Tabletop – Stately Play

Quarantine Cycle: Tabletop Games You Can Make at Home

March 23, 2020 Kelsey Rinella 3

Games to buy to play with an elementary schooler are all well and good, but there are games which require no trip to the store and are cheap or free to play or create at home. Even better, many of these involve substantial creativity or crafting, which can occupy many hours and may have minimal supervision requirements. Nessos (3-6 players)–there’s a wonderfully-illustrated version of this game produced by IELLO, but it’s perfectly playable with a standard deck of cards. You can check out the full rules here, but the game distills the thrill of bluffing in poker into a quick, simple game which needs no money to fascinate. If you’re interested in other quality games playable with a standard deck, I recommend Shut Up and Sit Down’s series Card Games That Don’t Suck. It’s not targeted specifically at families, so keep your children’s needs in mind (Bourré, for example, would be catastrophically stressful for my kids), but no one communicates the distinctive joy various games offer than those fellows. Gaslands (2-5 players)–small, frighteningly delicate plastic figures you build and paint to take part in massive tabletop battles are one of the greatest money pits in gaming, often involving a multi-year commitment to the craft and thousands of dollars. Gaslands replaces all of that with Mad Max-style vehicular combat and racing using whatever Matchbox cars you have ready to hand. You can download the rules from Amazon, as a Kindle book, or directly from Osprey Publishing’s website, print out the movement templates and paste them onto cardboard from a cereal box, and be playing tonight. Cars which have suffered under the not-so-tender attentions of aggressive toddlers look thematically appropriate in a post-apocalyptic race–indeed, you might find your children quite excited to customize their cars further, sandpapering off some of that lovely finish, adding some plausible dents, or even gluing on weapons. Dressing up the table can be a crafty enterprise of as much complexity as you like. Feel like racing around a LEGO Apocalypseburg? Dungeons and Dragons (2-9 players)–the basic rules to the grandfather of tabletop roleplaying, now in its fifth edition, are available for free from Wizards of the Coast’s website. Their digital tools are comprehensive and easy to use, so, if your family loves their introduction to chaotic good gnomish paladins and bugbears, the options for expanding your experience even without new physical stuff are plentiful (and can get pricey). But, while D&D is a great way to set your children up for a hobby which will connect them to a huge player base in the future (and older children might be able to use one of these options listed by Polygon to set up a game with friends), it may not be the best choice for a first time player. DriveThruRPG offers a daunting bounty of family-friendly options available for instant download–you might check out My Little Pony: Tails of Equestria. It’s a streamlined system with a bit more focus on teamwork and nonviolent resolution, but still set in a fantasy world of dragons and magic in which daring physical feats, cleverness, and combat are necessary. If that’s not your bag, other games let you play as stuffed animals, rabbits (anthropomorphic or natural), detectives (child or adult), or even just go fishing. Seriously. Sprawlopolis (1-2 players)–there are many board games you can download to print at home–here’s one list with quick reviews–but I’m fond of Button Shy Games’ inexpensive Sprawlopolis because it poses a highly variable spatial puzzle in fewer than 20 cards, and is playable solo. So it’s easy on the printer ink, and I keep hoping it’ll occupy one of my children for some long period, as it has me. And, some day, its extreme portability may be useful again! Make up your own! LEGO-based rulesets like Mobile Frame Zero and Quikwars sound great, but perhaps their greatest contribution is that they point the way toward the possibilities of designing your own games using things you already have. These could be as ambitious as full sets of rules and hand-crafted components, or re-uses of existing pieces with just minor rules tweaks (there’s a wide array of chess variants, for example). A promising option for budding game designers who aren’t quite ready to jump into a full game is to design new components for an existing one–I’m still working on my own ideas for an expansion to Unmatched featuring John Henry vs. Steam Drill. Given how well that’s going, I’m confident your kids can do better. UPDATE: I’ve been directed to PNP Arcade by the Shut Up and Sit Down folks. It looks like a tremendous resource for those interested in making games at home.

