Author: Drew

“Ah, but you may as well try and catch the wind.” – Donovan. Trying to gather up all the various threads of the Internet and corral them onto one page may seem like a fool’s errand. But I’ve been training for this all my life. I’m a voracious reader, overwhelmingly non-fiction, and mostly articles and essays now. I don’t read many full-length books anymore, and precious little fiction (I read one of the Potter books as a favor to a friend’s child). So, what I lose in depth, I more than make up for in breadth. In the oceans, most…

(Geek Peeks is published every Monday.) We take a peek at the best daily threads from the Board Game Geek general gaming forum. MONDAY, JULY 7 Games with largest disparity between “For Trade” and “Want in Trade” by AndySzy In baseball they call them sabremetricians, stat freaks who love devising new ways to analyze and apply the numerous statistics the game generates. What would we call them on Board Game Geek? I’m guessing geekametricians (From Geek + Metrics). Leonard Richardson, of Loaded Dice, is one such geekametrician. He’s your standard factory-made geek, but a side order of gamer. So, every…

BIRTHDAY: On July 13, 1957, Cameron Crowe, Director of We Bought a Zoo, was born. The obvious choice to observe Cameron’s B-day would have been Zooloretto, a popular family game that has successfully spawned almost a dozen expansions & implementations. Yes, it’s a great game for zookeeper wannabes. But instead, I’m going to proffer a lesser known, but no less worthy, alternative for budding zoo-mongers: O Zoo le Mio, published in 2003 by Rio Grande Games. It was created by Corné van Moorsel (aka Cwali), one of my favorite designers. Let’s get this out of the way first: “O Zoo…

(The Reddit Report is a weekly feature, published every Saturday.) A lot of great ideas for game variations and house rules. I’m loving this week’s threads! SUGGESTIONS Best House Rules? submitted by PM_me_your_toaster This thread was posted on Reddit just a day after a thread called Worst House Rules. Everybody has their own House Rule horror stories that they’d rather forget. But only a few hardy souls relish the chance to tweak a popular game. Don’t freak out: the best House Rules don’t change the game, but they do make playing more Fun. Surprisingly, there were almost 250 comments in…

(Humor Us is a regular series, published occasionally on Friday.) NEWS ITEM: Looney Labs recently partnered with Cartoon Network to create a new iteration of the popular card game Fluxx, drawing on CN’s large corral of popular animated characters and shows. Close, but Looney missed the mark. A better skin would have been layering CN’s Adult Swim lineup on top of Looney Lab’s chaotic card game. Let me show you what I mean… (You can learn about the various Adult Swim programs and characters through this great Wikipedia page.) NEW RULE cards The Brak Show Current Player must mumble incoherently…

Awesome week for thoughtful writing. Download these to your platform of choice and bring the tabletop to the beach. Here are 4 fab blog posts from the past week, ranked in order of enjoyment. 1. The Makings of a Better Theme (Across the Boardgames) 2. I Often Dream of Trains (Every Man Needs a Shed) 3. Is Hanabi the only true co-op board game in the world? (Playtesting) 4. The Foundations of Gaming: Classic Fiction and its Influence on Early Role-Playing Games (Jeffro’s Space Gaming Blog) THE POST OF THE WEEK The Makings of a Better Theme, by Luke Turpeinen…

(Almanac of Games is a weekly feature, published every Sunday) OBSERVANCE July 6th is National Fried Chicken Day The Chicken industry likely chose this day to fight back against the Hot Dog cabal, which took over July 4th with its eating contest. Dozens of websites say it’s official, but I don’t see any group claiming to have started it. Neither the National Chicken Council or KFC mentions it on their websites Is it a legit national observance? The correct answer is: Who Cares! It’s some fried chicken! It’s good (though not “for you”). It’s a day, then, to reminisce back…

(The Reddit Report is a weekly feature, published every Saturday.) Quite a busy week in the Reddit half of the world. Great time to be a casual gamer who loves acronyms! AMA In response to a Redditor’s query about what it takes to open a boardgame café, a successful coffee house in Ottawa, Ontario, Monopolatte, held an “Ask Me Anything” Twitter session that was published on Reddit. A lot of game stores and game cafés struggle to stay afloat, but a knowledgeable staff, a basic menu well cooked (Grilled Cheese!) — and a $5 cover charge — go a long…

(Humor Us is a weekly series, occasionally published on Friday.) Gotcha! It’s all about the title. All I needed were the words, “Top Ten,” to get your attention. Lists are the Internet’s Catnip. But there’s another reason why there are so many lists. When a Writer is blocked, first thing he says is, ‘What can I make a list out of?’ Creating the title is the hardest thing about making a list. After that, the items on the list practically write themselves. That’s why you see so many. This started long before Letterman. I mean, just who decided that the…

      Well, bloggers, you must have heard my complaint last week about too many great blog posts published in one week… and most of you held back this time around! I’m sure next week we’ll achieve that perfect balance of just enough great posts to keep me satisfied… Here are 4 fab blog posts from the past week, ranked in order of enjoyment. 1. Why You Should Be Careful Kickstarting Board Games—in Two Charts (Clever Move) 2. 1963 Game Diary of Sid Sackson—An Overview (Opinionated Gamers) 3. Games in Education: My Experience (Board Game Duel) 4. Cyvasse (Purple…