Move Over Monopoly—Catan in the Classroom

- by Jeremiah

For years, math, stats, and economics teachers have been trotting out the Monopoly board in their classrooms to help give students some hands-on, applicable life lessons. While the game is horrible, the idea is sound. From the get-go, gaming with my children has been chock full of teachable moments; at their current ages those lessons have been more about sportsmanship, being gracious while winning or losing, and learning to operate within the rules (or NOT cheating). As they grow older you can bet the lessons at the game table will grow with them.

A middle-school history teacher in Franklin, MA, has gone Euro with this concept in his classes. Teaching the struggles of early civilizations, and the conflict that can arise over scarce resources through The Settlers of Catan. A recent article in a local paper featuring the teacher and his students has caught the attention of Mayfair Games, and has gained some traction across the gaming community.

From the article:

“We can’t bring them back to Mesopotamia, Egypt or Greece, but this (Catan) brings it alive,” Brady said. “One student was so frustrated because he was winning at one point, and the other kids froze him out and wouldn’t trade with him. He said flat out, ‘I now understand why people go to war.’ ”

This is yet another step in not only promoting a great hobby, but also in breaking new ground in teaching future generations. So let's have a discussion here about it! What games do you think should end up in the classroom? and Why? We would LOVE to hear your thoughts. And who knows...you just might inspire someone to break new ground in their classroom, too!

Thanks for reading, and leave your suggestions in the comments!

The Great Heartland Hauling Co.—A Double-Take Review

"Breaker, breaker one-nine, you got a county mounty comin' up on your back door. You might want to back off the hammer." "No can do. I've gotta get these pink cubes pigs up to Jericho."

The Great Heartland Hauling Co. is a "cubes and cards game" for 2 to 4 players from Dice Hate Me games, and designer Jason Kotarski. You can read an interview we did with Jason right here.

Components

• 46 Freight Bill cards (15 each of soy beans and corn, and 8 each of cattle and pig)
• 19 Fuel cards (10 Move 1, 6 Move 2, and 3 Move 3)
• 12 double-sided Location cards
• 1 Distribution Center card
• 8 Score/Cargo cards
• 4 wooden trucks in the player colors
• 60 wooden Cargo Crate cubes (15 of each of the four colors)
• 4 Reference/Variant cards
• [My Kickstarted copy also came with a Badlands Expansion, a Truck Stop "inspansion", and pieces for a 5th player. I have no idea if these come with all copies of the game or not.]

Gameplay

First you'll randomly set up the board, depending on the number of players. The Distribution Center card is always in the middle, and that's where the trucks start. Each Location card has a "native good," and you'll place five cubes of that good on each card. You'll shuffle the Fuel and Freight Bill cards together, deal five to each player, and the place the top three cards of the draw pile next to the draw pile a la Ticket To Ride.

There are 3 Phases: Move / Take an action / and Refuel

So you have to move every turn; you can do this in one of two ways. First, you can discard fuel cards and move the exact number on the cards. You can add more than one card together, but you can never move more than three spaces on a turn. The second way to move is to pay $1 for each space you move—again, up to three spaces. If you're out of Fuel cards and money, you move to the Distribution Center card, discard as many cards as you want, and then draw up to five cards again in the Refuel phase.

There are a few rules that govern moving:

• You can only use either Fuel cards or cash—not both.
• You can only move orthogonally.
• You can't backtrack to spaces you already passed in that turn.
• You can move through a space with another truck, but can never stop on a space with another truck.
• You can't stop on the Distribution Center—unless you're out of cards and dough, as I said before.

Phase 2 is where you take actions; you have to Load, Unload, or Discard. To Load, you discard Freight Bill cards and load the matching good onto your truck—which holds up to 8 goods of any combination. If the good is a native good for that card, you can load one good for each card you discard. If it's not a native good, it costs two Freight Bill cards for each good you load. If you choose to unload, you discard one Freight Bill card for each good, unload it on a card that has demand for that good, and get cash for each good. You can only Load or Unload one type of good on each turn.

FREQUENTLY FORGOTTEN RULE: A Location card can only hold eight goods cubes at any one time.

Finally, you can take the Discard action. You discard as many cards as you want, and then pay $1.

After you've taken an action comes the Refuel phase. You draw from the supply until you have five cards again—you can choose from the faceup cards, or take your chances with the facedown draw pile.

