#boardgames

Vantage

I’ve played the new Stonemaier Games release Vantage three times so far, and each play gets better.

CUBE4ME Trays

I ordered a set of animeeples and storage trays from CUBE4ME. On to Richmond with CUBE4ME trays I had a few games in mind that needed some sorting and org...

I’m on Mozi

You can read more about Mozi in this NY Times article: It lets people tell their friends about upcoming plans that may overlap. Those who join the app wi...

Playing Trails

Julie and I played the newish Trails game, from the same designer as the beautiful Parks.

Gaming Fun in Sunriver Oregon

After a 36 hour travel adventure from New York to Oregon, I’ve arrived in Sunriver OR. Walking along the river in Sunriver I’m hanging out with good frien...

Scythe

Been playing some games again, even some that are new-to-me. Playing Scythe with Jim and Logan Scythe is a highly rated game that I had wanted to play for...

Gaming with Neighbors

We’ve had a few home-and-home dinner dates with neighbors and are getting them into some of our social games. Playing The Crew We’ve played The Crew: Miss...

Return to My Gaming Collection

One of the many joys of returning to Keuka is being reunited with my gaming collection. There are some games on that shelf that I thought were in storage ...

Teaching Wingspan

Angry bird player! We are still in KC with family. Taught (and re-taught) Wingspan, using the upgraded bits.

Recent Gaming, July 2021 Edition

We started our hosting duties for summer 2021 at the start of July, hosting gaming-running-drinking friends from Oregon and Indiana. There’s so much to do ...

Summer Gaming

It is high time I shared at least some sort of update on my summer goings-on, so how about gaming? We’ve had a range of short- and long-term visitors that en...

February and March Mega Gaming Update!

This will be a linear wander through my gaming from early February through early March. Julie was in Florida for the duration so I was anxious to fill my fr...

High Frontier 3rd Edition

I’m at our annual RipCityCon gaming retreat on the Oregon coast. First big game of the week is Phil Eklund’s High Frontier. We are playing with colonisation...

18Lilliput

Playing the “18xx card game” with Jacob and Geoff and it is a big hit. So much scarcity of actions makes the game seem very tight - not enough time to do wh...

Five and Dime List for 2015

I first started doing “five and dime” reports 13 years ago. This is a summary of games I played at least 5 or 10 times in the prior year. For many years Mar...

The Dice Tower 2016 Kickstarter Is Live

Last year our focus was on making the show BETTER, and I think we succeeded. This year, we want to continue that trend. We're asking for your help as we purs...

Games for Keuka Lake and Ireland

Now that I've talked about what's coming up next, it's time to talk about how I'll manage to keep playing games while being away from my collection for nearl...

My Final Salishan Gaming Event

I haven't written about my Salishan gaming retreats in a while (since 2011 I think) but having just held my final one I think I should wrap things up with a...

I Ran a Magic: the Gathering Cube Draft

I hosted a Magic cube draft tournament earlier this month and it was a blast. Here's what I did: Last summer I built what is called a cube -- a collection ...

BGG.CON 2014 Report

I went to BGG.CON again this year, this time Julie joined me and we hung out with friend Jim for the weekend. This was "9 out of 10" for Jim and me, so of c...

What I Hope to Play at BGG.CON 2014

I will return to BGG.CON this year, and I get to bring a friend this time! Yes, Julie will join me for the first time! This will be my ninth visit. Of cours...

Compounded, Forbidden Desert, and Up Front!

I played three different new-to-me games in the past week. I'm in the midst of my transition out of routine board gaming and into the daily (awesome) grind o...

Evolution card game is live on Kickstarter

The re-imagining of the game Evolution is now live on a Kickstarter. North Star Games was kind enough to provide me a prototype of the new version and I'll...

GameStorm 16 2014

I spent last weekend GameStorm, a local convention I started going to in 2003. At that GameStorm I met KC for the first time And found my local gaming group...

Two Player Gaming

I've enjoyed a flurry and wide range of two player gaming since the start of the year. Here is a brief rundown. Mage Wars I first played a demo of this at ...

