Top Ten Eurogame Events 2006

1. Blogs, Podcasts, and Videocasts, oh my.

Where 2005 was the year of the board game blog, 2006 was the year of the board game podcast. Podcasts and videocasts sprang up like roses and/or weeds in a garden; which was which depended on your taste. Board Games With Scott's videocast started at the end of 2005, but really came into its own during 2006.

Joe Steadman left The Dice Tower, but that didn't stop TDT from continuing an amazing assortment of giveaway contests.

Geekspeak changed to BoardGameSpeak, but then it ceased to speak at all.

2. Board Game Geek goes commercial

Board Game Geek turned commercial on day one of 2006 with a new look and walls of advertisements. Aldie quit his job to run BGG full-time. Even so, BGG was down for one dark week in August, and we had to rely on Google News Groups to take up the slack.

BGG ran a number of different giveaway contests during the year, and Tom Vasel once again organized a super Secret Santa. BGG co-launched Tanga.com, selling cheap electronics and board games, a site which appears to be better than anyone could have hoped for.

On the dark side, the comments and community of BGG got wilder, leading to a number of infamous battles, such as "Eurosnoots" vs "Ameritrash".

3. Games that made a splash

C&C:A/Battlelore - apparently the system to beat for light wargaming.

TtR:Marklin - another in the TtR series, and they get better and better.

Thurn and Taxis - the English version of a good game that no one is really enthusiastic about.

Simply Catan - a simplified version of the classic board game.

Canal Mania - Apparently good, but expensive and difficult to find.

Tempus - A civ-light game that suffered from some early overhype.

Rocketville - From the genius of Richard Garfield, but the rocket crashed and burned on the launching pad.

4. Rereleases

Many, among which were Ra, Traumfabrik, El Grande, Die Macher, Through the Desert, and a deluxe version of Lord of the Rings: the Confrontation.

5. Publishers

A number of publishers updated their websites, such as Days of Wonder and Fantasy Flight Games. Their sites became richer with information, easier to navigate, and often had complete online versions of their games.

On the other hand, a number of publishers had some big problems: Palladium was destroyed by an insider betrayal. Eagle crashed, taking with it other companies, such as North Star.

6. Conventions

Game conventions, such as Nuremberg, Gathering of Friends, Origins, GenCon, Essen, and BGG.con 2 continued, successfully. Board Game News and numerous blogs and podcasters carried extensive reports.

7. Rick Thornquist quits Board Game News

Speaking of which, Roving Reporter Rick finally bowed out, at least for the moment. Our main consolation on BGN is the new and oft-updated Board2Pieces comic.

8. Mike Doyle blows us away

Mike Doyle's board game art rightly earns him high accolades, as he turned out new box covers, boards, and cards for every major Eurogame and then some. His Modern Art redesigns are simply out of this world.

9. FunAgain Games

FunAgain, while around for some time, appeared to gain a lot of strength this year, gobbling up several exclusive game distribution deals, all of Eagle's assets, and several game features such as The Dice Tower and Board Games With Scott (well, hosting in the latter cases, not gobbling).

With their extensive games collection, community supplied game ratings, referral bonuses, and new games point system, they are emerging as a force to be reckoned with, despite having rather higher prices than some other online stores.

10. More online boardgaming

As I mentioned, it seems that just about every publisher has finally gotten comfortable with the idea of providing full versions of their games online, and nearly always for free. That's good news for people living in remote locations and people who want to try out a game before buying. I guess the number who buy the game because they could playtest it balances or outweighs the number who don't buy the game because they can play it for free online.

11. Gone Gaming and the BGIA

I'm biased, seeing as I'm one of the contributors, but Gone Gaming continued to put out an incredible year worth of high quality articles, as well as wrapping up it's first Board Game Internet Awards and starting nominations for the second (Nominate now!).

THINGS THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN

Whatever happened to the planned Puerto Rico league, with a $5000 reward after a paid trip to Vegas?

Despite rumors to the contrary, and a few spurts, The Games Journal remained dead, or at least unconscious.