When a player reaches a certain money level ($30 in a 4-player game, $40 in a 3-player game, and $50 in a 2-player game), every other player gets one last turn and the game ends. If any players still have goods cubes in their truck, they lose money (-$1 for soy beans and corn, and -$2 for each cattle or pig). Most cash wins—with ties won by the player with the fewest cubes left in his or her trailer.

My copy came with some fun variants:

First, each of the Location cards is double-sided. The regular side has the location, a native good, and then two other goods the Location "demands." If you flip to the advanced side, the cards have some obstacles/ For instance, a Road Closed symbol means you can't move into or out of the location from that direction. The Toll Road forces players to pay $1 to move through it. And the Weigh Station forces players to pay $1 for each cargo cube above four in their trailers. These are interesting—though I think the Weigh Station is kinda harsh. It's already risky to stockpile goods, but to get charged for them seems rough.

The Badlands expansion is for a five-player game—you place the two cards on the furthest reaches of the board. There are no native goods on these, but they pay more for the goods they demand. We haven't played with this one yet, but it seems fairly straightforward.

Finally, there's the Truck Stop inspansion, which are special power cards you can purchase and use in the game. They include powers such as making one diagonal move per turn, paying $1 to not move on your turn (which is more useful than it sounds), and the ability to unload multiple goods types on one turn. They're interesting and fun; the only one that doesn't seem to fit is the Ham Radio, which lets you trade goods with a adjacent player. It doesn't really fit the rest of the game at all, and we'll likely never play with that particular card. (Also, I'd be fine if the word "inspansion" never catches on...)

Recommendations

Youth Group Game? Under the Right Circumstances! It won't accommodate a crowd, but if you've only got a few, it's light enough to play with nongamer teens.

Family Game? Definitely! My 8-year-old played this a couple of times with open cards, but he'll soon be ready for playing the "real" game—cutthroat style!

Gamer’s Game? Yes! It's a meaty, longish filler—and I like those kind of games a lot. Groundbreaking? No. Fun? Yes!

The Verdict

Firestone—Dice Hate Me have packed a ton of game into this tiny package. There's a full game, and three variants/expansions in a perfectly sized box; I love that.

Jeremiah—Agreed...talk about bang for your buck! In an industry that is full of expansions, and re-releases, and add-ons, etc., it's awesome to get a great bunch of stuff packed in the box!

Firestone—My youngest (5) is too young for this right now, but he does love moving the trucks and drawing cards for us. My oldest really liked it; in fact, he said, "This game is so fun!" One thing the Truck Stop expansion is great for is evening out his game. I randomly gave him one of the powers cards to start with, and that seemed to settle any disparity in playing level. It won't be long before he won't need that, though.

Jeremiah—I love playing games like this with my kids, because they also just blurt out their praise or disdain for the game. My youngest (4) is far too young to play so he often "helps daddy," but my oldest loves it. In the short time we've had the game it's made its way to the table several times with my boys already. And that's not counting the times I've played with my gamer friends.

Jeremiah—The components are really of a high quality as well. I LOVE the truck meeples. My own personal pet peeve, is that they packed SO much into, I can't sleeve the cards and still fit them all into the box. Bummer.

Firestone—The truckles, truckeeples, big-rig-eeples, whatever are awesome. I agree about the sleeves. It seems like this will show wear fairly quickly—since the entire game is cards—but there's just not room in the box. :( Also, this could have used 100% more Pork Chop Express in it...

Firestone—The game group thought this was pretty good. Fillers are always welcome, and this is one of the better ones.

Jeremiah—Meaty fillers are even more welcome. There's something to be said for a game that moves quickly, and packs lots of gameplay, strategy, and decisions into a pretty compact amount of time.

Firestone—One thing I like is that this isn't another game about trading goods in the long-ago Mediterranean. Trucking is a rarely used and unique theme, and it fits perfectly.

Jeremiah—I believe the discussion we had was something to the effect of "I really like this game, but the theme isn't what I would have chosen. Maybe if we were pirates, or sailors, sailing to different ports to trade goods..." The theme works well for the game, but as a matter of taste it wasn't up my alley.

Firestone—Since the board changes every game, each game will be slightly different. And if you play with the Truck Stop, those are randomized and only a few used. So there's plenty of replayability.

Jeremiah—This speaks again to the value of picking up a copy of the game. Lots of variants. Here's a thought, too: Use some locations with the advanced side, and some with the normal side up. You've just doubled your variance in the board setup!

Firestone Final Thoughts—This game is just fun. I can play with gamers, family, and nongamers—and that's awfully rare these days. The box size, price-point, and amount of fun crammed in make this a great deal. I recommend it heartily!

