WEEKLY UPDATE

Welcome to another edition of WEEKLY UPDATE

Yehuda: Today's top story - researchers have discovered that Tom Vasel, game commenter, reviewer, interviewer, and teacher, is, in fact, a giant computer.

"We first got suspicious when we saw the voluminous material 'Tom' produced each week," said noted game commentator, Tom Vasel. "In the last week alone, 'Tom' has generated 8 game reviews, 4 interviews, dozens of replies, articles and game entries, uploaded pictures of his game collection, written several blogs, and commented on thousands of geeklists, journals and blogs around the internet. That works out to almost 25,000 words/minute, faster than all but the best super computers"

That's when our noted undercover game reporter, Tom Vasel, noticed that Vasel stands for "Very Advanced Scientific/Electric Laboratory", or VASEL, a highly regarded research facility in South Korea, where 'Tom's submissions originate. "That was just the giveaway," said Tom Vasel, a lab technician who works at VASEL. "Gotcha."

Authorities suspect that the deception was funded by Rio Grande Games, makers of Crocodile Pool Party, the game which people now most associate with Tom Vasel.

And now here is a weekly round up of comments on Board Game Geek, with Jon Berlinger. Take it away, Jon.

Jon: Well, uh, Brackers asked how many shares there were in Acquire, because he didn't have an even amount. But then he found the rest of them in the box.

And, um, ... Lunga said that he once saw a game of St Petersburg where someone won without having the Observatory.

Hmmm. Oh, uh, dwarf posted a session report of Settlers of Catan ... but he accidentally played with all of the development cards from both the base game and the expansion, so he drew three road building cards.

Heh.

And, um, some more people said they liked Gola's Amun-Re session report.

And someone uploaded 4 images for 'Wizard'.

And Shade_Jon won two games of Geschenkt, but then he lost the next one.

And, uh, that's it. Back to you, Yehuda.

Yehuda: Thank you. That was ... thrilling. Now on to our spotlight interview with Nigel Geek, a game enthusiast from Manchester, who owns a special copy of Settlers of Catan.

[Begin interview]

Nigel Geek: It's great, man. Special edition. I paid five hundred quids for it. The win condition is eleven point. Look. Look at this rulebook. The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and...

Yehuda: Oh, I see. And most Settlers of Catan games are played until ten?

Nigel Geek: Exactly.

Yehuda: Does that mean it's better? Is it any better?

Nigel Geek: Well, it's one better, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing until ten. You're at ten, game over, game over, game over, you've got ten points. Where can you go from there? Where?

Yehuda: I don't know.

Nigel Geek: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we get to ten, you know what we do?

Yehuda: Play until eleven.

Nigel Geek: Eleven. Exactly. One better.

Yehuda: Why don't you just take a regular game of Settlers and when you get to ten points keep playing?

Nigel Geek: [pause] This game goes to eleven.

[End interview]

Yehuda: Well that's it for tonight. Tune in next week when we ask Greg's dog the secret of how to win at Werewolf. Until then, keep the robber away from you.

From the WEEKLY UPDATE STAFF