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Impulsive shopping — Hive and Looping Louie
Got some games, on a whim. Despite my cool initial feelings towards Hive, I couldn’t resist the new bakelite edition. Just too cool, you can’t beat big, chunky pieces of plastic when it comes to board game pieces. I also bought the new edition of Looping Louie. I’m not sure if I would’ve bought it…
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Resisting the temptation
Ah, BattleLore. I’ve read the reports, the blog entries, the praise. How I wish you were mine, and how I must fight this temptation… I really like Memoir ’44, and while I prefer the military theme to the fantasy (medieval warfare isn’t bad — I just get an allergic reaction when in contact with standard…
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Crystal Code
Review of Crystal Code in Finnish. Crystal Code is designed by Grzegorz Rejchtman, the designer of Ubongo. The two games are similar: in both games, players race against time and each other to solve pattern recognition problems for rewards. What’s most important, both games manage to avoid the most common pitfall of speed games. Often…
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Celtica
Review of Celtica in Finnish Celtica, a game by well-known designer duo Wolfgang Kramer and Michael Kiesling was published recently in Finland. I was curious to try the game; for background, I had read the less-than-favourable comments from the Geek, combined with Bruno Faidutti’s recommendation. The game certainly looks delicious, from the beautiful box cover…
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Pub session: Tower of Babel, Aqua Romana, Celtica, Elefant
I’ve been on vacation this week, and took the opportunity to have a small game session in a local pub. It was a decent environment for games, though there was exactly two tables on the non-smoking side that were lit well enough. Not an ideal environment, and if possible, I’ll still prefer places where you…
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Games with Olli: Gipf, Zèrtz, Crystal Code, Celtica
Olli made a quick visit yesterday for some games. We started with Gipf. Now, played face-to-face with a real board and the correct rules, I think the game’s actually pretty good. My play-by-email experiences didn’t do the game justice, I suppose. Now it was definitely fun. I think I’ll be playing more of this, especially…
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On The Spot Games
Yesterday I got a bunch of games from On The Spot Games. All the games are designed by James Ernest and Mike Selinker, and aimed towards somewhat mass-market crowd, I’d say — they are very simple games, some definitely aimed for the party game audience, others for couples or families. I already tried Kotsuku, which…
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Helcon 2006
Helcon 2006 was a blast, and the most successful event of the Board Game Society history with almost 100 participants. I was there for the Saturday (limitation caused by being a parent; unfortunate for the gaming, but rewarding in other ways). I didn’t play that many games, but as you will see, sometimes (well, often)…