Monday, August 20, 2007

Even My Youngest Daughter is Beating Me at Games, Now

On shabbat, I finally lost a game of Spit to Tal. Actually, I don't think it was my first loss to her, but it was the first loss while I was playing my best. And it was resounding, too.

To make up for it, she wanted to play Oh Hell, which I usually win handily. I lost that, too.

Parents: smackdown your children when they're young, because soon they'll be smacking you down.

If I hadn't been beating them when they were young, they wouldn't be beating me now. They wouldn't be playing with me at all.

The Competition

Speaking of beating me, no one has sent me an entry for my $25 Amazon coupon giveaway. Is the game too boring, too difficult, or the prize not good enough?

Save me from having to drink cheap beer.

Game News

The dangers reported about Chinese made toy products may result in an upswing in European made, higher quality and higher priced, components. Here is a contrasting opinion.

Recent news reports cover a few of the Nazi board games, some of which are up for auction this week.

Oddbattles turns his new blog about wargames in the direction of Eurogames with an article about the sociability aspect of modern board games vs video games.

MTV posts a long interview with Jonathan Blow, a video game designer, which touches on many aspects of games and art.

And the Games Scholar's Journal finds that M-rated games are now segregated behind the counter at his local Toys-R-Us.

The Bellingham Herald has a small piece on a local game shop devoted to Magic: the Gathering.

And the Financial Times reports on a plan by Harvard Law school to solve all the problems of the world, including teenage delinquency and world conflicts, by teaching everyone how to play poker.

Yehuda

5 comments:

Simon J said...

The questions are too difficult (I got 5/6ths of question a)

Yehuda Berlinger said...

Huh. Really? All the information is on my blog, somewhere. Except for the one about the magazine, and that's not to hard to find.

I'll have to redo the game with easier questions, I guess.

Yehuda

Simon J said...

Aah, I've just noticed the closing time is 5pm EST, not GMT as I mentally registered it. I'll have a go after work this evening.

Gavin Schmitt said...

Ranting on gaming news: I don't know what to think about China at the moment. Having used Chinese factories when working for Hasbro, Palisades, and on my own to produce Get Bit! I see very little way for a small company to afford production otherwise. I mean the reality is the general US consumer is so walmart bargain price happy, that if you can not offer prices like that, you don't get sales.

I think China can be reasonable too -- you just have to know when to shout at them, and what to confirm ahead of time (or assume they are lying about). Sure, they may paint your child-friendly toy with borax and radium to save a buck, but since _we_ are trying to save a buck by using them, it's up to us to make sure the borax is at least candy coated...

Yehuda Berlinger said...

Gavin: I think it is reasonable to expect that there is a difference between cheap quality and poisonous.

Yehuda