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Waldschattenspiel
'Today we look at something very special. It?s a German family game called ?Waldschattenspiel?, sold here as ?Shadows In The Woods?. It?s a game designed for children and an adult, but I think any group would happily play this wonderful little thing. There is nothing else like it, and certainly nothing else that looks like it. Let me explain how the game plays. A board. Wooden trees of different sizes. Little wooden pawns. A candle. The child player takes one of the little wooden pawns (the dwarves) and hides it in the forest, in a patch of shadow. Once all the children have hidden their dwarves. The adult player, a giant with a bright lantern represented by a tea-light, rolls a die and moves that many paces through the trees. As the light source moves, the shadows dance and stretch. Any dwarf caught in the light is frozen, unable to move, until another dwarf can come to touch it and break the spell. The dwarves win the game by coming together in the same patch of shadow, under the same tree. The light-bringer wins if it freezes all the dwarves.'
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Haunted Ruins
'I think it would be hard for any gamer with kids, especially one who appreciates the Ameritrash side of gaming, to look at a game like Haunted Ruins and not think, where was this game when I was growing up?? I mean, just look at the thing... It's a 3D pop-up board of a haunted graveyard, with moving obstacles and passageways, and you're being chased around by a ghost and a zombie. I saw this at a Toys R Us when it first came out a couple years ago, along with its Egyptian pyramid/mummy themed counterpart, Treasure of the Lost Pyramid, and it took all of my willpower to not just buy them both right then and there. But they were both about $25 and I couldn't really justify the purchase at the time. Well, fast forward to last week when I was bored and stopped into a Barnes & Noble in California... I had totally spaced the whole "Barnes & Noble game dumping sale" that happens every year around this time and so it was a pleasant surprise to see several copies of Haunted Ruins sitting there for 75% off. It was also kind of sad to see that, because really, this is a great game and a great production that deserves to be in the homes of many kids who will surely love it.'
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The Settlers of Catan 3D Edition
'The Catan 3D Edition is a special treat indeed. In the big wooden chest you will find 19 3D terrain hexes, an illustrated, sturdy wooden frame andover 170 game pieces that have been painstakingly modeled in exquisite detail. All pieces have been hand painted. All the pieces are included for you to play The Settlers of Catan in 3D. Note: the 3D version of The Settlers of Catan was a limited production of 5,000 copies. It may be difficult to find an authentic set online, however, many merchants have come up with an ingenious way to bring the Catan 3D experience to everyone. Blank terrain pieces are often available, which can then be painted. Use your imagination and get yours today!'
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Aapep 3D
'In Aapep you play either the demon Aapep, trying to swallow the sun, or the god Ra, fighting to escape the dark seas of the underworld. Players take turns placing pyramid tiles onto the board?Aapep swallows the sun if from any edge of the board he can "see" dark sides on the first pyramid tile that is visible from that direction while Ra escapes if from any edge of the board he can "see" light sides on the first pyramid tile visible from that direction.'
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Just William Game
'The first part of the game consists of constructing William's house and garden fence as per the diagram on the rules. Players are then given jobs to do around the built house & surrounds. There are two packs of cards - job cards and excuse cards. The object of the game is to get rid of all of your jobs, climb over the garden fence and land on the "William" spot. Designer (Uncredited). Artist: Thomas Henry Fisher. Publisher: Palitoy Ltd. Year Published: 1976. # of Players: 2 ? 6.'
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Clue Premiere Edition
'After a steady decline after the video game boom, board games are regaining popularity, but only because the companies behind them are innovating. One such way is by upgrading from 2-Dimensional boards to 3D, pop-up ones. The Clue Premier Edition, retailing at $150, has a game board that is literally like a doll house. The board has nine sunken 3D rooms, each with detailed furnishing. The only thing that differentiates it from a doll house is that it has a non-removable, tempered glass lid placed on top, preventing tampering inside.'
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3D Labyrinth
'Part of the Ravensburger Labyrinth Games series, This is a super-simplified version of The aMAZEing Labyrinth for the really younger set. Instead of the shifting tiles of the other versions, in this game, entire sections of the maze shift, as the modular 3-D board has a sliding center piece, which allows for different pathways through the maze. Players attempt to reach the items shown on their treasure cards by shifting the maze and moving through the corridors.'
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Fireball Island Re-creation
'Here it is folks, the newly finished Fireball Island! What a trip it's been. What's been keeping me going is a guy out in CA who is going to be the proud owner of this piece. He's very worried about the shipment being damaged but I'm very confident in the strength of the object as well as my packing skills. Alain, the new owner, has really kept me interested in the project with his enthusiasm and excitement. We are both really into this whole thing and hope more comes from it. We talked the other night about Torpedo Run!, a very awesome game that puts Battleship to shame. I might be looking into recreating that game in the future, we'll have to see. But at the very least I am confident that I can make more Fireball Islands, and am taking offers to anyone who is interested in one. So check out the pics and stay on the look out for more boards to come.'