Jeremiah Final Thoughts—Completely agree, it's super easy to learn for all skill levels, and tons of fun. The game moves really well, too; there are constantly decisions to make, but none that bog down the pace. The Great Heartland Hauling Co. gives enormous bang for your buck!

Thanks so much for reading!

Emperor's New Clothes—A Double Take Review

A couple of weeks ago we received prototype copies of the Kickstarter game Emperor's New Clothes—a game with a new twist on an old tale. We can't wait to share our thoughts with you. The game includes:

1 - Game Board

64 - Player cards

8 - Role cards (1 Emperor, 2 Swindlers, 4 Townsfolk, and 1 Child who breaks the illusion)

4 - Six sided dice

A whole pile of resource tokens

4 Meeples (for score keeping)

1- Starting player pawn

and the rule book.

The game begins with players randomly choosing a role and keeping that role secret. And dealing 5 cards to each player—it's pretty much that easy!

The player turn goes something like this: The starting player rolls all four dice, then decides whether to keep them, or re-roll any number of them, up to two times. The reason for keeping a certain numbers/combinations relies solely on the cards in your hand. Each card has certain abilities that can be triggered by certain dice roll totals or combos (or both in some cases) which will then allow you to score resource tokens.

Resource tokens are used for 1 of 2 things on your turn: either to buy you victory points, or you can cash them in for more cards. It often depends on what your role is. So the players take turns rolling dice, and using them to activate cards out of there hands, which then scores them resource tokens. After players have decided whether to spend or save their resource tokens, the round continues with the next player's turn. One round consists of each player taking a turn, and then victory conditions are checked. If no one has won, then the next round begins; players select new roles, the starting player pawn is passed to the left, and the whole thing starts over. The tricky part is there are sooo many ways to win and/or lose in this game! It all depends on which role you have (which, by the way, changes after every round!!). There's an element of "The Resistance" in this game, which basically means that if someone finds out who you are mid-round, there are plenty of "Town Crier" cards in the deck which players can use to block certain actions, take dice away, and stop you from scoring resources.

The beautiful part of this game is the marriage of old-school table-top gaming, and technology. The cards, game board and even the dice have been printed using some ridiculous ground breaking process - that we would almost call magic! We certainly don't claim to understand how it works, and Hoke's gaming (designers) and Game Salute are definitely not spilling the beans (something about patent lawyers and all that). But as far as we can tell it's like a mix between those "hidden picture" images they used to sell at the mall kiosks, and the technology described in this video from MIT:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rWycBEHn3s]

It's said that because of the printing process there are actually a small percentage of gamers (estimated to be around 3%) who will actually not be able to see the artwork—or at least not in great detail.

Jeremiah—Let's put aside the unreal components for a minute. If this game was printed via a standard process, it would be an amazing game. There's enough depth in the mechanics to keep the veteran gamers coming back, but it's light and fun enough to introduce to a new or casual gamer.

Firestone—I'm always looking for a game that's going to be a hit with my game group, but that I can also bring out with newbies. Emperor's fills that void.

Jeremiah—Let's also not forget the humor side of this! Sabotaging your friends with cards like "Skid Mark" and "Holey Sock" add a decent and light-hearted amount of skullduggery to the mix, without giving too much power to the swindlers!

Firestone—I thought the "Bamboozle" card was a little overpowered, but for the most part these were a good mix. I'll never forget the look on my friend's face when I played "The Man Who Was Thursday" on him.

Jeremiah—I know Scott is probably going to disagree with me on this, but I love the randomness of changing roles after every round!! It keeps you invested in the game, and keeps you always thinking! Having just ONE strategy will not score you the victory in this game!

Firestone—Oh Jeremiah, you and your crazy love of chaos...

Jeremiah—What can I say about the components... When I opened the box it was breathtaking. To get that kind of depth, movement, and clarity on a completely FLAT surface, without the use of glasses or special lights! Totally science-fiction-type stuff; the future is here, folks!

Firestone—Agreed! The kids were begging to play this as soon as they spotted that board. And it's not just pretty; all of the information you need in the game is right there on the board. The meeples were great; I'm so sick of companies insisting on giving me crappy plastic pieces. I love the old-school basic-ness of the wooden bits. Basic-ness sounds like bacon; now I'm hungry...

Jeremiah—I fell in love with this game and the idea from the word go! The mechanics are an incredible amalgamation of card and resource management, dice rolling, and backstabby role playing, with a dash of chaos mixed in. All that wrapped in a beautiful package! This is a future Game Of the Year candidate, I score it an 11!