BGG.CON 2013 Wrap-up

BGG.CON 2013 Wrap-up BGG.CON 2013 did not disappoint and I have no plans to stop attending in the future. Looking back on my posts from past years brings a...

BGG.CON 2013 Day 5

This post is about day 5 at BGG.CON 2013. You can also read about day 1, day 2, day 3, and day 4. The last day of BGG.CON 2013 and we almost finished a sing...

BGG.CON 2013 Day 4

This is day 4 of BGG.Con. You might want to check out Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3 first. On Saturday morning Jim and I strolled through the hot games area and w...

BGG.CON 2013 Day 3

This is part 3. You can read part 1 and part 2 first. Here's a quick recap on day 3, which featured mostly new games for me that I universally liked. A goo...

BGG.CON 2013 Day 2

Day 2 started off on a very nice note as I joined a group of two with a willing teacher to play Core Worlds, a game that was on my list to play last year bu...

BGG.CON 2013 Day 1

Day 1 at BGG.CON is over for me. No promises that I'll be be able to keep up with daily posting but here's a quick recap. My first stop was the dealer room...

Review of Clubs (the card game)

North Star Games sent me a review copy of Clubs earlier this year and I'm finally getting around to writing a review. We've played it off and on since the s...

Learning Advanced Civilization

A few weeks ago I got together with some local gaming friends to play Advanced Civilization, an expansion released in 1991 for the base game Civilization wh...

Summoner Wars with Matthew

I sensed a willingness in Matthew to play a game. He offered up something we could play with Jacob and Julie, but knowing Julie was busy with CASA work and J...

The Many Uses of a Sticheln Deck

Step 1: Go buy a Sticheln deck. Step 2: Go download this comprehensive set of rules for games that can be played with a Sticheln deck. The book is big, but w...

Epic Boardgaming

I've had some amazing boardgame sessions over the past two weeks that I'm eager to share. Earlier in December I hooked up with Yehuda (Jerusalem Israel) and...

BGG.CON So Far

We are living in a time warp. New games to us are the games from last year, so by playing stuff that has held up we are avoiding stinkers. This is what Thurs...

Ora et Labora

Played the last-year released Rosenburg game last night. I like it more than Le Havre, though it feels similar. We had a hard time with language as we played...

To BGG.CON

Today I arrive at BGG.CON, the annual BoardGameGeek convention in Dallas. This is my (n-1)th convention, where n is the number of conventions they've held. I...

The Dice Tower 2011 Gaming Awards

The Dice Tower recently published their nominations for the 2011 Dice Tower gaming awards. They recently lamented about how there aren't any luminaries talki...

Gaming with Joe Huber

We hosted noteworthy gamer Joe Huber at Eric's home this week for a special Thursday night gaming session. Joe was in town on business and I responded to h...

Five and Dime Report for 2011

I surpassed my five and dime totals from 2010 and met my prediction that Thunderstone would make my nickel list in 2011. Here is the breakdown: Dimes (games...

Salishan Gaming Late 2011

Earlier this month I hosted my 6th gaming weekend out at Salishan for my local gaming buddies (see prior outings: 2005, early 2007, late 2007, 2008, early 2...

Runewars with Dave and Chuck

Last weekend I got together with Dave and Chuck (strange fact: all three of us were born within 1 month of each other) to play Runewars. I first played thi...

BGG.CON 2011 Report

Last week I returned from another stellar BGG.CON gaming convention. The routine has become very attractive and fulfilling for me: play games, drink beer an...

BGG.CON 2011 Days 1 and 2

Here's a quick rundown of what I've played so far: Thursday Alien Frontiers -- One of my hope-to-play games from 2010. Reminds me of Mission: Red Planet but...

BGG.CON 2011 Preparation

Tomorrow I fly to Dallas for my 6th BGG.CON gaming convention, joining the convention a bit later than most but earlier than I usually do. As usual (in a g...

Review: Wits and Wagers Family

I've been a big fan of Wits & Wagers since it was first released back in 2005. I even participated in a Wits & Wagers game show back in 2006. North...

