A little while back, Steff and I participated in the World’s Biggest Brain Scan. We strapped these fancy headsets on while scientists tracked our brain activity while we watched commercials. At the end of it, we got paid for our time in cash. With 401 Games just around the corner, guess where our brain scan money went?
board games
Pick-Up Post: Board Games!
Steff and I’s latest trip to 401 Games proved to be a fruitful one. Our haul from this one features a strategy game from the makers of Ticket to Ride, a Kickstarter-funded card game, a board game designed by Richard Garfield of Magic: The Gathering fame, and a dice game that’s barely a game.
April 5th, 2014 is International Tabletop Day!
This year will be the second annual International Tabletop Day. Founded by Geek & Sundry of Tabletop fame, this is a day meant to celebrate the awesomeness of board games and card games. There are a ton of official and unofficial events happening around the world which should be fun to take part in. Head over to the website and track one down near you.
I’m actually getting my brain scanned on the morning of for research purposes, but I may make a stop at my local board game store afterwards to check out what’s going on. Also, Steff and I might host our own board game day at our place with everyone that’s coming with us for the brain scan. You don’t need to give me excuses to play more board games, but I’ll gladly take this one!
Ticket to Ride on iPhone Review
I’ve been buying board games on iOS since the launch of the app store. However, my collection of board games consists of mainstream titles like Monopoly, Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit. Now that I’ve expanded my horizons when it comes to physical board games, it’s about time that I revamp my iOS collection as well. First on my new list is Ticket to Ride; a personal favourite of mine.
Saving The World Alone in Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game
Board games and card games to me have mainly been a social pursuit. I never really put much thought into playing these games alone, nor did I really have much desire to do so. Of late though, I’ve had a desire to play Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game without anyone to play with. After doing some snooping around in the Board Game Geek forums, it turns out that playing it alone is a popular way to go. Within that community, they even make challenges for everyone to try out and players report back on their results. Curious, I set up all of the cards for a solo battle with Marvel’s most devious supervillains.
Board Game “Weight”
Board Game Geek has a system that allows gamers to rate games based on “Weight”. They don’t actually mean in terms of pounds or kilograms, but it’s often interpreted as a measure of complexity/learning curve/game length/etc. It’s a 1-5 scale where 1 is light, 2 is light medium, 3 is medium, 4 is medium heavy and 5 is heavy. This feature is seldom used, though I think there’s enough data in most of the games I play to make it somewhat useful.
One day, I was really bored and I looked up the scores of the games I own. I’m not sure what sort of result I was looking for, but I felt kind of weird knowing that my average game weight was 1.9 out of 5.
Turning Formula D Into a Mario Kart Board Game
After a hilarious 4-player Formula D session filled with collisions, reckless driving and driving movie jokes, a light bulb went off in my head. I said out loud, “Couldn’t we make a Mario Kart version of Formula D?” The answer from the group was, “Yes.” Though we packed up the game after that and moved on with our lives, I’ve been thinking through the logistics of creating a Mario Kart variant ever since.
The Importance of Theme in a Board Game
We’ve been taught since the dawn of time (or at least since the dawn of books) to not judge a book by its cover. Well, when it comes to board games, cover-judging has been a huge part of my decision-making process. Before making inroads with the scene a few years ago, I’d be immediately off-put just by looking at any visual material for games like Dungeons & Dragons, Warhammer or Magic: The Gathering. I dislike pretty much everything medieval fantasy across all forms of media, which acts as a deal-breaker for these and many other designer board games long before I could judge it on its merits.
King of Tokyo and Coup Added to the List of Awesome Board Games You Should Play
Both King of Tokyo and Coup share the basic concept of power struggle between them, but they go about them very differently. One involves dice and and the other one makes heavy use of bluffing as a mechanic. Both are a lot of fun and work well at parties. Check out the full list here!
Some Thoughts Before The Release of DC Comics Deck-Building Game: Heroes Unite
Just before Christmas, I had a pre-order in place for DC Comics Deck-Building Game: Heroes Unite. I like the first game for what it is, and this standalone game also acts as an expansion for it. However, common sense got the best of me when I realized that putting my money down for this now would just cut Steff off from one potential gift idea. As it turns out, the game would get pushed back to February 26th.
Though this would have been a done deal by had it come out during its initial release window, but now I’m not so sure if this is deserving of my money.
In Third Person 