Quarantine Cycle: Board Games to Buy to Play with an Elementary Schooler

March 19, 2020 Kelsey Rinella 0

This piece is part of a series, the next of which is Quarantine Cycle: Tabletop Games You Can Make at Home. Many parents found the board games available to them when they were children tiresome as they grew to adolescence, and may view the prospect of entertaining a child with endless games of Monopoly or Uno with dread. Fortunately, as games have grown more popular, the array of games which are accessible to elementary school students (grades 3-5 in my district, roughly ages 8-11) yet tolerable or even fascinating for adults has grown, also. The following are suggestions from recent experiences with my own children, ages 10 and 12. Disney Villainous (2-6 players)—lovely artwork and elegant pieces accompany a game that introduces a lot of concepts from more complicated games. Some kids just delight in being the bad guy, each pursuing their own goals and hindering other by playing heroes to block others’ plans. While it can run long at higher player counts, it’s very rewarding to see an observant child realize why certain cards have the effects they do, and there’s impressive variety available between the base set of six characters and three standalone expansions of three each. A superb example of licensing which enhances the game. Unmatched (2-4 players)—another gorgeous production, Unmatched uses a brilliantly streamlined system to represent battles between legendary fighters and their sidekicks. Hand management and timing are key to making the most of your opportunities, so Unmatched is a marvelous tool for teaching those who tend to resist reflection to slow down and consider consequences. But, with games usually lasting only 20 minutes or so, being punished for one’s mistakes tends not to linger in resentment, but instead encourage trying again, perhaps with a different hero. Like the villains from Villainous, each plays very differently. While there’s plenty of variety in the four-player base set of King Arthur, Medusa, Sinbad, and Alice in Wonderland, you can try out the system more cheaply with the standalone expansion of Robin Hood vs. Bigfoot, and my favorite character, Bruce Lee, comes in his own solo expansion. Tokaido (2-4 players)—a gentle game about touring feudal Japan which gives players points for things like seeing beautiful views and taking baths. If anxiety is getting to you, this pleasant journey might ease your mind for an hour or so. PARKS is a reputedly similar, more recent game with stunning art depicting U.S. National Parks, but availability has been an issue. ICECOOL (2-4 players)—sometimes, it’s helpful to have a game which is a bit less cerebral, and relies on dexterity rather than pure analysis. This game features penguin students running around their school searching for fish to snack on, but you move your oddly-weighted piece by flicking it. Skilled players can make their penguins jump, corner, and stop at just the right points, so ICECOOL can play the valuable role of occupying a lone child in practice for quite some time. And, for less dexterous parents like myself, it also offers the opportunity to lose to one’s children without throwing the game. NMBR 9 (1-4 players)—the only game on this list for which one could make a case that the educational payload is obvious enough that children wary of edutainment might balk, NMBR 9 transcends that genre by embedding some multiplication practice in an elegant polyomino-stacking game which rewards careful spatial reasoning and planning. Sleeping Queens is a simpler card game which is better suited for younger mathematicians, but was so beloved when my children were smaller that I couldn’t leave it unmentioned. The world of modern board games is sufficiently diverse and marvelous that I could write this article several times over without repeating games. If you’re motivated to research more, http://www.boardgamegeek.com is the most comprehensive destination on the web. Most of these games aren’t excessively difficult to come by, often stocked by big box stores or Barnes and Noble, and it’s a superb time to support local game boutiques if you can do so safely. The best prices are often available at specialty online game stores like http://www.gamenerdz.com, which became my go-to after I learned of their relatively low $75 free shipping threshold.

Say bonjour to the next board game Kickstarter you’re going to back: Maquis

April 9, 2019 David Neumann 2

Tabletop Earlier this year I fell in love with an unassuming little solo board game called Black Sonata. You can read all about it right over here. Just a spectacular solo game that combines tight decision-making with mechanisms that obfuscate the underlying math, ensuring you never feel like you’re simply solving a puzzle. Yesterday, publisher Side Room Games decided to go at it again. Leaving the Elizabethan era behind, their latest focuses on World War II espionage in a little title called Maquis.

Cardboard Critique: Black Sonata

February 20, 2019 David Neumann 25

Tabletop Remember those math puzzles your friends would quiz you with when you were a kid? They’d always begin by asking for your birth year, adding the day you were born, subtracting the hour, dividing by the number of eggs you had for breakfast and, viola, the answer would reveal, correctly, how many pet otters you’ve owned since the age of six. Having that answer always pop up correctly, no matter who you tried it with, was like a small miracle. It was like opening a portal to universe where magic existed and everything fit into a specific place. As I grew older and submerged myself in math, the magic was replaced with the cold dissection of numbers and seeing the trick for what it was: a simple math equation. Enter Black Sonata from Side Room Games, which feels like the most complicated math puzzle I’ve ever been dealt. The cool thing is, I can’t see the math and, even if I could, I don’t think I’d be able to suss out how the trick works. The only explanation that makes any sense: Black Sonata is magic. Real magic.