Review: Say Anything Family Edition

I received a play-test copy of Say Anything: Family Edition from North Star Games a short while ago and we've managed to play this new edition a few times no...

Airlines: Europe

I hosted my game group weekly session this week and got to play Airlines:Europe with 5 players (Mike, JD, Greg, and Doug). This is a remake of the Alan Moo...

Merchant of Venus

I ventured downtown to the Sellwood area yesterday to enjoy my first ever play of Merchant of Venus at Subhan's home along with Rachel and Matty. This is a...

A Victory Lost

I made a plea for help a couple of weeks ago - there are two wargames in my collection that have languished unplayed and I needed to make the stay or go cal...

Epic Thunderstone

Ken and I played Thunderstone tonight. Not run-of-the-mill standard Thunderstone, but epic Thunderstone. In the standard game you randomize the a fixed se...

Washington’s War with Jacob

It wasn't planned, but we played it anyway. Jacob and I had a mostly free Sunday afternoon and opted to play Washington's War, giving me a trifecta of card...

Napoleonic Wars - with 5 this time

I hosted a five player Napoleonic Wars game today - my first time playing with a full complement of players. I drew the Russians which was also a first. M...

Diving into A Game of Thrones LCG

Given that I'm diving deep into the Game of Thrones Living Card Game (LCG) from Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) I thought others might benefit from a detailed di...

Napoleonic Wars with KC and Jacob

On Saturday KC, Jacob and I played the classic card-driven game Napoleonic Wars. KC was interested in something longer and deeper and when he opened the doo...

Game of Thrones LCG with Three Players

Jacob, Matthew and I just finished a three player game. I can see why people say this shines in multiplayer - the title selection and "who do I want to hurt...

A Game of Thrones Living Card Game

KC came over for a great day of gaming - 3 player Napoleonic Wars with Jacob followed by two games of A Game of Thrones Living Card Game. A while back (4-5 y...

Salishan Gaming Photos

I posted some better photos from the Salishan gaming weekend. Here are a few of the choice picks.

18xx Order from Deep Thought Games

I finally broke down and placed another Deep Thought Games 18xx game order. I still have two unplayed 18xx game in my collection (1870 and 2038) but I feel c...

Salishan Gaming Day 4

The photo tells it all - I spent most of the day with Doug, Matt, and Eric playing the new Civilization boardgame. This is everything I like to see in a civ...

Salishan Gaming 2011 - Day 3

Today was another banner day. A great mix of deep longer games with light fare, good food and friends, and some excellent aged bourbon. The day started with ...

Salishan Gaming 2011 - Days 1 and 2

KC and Rita arrived at my Sherwood home late Thursday afternoon and after stopping for happy hour at the 101 Roadhouse we were at Salishan and ready to dive ...

Salishan Gaming Plans

I like to host an annual gaming event at our Salishan beach house but had to skip last year after starting a new job. The last event was in December 2008 an...

WWII: Barbarossa to Berlin, Starting

I doubt we'll get too far this weekend, but Jacob and I started a game of WWII: Barbarossa to Berlin this afternoon. I traded away Paths of Glory (a WWI game...

Neue Heimat

I had some games to deliver to another PDX gamer and we agreed to meet at the Lucky Lab in SE Portland tonight. I planned to stay until about 8pm and we had...

Carson City

Doug, Mike, and I played Carson City last night - a first play for Doug and Mike, and my only play since a five-player introduction at BGG.CON back in Novemb...

Holiday Gaming

The last week has brought a big increase in quality game time. I'm especially appreciative that I've had some great 1x1 gaming with several folks that I shou...

My Five and Dime for 2010

This was clearly a down year in my games played in 2010 with only two "nickels": Thunderstone and 18xx. A few games knocked on the door: the perennial favori...

Recent Gaming

Life is a bit less hectic these days, which means gaming activity has picked up. I’ve managed to host a few different gaming sessions and even attended one a...

BGG.CON 2010 Report

I thrust myself back into the world of gaming this weekend with my return to BGG.CON 2010. This convention keeps me coming back largely because of it’s simpl...