A Puerto Rico expansion promised by Andreas Sayfarth with new rules and a sixth player never materialized.

And whither the reprint of Princes of Florence? Is it available, yet?

About a Poem in the Comments

I'm not too happy about the last post, even though it is probably the world's first "poem scattered in the comments across diverse blog posts".

To succeed, I would prefer it to scatter across diverse blogs, and possibly also in forums, MySpace pages, websites, and anything else that can be addressed by URL.

It should also, because why not?, allow branches and remerges.

The world is our pallet, ladies and gentlemen. What can we make of it?

If you would like to contribute into helping me create a better poem and/or allow a verse to be in a comment or post on one of your sites, please let me know. Let's make a big story.

Yehuda

Life Exists in Comments

Hidden in the corners of the web ...

What is News Comedy?

It is merging two news stories into one comedic moment.

The daily show announced the publication of a book at the Iranian Holocaust Deniers conference. It's by some ex-Nazis and it's called "If We Had Done It ..." (Link, click on "Just Say No".)*

I wish this was news comedy, but it isn't. Woman beaten on Jerusalem bus for refusing to move to rear seat. The human race is regressing.

On the other hand, boing boing covered board games twice this weekend: the War on Terror board game (finally), and a Carcassonne ginger bread cake, complete with all tiles and meeples. Regarding the latter: Yes! Coverage on German games on boing boing, including links and text on Board Game Geek and Beyond Monopoly.

Speaking of German games, tons of people are pointing to an interview with Klaus Teuber in Forbes magazine. Teuber is the creator of Settlers of Catan. The interview appears alongside many other articles on games and toys.

Addition: Oh, and I like this article on Winning versus Trying on Planet Dojang. But the guy's wall of social bookmarking icons is a bit extreme:
Youch. Can't you just pick one or two?

Yehuda

* For future generations who won't understand this, O.J. Simpson, who was highly suspected of killing his ex-wife, briefly tried to publish a book earlier this year entitled "If I Had Done It" all the while maintaining his innocence.

Havel Havalim 98: In the Caves of the Maccabis

"Junk! It's all junk!" scowled Professor Madcap, for the tenth time. Or maybe twelfth. I had stopped counting.

"Well, what were you expecting to find?" asked Julie, shortly. Julie was a third-year archaeologist like myself. She was tired of digging through the rubble, just like the rest of us.

The Professor had promised us some real work, for a change. This cave was supposed to be the latest most likely location of some ancient manuscript of the Hashmonaim. It was a newly discovered cave branch, part of a network called the Caves of the Maccabees.

But all we had found after three and a half days of digging were a few arrow-heads and some broken shards of pottery.

"Manuscripts! Writings! I'd settle for an ancient grocery list, at this point!" snarled the Professor. He threw down his cap in disgust and sat down on a low rock.

Julie and I took this as an opportunity to sit down ourselves. We had learned only to rest when the Professor was resting, or risk a pointed scolding about "lazy, useless students."

"This is probably a wild goose chase," added the Professor, taking a swig of what he claimed was water from his canteen. "Damn Hutchingson! He probably did this on purpose! Getting me back for that 'hot tip on the holy ark'." He shook his head.

I looked at Julie and our eyes met, wordlessly. Archaeologists and their strange practical jokes.

"Professor," I asked, cautiously, "are we looking for some particular manuscript?"

He didn't answer right away. Eventually he said, seemingly to himself, "Oh anything. There is one thing ... but, no, anything."

"One thing?" I pressed.

He finally looked back at me. "Well, I have some rough evidence that the 98th book of Havel Havalim is supposed to be in this area. But perhaps that's all part of this seemingly elaborate joke!"

"Havel Havalim? What's that?" asked Julie, saving me from having to do so.

"What! Third year students and you don't know about ... good grief, who let you into archeology school?" He sniffed at us. We waited patiently.

