We had four Mennonite guests on Friday night again, and one told a very strange story.
We keep getting Mennonites, because a Mennonite tour organizer is a colleague of my wife's. These are visitors/pilgrims who want to learn about Judaism to strengthen their practice, so they visit Israel and spend a meal with a religious family for shabbat. That's us.
Ordinarily we have very safe and pleasant exchanges. The guests are told a little beforehand about what the rituals are like and cautioned against bringing up topics that will offend their hosts (such as "Why don't you believe in Jesus?" and so on).
One of our visitors Friday night told us about the time she finally worked up to trying out a Passover seder. Again, in the theory that practicing Jewish tradition will give insight into their own spiritual practice.
Only, this guest had no experience in practicing a seder, nor anyone who she could really turn to with experience. The only guide she had was an "adapted" Haggadah from Jews for Jesus, and a determined will.
Among the other stories she related about this event, was her attempt to reenact the first Exodus with her family.
Before dressing themselves in robes, with staves and packs, she decided that they needed to adorn their lintels with the blood of the Paschal lamb. Unfortunately, no lambs were available, or none willing to be slaughtered in her backyard, I suppose. Also, she didn't have any hyssop to brush the blood with.
So she bought some green plastic frond-like things to use for hyssop. Now what to do for blood? Ah, of course. Red Jello.
She waited for the Jello (she didn't say if it was Strawberry or Cherry) to be half thickened. In deference to not wanting to make any permanent stains, her husband covered the lintels with plastic sheeting first. Then she gooped the Jello all over the doorway, using the plastic fronds.
And so they marched around their front yard, red Jello dripping down her doorway, all the passing cars slowing down to stare in curiosity at the strange procession.
The story continued along these lines for some time.
Games Played
Unbelievably, my 14 year-old daughter didn't know how to play Chess, so I insisted that we play a game. Actually, she knew some of the rules, and she didn't really want to play, so she resigned after I took her rook.
We then played four games of The Menorah Game, with two victories each.
Later in the afternoon, Nadine dropped by for a game of Puerto Rico. Rachel was first, me second, and Nadine last.
I made a poor choice at the beginning to go for extra victory point at the expense of cash, and that hurt me for the rest of the game. I was intending to take Factory next, but Nadine and Rachel both took it before I could build back up again. Rachel took an early Hospice, and even with our slight tweak to the building, it also set her back a round or two.
Meanwhile, Nadine had an early coffee monopoly and played straight and solid. She took the victory at 65 points to Rachel's 56, and my 46.
Paid Reviews
I will be doing at least one "paid" review very soon now. Of course, I will only review something that is related to my site's interest, I will preface the post as a paid review, and I will be as honest as possible - these reviews work through third parties, and they supposedly don't care if I write good or bad reviews, so long as I review it.
Why? Cash, mostly. Also, as I said, the content is relevant. I've already turned down about five or six offers for sites that weren't relevant. Also, I will only be doing a few of these, likely, probably less than one post out of a hundred, if that.
If you have opinions about this, do comment.
Yehuda
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Friday, May 18, 2007
Beit Shemesh Board Gaming Club
Look what just popped into my Inbox:
Soon we'll have to run some club tournaments.
Yehuda
Bet Shemesh Board Gaming Club (BSBGC)Avri was at our last Game's Day. This is good news also for the other people from Beit Shemesh who have been trekking out to my club. Nice to see the gaming world spread.
Attention all those in the Bet Shemesh area who might know where Catan is or what a Meeple is... and even if you don't. I'd like to start up a weekly board gaming night in the city for all those who are interested.
The games would range from classic board games like Scrabble and RISK, to European board games like Settlers of Catan and Puerto Rico, to card games (collectable or not) like Magic: The Gathering and bridge.
I have a sizable collection of games in my home that I'd love to share and teach to anybody who is interested to play.
If you are interested in joining the BSBGC please let me know, and also state what day of the week you think would be the best day to gather (I'm thinking Wednesday or Thursday evenings).
Please respond to the e-mail below and not to the list.
Thanks, and hope to see you gaming!
Avri J. Balofsky
avri.balofsky@gmail.com
Soon we'll have to run some club tournaments.
Yehuda
Your Move: A Presentation of Art in Games
I received an email from Fransisco Ortega-Grimaldo, a PhD student at Texas Tech University who is organizing "Your Move", an interactive exhibit of games that contain art, interaction, and social commentary.Information about the event is on his site Ludotzli.
I found the information on the site a little confusing to understand, but essentially he's looking for designers who wish to contribute games for an event, which will run from January 8 to February 17, 2008. The event is focused on games where participation raises awareness about a social issue or an artistic expression.
Exhibitors receive a publication and DVD of highlights of the event.
It's Alive
Box cover art for the game on Creation and Play:
Awesome, yes? Pre-order the game here.
Free Downloadable Games
Invisible City's Game of the Month is Doodads, a resource management trading game.
Toadflax's latest is Superheroes, a four-player card game.