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Caverns of the Dead
'Sometimes I'll see an interesting game at a convention, but it can be hard to get a good photo when excited players are pressing around the table... and I'm hesitant to interrupt their fun. I dodged to the other end of the table to get a better shot... (not so good...) ...and finally, a somewhat fuzzy zoom shot. It looks to be a portable gaming table, built around several box bottoms.'
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Cranium Balloon Lagoon
'Spin the musical merry-go-round and start the timer, then race around the board trying to complete 4 fun-filled carnival games before the music ends. The 4 games utilize the same skills needed in the traditional Cranium categories: Word Worm, Star Performer, Data Head, and Creative Cat. Only this time, you're playing carnival games! In Letter Lake, you'll fish for letters to spell a word. In Frog Pong, you must hop the frogs from the lily pads back into their pond. In Snack Hut, try to collect 4 matching snacks, and in Tumble Tides, spin the picture wheels and try to match all 4 sections of the picture. It's based on the original Cranium game, but given a fun carnival twist that kids will love! Collect balloons as you play the 4 carnival games, and the first player to collect 15 balloons, wins.'
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Incursion
'Incursion is a board game set in the world of Secrets of the Third Reich. Armored troopers of the US ?Lucky Seventh? hurtle through underground bunkers and combat the monstrous forces of the German SWD in a furious race against time. The Doomsday Device is ticking and neither the Allies nor the Axis can fail. The mechanics for this two player game are simple to grasp allowing players to instantly focus on their tactical options. Play is incredibly fast-paced and tense and players choose their forces through a card-based Requisition Point system. The game may either be played with chipboard stand-ups that are included in the box or with highly detailed metal miniatures that are available from this site. Miniatures are NOT required to play this game but they are really cool!'
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Stalwart Dark Angels
'I've recently completed designing and building my first game board. Here are some pics. The whole board (almost, have 8 total 2'x2' tiles). And some pieces for laying over the lava board. I've got loads of hills and rocks, though right now working on a road network including intersections and bridges.'
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Smurfs, The Game
'The 3-D Smurf Game. Pick a Smurf character and play the 3D Smurf game! The 3-dimensional game takes place in the Smurf village. Each player has to follow the tricky Smurf path by climbing over bridges and traveling behind Smurf houses! Watch out for the spinning baddie cat, Azrael! Your goal is to be the first Smurf player to reach home with 4 different food baskets of apples, acorns, grapes and strawberries. "The Smurf Game". From 1981. Made by Milton Bradley.'
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Halo Interactive Strategy Game
'Featuring the same premise and characters as the video game - including Master Chief, A.I. and Covenant - the 'Halo Interactive Strategy Game' offers a modular board that can be re-configured to create a virtually limitless game play experience. In recreating the video game's signature three dimension graphic design, the game pulls fan-favorite elements from Halo 1, 2, and 3 along with music from the video game's award-winning soundtrack and features unseen exclusive DVD content to enhance game play.?In the game, players will command armies of three-dimensional collectible character pieces for two different levels of play: Heroic for faster, more casual game play and Legendary for more strategic advanced gamers. Fans can follow story lines that expand the Halo experience in Campaign mode or go head-to-head in interactive battle sequences with Slayer or Capture the Flag modes. The battle options are endless with future add-ons of new adventures, vehicles, characters and weapons to expand the experience.'
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The Scooby-Doo Haunted House Game
'The Scooby-Doo Haunted House 3D Board Game is action-packed! Move around the haunted house and try to make your way to the top. There are secret booby traps waiting to get you - a moving ghost knight, a creaky staircase, a haunted moose head, and more. There are seven traps in all, but if you make it past and you are the first to the top - uncover the villain and you win!'
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The Lost World Jurassic Park Game
'Based on the second movie, of course. This tri-lingual (English, Spanish, French) crowded MB box contains a whole bunch of thin cardboard 3D buildings; stand up cardboard pieces for the 12 humans and the helicopter, and a bunch of plastic miniatures of the dinosaurs (a T-Rex and some Velociraptors). This is played in teams, the human team trying to get 3 humans off the board via the chopper, and the dinosaur team trying to prevent this. When 3 play, the third player alternates teams. The humans can jump between building roofs or can run between them. Unfortunately, the dinosaurs move a lot faster on the ground than the humans (the humans move between marked spaces, the dinosaurs between zones). Buildings have several entry/exit points for the humans but only one for the raptors. Dice indicate how to move humans and dinosaurs; one of the dice has Stop/Go markings which control whether you may roll again or not -- making movement harder to predict. Jumping (for humans) and entering buildings (for dinosaurs) is also dice controlled. The T-Rex is confined to a single board edge area; its function is to flush the humans from the starting building -- once he reaches it, all remaining humans are devoured! Yes, unlike the first movie game, in this one there is death aplenty.'
