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Selah Fairport
United States
Allen
Texas
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I got involved with Second Life almost two years ago. one of the first things I fell in love with was the huge gaming community. My very first month in I entered a month-long game triathlon that used three of SL's best board games. I was amazed to find out that not only were these games wildly popular, and you could earn SL money in tournaments, but that these games were all ports of real life board games (according to the game designer he even had official permission even to create these).
The first one I fell in love with was Can't Stop. The stop sign board is built as a table, that spins to face each player. A heads-up GUI display shows you what columns/numbers you can work on based on your dice roll. Sounds highlight your zonks, column nabs, and your win even has fireworks exploding over your chair. I had to buy the game in real life, which sadly doesn't have the cute sounds or the fireworks, but I still love to play. I am glad to see this game is going back into print, and hope that a lot of the Second Life players have helped keep this classic popular. From all the electronic versions I have seen, the SL version has the best layout and graphics for the board and dice options by far. If an iOS app ever gets made, they really need to talk to the designer of the SL game!
The second game I learned was En Garde. Of course the fencing game comes to life since you are playing as a full-sized avatar with epees, and actually battle each other. I did not know this was a real board game until just recently. I would love to play this as an iOS game, since on SL there is an ELO ranking system that has people afraid and sometimes unwilling to play newbies or other people with lower rank. And of you go too long without a game on record your rank disappears and you have to start all over, which usually happens to me.
The last game I really enjoy playing, but is harder to play because it's more difficult to find the minimum number of players, is Frootcake. I just figured out tonight that Frootcake is really No Thanks! The shocker here is how much more of a theme the game has in SL compared to the real game! In SL the game is played at a grouping of tables. The center table pops open to reveal a cake with a number on it, which represents the weight of the cake. Your goal is to get stuck with as few total ounces of fruitcake as possible. Stacks of consecutive sized cakes magically only equal the weight of the highest (lightest) tier. The person with the smallest total weight of cakes at the end of the game wins. I don't know how the SL designer got cakes out of the nonexistent theme in No Thanks, but it totally works. It's also created a slew of funny sound clips players use when trash talking during the game like "Cake Jacker!" and "Take the cake, go on, don't pass it around, just eat it!" and shouts of "Extortion!" when we are all paying to avoid a large cake that someone actually needs for their stack. Again, if an iOS version were to come out,I would hope it would mimic this awesome design!
You may never find yourself in the huge worlds of Second Life, but if you do, you'll find these three great games and a lot more waiting for you! And if you stumble across a cockatiel wearing butterfly wings sitting at a game table, that just might be me!
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