Games I want to play at BGG.CON 2010

This Wednesday I return to Dallas for my fifth BGG.CON, having missed only the 2006 event (too much hangover from Essen that year!) (you might enjoy reading ...

BGG.CON 2009 Wrap-Up

I’m only about a month late on this wrap-up. Maybe two. Though my trip to the convention was shortened by a day and a half due to work commitments, I had a g...

Teaching Descent, Converting New Gamers

My good friend Brian emailed me about a month ago asking about Dungeons and Dragons. His son John started expressing interest in learning the game and Brian ...

Roads and Boats Again

Jacob and I were eager to play Roads and Boats again, so persuaded Matthew to join us for a Sunday afternoon game. I was a bit hesitant, not knowing if Matth...

Small World and the Stone Age

Snuck in some boardgaming over the past week, including a much anticipated first play of Days of Wonder’s new release Small World (not to be confused with It...

Steam Over Holland

I’m three plays into the wonderful introductory 18xx game Steam Over Holland and I’m confident in saying that while it stands up perfectly for beginner playe...

GameStorm 2009

I was able to return to GameStorm this year after sadly missing the 2008 event (read my past reports: 2003, 2004 Day 1, 2004 Day 2, 2004 Day 3, 2004 - Uberpl...

Recent Gaming: 1850, Volldampf, Vinci

Time to catch up on some recent gaming. As you may have read in Mike’s blog, we had a very wacky game of 1850 a few weeks ago. Not knowing the exact number o...

Chess Success

Last weekend I helped host a regional Chess for Success tournament at Sherwood Middle School. With a very strong 6th grade class joining our club of about 40...

Salishan Gaming 2008

I hosted what has become an annual gaming event at our Salishan home

BGG.CON 2008 Wrapup

BGG.CON continues to impress and remains at the top of my list of conventions to travel to, surpassing Origins, Gen Con, and even Essen.

BGG.CON - Day 5

Sunday at BGG.CON - the exodus begins and gamers try to fit in an as many games as they can before the library closes. Jim had been lugging around his copy o...

BGG.CON - Day 4

Saturday began with a scheduled game of Steam Over Holland with David Fair, Tom McCorry, Jeff, and Jim. This was a last-minute substitution over 18VA and tur...

BGG.CON - Day 3

Friday started with a mini photography meetup with Mark Hamzy, Jeff Jones, and me. We enjoyed chatting about equipment, lenses, and Sony vs Canon.

BGG.CON - Day 2

Day 2 (Thursday) was a day of longish games - a series of 3-4 hour plays that were very rewarding. Jim and I hung out around registration and played The Batt...

BGG.CON - Day 1

Thanksgiving weekend gives me a chance to catch up on my BGG.CON posts. As much as I’d like to crank these out while at the convention, gaming takes preceden...

History of BGG.CON Posts

As the gaming world turns its attention to the “vast gaming experience” that is BGG.CON, here is a summary of my posts on the convention from 2005 and 2007 (...

We the People, Agricola x 2, Dominion x 3

I took what I think was a deserved break from volunteer activities this weekend, allowing Julie to accompany the boys on a scout camp-out. I proceeded to fil...

Recent Gaming: Steel Driver and Dominion

For the first time in many moons I hosted a game night on Tuesday night and had a strong turnout of six people. Steel Driver was the top priority for the nig...

Review: Dragons of Kir

I received a (rare) complimentary copy of a game to review - Dragons of Kir (publisher page). Jacob and I sat down to play last week, and here are my thought...

Salishan Weekend

We’ve had a great relaxing weekend here at the coast. The weather was sunny, warm, and calm on Friday and we met some Sherwood friends for some tide pool act...

Notre Dame and Hanging Gardens

Some quick thoughts on two games I got to play tonight - Notre Dame (finally!) and Hanging Gardens. KC, Rita, Ian, Mike and I first played a five player game...

OSCF State Chess Tournament

We are in Seaside, Oregon at the Oregon Scholastic Chess Federation state tournament. The boys are each tied for 1st place after 4 rounds in their respective...

