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Links: Designers Talk, Gaming World Records & Are Your Gaming Preferences Holding You Back?

Posted by W. Eric Martin

08 May 2011

W. Eric Martin

(W Eric Martin)

United States
Apex
North Carolina

• Designer Bruno Faidutti has posted a report of the XVIIth Ludopathic Gathering, an event he organizes annually in Etourvy, France, which looks like the nicest countryside setting you'd ever want to play games in. If you think packing for the trip home from Spiel is tough, you should take a lesson from the wünderkind who packed this car.

• Steve Jackson has posted designer notes for Munchkin Zombies on the SJG website.

• Designer Andy Looney spoke at Savannah College of Art & Design in February 2011, talking about his approach to game design. Looney's write-up of the talk in The Looney Labs Fan Club includes a handout titled "How I Design a Game" that includes straightforward advice like "simplify", "repeat until fun" and the ever-popular "get defensive and brood".

• U.S. publisher Tasty Minstrel Games is importing Spiel 2010 releases Magnum Sal and Sun, Sea & Sand, but making the games available only as a direct purchase through TMG for the moment. For details, head to this link for Magnum Sal and this link for SSS.

• Sean Ross' Haggis is now playable online at Board Game Arena, where Ross is currently ranked #2 in the standings. Sign up and try to knock him down.

• Laurent Escoffier and Marc Tabourin's Photo Party is available as an iOS app, which seems like an ideal blending of game design and technology.

• Scott Nicholson is featured in an article in The Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY) about his efforts to have games available in libraries as a community resource.

• In his blog Talking Game, Eric Franklin explains the benefit of breaking through your game preferences: "When we reach past our preferences, we sometimes find games we would otherwise have missed. And some of these games may become favorites, if we give them a chance." Sometimes, of course, we just waste our time and reinforce why we have those preferences to begin with, but not always – and those odd counter-tidal finds are sometimes more enjoyable for being so unexpected.

• James Sheahan has started recording Gaming World Records on his MetaGames blog following a trip through the Himilayas in Nepal. While you might not be able to top his "World's Highest Altitude Boardgaming Record", Sheahan invites you to submit gaming-related world records of your own.

• Even The New York Times dishes out a thimbleful of hate for Monopoly in its review of Under the Boardwalk, a documentary about the game from Kevin Tostado: "Monopoly, slow-moving and dependent largely on chance, is no spectator sport." Still haven't watched this movie as I appear in it and am not eager to see myself on screen – someday I'll take the plunge...

9 Comments

Sun May 8, 2011 6:30 am

Post Comment

Sean Ross

(seandavidross)

Canada
North Vancouver
British Columbia

Quote:

• Sean Ross' Haggis is now playable online at Board Game Arena, where Ross is currently ranked #2 in the standings. Sign up and try to knock him down.

Currently #1!

Posted Sun May 8, 2011 6:47 am
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Huzonfirst

(Larry Levy)

United States
Manassas
Virginia

San Antonio, OKC, Miami, and Boston..who will win out?

A lot of people talk about proselytizing games and many folks do a good job of that. But when it comes to bringing gaming to non-gamers in a meaningful and lasting way, I'm not sure anyone is doing as good a job, with multiple efforts, as Scott Nicholson. Well done, sir.

Posted Sun May 8, 2011 8:06 am
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Jeffrey Allers

(jeffinberlin)

Germany
Berlin

Games in public libraries is a great idea. Even more important is to then have local gamers meet in those libraries for their gaming days/nights in order to give the public the chance to be taught the games. Otherwise, I fear, the games will only languish in the libraries' shelves. Having to read and understand game rules is the single largest hurdle for most people who do not play these kinds of games regularly.

In reducing my collection, I've donated several games to the children's library down the street. I've advertised my game nights there (which take place a block away), but still want to have a "family game day" in the library as well, as people seem to prefer meeting in a familiar place.

Posted Sun May 8, 2011 9:30 am
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Ben Wang

(benwang)

United States
west covina
California

seandavidross wrote:

Quote:

• Sean Ross' Haggis is now playable online at Board Game Arena, where Ross is currently ranked #2 in the standings. Sign up and try to knock him down.

Currently #1!

Now back to #2

Posted Sun May 8, 2011 3:16 pm
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Sean Ross

(seandavidross)

Canada
North Vancouver
British Columbia

benwang wrote:

seandavidross wrote:

Quote:

• Sean Ross' Haggis is now playable online at Board Game Arena, where Ross is currently ranked #2 in the standings. Sign up and try to knock him down.

Currently #1!

Now back to #2

Dang!

Posted Sun May 8, 2011 4:38 pm
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Will

(Yargo)

United States
Fresno
California

Quote:

"When we reach past our preferences, we sometimes find games we would otherwise have missed. And some of these games may become favorites, if we give them a chance." Sometimes, of course, we just waste our time and reinforce why we have those preferences to begin with, but not always – and those odd counter-tidal finds are sometimes more enjoyable for being so unexpected.

Same thing with reading books. If you have particular authors, publishers, genres, then you tend to stay with those. Once in a while you might branch out and try something else, sometimes its really good, but probably more often its not.

The main problem is that we as human beings have a limited amount of free time, and we have to limit the things we do to occupy that free time. Being creatures of habit, we've learned that some categories of things to do in that free time give us enjoyment, and we tend to stay with those known quantities. We can do things we know we enjoy, or try new things with more risk of not enjoying them. Not to mention that other habit of disliking change

So hey, where's that time dilation device? I'd like to play more games and even try out more games

Edited Mon May 9, 2011 4:40 am
Posted Mon May 9, 2011 4:39 am
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Eric Franklin

(Gamethyme)

United States
Everett
Washington

He sees you when you're sleeping; he knows when you're awake ...

