Purim News: Israel and the Settlements (of Catan)

The Jerusalem Post weighs in with Purim news about Israel and the settlements (and games).

I taught my brother and his kids how to play Ticket to Ride (with the 1910 expansion) today. The kids liked it and I think they will be picking up a copy eventually. One of the kids was ridiculously lucky, picking up tickets near the end of the gsme that fit all of his already existing routes. Meanwhile, my routes were all on the East Coast and the tickets I drew near the end were all on the west coast (and the least points was 12, so I lost 12 from the draw).

The previous shabbat, Nadine, Eitan and Emily (just before Emily gave birth), and I played La Citta. They were not impressed. La Citta is a prime example where the necessity of doing multiple calculations is used as a core mechanism. Calculations is not tactics or strategy, it's busy work.

I still like the game, more than they did.

My Game Industry Database Now Has ...

8385 companies. not counting the 1155 that I know to have closed (or dropped out of the game industry) since I began the list in 2009. 7645 of them have email addresses and didn't tell me to bug off when I sent them the game industry survey the last two times.

Time to to see what happened in 2012 ... I'll keep you posted.