Eugene Games Gala

Two weeks ago I journeyed down to Eugene with KC and Rita (and back with Doug) for Lorna’s Eugene Games Gala. This is a small weekend event held at a hotel i...

Agreeekola, not Agruhcola

Ahh, finally, another chance to try Agricola.  Mike sprung a nice surprise on us yesterday, letting us know he had a copy of Agricola and had spent the weeke...

My Five & Dime Report for 2007

I just finished tabulating my games played for 2007 for Mark Jackson’s annual Five & Dime report. This was a down year for me in terms of total games pla...

My Top 10 Games

A short while back Steve (I think Steve Sexton, though I’m not sure) asked me to post my all-time top 10 games.  Here they are, but I’m not even going to try...

Salishan Gaming 2007

I hosted another fantastic weekend of gaming about a weekend ago at Salishan.  We enjoyed our largest crowd ever, peaking at about 15 people, and though thin...

Games for Sale

I’ve got a few games for sale, posted on the BGG marketplace. I’ll be adding a few more to the list as I clean out my collection.

Winds of Plunder, Brass, Niagara, 1960

Gaming continues to be frequent and fun.  Last weekend the boys and I tried Winds of Plunder for the first time, the GMT game stuck on my burndown list.  It ...

Start ‘em Young!

I just had to post this photo. Yes, this little girl on the left really does know how to play chess. Talk about getting an early jump on competitive play!

BoardGameGeek Holiday Gift Guide

If you are a casual gamer (or not a gamer at all!) then you might be interested in the BoardGameGeek Holiday Gift Guide. I haven’t played all of the games o...

BGG.CON 2007 Wrap-up

Convention Summary BGG.CON 2007 was quite a bit different than 2005, the last time I attended.

BGG.CON 2007 Day 4

My primary gaming buddy at BGG.CON was nowhere to be found on Sunday as he had an early flight to Indy, so I had to fend for myself to get some final gaming ...

BGG.CON 2007 Day 3

Saturday was full of great gaming and even better Texas BBQ thanks to a trip to the Baby Back Shack courtesy of Tim and Carrie.  The day did not start off to...

BGG.CON 2007 Day 2

This will be another brief post - having a blast and don’t want to miss out on any gaming! I continued to play new games to me that were very good, including...

BGG.CON 2007 Day 1

Check out the photo stream with more photos over at Flickr. Wow, what a fun-packed and tiresome first day at BGG.CON.

Brass

As promised I played a three-player game of the new Martin Wallace release Brass today.  Randy and his son Byron joined me - a first chance to meet these new...

Burndown 2007

What a difference a year makes. Last year I peaked at 118 unplayed games in my collection and went into the holiday season with over 35 games remaining to b...

BGG.CON 2007

Two weeks from now I’ll be at BGG.CON. Are you going? If so, leave a comment so we can meetup there. I’m really looking forward to this. Why? I’m ...

To Court the King with Sasquatch

Jacob invited a friend over for some Magic: the Gathering action. After playing another prototype with Carey I joined in for some fun theme-deck action. I ...

Age of Empires III

With a rare free Sunday, the boys and I took the dive into boardgaming again and played Age of Empires III. KC and I did a joint order at Funagain recently ...

Game Class Starts

Class started today without a hitch. I opted for Walk the Dogs to keep the first day simple and play something known by about half the class (returning from...

Contrast Train Gaming

Two consecutive Fridays, two consecutive train gaming sessions. How different they can be! Last Friday I hosted an evening of 18XX gaming, a rare pleasure...

What New Games for 3-5 Graders?

I’m doing the game class thing again at school this year. Take a look at the games I used last year and leave comments here with any new suggestions for 200...

Big Foot

So Gabby, our new kitten, is supposed to have larger than normal (for a cat) paws. This morning Julie noticed that one paw was larger than the other, took h...

18FL with Jacob

I recently borrowed 18FL from Eric Landes to try another easier 2-player 18xx game with Jacob. We played a couple of weekends ago, again with good results, ...

