Give the online version of this classic board game a try here. The graphics and play may be simple, but it delivers!

Pah, I don't know why I invited her to this. My quality of blog control has just had a negative correlation with the popularity - although I suppose that is a good thing.

I think I'm pretty enough to get away with it. Zander is now perched on the sofa that he's dragged over.. and we can begin our insightful entry. (My troops are currently obliterating the world under Matt's control..oddly.)

I could really do with a Galaxy bar right now... I really feel like chocolate! I thought I would be insightful, but to be honest, I don't really care. Tried watching the latest sxephil video, but Caroline disapproved of that nonsense. Silly Caroline. I really don't feel like talking much. It's my night off :) I think it's because I've come to the time in my life where I have to fend off competitors, sports fans, and of course, Caroline's brother. It's a love-not-so-much-love relationship.

Zander is currently judging my boyfriend while attempting to swop ownership of Alex - she is rather pretty, I'm not picky. I'm currently DJing our Risk evening, where Matt is turning into a ditactor of the People's Republic.. and the Goo Goo Dolls are making me smile. "They've actually altered the map so that Italy looks more like a boot,".. Owen's gems never fail, right? I'm invading Owen currently, it's a bit of a war ground.

All this sounds like a bit of an innuendo. To be honest, everything could sound like an innuendo if you wanted it to - and some people really fight for everything you say to be initiated in their hall of fame of fantastic lines. Alex is eating Zander now.. but it's true.

"If only Stacey was on my team."

Haha Matt, innuendo about Zander's sister!

Alex speaking: I hate it when zanders decides to segregate himself from the rest of us simpletons and write this blog, I believe its a good idea as he actually writes more than he talks however he does tend to ignore the rest of us. OH DEAR GOD IVE JUST BEEN INVADED AND LOST! On another rather pointless note, zanders seems annoyed at me being sat on his lap, maybe im causing him pain, maybe severe, ah well he'll recover I'm sure of it :P

Night, mniz.

"When you threaten Poland, you perhaps forget that it is not 1988," Rice said to Polish reporters in Warsaw. "It's 2008 and the United States has a ... firm treaty guarantee to defend Poland's territory as if it was the territory of the United States. So it's probably not wise (for Russia) to throw these threats around."

Rice was asked by a reporter if she was totally insane or merely acting totally insane for trying to encircle Russians with U.S. weapons and then verbally threatening them.

"When you suggest that I'm totally insane, you perhaps forget that it is not 1988 and I'm not getting my first lobotomy at the hospital," she said. "It's 2008 and the rest of my brain has a firm grasp of how Armageddon should start. War with Russia would be pretty cool."

Rice also insisted that the U.S. is "within its rights" to purchase the governments of Russia's neighboring countries in order to place U.S. missiles and troops in them.

"Anyone who has played the strategy board game RISK knows that you always attack Russia last, because it's so big," she said. "That's not crazy. It's just good strategy."

Rice then went on to explain the merits of attacking Russia's Kamchatka region from Alaska.

(Photo obtained from Condoleezza Rice's private medical file)

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/4471

This is a game of closed bid first price auction. Don't go by reviews, get it and try it out yourself. It is really innovative with the right mix of strategy, chance and excitement. I am thinking of trying out second price auction on it. The modification will require some thought, since to make the repeated auctions for different items interesting, the auction involves a concept of locking up the bid amount temporarily.

Universal & Hasbro present ouija board movies:

Working with Universal, Hasbro has lined up big screen versions of the Ouija board.