"Havel Havalim was a type of Blog Carnival, a collection of articles from the writers of the age. There were many presses in those days. It was hard for everyone to keep up with all of it. So a weekly round up of the best articles was collected and republished in a list form, or Blog Carnival. So far we have found the first 97 volumes of Havel Havalim. Evidence seemed to indicate that we would find the next one in this cave branch, but this is obviously a complete waste of my time!" he finished.

In sudden anger he jumped up and kicked the wall. The net result of this was that he then started hopping around on his other foot, in pain and swearing volubly.

"Come on, let's go!" he said suddenly, and began gathering up his stuff.

But I noticed something on the wall where the Professor had kicked. The wall had cracked and was beginning to crumble.

"Professor! Wait! Look!" I said, pointing to the wall. In a great rumble, a section of the wall gave way. A cloud of dust rose up from the rubble.

The Professor stared at the wall in part astonishment and part horror. "Oh no!" he wailed. "What have I done?"

"Wait!" said Julie, peering through the rubble. "Look at this!" As the dust began to settle, we could see a small space behind the wall and what appeared to be a small hole in the wall at about waist height.

Julie approached the hole, shining her flashlight into it. "Professor! There's something in there! There's something in there!"

"What! Get out of my way! Let me see!" yelled Professor Madcap, rushing forwards. "Could it be? Could it be? Yes! Yes, it is! I don't believe it!"

The Professor pulled out an ancient scroll. Although faded and cracked, even I could make out the ancient Greek inscriptions on the outside of the scroll:

"Havel Havalim, Issue 98"

The Professor danced around, singing for the all the world like a drunken sailor. "I found it! I found it! Ha ha ha! Just you wait Hutchingson! I found it!" And so saying the last, he landed on his sore foot, screamed in agony, and fell backwards over the lunch basket.

He sat up, still grinning, despite his pain. "Come! Come! Let's take a look at what's inside, shall we?" We gathered around behind him as he unrolled the scroll.

"What's that, Professor?" asked Julie, pointing at the first item.

"Let, me see. It says here that an additional Blog Carnival was also in the process of being created at the same time that this one was being written. It was called, uh, the Channukah Blog Carnival. Wow!"

"What?" I asked.

"Apparently it was updated continuously for eight days, even though the maintainer only had enough free time to update it for one day. What a miracle!"

"What else is there?"

"Let's see. There appears to be some strange sort of author who went by the name 'me-ander' who wrote about how nice it was to be the recipient of Saying 'Thank You'.

"She went on to talk about the troubled times they lived in, and how a simple funeral for an old person was out of the ordinary, but still happened in Old People Die, Too. And on the flip side goes to a Lovely Little Wedding.

"Someone called 'Shiloh Musings' worried over the relationship between Israel and 'The Vatican' in Bad News Behind the Scenes, and a few other posts."

"What's The Vatican," asked Julie.

The Professor looked up. "Uh, some kind of mythical monster, I believe," he muttered. He coughed, and went on, "Let's continue ...

"My these people have strange names. Here's one called 'Knockin on the Golden Door' who writes about a peanut in an article called Jimmy Al-Carter, Redux."

"A peanut?" I asked, confused.

"Oh wait," said the Professor. He scratched his head and wrinkled his brow. "Maybe it's a farmer. A peanut who's a farmer? What's that word again. Pea .. prea, president? No, that's ridiculous ... well, we'll just have to examine it more when we get back to the institute."

I chuckled to myself. A peanut who's a farmer, indeed.

"Here we have someone called the Jewish Blogmeister apparently interviewing someone called 'Life in Israel'. And then another interview with the Bagel Blogger in Interview of BagelBlogger." The Professor looked up at us.

"Bagel was also a type of food. Perhaps this has something to do with the peanuts. Another article also mentions this Bagel Blogger; someone by the name of Psycho Toddler conscripted the Bagel Blogger to help with Parsha Parts, as he described in Bagel Parts."

We shook our heads. None of this was making any real sense. But he went on with the scroll.