He knows if you've been bad or good.

Yargo wrote:

The main problem is that we as human beings have a limited amount of free time, and we have to limit the things we do to occupy that free time. Being creatures of habit, we've learned that some categories of things to do in that free time give us enjoyment, and we tend to stay with those known quantities. We can do things we know we enjoy, or try new things with more risk of not enjoying them. Not to mention that other habit of disliking change

So hey, where's that time dilation device? I'd like to play more games and even try out more games

I get to play games for three to five hours per week, minimum. A pretty wide variety of games, too (or so I'd like to believe).

It's a matter of adjusting your priorities and then sticking to your guns.

How much TV do you watch in a week? Do you have a DVR? I watch a few hours a week - but, because I have a DVR, I force it to fit my schedule rather than trying to rearrange my schedule for the TV.

Make gaming a priority - and don't limit the gathering to gaming alone.

Nearly ten years ago I started opening my home to my friends (for gaming and socializing around the games) one night per week (Wednesdays). And then I told all of my friends what I was doing. The non-gaming friends came for the socializing, and the gaming friends came for the games. The non-gaming friends nearly always tried a game or two within a few weeks (and some of them are core members of the group these days).

Have we played some duds? Yes we have. Do I regret the time spent playing these duds? Not really - even a bad game with friends is time better spent than sitting in front of your TV.

Eric

Posted Mon May 9, 2011 5:22 am
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Will

(Yargo)

United States
Fresno
California

Gamethyme wrote:

Oh I agree. I was generalizing. But even so, my points applied to you in a general fashion. You've found that gaming is more fun than TV, so you do things you consider less fun less often and board gaming more often since you've made it a priority in your limited free time.

Personally, many of the people I play games with love to play new games. Plus the guy who hosts our normal tuesday game nights has over 1000 games, so we end up playing lots of new games (both new to me and newly released). That one game night alone can go over 6 hours (he usually hosts from 6:30pm to 1am or later).
Then there's the Wednesday night at the FLGS which does RPG encounters. I still haven't tried that, but I want to at some pont. Then the thursday board game night at the FLGS. I've done that before. Then the Friday board game night at the local university. There's a new university board game club that was started up recently by a professor who has gone to WBC. I played a 12 player saboteur 2 game there this past friday. Followed by a 3 player saboteur 2 game, which interestingly enough I enjoyed far more, so much so I just submitted a review on it. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/650543/this-game-is-a-bl...
Then there's saturday with a different gaming group, sometimes my relatives/cousins for a big chunk of the day, sometimes with another gaming group. And I found out recently there's still more people that meet at FLGS for sunday afternoon board gaming, enough that the FLGS is going to extend the store hours, so I've gone there before on Sunday afternoon too. Oh and BTW, this FLGS is really cool. They opened this year. Prior to that, there was only a LS in the city (it was not only missing the F it was missing the G since they tended to have things like german copies of Catan, and used paperback books. Oh and a few things of dice, I think I bought a pound of dice from the LS once, that was about it). This new FLGS has a nice game selection, among other things such as a good selection of cardsleeves (not just the standard sizes but things like the mayday 7th wonders sleeves), a large selection of dice (not only in the packs, but in singles to pick out cool die, in pounds of dice, and even a variety of blank dice which I've been eyeing to use in some game pimping projects), cool accessories such as dice bags and things. And they are willing to order just about anything for you (I ordered those POD space hulk death angel card game expansions, and a battle foam set for my space hulk 3rd ed, saves me money on shipping costs, and they often order a bunch of stuff at once from the vendors so it works out for them too). They also have a fair amount of gaming space for people to game, and a large variety of games they host and have open gaming too. Plus they have demo copies of a lot of games (I still want to try out their demo copy of Mansions of Madness). They also have game rentals so people can rent out a board game, take it home and try it, and apply half of the rental fee to the cost of a board game if they end up buying it.
Here's the FLGS link if anyone is interested.
http://www.crazysquirrelgamestore.com/

Anyway, I can do board gaming almost every day of the week around here, and I ocasionally even do that.

Edited Mon May 9, 2011 6:19 am
Posted Mon May 9, 2011 5:54 am
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Will

(Yargo)

United States
Fresno
California

On a differant note

Gamethyme wrote:

Not really - even a bad game with friends is time better spent than sitting in front of your TV.

For the most part I'd agree. But then I have a friend who got roped into a 16 hour session of Twilight Imperium (his first and now probably only) at the last kublacon with the expansion where everyone else knew each other and formed alliances with everyone but him, and weren't interested in progressing the game, only in turtling and building up massive maxed out forces. Oh and keeping my friend from expanding while they pursued thier own game. They apparently were all enjoying themselves but he understandably wasn't. I can only imagine that they weren't playing with the take a point action card from the expansion, since there's no way the game should have dragged on like that with that card in there. I've played 2 or 3 games with the expansion and 8 players, and they were more like 6 hours.
Now, granted, those weren't friends he was playing with. But personally if something like that happened to me, at some point long before 16 hours I'd probably say "guys, its been interesting, but this game doesn't look to be going anywhere. Since this game has player elimination anyway, it wont ruin anything if I concede, so I'm going to wish you guys good luck"

Granted, thats a fairly extreme case, but it demonstrates why many people would often rather play games in their comfort zone, than try something else.

Edited Mon May 9, 2011 6:22 am
Posted Mon May 9, 2011 6:14 am
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