FULL ARTICLE:
Hasbro & Universal to make board game-based movies

Board games might seem like a wet Sunday afternoon kinda thing, but Hollywood is hoping there is some movie mileage in a crossover between films and the family favourites. Toy company Hasbro has peddled traditional movie tie-in toys for years, with Transformers, Spider-Man and Star Wars providing big pay-days. But it’s looking for a new direction and wants films to copy games, rather than the other way round. Working with Universal, Hasbro has already lined up big screen versions of Candy Land and Ouija, while Ridley Scott has announced plans to direct a Monopoly movie. What – no Scrabble? This new venture gives Hasbro greater control over the use of their brands and according to their chief executive, Brian Golner, is a way to “reinvent” its decades old games. But is there a market for board game-based movies? Clue, an 80s film riffing on the popular who-dunnit game, Cluedo was a box office flop, and already questions are being raised. David Klein, the senior director of the New York Film Academy has his doubts: “There are three basic elements to any story,” he says. “There needs to be a heroic character; there needs to be an objector and there needs to be conflict. Those three things don’t necessarily exist in most board games.” Richard Walter, a screenwriting professor at UCLA, adds that he finds “it depressing to think that someone someday is going to actually utter the words, “Let’s go see the movie Monopoly.” But more importantly, who will they cast to play the moustachioed Monopoly man? MORE PSYCHIC ENTERTAINMENT: The Ouija Game | Psychic Medium | Virtual Ouija Board Pagan | Tarot Readings | Psychic Readings

]]> http://mropgd.wordpress.com/?p=9 Sun, 17 Aug 2008 19:48:49 +0000 mrop http://mropgd.wordpress.com/?p=9 Last weekend was rather busy, so I have moved that week's post to this weekend instead.

"There is little opportunity for interesting decision making due to a lack of meaningful choices and strategies."

Is there really no so called "strategic depth" in Risk? Strategic depth can be described as the amount and variety of choices the player can make regarding his overarching plan to solve a problem (i.e. strategy), as well as the way these decisions interact with each other. In Risk, there is one goal, and one problem to solve: Global Domination. The only way to win is to eliminate all other players, and how is that accomplished? By slowly taking more and more of their territories until you produce and control more armies than your enemy, thus increasing your chances of taking more territories faster.

This long war of attrition is really not that much fun, but suppose we mix it up by adding other objectives in the game? This has been done in newer variants of Risk, by introducing so called Mission Cards. Mission cards are dealt out to the players at the start of the game, and if one player completes his objective, he wins. This is a good way to shorten the game to a more manageable length. However, the drawn out, boring battles still exist, since the objectives are all about conquest: eliminate a player, conquer a certain amount of territories, et cetera. Adding peaceful means of victory would probably not be very appreciated in a wargame; we must therefore make sure combat contains more planning and strategic manoeuvres and less dice rolling and odds calculation. Combat will not be addressed here, as that would be  too much text for one post (and I am tired).

To add more strategic depth, one has to add more elements to the game, and thus increasing its complexity. Still, we cannot let the game become too complex, as Risk is a family/light wargame at heart. We therefore have to make sure we add as little as possible, while making sure the new elements and mechanics interact with each other and the ones already in place. We also have to integrate these new features by making them at least somewhat similar to the old mechanics of Risk. One such example are fleets. Fleets can act as the buoyant equivalent of an army, moving between different sea zones, and thus share many of the same rules. Fleets main roles would be to support land attacks through bombardment, protect supply lines (I will detail my thoughts on supply in a future post) and protect/intercept transports. Transports would simply be armies that are moving across water, with no ability to fight sea battles and thus would be easy prey for an enemy fleet. Adding a naval aspect of risk would increase complexity a bit, and would also make the board less rigid, with naval invasions a possibility (or danger!).

I will propose and evaluate more additions and rule changes in future posts, which will be relevant to less general topics than today's.

The professor is getting 86'ed, and the colonel is history, too.

Colonel Mustard is now Jack Mustard, a former football player. And the professor has become Victor Plum, a billionaire video game designer.

The weapons are getting a makeover. No more pipe, revolver or wrench. New Clue weapons are a dumbbell, trophy and poison.

New rooms include a theater, spa and a guest house.

