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Caroline BlackUnited Kingdom
Braintree
Essex
Tigger playing Agricola. He lost!
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Today I was playing a game with a friend and he started reading my profile on Board Game Geek. He immediately found a spelling mistake in it. Which is pretty much par for the course. All my written work is littered with mistakes.
I have never engaged in social media before BGG. I am a very private person. Not the sort of person to post a picture of my myself or my new sports car on Facebook. Luckily my profession frowns on social media and we have strict protocols regarding what we are allowed to post so I have never bothered to join the main social media platforms. It’s a good excuse to avoid a social media presence.:strip_icc()/pic3945251.jpg)
Seize the Bean where customers leave reviews about your cafe
Although I belong to a large board game club there are not many members who frequent BGG. It has its own chat which I tend to avoid other than wishing members happy birthday or discussing what we might play.
I once remember going on a huge rant about AP on BGG only to then be mortified in case the said member read it. It was a tense couple of weeks after the thread was highlighted in The Geek Weekly.:strip_icc()/pic5918449.jpg)
Five Tribes famously AP inducing
When I started writing my blog I never imagined anyone would read it. Indeed it was more of a private exercise to try and improve my writing and edited skills. When you post something on BGG you can rely on someone to pick up your spelling mistakes and someone to expose any holes in your argument. God help you if you don’t define your terms.
I have made so many mistakes and said so many stupid things. It’s much easier to be a “lurker” on BGG. I was for a long time. Indeed there is even a microbadge for it. All you have to do is occasionally thumb a post that resonates with you.
But to post a thread or wrote a blog is exposing yourself. You feel like you’re naked, terrified that that someone is going to tear apart your argument. Writing reviews is even worse. It’s so easy to knock something. But a lot harder to put out something funny or original.:strip_icc()/pic6014661.jpg)
Modern Art
I must admit that there are some really funny reposes to blogs and threads. I think of all the sites I visit that BGG has some of the funniest and sharpest minds.
I can’t analysis gameplay or write a critical review. But I can say I like the moose start player token in A Feast for Odin or I am really looking forward to the Everdell kickstarter.:strip_icc()/pic5587370.jpg)
When you ask a rules question, you feel like such a dummy. You have spent ages scanning the rules but can’t find the answer. Needless to the person that answers, within a couple minutes, quotes the rule verbatim and actually it’s perfectly obvious.
One of the reasons I like Microbadges is that they tell people what kind of person you are. It’s a visual clue. It doesn’t rely on me saying something clever or articulating how I feel.:strip_icc()/pic6010428.png)
The Dyslexic Gamer
A blog about Euro’s with wonderful art and components
Archive for Me
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Caroline BlackUnited Kingdom
Braintree
Essex
Tigger playing Agricola. He lost!
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My first memories are playing snap and ludo. Also I remember tiddlywinks. I can remember playing drafts with my Dad and later chess. There were no cool games from my childhood. They were mostly massed produced games. As you can see I was a child on the 1960’s/1970’s. No computer games or video games. But when I was an adult I did have to take my children’s Tamagotchi’s to work to keep them alive as they were banned at school.
What struck me making this list was even back then there were games with cool components!
We had Barrel of Monkeys from an early age. One of our monkeys had his arm chewed. I can’t remember how you play this. I just remember chains of monkeys hanging from handles and hooks./pic93173.jpg)
Buckaroo! was a game I clearly remember. I really liked the cardboard shed which stored all his equipment. I suppose this was when my love of game organisation began./pic4362085.jpg)
I wanted Mouse Trap for years, finally got it and was quite disappointed with it as it rarely trapped any mice.:strip_icc()/pic573661.jpg)
I remember playing Miss World Game a lot. Interestingly it’s the first game I remember with ethnically diverse player pieces. Whilst this would now be considered completely politically incorrect now, I really derived inspiration from it. It still gives me a trill to got to places that featured in this game Monte Carlo, Los Vagas, New York, Rome...:strip_icc()/pic316542.jpg)
I still own my original childhood copy of Othello. I really like the storage solution of putting the disks in their compartment with the clear roll over cover. Also the board was green felt so it made it really nice the slide the disks across.
I still own my copy of Mastermind It has great components quality with a little storage compartments for the pegs.:strip_icc()/pic4292598.jpg)
This was the edition of Cludo we had. I really liked the realistic murder weapons with the spanner, lead piping and gun made out of metal. The rope was a piece string./pic32290.jpg)
Finally Monopoly. We played my parents 1950’s edition which had wooden houses and hotels.:strip_icc()/pic160793.jpg)
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Caroline BlackUnited Kingdom
Braintree
Essex
Tigger playing Agricola. He lost!
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Everyone has a board gaming journey. A gateway game. My gateway game was Carcassonne. This is probably my most played game. I love tile laying games and really enjoyed collecting all the expansions and promos for this. I like all the different tactics you can employ and the map as it spreads out and develops before your eyes.