"The Blogmeister continued with The changing course of Jewish Music Orchestra Biz, noting how orchestras are shifting their attention to bigger vocalists.

"Don Radlauer kept his eye on a group called Honest Reporting, in Watching a watchdog: HonestReporting veers off course. Meanwhile, Honest Reporting reported on the 2006 Dishonest Reporter of the Year Award.

"And The Egel Nest ['Perhaps there was a transcribing error?' I suggested.] talked about his new composition of Jewish lullabies, in Project X Revealed...

"The Ignoble Experiment talked about her Mixed Feelings at a pleasant concert almost ruined by a rude audience and staff. And then wrote about breaking down prejudices in A Ray of Light.

"Hmmm, here's something new. This isn't an article at all, but an announcement about a new Israeli Wiki.

"What's a wiki," I asked. "Some kind of small rodent?"

"Something like that, I believe," answered the Professor. "A very strange animal. Apparently, anyone can take the rodent, disassemble it, and then reassemble it with a different number of legs and eyes."

"Ooh," exclaimed Julie. "That sounds horrible for the poor rodent."

"It was pretty horrible for the people who had to look at it, too, so I hear. This next part was apparently a guest writing in another writer's forum. Chabakuk Elisha wrote on Honesty, as well as other lessons about basic ethics and morality.

"Here's something. Life in Israel talked about El Al negotiations. Apparently, El Al was a camel caravan that would carry travelers back and forth to Israel. One sect of Jews got mad at the camel drivers for working on shabbat, once, and so instead they decided to only travel by wild pig from then on. Life in Israel was then Questioned on various issues regarding haredi attitude toward exclusive education and acceptance based on family reputation.

"Someone called Simply Jews wrote a humorous article about a conference that took place in a fast moving country (they even called the country "I Ran") in The new age of Islamic science."

"Wait, isn't I Ran the ... Julie ... didn't we once read ...?"

"Yes! Yes!" exclaimed Julie. "An ancient prophet had a vision after seeing a flock of seagulls. He wrote down the vision in poetry:

And I Ran
I Ran
So far away
I Ran
Couldn't get away

It must have been a lovely country if the prophet so longed to return to it."

The Professor continued. "And ... well, this is rather strange. More about peanuts in Jimbo - intimidated?"

"Surely that couldn't be about peanuts, Professor," claimed Julie. "I mean, surely, no?"

"See for yourself," answered the Professor. "Although I admit it does seem a little strange.

"And here, Life in Israel also talks about this conference in I Ran, in The holocaust conference in Iran. Life in Israel seems to be more interested in the so-called Jewish participation in the conference.

"Ah," I said, "so I Ran must have been a homeland for the Jews."

"It's too early to draw conclusions. We will have to do more research, my young padawan!"

"What's a padawan?"

"Never mind, let's continue. Raanan Ramblings bemoaned the wrong holiday being celebrated in Seasons Greetings?

"Now what is this? Someone called 'There are no feminists on a sinking ship'? Is that a name or a value system?"

We shrugged.

"Anyway, she wrote a humorous description of a fictional Air Chumrah: The Charedi airline. And then upbraided some singers in MBD and Fried speak about tape copying: Stick to singing guys...

"Rubicon3 linked to an SNL routine about Mel Gibson's Apocalypto. He linked again in Calling All Jews.

"Huh? Linked? SNL? Mel Gibson? I don't understand," I interrupted.

"Me neither. We'll have to look these up later. Apparently, whatever this 'Mel Gibson' was wasn't important enough to be preserved for later generations.

"In the meantime, Rubicon3 also posted a more understandable article about the Jewish attitude toward hate and war in War and Hatred From a Jewish Perspective.

"Israel Matzav wrote about the standoff with Haninyeh in Border standoff resolved. In fact, this guy seems to have written a whole host of interesting posts during that week. We should check all of them out." He skipped forward about four or five sections, and then continued.

"Debbie Schlussel wrote about the discriminatory practice of delivery by UPS, and how it ended, in Package Apartheid: UPS is Official Delivery Service of the Jihad.