The updated Clue goes on sale in the fall.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)

Having succesfully found our reference books, the gf took me to the Chocolate Bar, where they have outrageously overpriced (but delicious) chocolate in various forms. It was worth going to, but not worth the cost for repeat visits.

The main point for the day was for me to meet the gf's friends from high school. One of their favorate haunts is a tapioca drink place that has a stack of board games that you can play while eating/drinking. We met them there, started the gaming with shithead (pronounce it "shi-thead" to keep it civil) and ended it with Trivial Pursuit (from 1981). The trivia game went on far too long, and was too old for us youngins to be as successful as we would have liked.

We then went to Hungry's for dinner, which was delicious (especially the fries). That pretty much closed out the day.

Doom and destruction arrives (once again) in Arkham in the form of a museum exhibit from Egypt.  Everyone knows that digging up ancient Egyptian relics leads to Bad Things. In this case mummies and just plain old curses.

Curse of the Dark Pharaoh is the first official expansion for Arkham Horror and as such it has a few minor additions that make this little beast worth picking up. As noted in earlier posts, I will be reviewing all the expansions for Arkham Horror, but in no particular order.  So read on and beware...beware...

This expansion is a small one (i.e. costs less and has less stuff than the larger expansions) but there is still quite a lot of content in the little box: New methos cards, encounter (otherworldly and Arkham) cards, spells, exhibit items (relics), a few more ally cards, "Barred from the Neighbourhood" cards, and finally specialised blessings (Benefit) and curses (Detriment) cards.

Exhibit items are special relics which can only be obtained through Arkham and otherworldly encounters.  They can be seen as unique items that cannot be sold and as unique items can be found where unique items are usually found (except at the curio shop). Most of the encounters and methos cards hinge off the relics, so getting one as fast as possible is usually a good strategy.  Especially when there are mummies in the streets.

The otherworldly encounter cards (Gate cards) come in new dual colours.  They generally are for a specific other-world and they are generally bad especially since not going to that other-world spawns a monster (evade! evade! damn).  The methos cards are no less deadly.  Some simply increase the doom track by two and terror track by one but as consolation places one clue token on an unreachable location.  Another methos card creates mummies on every street (think zombies but with an extra toughness).  Only if the investigator has a relic do they go about their own business. And did I mention that there are no trophies for fighting these mummies?

The "Barred from the neighbourhood", Benefit and Detriment cards seem to be more small annoyances than game breakers.  They seem to be quite easy to get rid of and do little to influence the game.  They do add some flavour though and Arkham Horror is all about the flavour.  For instance, "Barred from the neighbourhood" is gained per neighbourhood (area) in Arkham from Arkham encounters and discarded when the terror level increases. There are many other neighbourhoods to visit and when doesn't the terror level increase?  It must be said though, that sometimes just being shunted into the street means the investigator is guarenteed a trip to the asylum or hospital.

Benefit cards are specialised blessings which, again, may or may not be useful but then again, every little bit helps in a game like this.  Detriment cards are specialised curses. But unlike curses they can be removed with a great deal less difficulty.  Course that depends on the investigator.

Nyarlathotep is the Ancient One of note in this expansion (the actual Old One card is in the base game).  Nyarlathotep brings out all those nasty mask creatures and loves to eat the investigators clues.  If Nyarlathotep is the Ancient One while playing with this expansion, mask relics are made available.  The mask relics allow players to use the special abilities of other specific investigators. Useful. How to defeat Nyarlathote? Hope that not too many mask monsters appear and hoard as many clue tokens as possible (without dying).

The King in Yellow expansion introduced the tattered king as a herald for Hastur.  As an added bonus the herald for Nyarlathotep can be downloaded here: The Dark Pharaoh himself. And he is especially nasty with this expansion. Download with care. (Heralds can be used with any Ancient One but are especially nasty with their specific Ancient One.)