Firestone—This gets a big thumbs-up from me, too. Often games with this many mechanisms don't do any of them particularly well, but they've managed to combine everything into a nearly perfect whole. Emperor's New Clothes should be seen to be believed.

The Kickstarter project ends in just 6 days, so check it out and see what you're missing.

Pixel Lincoln Challenge!

We're starting the week off with a sort of Kickstarter-ish bit of info for you—that includes a cool challenge. Jason Tagmire, designer of the eagerly anticipated Pixel Lincoln card game, has designed a Pixel Lincoln Bicycle deck (which is currently in the midst of a Kickstarter campaign), and has also issued a challenge to YOU.

They're looking for some folks to design a game around the theme of the deck—could be a trick-taking game, set, building, solitaire anything. You may have always thought, "Hey, it would be cool to design my own card game." Well this is your chance to get your feet wet. And then dry them off and design a game. There's a whole lot more information over on the Kickstarter page for the campaign; you can follow this link for the details!

Thanks for reading, and we appreciate all the social media love! Look us up on Facebook and Twitter!

Here's a look at the spiffy deck!

What You Missed...

A fun week here at TOG. Thanks for joining us; here's what you might have missed. AEG announced they're bringing the surprise Essen hit Trains to the US.

We reviewed the classic card game filler Coloretto.

Then we had the opportunity to bother the gracious Eric Lang for another interview. Now with 100% more Monty Python!

And finally, we brought you Walk The Plank!, a new Kickstarter project from a couple of Firestone's pals.

Next week, we'll be reviewing The Great Heartland Hauling Co., and bringing you more news, reviews, interviews, and shampoos nevermind...we're both bald. Thanks for reading!

Walk The Plank!—Kickstarter Weekly

This is a special Kickstarter project for me (Firestone). Jared Tinney and Shane Steely aren't just the designers of Walk The Plank, they're friends of mine. I've been gaming with them for at least 5 years, and I've played the prototype version of Walk The Plank! many times. It's fun. Seriously...I'm not just saying that because I'm friends with the designers. From the Kickstarter page:

"Walk The Plank! is all about trying to out-guess your fellow shipmates, with often disastrous results.  You plan three moves ahead but your crew is so incredibly stupid that if you plan to shove a pirate off the plank on your third move and all he sees are his own best mates, he will still shove away!  The bigger the action the worse the results will be for someone, very possibly YOU!  

Play order goes clockwise but turn order is COUNTER CLOCKWISE which really makes the mechanic hilarious for this game!

On your turn you will:

• Choose 3 of your 10 action cards and place them face down in front of you (first action on top)
• Resolve each action in turn by going around the table clockwise three times, adding/removing planks, pushing and shoving and just generally making a fool of yourself.
• Laugh your head off as your men thrash about stupidly, bungling most of your good intentions
• Retrieve most of your cards and begin again.  Some cards marked with a skull are too powerful to play in back to back rounds, leave those face up for one round before retrieving them.

At the end of a round check for the end of game condition, if there are only two (or fewer) pirates left or only pirates of one color left, the game is over.  There may be a shared victory (one of each of two players' pirates left), a solo victory (only one player's pirate(s) left), or NO VICTORY when every pirate has Walked The Plank!"

Check out the campaign; they've already reached their goal, and you can get the game for a mere $18 shipped. And we'll be interviewing the guys soon! Thanks for reading, and show us some love on Facebook and Twitter.

Another Interview With Designer Eric Lang

We’re glad to welcome back to TOG Eric Lang, game designer extraordinaire, to chat about some of his upcoming projects, the latest Star Wars The Card Game news, and much more!

Eric, so glad we didn’t scare you away the first time; thanks for coming back!

WHAT?! Oh, sorry. You frightened me there.

So, from the looks of your twitter account @eric_lang you've been doing some serious game design work away from home. Tell us a little bit about where you were and the project(s) you've been working on?

I’ve been in my comfort zone for the year, at all times juggling 2-4 games in various stages of completion. Two of them are currently in post-design, and ready for announcement within the month.

So, in total, how many projects have you had your hands on since we last talked?

Seven, I think? Maybe? It’s hard to keep track. Some games are ongoing developments, others are near-completion, and yet other ongoing games are in publishers’ capable hands but still need attention (like Star Wars LCG and Quarriors).

Via Twitter you’ve given each of your projects their own code name. You said several weeks ago that “Project Phoenix” is heading to production; can you tell us more about the game, who is publishing the game, and when we can expect to see it hit the shelves?

