Author: Drew

(A mid-week recap of the best blog posts from the last 7 days.) I found out this week that a blog post can be thoughtful, and still be a fun read. Check out these great examples!   AT THE TOP OF THE CHARTS… #WeNeedDiverseGames Across the Boardgames, 9/12, by Luke Turpeinen Luke takes to the Twitterverse in his fight against male-dominated Euro-centrism in board games. A previous post tackled the passive racism that pervades many games today. Now it’s time to broaden the discussion: I’d also like to make it clear that the issues of representation aren’t only a problem…

I had a friend named John. John had a great side-job, as a board game reviewer; and he had a great wife, a brilliant, affable woman named Robin. But when he lost one, he no longer wanted the other. Yes, I speak about John in the past tense even though he’s still alive. That’s because his passion for board games died when his wife died. It’s now a thing of the past, something I can no longer share with him. Some two decades ago, John met Robin through a Correspondence Chess group. A deep and abiding relationship blossomed and he…

(Almanac of Games is a weekly feature, published every Sunday–or at least it will be, now that summer is over!) IT HAPPENED ON SEPTEMBER 14th 1814, that Francis Scott Key writes the words to what we now call “The Star-Spangled Banner,”which makes this the Bi-Centennial of the National Anthem! Key’s poem was originally titled “Defence of Fort McHenry” but after it was attached to a popular tune of the day it was soon give the title we know today. (FYI: The Star-Spangled Banner wasn’t named the country’s official anthem until 1931.) Some 30 years after the attack on Baltimore, a…

(A mid-week recap of the best blog posts from the last 7 days.) Summer is over and the bloggers are back in a big way! AT THE TOP OF THE CHARTS… Jeux de langues (sorry, untranslatable pun) Bruno Faidutti’s Blog, 9/5/14, by Bruno Faidutti Bruno’s innate sense of humor shines through in this plea for a multilingual world. But only if you read it in the original French… I write most of my game rules in English mostly for practical reasons, because the English language is lighter, more precise, more direct, more efficient for technical and informative texts like game…

This is a recap of the best blog posts from the last 7 days. It’s usually posted mid-week, but I’ve been behind the past couple of weeks… AT THE TOP OF THE CHARTS… Hexless Wargames Games on Tables, Sept. 2, by Marshall A very readable look at the growth of wargames, from Chess to Kriegspiel to hex-based games, for better or for worse… So why do we use hexes today? I presume this practice started to make games easier, to regulate movement, to have clear, understandable rules. Sounds good but the hardest part to learning a new wargame is all…

Hump Day Dump is a mid-week recap of the best blog posts from the last 7 days. And I’m late again, a lot later this time! … I’m actually spending a lot of time preparing to launch a new podcast for Board Gamers Anonymous. Yeah, that’s a good thing, but not if it’s throwing off my blogging schedule. I’ll get a handle on it, I promise! I’m still taking time to read all the great blog posts out there. It’s about time I share them with you… Let’s count down the Four Fab posts of the week!       4.…

(The Reddit Report is a weekly look at the most interesting and informative Reddit threads & comments, published every Saturday.) It was a great week for WSIGs. Normally when someone asks “What Should I Get?” they’re looking for something that’s been asked about dozens of times already. These sorts of questions can get old. But this past week on Reddit, submitters were actually looking for games that no one else has asked about, at least in quite some time. If you’ve asked any of these questions yourself, check the threads for some great suggestions. For example, what are the…

Hump Day Dump is a mid-week recap of the best blog posts from the last 7 days I’m still behind on my work (and I didn’t even go to GenCon) as the fallout continues from my vacation a week ago. What’s making it hard to catch up is the great amount of good writing I’ve been poring over. Let’s count down the Four Fab posts of the week! 4. Should Games Have a Catch-Up Mechanic?, League of Gamemakers 3. Board Games: Are They Really Shared Experiences?, iSlaytheDragon 2. The Economy of Choice, Games on Tables AND AT THE TOP…

(The Reddit Report is a weekly look at the most interesting and informative Reddit threads & comments, published every Saturday.) Here are 5 great topics from the past week on Reddit… Can you make your own Dixit cards? Um, … yeah! Check out some great photos and maybe you’ll be inspired to make your own! Custom Dixit Cards submitted by thumpasorus2 You can’t win the game. But you can determine who does win. What do you do? This is one of the best threads I’ve seen on Reddit in a long time. Boy, is there a wide range…

Someone on Reddit’s /r/boardgames subgroup – who goes by the GoT-sounding username littleturd – asked, “What disclaimers do you wish you could add to a game to warn people before they buy it?” A very sensible question, as all thoughtful buyers would like to know more about a game than just the teasers printed on the box. Predictably — and happily — the suggestions quickly veered into Silly territory. Not a bad thing, really. After all, a good Disclaimer deftly combines a portion of humor with a portion of truth… So, I waded through all 400 responses on the thread…