Until next time: Roll 1 for curses.

println("foo");

Next up is a automatic hired gun generator. Just pick what type of hired gun you'd like to include in your gang, and generate a complete character, ready to be added to your gang. If you're feeling really brave select random, and see what you get.

I love using the 18/0 brush! It is the absolute best for getting into the the little nooks and corners, especially the eyes. Painting the zombie was a bit more of a challenge than the skeletons and the mummies since there are facial features, creases in clothing, and hair to take into consideration this time. I like the way he came out, although I should make the next zombie less green. I did not have rust color for the axe, so I just dabbled some bestial brown on there and it seemed to work out all right.

The back of the zombie threw me for a loop a couple of times. My first time painting hair. Not too proud of it. It ended up looking like seaweed or sewage slosh, but I guess if you're the undead it works out all the better. I drybrushed his hair with black and added a bit of Badab Black wash at the end.

By the way, I'm not sure what those things sticking out down the middle of his jacket are. At first I thought it is his spine poking through the shirt, but that doesn't make any sense. The rest of him is so meaty after all. Come to think of it, he's pretty wholesome for a zombie. Maybe they're great big stitches. I've got no clue, so I just painted them red with the jacket. Whatever they are, least they match the apparel. :D

- The King in Yellow

For those that know not the dark mysteries that is Arkham Horror, cast thine eyes here, for without this knowledge , that which follows will be incomprehensible and can only lead to insanity...

Looking back, I realise that my original Arkham Horror board game review wasn't much of a review.  It was more for people who have played it rather than introducing it to new players.  I feel it needs a more in-depth re-review, but that I will leave for another time. For this post, I will assume that the basics of the game are known, since you can't play an expansion without the game itself. I will be reviewing the expansions in no particular order.  For instance, this post is about the third expansion to Arkham Horror: The King in Yellow. On with the horror...

The play (the thing with actors on a stage), "The King in Yellow", has come to Arkham. This spells doom (literally, or should I say, as usual) to all the investigators.  The main feature of this expansion is the herald that, well, heralds the coming of an ancient one.  The King in Yellow, in the cthulhu methos, heralds the coming of Hastur, but in the expansion the tattered king may serve as a herald for any of the Ancient Ones.

What does the herald do?  When the terror level increases in Arkham, either a yellow sign is placed on the doom track (awakening the Ancient one that much faster), or a yellow sign is placed on the just vacated space in the terror track.  When this happens a random blighted character card is revealed and blights up Arkham.  The blighters are characters the investigators would normally meet during encounters in Arkham. However, once a blighted character is revealed, it not only gives a horrible global effect but also negates any (usually favourable) encounters with that character. One of the blighted characters (Doyle Jeffries) starts riots in the streets (3 new monsters) that are better left alone. Another (Miriam Beecher) increases the sanity cost of all spells by one (this one hurts spellcasters, a lot).

As if that wasn't bad enough, the new methos cards are vicious.  For example the "Intermission" card simply states that the terror track increases by two.  With a herald, this is devastating.  New methos rumo(u)r cards also hurt since they immediately increase the doom track by two and have no "Success" option.  These rumour cards are made of Fail. Luckily they have some method of avoiding the cards effect. For instance the "Tattered King" card devours all investigators in the streets when the card triggers.  The streets are a bad place. Stay indoors.

The worst is the "The Next Act Begins" methos cards.  Three of these in quick succession means the investigators lose. The First Act can be prevented by adding two doom tokens to the doom track.  This is cheap compared to the following acts.  Investigators should do this as often as possible since once this act is in, that is where it stays.  No going back.  When another "The Next Act Begins" methos card is revealed and Act I is in play, then Act II comes into play unless two elder sign tokens (call them sealed gates) are removed from the board. i.e. Unsealing two gates, when you need 6 sealed gates to win.  That hurts. but its better than Act III.  When another "The Next Act Begins" methos card and Act II is already in play, Act III is revealed.  There is no Act III in the play.  Act III is death. Game over. Thanks for playing. Come again.