Gamer Survey
Brant Guillory who ran a gamer survey last year is back with another one, this time about how and why we play games. (source)
Yehuda
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Session Report Up, in which I continue to spread the gospel of gaming
The latest Jerusalem Strategy Gaming Club session report is up here. Games played: Lost Cities x 2, Tikal, Cosmic Encounter, Mau, Arimaa, Settlers of Catan, Puerto Rico.
I get Tikal out after a long absence, and turn some guests on to Settlers of Catan.
The Game of Life
The New Yorker talks about The Game of Life.
You know, The Game of Life
is a perfect example of a game that would work much better as a multiple-win game instead of a single win. Why should the person who gets to the end of Life first win?
The game could use victory conditions ala Careers, where everyone decides at the start what their goals are. Maybe with the option of changing them as the game goes on.
Then change the game into a fixed number of turns, and all players who meet their chosen victory conditions when the game ends win. Note that you may reach the conditions and still lose them before the game ends.
In this way, it is possible that no one wins, one person wins, multiple people win, or everyone wins. Which is a lot more like Life. And heck, why not make it a cooperative game? Shouldn't Life be a cooperative game?
Yehuda
I get Tikal out after a long absence, and turn some guests on to Settlers of Catan.
The Game of Life
The New Yorker talks about The Game of Life.
You know, The Game of Life
is a perfect example of a game that would work much better as a multiple-win game instead of a single win. Why should the person who gets to the end of Life first win?The game could use victory conditions ala Careers, where everyone decides at the start what their goals are. Maybe with the option of changing them as the game goes on.
Then change the game into a fixed number of turns, and all players who meet their chosen victory conditions when the game ends win. Note that you may reach the conditions and still lose them before the game ends.
In this way, it is possible that no one wins, one person wins, multiple people win, or everyone wins. Which is a lot more like Life. And heck, why not make it a cooperative game? Shouldn't Life be a cooperative game?
Yehuda
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Boggle: Review and Variants
Boggle is the second most well-known word game after Scrabble.
Of course, just because something is well known doesn't make it the best. There are any number of word games on the market that some people enjoy more than Scrabble, such as WildWords and Buy Word, but are less well-known owing to a) the stranglehold Hasbro holds over the toy market and game shelves in America, b) the name brand factor: adults buy the games they know as presents for kids, as well as other reasons.
It so happens that Scrabble is a pretty good game; I can't compare it to its competition having never played them. And Boggle is, too.
There are two main versions of the boggle game: regular and "big".
Rules
In regular Boggle, you have a tray with 16 cubes, each of which has one letter on each face. The tray is covered with a plastic lib and the entire apparatus shaken noisily. The cubes then fall (with a little prompting) into the tray spaces and the tray is uncovered.
A sand timer gives each player three minutes to find and write down as many words as he or she can in using the letters in the tray. Words can be found starting at any face and moving one letter at a time either up, down, sideways or diagonally, with the caveat that the same letter cannot be used twice, and you cannot jump over cubes. Plurals and variations of the same words are permitted. The minimum length word is three letters.
When time runs out, players compare word lists. Any word appearing on more than one list is crossed out. For the remaining words on your list, you score points for the length of the word, with progressively more points the longer the word.
Results
The game has many great things going for it: it is lightning quick, plays equally well with almost any number of players, the rules are simple, and the game is fun. Finding interesting words in a scrambled tray of letters is an "aha" experience, which other games would do well to duplicate.
It has a few things against it, of course. It makes an awful racket when you shake up the letters. People with "Scrabble" like vocabulary are always going to wipe the floor with other players. And it requires pen and paper.
I never found a solution for the first problem, but I have worked around both of the other problems in my time.
Variants
For varying levels of skill, you can permit the better players to only listing four or even five letter words or greater. Alternatively, you can give them less time.
The pen and paper issue is probably not a problem for most people, but it is a slight drawback for me in that I can't play the standard game on shabbat (when writing is not permitted). To get around this, we played a simple "round the table" version, where each player called out a word. If you couldn't call out a word that was already said, you were out. Play continued until all but one player was out, who had to call out a final word or the game was a tie.
One story about this variant: I once played shabbat Boggle with a Haredi woman, a neighbor of mine, and the only words I could see on my initial pass were sexual slang words. She thought I was having a hard time coming up with words, but I was actually having a hard time not blurting out the words that I saw.
Big Boggle is almost the same as regular Boggle, except that the tray holds 25 cubes, the minimum length of letters in a word is four, and you have four minutes to find words.
Boggle Jr is nothing like neither of these and is to be avoided. It's an annoying early learning tool where you have to find the letters on a cube and match them to a card. There were also at some points a Boggle Bowl (buckets of dice and anagramming) and Body Boggle (like Twister with a Boggle grid.
Online
I used to play online for free at games.com, but they no longer have a free version (you can buy one from them for $20, however). There are several other downloadable or electronic versions you can buy.
As of today, you can still play online for free at WEBoggle. Unfortunately, it can be hard to compete against people using the online Boggle Solver.
On Wikipedia. On Board Game Geek.
Yehuda
Of course, just because something is well known doesn't make it the best. There are any number of word games on the market that some people enjoy more than Scrabble, such as WildWords and Buy Word, but are less well-known owing to a) the stranglehold Hasbro holds over the toy market and game shelves in America, b) the name brand factor: adults buy the games they know as presents for kids, as well as other reasons.