It will be published by Cool Mini or Not, and my producer is the extraordinarily talented David Preti (from Dust Games). They will be announcing it soon. I wish I could tell you more, because this is a game (and original IP) I’ve been working on for a long time.

How often do you leave town to get work done? Do you make the same pilgrimage every year, or do you travel to other places around the world? If so, what's been your favorite place to work so far?

I generally get work done at home, actually, and travel for inspiration or to crunch on administrative or production deadlines, which are easier on-site with publishers.

I love Brazil for the climate, the gamers, and the food. Singapore for the space-age lifestyle, the gamers, and the food. Malaysia for the gamers, the amazing islands, and the food. Minnesota for all my longtime friends, and the food. There’s a general food theme.

You said that “Project Phoenix” is something you've wanted to do for a long time; where did the idea first come from, and how did you get it to production?

Project Phoenix is a game I’ve wanted to do for about five years. It is a hybrid of two genres I really enjoy in gaming (which I sadly can’t talk about until the announcement). The nucleus of the game coalesced while I worked on other games, but crystallized when I met with David Preti in Brazil and pitched the basic concept. He said, “We’re making this game,” immediately, and then asked me for an IP to go with the game. I built the foundation of this world over a weekend, and we worked together to flesh it out (me on world details, he on visual direction).

We’ve also heard that your funding a project through Kickstarter, what can you tell us about that, and when will we see it over on KS?

I actually have four projects, with various publishers, slated for Kickstarter this year. Unfortunately I can’t talk about any of them :(

Since we last spoke with you, Star Wars The Card Game was released; we've enjoyed the base set and are looking forward to the multiplayer expansion. What can you tell us about the multiplayer experience?

Sadly, nothing of substance (NDA, as you’d guess). I can say that multiplayer completes the core vision I had for the game.

The idea of having multiple players team up against a single dark side player is really making me kind of giddy! And it seems that you had this in mind all along. Is there a reason the multiplayer expansion is delayed, or wasn't a part of the base set?

It was part of the game’s DNA from the start, but we realized during development that it would take a significant chunk of the core set’s card pool to execute as fully as we wanted. And we wanted to maximize variety in objective sets for regular play, both because variety is good and this game was experimenting with a new deck-building philosophy, so we wanted to give it breathing room.

It didn’t take long to realize we could easily take the multiplayer component and expand it even further if we made it a deluxe expansion box. Expect some surprises!

We're both pretty big fans of Quarriors, is there any news of what's coming down the line for that title?

The Quartifacts expansion is coming soon, which adds quests—an entirely new play pattern—to the game. Beyond that, they announced the exciting “Light and Dark” expansion that Mike and I finished a few months ago, so it won’t be coming for awhile.

We got the press release from Wizkids about Train Stations. There’s scant information so far, but the description reads like a standard pickup-and-deliver-type train game—but then we noticed it comes with 50 custom dice... Is this some sort of Quarriors/Age Of Steam mashup, or what?!

There are lots of dice, but the game is nothing like Quarriors. It’s more of a risk management game with a ton of player interaction (with mild cooperative elements, even though there is only one winner). I designed this game as an homage to Sid Sackson, one of my favorite designers, and even though it shares no mechanics with his games, my guiding process during design would often be to ask myself, “What would Sid do?”

Are there any other new and exciting projects that you can tell us about?

Absolutely! I am working on two games with my good friend and awesome designer Kevin Wilson, codenamed Tweedledee and Tweedledum. The games are not related; the codenames symbolize something else (shhh). One is a really fun little strategy game that “scratches your OCD itch” and the other is an intense psychological social game dripping with warped theme. Both are based on really cool existing IPs, and will be out later this year.

Last year I finished design on a risky but really compelling game that adds a new twist to a classic genre. I call it Project ZOMG, and have described it as a “youthful power fantasy come to life.” This one will be announced by a major publisher shortly. I can’t wait to talk more about it.

Finally, I started work on another big game for FFG. This one won’t be out for awhile, but the initial design is already mostly done, and I’ve scoped out some crazy ambition. One thing I can say is that I love how FFG is a big game company and still likes to take risks and try new ideas.

Here’s another round of 1-word questions!

Favorite Monty Python member?

The Foot

Kirk or Picard?

Sisko

Favorite Star Wars film?

Empire (obviously!)

Bill S. Preston esq. or Ted Theodore Logan?

Bogus!

Favorite comic book hero?