Check Your Spam Folder

November 15, 2018 Kelsey Rinella 0

As we get our new forums up and running, I wanted to mention that lots of folks had seen their activation emails go to their spam folders, so keep an eye on that. If you’re having troubles, hit me up on Twitter (I’m “rinelk”); if not, feel free to use your new forum account to make suggestions on this post. While I’m at it, KeyForge releases today, and my thoughts on that border on marketing spam themselves, so this seems like a good opportunity to bring them up.

Buy, sell, and manufacture your way to riches in upcoming City of the Big Shoulders

November 8, 2018 David Neumann 1

Tabletop • As someone who’s spent much of their life in Wisconsin, I’ve been taught to react with revulsion to anything that comes from south of the border, the Wisconsin/Illinois border, to be exact. It’s just not cool to show any appreciation for Cubs, Bulls, or even the pristine, toll-funded freeways that turn into potholed monstrosities as you meander north. Now, having a wife that lived for many years in Chicago (and living there myself for a period) has made me a tad more appreciative of what other Wisconsonites call FIBs. It’s with this more accepting eye that I peered at a new board game on Kickstarter set in the City of Big Shoulders called, appropriately, City of the Big Shoulders. It looks and sounds like Automobile and Arkwright had a baby, and I’m more than okay with that.

Holy Fo’c’sle, have you seen what Every Single Soldier is working on?

September 12, 2018 David Neumann 1

iPad, PC, Tabletop • I’m going to tell you a secret that will probably discredit my supposed love of all things hexmap, but I never really got into any of the war games from Every Single Soldier. Which games are those, you might ask. That would be the acclaimed and much-loved Vietnam ’65 and the slightly less beloved follow-up, Afghanistan ’11. I know, I’m ashamed of myself [this goes without saying and has nothing to do with either of those games-ed.]. I did manage to stumble onto a tweet from ESS today, however, and my jaw hit the floor. Perhaps this is old news, but it’s new to me and this is the ESS game that looks right up my alley. It’s called HMS and it’s coming for iPad, PC, and…wait for it…cardboard.

80s cardboard/electronic mashup, Dark Tower, being brought back to life

August 7, 2018 David Neumann 6

Tabletop • Deep down in my soul I know that, mechanically, Dark Tower isn’t a great game, and yet few games have stuck with me the way Dark Tower has. I was 10 years old when Milton Bradley unleashed this cardboard and plastic monstrosity upon the world, and I remember it occupying my every thought as 1981 crawled towards Christmas. I didn’t get a copy of the game that year, but my cousins did, and it didn’t disappoint. A game with little plastic, sword-sporting figures, 3D plastic buildings and awesome art of kingdoms in decline, and, of course, the massive black monolith standing at the hub of this strange fantasy world? I loved the game, eventually getting a second hand copy a year or two later and then forgetting about it when my tower, like so many others, stopped working. It’s the one grail game that I’ve considered spending $300 or more via Ebay to get a working copy to play with my kids only to realize that I’d then be divorced and probably wouldn’t be spending much time with my kids. Luckily, Restoration Games has picked up the mantle and announced a re-imagining of Dark Tower set to release in 2020.

The Zeds are back in town, on Kickstarter

July 10, 2018 David Neumann 1

Tabletop • It’s only been in the last couple years that I’ve really taken to solo gaming and a lot of that has to do with Victory Point Games. A lot of other games offer solo variants or whatnot, but VPG pumps out games that were made to solo, and I haven’t found one that wasn’t a blast to throw down on the table. My first venture into this brave new world was even more remarkable considering the theme, the third edition of Dawn of the Zeds. This deluxe edition of Zeds was out of print for a bit, but it’s back on Kickstarter now and, if you want a copy, now’s your chance.

Paradox bringing their IP to cardboard

May 19, 2018 David Neumann 8

Tabletop • Before I left for Europe I was asked if I wanted to attend PDXCON, Paradox‘s annual navel gaze, in Stockholm. Of course I said yes, but before you think I’m a lucky bastard, I should tell you that I didn’t go. I’m traveling with my dad and deviating from our itinerary nearly put him in the cardiac ward, so I had to crawl back and turn them down. Luckily, there’s this thing called the internet and you can pretty much be there without actually, you know, being there. It’s been a big week of announcements thus far: Age of Wonders: Planetfall, Imperator: Rome, and more. That said, the biggest announcement (in my board game centric eyes) was made today. Paradox is bringing some of their biggest franchises to the tabletop.

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