It so happens that Scrabble is a pretty good game; I can't compare it to its competition having never played them. And Boggle is, too.
There are two main versions of the boggle game: regular and "big".
Rules
In regular Boggle, you have a tray with 16 cubes, each of which has one letter on each face. The tray is covered with a plastic lib and the entire apparatus shaken noisily. The cubes then fall (with a little prompting) into the tray spaces and the tray is uncovered.
A sand timer gives each player three minutes to find and write down as many words as he or she can in using the letters in the tray. Words can be found starting at any face and moving one letter at a time either up, down, sideways or diagonally, with the caveat that the same letter cannot be used twice, and you cannot jump over cubes. Plurals and variations of the same words are permitted. The minimum length word is three letters.
When time runs out, players compare word lists. Any word appearing on more than one list is crossed out. For the remaining words on your list, you score points for the length of the word, with progressively more points the longer the word.
Results
The game has many great things going for it: it is lightning quick, plays equally well with almost any number of players, the rules are simple, and the game is fun. Finding interesting words in a scrambled tray of letters is an "aha" experience, which other games would do well to duplicate.
It has a few things against it, of course. It makes an awful racket when you shake up the letters. People with "Scrabble" like vocabulary are always going to wipe the floor with other players. And it requires pen and paper.
I never found a solution for the first problem, but I have worked around both of the other problems in my time.
Variants
For varying levels of skill, you can permit the better players to only listing four or even five letter words or greater. Alternatively, you can give them less time.
The pen and paper issue is probably not a problem for most people, but it is a slight drawback for me in that I can't play the standard game on shabbat (when writing is not permitted). To get around this, we played a simple "round the table" version, where each player called out a word. If you couldn't call out a word that was already said, you were out. Play continued until all but one player was out, who had to call out a final word or the game was a tie.
One story about this variant: I once played shabbat Boggle with a Haredi woman, a neighbor of mine, and the only words I could see on my initial pass were sexual slang words. She thought I was having a hard time coming up with words, but I was actually having a hard time not blurting out the words that I saw.
Big Boggle is almost the same as regular Boggle, except that the tray holds 25 cubes, the minimum length of letters in a word is four, and you have four minutes to find words.
Boggle Jr is nothing like neither of these and is to be avoided. It's an annoying early learning tool where you have to find the letters on a cube and match them to a card. There were also at some points a Boggle Bowl (buckets of dice and anagramming) and Body Boggle (like Twister with a Boggle grid.
Online
I used to play online for free at games.com, but they no longer have a free version (you can buy one from them for $20, however). There are several other downloadable or electronic versions you can buy.
As of today, you can still play online for free at WEBoggle. Unfortunately, it can be hard to compete against people using the online Boggle Solver.
On Wikipedia. On Board Game Geek.
Yehuda
Miss Manners on Abusing Guests With Card Games
From the May 9, 2007 column:
The Yorkshire Post wrote an article about Reiver Games and my upcoming game, It's Alive.
Findit Games has a series of gimmick toys that require you to shake them around until you find the hidden objects. Frustrated readers claim to not be able to find some of the objects.
Further indications that video gamers are turning on to Eurogames from Weekly Geek.
Yehuda
Dear Miss Manners:Sound familiar to anyone? Don't turn game time into a torture session.
While I was a houseguest, my hostess's fiance asked if I would like to play cards with them (rummy, I think). I tried to beg off, saying that I hadn't played cards since I was a child, and I really didn't know enough about it for anyone to enjoy playing with me.
He insisted, saying he'd teach me. He explained the rules, but I was slow to pick up the procedures, and he became impatient as he corrected my all-too-frequent errors. Several times he barked, "Think!" or "You know better than that, I told you!" Of course, I became more flustered, made even more mistakes, and it went on and on -- I felt like I was being scolded for being a dunce, and it was anything but a pleasant pastime.
Finally I said, "I'm afraid I'm not doing very well at this game, and I need to get up early tomorrow, so please excuse me." But "George" and my hostess both pressed me to play to the end of the game, saying "Oh, you have to play out the game or it will spoil it for everyone." ("Everyone" was just the three of us.)
I held my tongue, continued to play ineptly to the end, and eventually made my escape, though my own evening had certainly been spoiled.
I don't think I will be playing cards with that couple again, but was it rude of me to excuse myself before finishing the game, under the circumstances? What should one do when one is a tyro, especially when one is not able to play a game well enough for everyone to enjoy it?
Gentle Reader,
Let us hope that this gentleman does not decide to insert himself into the educational system. Gang-pressing people into a new activity and then insulting them for not understanding it immediately is not a good pedagogical technique.
Your attempt to escape was legitimate and your hosts were wrong to block it. But considering that you were their guest, Miss Manners commends you for submitting.
The Yorkshire Post wrote an article about Reiver Games and my upcoming game, It's Alive.Findit Games has a series of gimmick toys that require you to shake them around until you find the hidden objects. Frustrated readers claim to not be able to find some of the objects.
Further indications that video gamers are turning on to Eurogames from Weekly Geek.
Yehuda
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