Ozymandias

Thanks again for taking the time to chat with us!

Thank you! Fun questions as always.

Update: Shortly after we finished this interview with Eric, Cool Mini or Not leaked some info on the Project Phoenix game, which is Kaosball. From Eric's Web site:

"Kaosball is a fantasy sports game based on modern world pop culture. It has a different approach than most sports games, using card play rather than standard miniatures style simulationist rules for resolving conflict. There’s luck and variance, to be sure, but key skills like bluffing and reading your opponent enhance the drama and can turn the tide.

The sport (a 2-4 player cross between rugby and domination-style e-sports) is designed from the ground up to play well as a team management board game focused on special powers and their interactions. It’s bloody and lethal; in fact, kills help your overall score! Four teams come in the core set, but I have already designed over a dozen more.

More details and blog updates to follow over the next few weeks. I have been waiting a very long time to talk about this game!"

We can't wait to hear more about all of the games Eric is juggling right now. Thanks, Eric, for the interview, and thanks to you for reading—and please check us out on Facebook and Twitter.

Coloretto—A Classic Review

By Firestone I love a good filler. Having a great, short, interesting game to fill the constant gaps is worth its weight in gold. Coloretto is a terrific filler.

Components

• 63 color cards—nine copies of seven colors
• 10 "+2" Cards
• 1 "Last Round" Card
• 3 Jokers
• 5 Row Cards
• 5 Summary Cards
• 1 Rule Booklet

This is all housed in a small card box, which can be had for a very reasonable $10.

Setup

Place one of the Row Cards on the table for each player in the game. Each player takes one card of one color and places it in front of him or her. Shuffle the rest of the cards into a pile, deal 15 cards off the top of the pile, place the Last Round card on top of these 15, and then place the rest of the pile on top of this stack of 16 cards.

Gameplay

This is very simple: You either draw a card and add it to a row, or take a row and add the cards to your collection. If you choose to draw a card, you place it in one of the rows. A row can have at most 3 cards in it. If all rows have 3 cards in them, you must choose to take one of the rows. If you choose to take a row, you gather the cards and sort them by color and type. ( You can only take a row if it has at least 1 card in it...) Once you've taken a row, you're done for that round; once everyone has taken a row, the round is over. You place the Row Cards out again, and start a new round. Once the Last Round card is drawn, you finish the round and the game is over.

Scoring

Now you assign the jokers to one of the colors, and count up the colors.

1 card = 1 point

2 cards = 3 points

3 cards = 6 points

4 cards = 10 points

5 cards = 15 points

6 or more cards = 21 points

Here's where it gets interesting. You only get to pick 3 colors that will score you positive points, according to the numbers above. Any sets in any colors beyond those 3 will score you negative points. So you're trying to collect 3 colors, and no more, if possible. This, of course, makes where people place the drawn cards ripe with mean possibilities.

Now you simply add up the positive points, subtract the negative ones, and add 2 points for each of the "+2" cards you've managed to snag.

The person with the most points wins.

Recommendations

Youth Group Game? Yes! It's light and easy. The only negative for this is that it only plays 5; also, there's no theme to speak of, so it could be seen as "boring."

Family Game? Definitely! It's a game my oldest can easily grasp, and I suspect the youngest isn't far behind. And its length makes it something my wife enjoys playing, too.

Gamer’s Game? Absolutely! This is an excellent filler, with interesting choices.

This game is fun, fast, cheap, portable, and worthy to be in any game collection.

Thanks for reading! Let us know what some of your favorite fillers are!

Come on Ride the Trains!

Alderac Entertainment Group, which has recently been dominating our posts, is at it again with some big news today. This coming summer they will be releasing the long-awaited US edition of Trains. Trains was a surprise Essen success—selling out on the first day—and gamers have been clamoring for another printing ever since! From the AEG Website: "This English edition of Trains, designed by Hisashi Hayashi, features updated graphics, artwork, and streamlined card abilities. With extensive replay value, Trains is one game you won’t want to leave the station without!"

They've also posted the complete rulebook for your reading pleasure.

Thanks for reading our blog, we love it when you tell your friends, families, heck...even your enemies about us! Don't forget the Facebooky, Twitter things!

Hot Off the Press!

Just minutes ago Alderac Entertainment Group posted this picture of Paul Peterson's new Awesome Level 9ooo expansion for Smash Up. It's an ACTUAL box that is making its way to store for International TableTop day later this month! Follow all the linky text above to find our complete coverage! And enjoy oooing, and aaahing over the photo!