Union Pacific, 24/7: the Game, Loco

Gaming sessions have been few and far between over the past 2 months.  I looked at my game journal and noticed an entry on May 1 (my session at Mike’s) and o...

Thurn & Taxis, Liebrary

This has been a pretty good year for me in terms of making gaming sessions.  I’ve been able to host most of the time when I’m scheduled, and I’ve managed to ...

Chess Wrap-up

The chess season for me is officially over for school year 2006-2007.  It was a fun year and a first chance for me to start getting involved with the program...

1889

I used a pretty heavy hand with Jacob last weekend in an attempt to get him to try out an 18xx game with me.  After witnessing my marathon game of 1825 at Ga...

GameStorm 2007 - Kniziathon

I decided to turn this post into a tutorial as well as a report on running a Kniziathon.  I suppose the idea could be transferable to any game designer with ...

GameStorm 2007, Day 3

My goal was for day 3 to be a day of rest for me - no events to run, ideally playing a longer thoughtful game.  Downtime wasn’t a big concern as I knew I’d h...

How to Win a Kniziathon

Tim Shippert put together a nice geeklist describing how he won the Kniziathon at the recent GameStorm convention.

GameStorm 2007, Day 2

After too little sleep, Jacob and I swung over to the “other side” to play a roleplaying game starting at 9am on Saturday.  The game: Spirit of the Century, ...

GameStorm 2007, Day 1

(You can see all of my GameStorm photos on my Flickr photoset.) I’m coming back to this blogging thing with a flurry.  I expect to make no fewer than 5 posts...

GiftTRAP Review

This is a review of the party game GiftTRAP.  I received a complimentary review copy and am way past due in posting my review. Julie, Jacob, Matthew, and I s...

Werewolf in our Game On! Games Class

Julie just wrote this tid-bit to me about our games class.  I’m out of town on business all week so she’s handling both classes, and we struggled a bit decid...

Salishan Gaming Wrapup

Chairman Mike did a fabulous job writing up our recent gaming weekend out on the coast, but I still wanted to share some of the impressions of the games I pl...

Blogging and Photos for My Gaming Weekend

I’m hosting a great crowd of friends out at our beach house at Salishan this weekend.  We are all quite chilly hear at the house waiting for the gas to be tu...

Old School Cheat Sheets

I’m loving the cheat sheets ruby application.  Install Ruby, gem, then follow Err the Blog’s complex (heh) instructions. I even added my own cheat sheet on G...

A Face for Radio

I’ve managed to have my voice show up in a couple of interesting places lately.  First, my friends over at Distinction Communication had me record a radio sp...

GameStorm 9 will feature Reiner Knizia

GameStorm 9, March 30 - April 1 at the Portland Airport Sheraton, will be featuring Reiner Knizia as its guest of honor this year.  There are several reasons...

Game On! Games Mid-Term Report

The game classes have been a good success, even resulting in the conversion of a few families to full-time game geeks.  Julie is running the Wednesday class ...

C&C Ancients with Jacob

Jacob and I are starting to get a bit hooked on Command & Colors: Ancients.  We played a game Thursday night then brought it out again this afternoon.  I...

Final 2006 Burndown Report

If you follow this weblog (and the now defunct Gathering of Engineers blog) you know that I had a New Years resolution to play through my current owned but u...

Build-up to Burndown

I took advantage of some solo time at home last week to invite some friends over for gaming.  It was my turn to host our weekly Tuesday night gaming, but I m...

My Top Gaming Experiences of 2006

Maybe I’ll do a top n games list for 2006 at some point, but when I reflect on the past year what comes to mind are great gaming experiences, not great games...

Roads & Boats, Die Macher

Last Saturday I hosted a dynamic duo of class big games - Roads & Boats and Die Macher (new edition).  Eric, Wes, and Michael joined me for a morning sta...

14 days and 23 games

I’ve made some great progress, but have a tough 2 weeks ahead of my to complete my unplayed games list burndown. While a few of the remaining games are quic...

