surviving, but thriving right now. I can't wait to see it. Go to the Going Cardboard site for more info or directly to the trailer.
• Purple Pawn recently interviewed Ron Weingartner, a former VP over at Hasbro, on how to pitch a game to a game company. Fascinating read.
• Another interesting analysis article, this time from Fortress Ameritrash: How are board games different from card games? And where does the video game genre blur the lines?
• Apparently Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) has a favorite board game: Risk. Surprised?
• Seems there was a big lawsuit over a Wiggles board game that has now been cleared. Too bad my older son's now 9 and wouldn't be interested in it. He used to be a huge wiggles fan.

Recently played:

• Not much gaming this week, just a game of Thunderstone (Epic variant) which I lost badly. Then I got my friend back by beating him at Race for the Galaxy; a game he RARELY loses

Happy Gaming!

Credits: BGG, Mental Floss, Purple Pawn, Fortress Ameritrash, Google News