Board Game Internet Awards 2007

As I mentioned, Gone Gaming released the Board Game Internet Awards to me, and I decided to ask Board Game News if they would like to host them. This was greeted with enthusiasm (we'll see how they feel after they have to review 100 web sites).

So here they are: the 2007 Board Game Internet Awards. Check 'em out and nominate your favorite sites and posts.

My Weekend

I went on a weekend away with my synagogue this weekend, but I felt under the weather. I went to sleep at 7:00 pm Friday evening and didn't wake up again until 10:00 am on Saturday morning. Then I slept again from 1:00 pm to 3:30 pm.

I hear the weekend went well.

While I was sleeping in the evening, Tal brought out Apples to Apples and Set from my game bag, and they went over well with some new players. The next day, during my awake periods, Nadine, Tal, and I devoted to Mr Jack.

I've been concentrating on playing Criminal in all of the games I play with this, trying to figure out whether Jack ever really has a prayer of escaping against decent opponents. I managed a victory, but like all my other Criminal victories, it was through a mistake on Detective's part. The other two games were wins for Detective. In those cases, Criminal lost due to the random elements.

Still, we're still fascinated enough with the game to hope that Criminal will find a few winning strategies. I still don't see how it's ever going to be equally balanced. But even when it's not equally balanced, Detective has to play decently (not necessarily perfectly) to win.

Game News

There's a huge U.S. federal investigation going on called Operation Board Games. It's "an ongoing federal public corruption investigation of insider-dealing, influence-peddling and kickbacks involving private interests and public duties related to various state boards and non-profit organizations." Sorry, nothing to do with Monopoly.

Breda Brathwaite is one of many experienced video game designers who advises other aspiring video game designers to start by designing a board game.

The staff of a New Zealand store called "Bunnings" were given the board game Monopoly instead of a pay increase, and are now protesting. I've got two news sources for this: one of which implies that they are striking as a result of being given the game, and one of which implies that they were given the game only after protesting. Both imply that being given Monopoly for Christmas is a deliberate insult.

I love it when inventors talk in terms of the patents they invent, which makes the product seem to be a side-issue. In this case, the guy patented a deck of cards where the suit is printed next to the number, and not only beneath it. The claim is that this saves valuable quarter-inches when you're laying the cards out in a column, such as you would do as dummy in Bridge.

Only, uh, if you're laying out columns of cards in Bridge, don't all the columns consist of cards of the same suit? And, therefore, isn't the visible suit marking on the last card in the column sufficient?

Yehuda