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Heroscape
'Heroscape is turn-based miniature wargaming system played using miniature figures on a board made from interlocking hexagonal tiles that allow for construction of a large variety of 3D playing boards. It is a game of hit points, numerous dice, and attacking. It plays like a fantastic version of chess. Only instead of rooks and pawns, you have all manner of orcs, dragons, robots, assassins, etc. The board and character selection is vast if the host has enough expansion packs, and this was certainly the case over the weekend. The three playing boards sprawled out in full 3d upon a long banquet table and were surrounded by plastic containers full of various character pieces. The five other people playing for the most part knew the characters? stats without looking at the cards. It was a little intimidating, so I picked a pre-configured, defensive style army. After six hours of 45 minute long games, I had won two and lost the rest.'
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Scream Inn
'Bet you never knew there was a Scream Inn board game?! Well, neither did I? Released in the 1970s by Fisher Price, it's currently on eBay for about ?70 or thereabouts. Below I've snagged a few photos to give you an idea of the look and feel of the game. A standard board game with some cut-outs to give a 3d effect and a internal turntable for I presume turning various bits and bobs around? Comes with markers both of the ghost and human variety plus a die and rule book. Strange that no obvious characters from the strip appear aside from a generic ghost. Maybe the comic gave rights only to use the name of the strip. Still, a slice of forgotten comics history which probably went unnoticed by fans back in the day.'
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Mordheim: City of the Damned
'Mordheim does to Warhammer Fantasy what Necromunda does to Warhammer 40k. The game mechanics work in classic Games Workshop fashion. Instead of playing with hundreds of miniatures, you pick a warband of 1-20 models(Most average at 10-12 or so), and fight a skirmish with other warbands. If you play well, your warband gains money, levels, size, and new powers, but play badly and your warband slowly deteriorates as people die or otherwise get dismembered. Games actually play very similar to Necromunda but due to the fantasy setting you should see fewer long distance shots, and a lot more hand to hand fighting.'
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p.s. Hey. Kind of quiet around here. ** David Ehrenstein, Hm, Cindy Sherman comparison, interesting. I need to think about that. I'm kind of curious about Shirley Jones' memoir for reasons that must be obvious to you and that, if obvious, I would ask you to keep between you and me, please, but I can't imagine actually sitting down and reading such a thing. Do they still release those 'Cliff Notes' books? ** S., Hey. I associate feeling/emotion with words because the two are such sworn enemies and because I like being confused to a certain degree. De-jading yourself is important, I think. Jadedness will age you faster than cigarettes. Art's a decent savior, I think, I hope. I'm okay. It rained yesterday. That was ultimately good. ** Mononoke Paradice, Oh, that's okay about the Day delay, no problem, gosh, just thank you! Which Robbe-Grillet do you want to read? Or should I wait and let the post fill me in and surprise me. That sounds fun. Yeah, the comments arena was a little echoey yesterday. Strange. It's hard to know what niceness is, which I guess is why I'm finding it interesting to write about. I do think you're nice. I guess it's like an instinctual reaction and opinion or something. Pieter Saenredam! Thank you! John Ashbery really loves his paintings, and I can see why. ** Heliotrope, Hi, Mark! Thanks about the posts. Me kind of too about the questionable translation offered to my thoughts by my mouth. No, I did think about going to watch the TdF finale, but it was murderously hot, and that plus the crowds made me do otherwise. I saw a bit on TV. Wow, really cool about finding those letters. That's amazing. My heart went boom. I don't think I had any experiences re: The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, that I can remember anyway. It feels very vague when I think about it. I remember Sound Spectrum, of course. I'm getting a creeped out yet unillustrated memory when I think of that place. Dude, ouch, about the re-torn thing. Get better as close to this instant as possible. Andy Prieboy! I've met a couple of French people who are big fans of his. I'm not sure if he's one of the anointed American cult figures beloved by the French or whether encountering two French fans of his was pure coincidence. And Tony Kinman! Great bass player, yeah, and his voice is awesome too. The heat has broken, at least at the current, still early hour, and that is a fine thing. I love you guys so too! ** Sypha, Hi. Hm, maybe a scene where a guy has his back moles shaved by a doctor he's attracted to would make a good novel moment. Not in my current novel, but in something. Thanks for reading 'The Dream Police'. The Flintstones one ... oh, right. That one. I