The Hottest Game Company in Portland

Somehow we’ve managed to leverage our Chuck Norris guerilla marketing skills into a number of local press coverage items around the Portland area.  Seriously...

Burndown at the Beach

I’m late writing this up, but we had a great time out at the coast last weekend.  The weather improved on Friday allowing us to spend some time playing footb...

Salishan

We are driving out to the coast to checkout the house and make sure everything is kosher after the heavy rains this week. There’s a high wind advisory tonigh...

My Todo List

Games I need to play, sell, trade, or dump by the end of the year.  Ranked in descending order by BGG rank.   Die MacherShogunPaths of GloryRoads & Boats...

Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization

Saturday marked the end of Matthew’s football season, the end of Jacob’s regular season (they have a playoff game next weekend), and a chance for Jacob and I...

Game On! Class Started this Week

Julie and I started the Game On! class this week at Matthew’s school (read more here and here).  We ended up doing two classes to accomodate the 40 kids that...

Essen Game Summary

This year I’d like to give a bit more information about the games I saw and played while at Essen.  I’ll do another post where I talk some more about the Sun...

At the Dusseldorf Airport

Bags checked in fine - no weight issues but all three bags I checked were about 24 kilos each. I guess I fit within the 1-2 kilo grace range. We had some goo...

Fair is Over

I’m sitting here in Carey’s bathroom while Carey, Linda, Lorna, and Erik work on packing our various leftovers (not many!) and acquisitions into our return l...

Day 4 Begins

I managed to be just inside the main entrance in hall 12 (I forgot the cash box key in the hotel room) when the fair opened today - wow, what a crazy scene. ...

Day 4 Begins

I managed to be just inside the main entrance in hall 12 (I forgot the cash box key in the hotel room) when the fair opened today - wow, what a crazy scene. ...

Saturday Night in Essen

We are in the home stretch.  We had a great dinner at one of the nicer places I’ve seen around here - the name escapes me, but the food was on the gourmet si...

Der Elefant

Trying out the Amigo card game Der Elefant here in the conference room at the Arosa. This is about the classic “elephant in the china shop” story (? I though...

Sitting Down for Dinner at the Manda

We have our crew plus Matthias and Ina Catrain - Matthias is our artist for Incan Gold. I’m sipping a Paulaner Weissbier and we are having some great convers...

Salamanca

I’m trying out the new Zoch zum Spielen game Salamanca. This is a tile laying game that feels a bit like New England to me. Players take control of buildings...

Die Baumeister von Arkadia

I’m sitting here at the Ravensburger booth playing Arkadia, a new game that recycles the tower pieces from Torres. We are playing 2-player which I suspect is...

Day 1 Is Almost Over

I’m here in the Messe hanging out in smoke-filled hall 4A between 4 and 5. Sorry for the lack of posts, but it is such a non-stop craze that it is hard to fi...

Arrived at the Arosa

We made it safe and sound to the Arosa in two taxis. It is almost fortunate that three of our bags didn’t make it (they are held up in Frankfurt and will arr...

Made it

Customs and security didn’t slow us down too much and we are sitting on a B737 for our flight to Dusseldorf. Carey, Linda, KC, Marty (KC’s dad), and Lorna Wo...

Landed in Frankfurt

Racing to catch our flight to Dusseldorf. Hopefully they’ll hold the flight or we may arrive in Essen much later than palnned!

Essen 2006

The time is quickly approaching where I’ll board a Lufthansa flight here in Portland to join a bunch of my partners and friends for the trek to Essen.  Sunri...

Nexus Ops

I recently picked up the Avalon Hill game Nexus Ops from Toys R Us (great deal - $19.99 with free shipping) and we all sat down to give it a try today.  The ...

Burndown Update for October

Time for a quick update on my unplayed games burndown project.  In my last update, I mentioned that I need to kick the playing and possibly the getting-rid-o...

Antiquity

Nearly a month ago I spent the better part of a Saturday over at Doug’s to play the Splotter game Antiquity.  Doug already did a great job of describing the ...