Worker placement and card drafting
Agricola was my third game and it’s still in my top ten. I love worker placement and I love engine building. Viticulture Essential Edition and Snowdonia soon followed. I have a sort of love/hate relationship with card drafting. Its so frustrating when you give away a card that you need later. Favourite card drafting games include Fields of Green and The Isle of Cats. I particularly like when you have to pay for cards you draft.:strip_icc()/pic5240271.jpg)
Auction/bidding
My love of tile laying games led me to Castles of Mad King Ludwig and with it I discovered I enjoy auction, bidding and I split you choose games. What followed was a plethora of these games including Isle of Skye: From Chieftain to King, Homesteaders, Suburbia and Power Grid.
But Castles of Mad King Ludwig also has some great tile laying, with a unique spacial element as well as adjacency bonuses and set collection./pic1613105.jpg)
Strategy
Keyflower is so clever it blew me away. This was the first game that really encouraged me to think about strategy and resulted in my first ever BGG post.
Interestingly the person that responded to that post begging for help to improve my game has just done a really great strategy article on Keyflower. I have all the expansions and promos for this but actually the base game on its own is best. I rarely buy expansions for games now.
Dull artwork and Solo
I held off buying The Castles of Burgundy for ages due to the dull artwork and poor component quantity. But in the end I succumbed and it’s a great game. Also I really like playing this solo. This led me down a path of what I call the cult of old.:strip_icc()/pic4108223.jpg)
Cult of the old
My collection is mainly newer, hotter games which are often derided by seasoned gamers on BGG. But sometimes the oldies are goodies. For Sale and Modern Art are other examples. What I love about Modern Art is there are so many versions to suit every pocket. A few months ago I never would have thought I had the confidence to teach a game and conduct my own auction.:strip_icc()/pic5591809.jpg)
On the whole older games do not go down well at board game club. They like party, social deduction and hidden role type games.
Hidden Role
These took a lot of getting use to. Not my preferred genre of games. But as I got to know the group better these types of games are great for trash talk and a brilliant start to the evening. They have culminated in Blood on the Clocktower a longer, more convoluted social deduction game.:strip_icc()/pic5054218.jpg)
Filler
I was always very dismissive of filler games but now they are a nice way to round off the evening with something lighter and fun. Favourites include Cat Lady, Draftosaurus and Elevenses.
Preorder/hype
I have never been much of one for hype but Wingspan just took my fancy with its unusual theme and great production values. My most expensive game at the time, I really enjoyed getting this in January last year and watching it rise through the rankings. I’ve also enjoyed blinging it out. I also preordered Tapestry which incidentally is getting an expansion, news of which is being revealed today on Jamie’s pod cast. I’ve found reading and listening to other people’s thoughts on games has really enhanced my own understanding of games. Its also inevitably led to Kickstarter./pic5591816.jpg)
Kickstarter
I’ve had mixed success with kickstarter backing projects I wish I hadn’t. But The Isle of Cats was a great campaign that kept backers informed throughout and delivered a great game.
I still do the odd Kickstarter, I recently backed Trekking the World and the The Whatnot Cabinet but I am much more wary now.
All in all I think I’ve become more confident in my taste. I know what I like and what I can get to the table. I no longer take into account ratings (prelaunched games and Kickstarters often don’t have ratings anyway)Solo is much more important especially during these times. I now rarely buy a game unless it offers a solo option. I Had fun playing my existing collection with solo variants especially Carcassonne and Kingdomino, not to mention Isle of Cats and Agricola (Revised Edition).:strip_icc()/pic5411102.jpg)
Wed Aug 12, 2020 9:07 pm
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Caroline BlackUnited Kingdom
Braintree
Essex
Tigger playing Agricola. He lost!
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Today I finally plucked up courage to start a board game blog. It’s not something I thought I would ever do being dyslexic. Words don’t come naturally to me and I spent a good part of my formative years avoiding spelling tests and words in general. That’s why I put so many pictures in my posts. I am a very visual person.
I’ve always liked boards games and puzzles. I do a lot of Sudoku. I started off playing all the usual board game suspects. Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit, Mastermind...there is a link to my gaming childhood here
I play mainly Euro’s and great art and nice components are a must for me. I am quite fussy about theme. No war games, zombies, horror or science fiction. My favourite mechanics are tile laying, drafting, worker placement and auctions. I don’t like games with direct conflict or too much take that.:strip_icc()/pic5473461.jpg)
I discovered Broad Game Geek when I was searching for something to do with Carcassonne. For the first year or so I lurked. Then I started posting. And then I couldn’t stop. So instead of filling the forums with my feelings and dilemmas I thought a blog might be a better use of my time.
I don’t want to repeat myself so where appropriate I am just going to link to a geeklist. I guess actually I started my blog a long time ago but using Geeklists.
During lockdown It’s been hard not meeting my friends to play games. With social distancing set to continue I can’t see face to face gaming with people outside your immediate family coming back any time soon.
So in this blog I am going to explore the games I like playing, new games I am interested in and trends and observations I’ve noticed. You will also have to put up with my awful photography./pic5473468.jpg)
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