"Yourish weighed in on terrorists PR war in Words fail at the hypocrisy of terrorist spokesliars.

"Treppenwitz continued his great writings on sentimental subjects with 'Ma Pitom?!', and other inscrutable Israeli expressions.

"And speaking of sentimental, Abbagav [whose name derived from a popular music group from that era named 'ABBA'] wrote a touching story of a mom and a kid in Funny Thing, Miracles.

"A Blog For All wrote about water issues between Israel and Jordan in Better Dead With Red.

"The group Israelity talked about a secret trip to Israel in Hollywood Heavyweights Sneak In and Out of Israel."

The Professor looked up. "Which reminds me. I recall reading in another source that these visitors spent time studying in the Jewish Institute known as Pardes."

"No, Professor, you must be mistaking this story with the story of the four men who went into pardes and only one emerged unscathed."

"No, no. A different story, I believe.

"Anyway, let's continue. Modern Uberdox wrote about The 26th Yartzeit of Rav Hutner zt'l."

"Who was that?" asked Julie.

"Apparently, a great man who loved his wife.

"Joe Settler wrote about the apparent discovery of Yeshivat Shem v'Ever found in North Syria.

"Ah! Something interesting! There were rumors about an incompetent leader of Israel at this time, and here is some evidence from someone called YID with LID. He wrote how Olmert Blunders Again and Nuclear Ambiguity Goes Out the Window. This evidence can be added to the other 9,999 pieces of evidence we have previously uncovered.

"And look. Another corroborating post from Mere Rhetoric in Olmert: Israel May Or May Not Have Nukes. And another in A Blog for All.

"Professor, if this is all from one week of writings, it must have been a dramatic week, indeed!" I said.

"So it would appear. But almost every week in Israel was dramatic at that point in history. On the other hand, some of the things they talked about were events that were only events in the media, and not really events in and of themselves.

"For instance, here is an article by Life of Rubin about a Rabbi, a tree, and an airport in This Story has NOTHING to do with any "War on Christmas" ...

"But then you have articles such as this one by Bookworm Room, about the killing of children in As you sow, so shall you reap."

"Wow!" said Julie. How much more is there?"

The Professor flipped through the rest of the scroll. "Oh, it goes on for pages and pages. Very long winded, these Jews were. Let's break for lunch."

After lunch (we were able to rescue some of the sandwiches over which the Professor had tripped), we continued with the examination of the scroll.

"Secular Blasphemy reported on good news and bad news. Norwegian state broadcaster's host calls for genocide of Israelis on the one hand, but Iran saved Polish Jewish children from Nazis during WWII on the other.

"Someone, or something, called My Not So Random Thoughts wrote about donuts in Some Sufganiyah Bites. And by the way, a Jerusalem Post we recovered from that week also had several pages on these ancient balls of fat and sugar."

"Oh, they sound horrible!" exclaimed Julie. "Thank goodness all we eat today is brown rice and tofu."

"Indeed. Elie's Exposition expounded on the parsha of the week in Vayishlach: What's in a Name.

"Culture for All reflected on Hanukkah and the Dreidel in Happy Chanukah, as did Yehuda on the blog of 192 countries in Hanukkah in Israel and Around the World.

"Yehuda weighed in on a strange report in a contemporary newspaper covering the subject of circumcision and AIDS in The New York Times on AIDS and Sex, and also talked about Free Will and Charity, and asked How Good is Good Advice?"

"Professor," yawned Julie. "I'm getting tired. What do you say we wrap this up and take it on home?" I couldn't help but agree.

"What? Too much for you, eh? Fine, we'll take it home and continue later. Pack up!" He rolled up the scroll, and puttered around the room, muttering under his breath about lazy, useless students. I looked at Julie and rolled my eyes.

That was the end of our expedition for that week. You will be able to read about next week's adventure on me-ander. For further information, see the Havel Havalim Blog Carnival entry.

Until then, keep your bone dusters clean and your pickaxes sharp. You never know where Professor Madcap is going to take you on his next wild expedition!