If this expansion is so geared to making players lose, why get it?  If you feel you need to make your Arkham Horror game even more difficult, this expansion is great. But its not all bad. It also adds unique and common items as well as more spells. Spells of note add semi-permanent magical effects to an investigator (at the low low cost of 1 sanity per upkeep).  Maybe these don't have the raw power of other spells, but in this game you make the best of what you get.  Plus the ability to be immune to curses is nothing to be sneered at.

All in all this expansion adds the added difficulty of a herald, which, I feel, is not counterbalanced by the new items/spells/encounters.  But this is Arkham Horror. Investigators are not supposed to win that often. So if you find you are winning your Arkham Horror games more than half of the time, the herald is a must.  The herald is optional though, and simply playing with the new items/spells/encounters may make for a slightly easier game. Maybe.

Until next time:  Don't be devoured.

println("foo");

The bonuses also determine the dramatic arc of the game. My games usually follow a pattern: an expansion from the centre following one of the diagonal lines of double word scores into one corner and then another. The triples are particularly hard to reach and their use marks a milestone in the drama of the game, with the possibility of a major turn-around in the scoring. Once a corner is "full" there is a lull as a new phase in the game begins as play expands into another corner.

Wordscraper, by eliminating predefined boards, loses this sense of drama. Randomly generated boards don't offer the same choices or the same progression. Big bonuses arrive far too haphazardly, upsetting the scoreboard without the same build-up of careful negotiation. The work of game design is being neglected.

Boards can of course be adjusted by players, and some players may enjoy the process of inventing their own boards, but I predict the majority of casual game players will be disappointed. The default generated boards are simply not fun to play on. It is one thing to provide a level-editor as an addition to your designed content; it is another thing to provide no designed content at all.

I think Wordscraper could be rescued if:

1. They provided a small number of pre-designed boards which matched the quality of Scrabble's careful layout, and
2. They provided players with the ability to share boards so that the average player can enjoy the work of the more skilled and motivated board designers.

Even so, I doubt that the design space is really rich enough to support innovative player-designed content. Is there another interesting board layout that is sufficiently different to the Scrabble standard to make it worthwhile setting up and playing? If they added more parameters than just the placement of bonuses (board size? hexagonal tiles?), maybe, but as it stands I think it unlikely.

In homage to Manveer Heir, I'd like to draw two design lessons:

Lesson one: Level design is a important part of game design. A good mechanism can be ruined by careless level layout. Use random levels with caution.

Lesson two: Level-editors should be provided in addition to well-designed content, not as a replacement for it. Level editors are pointless if the design space is not big enough to create interestingly different levels.

Since RPGs commonly use the mechanic of leveling up and character attributes to determine the abilities of a hero, Dokapon Kingdom stays true to convention and utilizes experience points to serve as the basis for a character's level and capabilities. In addition to contending against the monsters on the board, the other players in the game also serve as opposition by casting deleterious spells against each other.

How to play othello!

CONTENTS:

- Othello game board has 64 squares, plus storage compartments with roll-down

covers on both sides for discs.
- 64 discs: white on one side, black on the other.

PREPARATION

Fill each compartment with 32 discs.

OBJECT OF THE GAME

To outflank your opponent and flip your opponent's discs to your color, ending up with the majority of discs on the board in your color.

DEFINITION OF "TO OUTFLANK"

TO OUTFLANK means to place a disc so that you have a disc of your color at each end of an opponent's row of discs of his color. (Rule No. 4 below illustrates this further.)

GAME RULES
1. Each player chooses one color to use throughout the game.

2. Black places two black discs, and White places two white discs on the board as shown in Figure 1. The game always begins with this set-up.

3. Players choose who goes first.

4. A move consists of taking a disc from the compartment and placing it so that it completes the outflanking of one or more opposite color discs, then flipping the outflanked disc(s) over to your color.