remember that. I wrote that for my friend Ziggy who was the model for Ziggy in 'Try'. Anyway, thanks, man. ** _Black_Acrylic, I'm so glad you thought it was okay, Ben! Thank you again so much! ** Grant Scicluna, Oh, rubbing it in, nice. I don't think I yell, or maybe once every few years, but that comment almost turned my typing's volume up a notch. Nah, kidding. Our heat broke, for now, so I'm cool. Internally, and kind of vaguely externally. That's interesting about the dilemma of the script or of your script. So, there really is a formula to such things that you have to stick to and finesse and try to subvert? Tough form. Or for me it would be. I can't do formulas. When I try, the writing just gets very artificial. Yeah, sounds tricky. Great about the readers report! The funding bodies, scary seeming. I guess you've probably sussed how to do that. Oh, as far as how the early stages of my novels look, it really depends on the strategy I have for the novel, and I try to take a different strategy with each one to keep myself challenged and pushing myself. A lot of the time, the novel-in-early-progress only looks like a novel the way a cloudy night sky looks like a starry sky. With this one right now, let's see... There's a notebook full of handwritten stuff that I started with. It contains ideas, formal graphs, some random sentences and paragraphs of prose, etc. There's the first chapter of what was going to be the George Miles novel, which I'm still considering keeping as the first chapter with changes. And, in any case, which I'm using a template for the new novel's form because there was something I liked going on there. Thus far, I'm writing the novel in a doc rather than by hand -- I normally write by hand -- because I wrote 'The Marbled Swarm' by typing in a doc, and it was interesting enough that I want to continue that experiment. What's in the doc is messy. A few scenes I'm working on. Some very personal self-examining stuff that might or might not stay. To see what I'm writing wouldn't make much sense yet. I leave lots and lots of gaps that I will fill in later because I can't write in a linear way. So, I guess that's a general picture of what exists right now. The heat went down last night. That isn't supposed to last, so I'm going to try to run as many errands that require metro rides early on today as I can. Best to you, and stay chilly in the good way. ** Steevee, See, I was just saying to James how the 'hot' dermatologist thing could be a good fictional conceit, and your story is proof positive. ** Misanthrope, You guys are pushing it with the Shirley talk. Cease and desist. Tim Law, that's him. I was brain dead yesterday, and my fingers proved it. Well, that's one way to think about escorting. Ugh, sorry, about your niece's mom's shit. Ugh. Your niece deserves so, so much better. As do you, of course. ** Rewritedept, Well, I would certainly hope you're enjoying 'Alien Lanes'. Otherwise, I would think you were clinically something bad. 'Do the Collapse': their big produced record. A record of controversy for that reason amongst the Pollard diehards. I like it a bunch. Not my favorite of theirs, but there are a lot of great, great songs on it as well as perhaps the only crappy song Pollard has ever written, a song which he has subsequently apologized for. 'Love It to Death' is maybe the best Alice Cooper album, yeah. But 'Killer' gives it at least a run for its money. I'll get the True Widow. Haven't yet. Thanks for giving the definitive on the candy. Thought something like that might be the case. Shows? The Paris Pitchfork Festival is coming up. I'll definitely see a day or two of that: Deerhunter, Iceage, Baths, Deafheaven, No Age, The Haxan Cloak, ... The novel is taking more shape, yes. I did work on it yesterday, yeah. My day was okay, weird, but okay. Thanks, pal, and later, gator. ** That's it. 3D boards games are on your blog plate today due to a short but intense spate of interest on my part in them the other day. See you tomorrow.
Source: http://denniscooper-theweaklings.blogspot.com/2013/07/19-three-dimensional-board-games.html
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Grid Grid, an ?Excel minus the equations? app that helps you plan and organize more effectively and beautifully, announced today that it has raised a seed round. The app, made by a former Microsoft Excel designer, is a interesting take on the way many people use Google Docs or Excel spreadsheets. Investors in the round are Phil Libin (CEO of Evernote), Jerry Yang (founder of Yahoo), SalesForce.com.
Conventional wisdom had it that this would be Spielberg?s next Oscar pic. Since then, ?every two months it?s been revisited. The title would come up in conversation at production meetings. But it?s just been hanging,? a source tells me. No longer. I?ve learned the studio is moving forward with Paul Greengrass in final talks to direct Aaron Sorkin?s script The Trial Of The Chicago 7. It?s based on the infamous 1969 federal conspiracy trial arising out of the protesters vs police violent rioting at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago that transfixed the nation because of its counter-culture and leftist mayhem intended to undermine the U.S. government.