Yehuda

Hunukkah Gaming 1

There are two shabbat Hanukkah's this year. I was lucky enough to get in two games of The Menorah Game on the first night of Hanukkah with our two guests.

They were total non-gamers and played very stone faced. I was assuming they were going to say some nice things and then leave after the first game, but they said it was great and asked to play again. Then they lauded the game a few more times.

They couldn't believe that I had designed the game by myself, apparently assuming that games must spring out of nowhere, or at least out of nameless faceless game corporations.

The first game was the basic game, and the second the advanced game. I won both, even though I wasn't the one who went out in the advanced game. I did have two wild candles however.

I've begun analyzing the mathematics of the advanced game.

A little spice: Peter Olotka, designer of Cosmic Encounter, does Christmas Cosmic Encounter poetry.

Yehuda

The New York Times on AIDS and Sex

This is going to be a very strange post. Frankly, I don't know why I'm writing it.

An article by the New York Times struck me as rather odd. The article is Circumcision Halves H.I.V. Risk, U.S. Agency Finds. You may need to register with the NYT website to read it.

First of all, it's a serious issue: prevention of AIDS and so on. And the idea that circumcision reduces AIDS's prevalence could be turned into a Ha Ha I Told You So commentary about Jewish religious practice, except that those types of commentaries always backfire when the original story turns out to be false, or something else pops up that shows circumcision as harmful in some other way, or simply when it's noted that it's not the religious practice but simply the practice that is the important factor.

Anyway, so many things about this article simply struck me as, um, odd. Such as the names of the researchers and institutes:

• The National Institutes of Health (sic)
• Dr. Kevin M. De Cock (an AIDS researcher and expert on circumcision, I kid you not)
• National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (kind of strange bedfellows)
• Dr. Richard G. A. Feachem
• Dr. Mark Dybul (they must be making these up)
• President Bush’s $15 billion Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (huh?)

And a few other things:

• The study on whether circumcision may help protect you from acquiring AIDS was halted when they suddenly realized that waiting to see whether more people developed AIDS without possibly better protection could be unethical, somehow (duh!)
• That someone might think that getting circumcised would help protect them from acquiring AIDS due to drug injection, so they felt that they had to state that it wouldn't.
• That complications in isolating factors in the spread of AIDS include "patronage of prostitutes by miners" (sic) and "men’s insistence on dangerous dry sex — with the woman’s vaginal walls robbed of secretions with desiccating herbs." (explained here, and, ewww. "Shredded newspapers, cotton, salt and detergents are also used.")
• Recounting Nelson Mandella's "hilarious account of his own Xhosa circumcision, by spear blade, as a teenager. But not all initiation ceremonies are laughing matters ..." (Hilarious! Ha ha! No.)
• And explaining how the foreskin carries other viruses to the vagina: "... cells on the inside of the foreskin were also more susceptible to that [other] virus, which is not closely related to H.I.V." ("which is not closely related to H.I.V.?" What does that mean, exactly?)

Board and card games about AIDS and sexual health

Magical Aids Journey

Think Negative!

Contraception: the Board Game

Condomgame (not the flash game) by Care for the Homeless

Building Bridge pack and game by Working With Men. They also publish The Violence Game: "The game aims to encourage young men to reflect on their values attitudes and behavior about violence and conflict."

Rubber to the Rescue and Sex Jeopardy/Connection by the University of Maine's Peer Education Program. They also publish Shots & Ladders:

Similar to everyone’s favorite childhood board game, this college style Chutes and Ladders game will engage students in a lively competition. The team that learns the most about alcohol, marijuana and other drugs by moving its shot glass around the large M-(for UMaine)-shaped board game course wins the game. An exciting and informative format for teaching students the nitty gritty and the unknowns about drug and alcohol use.

An unnamed game from Uganda's Ministry of Education and Sports

There's also a game about menopause. But if you want to learn about menstruation, you're out of luck. No board games about menstruation, yet.

Yehuda