For example, white disc A is already in place on the board. By the placement of white disc B, the black row of discs has been outflanked.

Thus. all the captured discs are flipped and this row becomes . . .

5. A PLAYER MUST ALWAYS OUTFLANK HIS OPPONENT AND FLIP AT LEAST ONE OPPOSING DISC IN ORDER TO MOVE.
If he cannot make a move, he loses his turn and his opponent moves.

6. A disc may outflank any number of opposing discs in one or more rows. (A row may be one disc or many discs in a straight line.)

7.A disc may outflank in any direction: horizontal, vertical, diagonal, forward or backward.

8. A disc may outflank in any number of directions at the same time. (Theoretically, it is possible to flip in up to 8 directions at once.) DISCS MAY ONLY BE FLIPPED AS A DIRECT RESULT OF A MOVE.

9. The game is over when the board is entirely filled with discs, or when it is not possible for either player to move (i.e., out flank an opponent's row and flip an opponent's disc), or when the board is filled (or partially filled) with all one color.
At this point, discs are counted up. The player with the most discs is the winner.

That is how you pay othello! So here is the main part of this post.

Ilan vs. Housten

So we started out normally as usual. Housten got off to a quick start quickly capturing the bottom-right hand corner. He then began to expand his black empire. While my white pieces were slowly decreasing in number. I made a interesting move by capturing the top area and top-right hand corner. Housten countered quickly with more quick expansions! Soon i was able to capture the bottom-left corner. Pushing Housten's forces back. So housten disided to go upward and try to capture my heavily guarded top-left corner. His attempts failed but eventually he found an opening and stuck the corner. This allowed him to capture the middle and bottom parts. It all of a sudden left me with very few pieces. I still had about 30 of the 60 on the playing field but with so little pieces left to be placed i had very little time to recooperate. Eventually Housten nocked out a few more pieces and the game was won by Housten. Here is how the field looked at the end of the match.

Housten 33- Ilan 31

Please tell me your favorite board game and experiences. What makes the game so fun!

Just as I suspected, Scrabble was in no way prepared to handle the fallout caused by their forced shut down of popular clone Scrabulous:

"We'll be back up shortly," an apologetic error message read. "We're working on some tech problems and Scrabble will be ready to play as soon as possible!" The game is slated to exit the beta phase in the middle of next month, and some (my colleague Rafe Needleman among them) initially found it to be a better-quality game experience than Scrabulous had been.

But in the wake of a server crash, Facebook users weren't too pleased, as the message wall for the Scrabble application revealed. "Wow, does this suck," one Facebook user wrote. "Why can't you guys work out a licensing deal with the Scrabulous boys? Now we're back to square one and have to go through all of your debugging process." (via)

Not only did they fail to provide Scrabulous users with a valid alternative, they increased the level of overall dislike already aimed their way.

Nice work, Hasbro.

Related articles by Zemanta

• What Do I Do Now?
• Scrabble Kills Scrabulous - Backlash Brewing?

After months of wondering what they would do, Hasbro acted and has forced Facebook to take down the unauthorized clone of Scrabble, the extremely popular Scrabulous.

"If you try to pull up the popular game, you get the following message: “Scrabulous is disabled for U.S. and Canadian users until further notice. If you would like to stay informed about developments in this matter, please click here.” If you click, you get a form from the Scrabulous founders asking for your e-mail address so they can keep you posted on further developments."(via)

Here's the big question: will Scrabulous users be so mad at Hasbro that they will go find new games to play or will they decide that they really want to play Scrabble and if the only way to do that is through the official site, so be it?

Of course, much will depend on whether or not the official version works as well as the clone.  Hasbro better hope it does or they could be dead on arrival.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Glaser on Scrabulous: "Silly" Split Rights For Scrabble Led To This
• Scrabble is suing Scrabulous for using too many letters...and that whole Facebook thing
• Lawsuit spells trouble for Facebook's Scrabulous