Game On! Games

I’m running a weekly morning gaming class for kids at Archer Glen Elementary.  On this page you can find a list of games we’ll be playing this year as well a...

Canal Mania

I broke down and purchased the newest Ragnar Brothers game Canal Mania after reading the Counter review and seeing some positive buzz online.  Seeing that fo...

Gemblo Light

At Origins earlier this summer Tom Vasel was kind enough to give me a copy of Gemblo Lite, the smaller version of the Korean game Gemblo. The publisher is tr...

Gaming Survey Results are Posted

A while back I mentioned an online survey about games being conducted by GAMA and The Ohio State University.  The results of this survey are now online.

Warrior Knights

Jacob, Matthew, and I broke out Warrior Knights for the first time Saturday night and Sunday morning.  I set the game up in between football jamborees for th...

Help Me Choose Games for My Games Class

I’m a little burnt out on the chess class I’ve been teaching at school for the past three years, so I’ve delegated that away and will instead be doing a 50 m...

The Making of Viktory

I learned about the game Viktory II listening to The Dice Tower recently.  Tom’s glowing remarks and the mention of 660 miniatures certainly perked up my ear...

Battlestations

Friday night the boys and I tried out Battlestations, the sci-fi sorta-RPG with ship-to-ship combat.  This is a game I received in the BoardGameGeek secret s...

Parlay

I failed to mention that I played Parlay recently at one of our lunchtime gaming sessions at work.  I met Jennifer and Paul Sturgis, designers and owners of ...

Unplayed Games Burndown - August Update

Things are not looking good.  A bulk purchase of games at Funagain combined with a lack of playing time over the summer has really set me back on my quest to...

18FL, Axis & Allies D-Day

I recently had one my best gaming experiences in a long while – a game of 18FL with Tim, Wes and Eric.  You can read all about the details of the session ove...

Strange Magic

Magic:the Gathering is having a bit of resurgence around our home of late.  Last weekend I pulled out the Ravnica cards I bought for the New Year’s Gaming ev...

Board Games with Scott - Well Worth Watching

I haven’t talked much lately about gaming podcasts, but I just have to say how much I like Board Games with Scott.  Scott’s a little goofy (who in this hobby...

Hacienda

On Saturday morning, Julie, Matthew, and I left home at about 5am to drive to Camp Pioneer to get Jacob at summer camp (more on that in a future post).  We m...

Origins 2006 - Day 3

Day 3 meant final day for me as I needed to scoot back to Oregon to get ready for Boy Scout summer camp with Jacob – I’m going to join him for 4 days out at ...

Origins 2006 - Day 2

I’ve got a Flickr photostream setup for the Origins photos I’m taking… I’ll just post a few photos here to highlight the games I played today. I had a pure c...

Origins 2006 - Day 1

I’m able to mix some business with pleasure this week.  I’m here in Columbus, OH doing some customer visits but I’ll be able to squeeze in about 2 days at th...

Boardgame Feed Aggregation

Now this is pretty cool.  Nice work Aldie.  I particularly like the newspaper-style layout.

Winner’s Circle

A rarity – we got in some family gaming this weekend!  After spending about 24 total hours on baseball fields this weekend (local tournament for both boys), ...

Martin Fowler Likes Boardgames

I’ve long been a fan of Martin Fowler.  Even sat down for lunch with him back in 2000 when we were both speakers at Software Development Expo in San Fran.  N...

Conquest of the Empire, Tycoon, and More

Oh, so much more.  I detest meta-blogging, but let me start by apologizing for the lack of content around here for a while.  You’ve missed out on all the gam...

Join Me in Wallenstein

Time to start another game of Wallenstein.  Game: Cubs Rule.  Password: maddux.

Take this Gaming Survey

The Ohio State University and GAMA are conducting a comprehensive survey of the hobby game industry.

Itching for some PBW Games

It has been too long since I’ve played some online PBW games.  So, join me in a game of Wallenstein, Bus, or Amun Re over at Spielbyweb.  Look for the games ...

Die Macher Reprint

Looks like there is a decent likelihood of an English language reprint of Die Macher.  Valley Games, a publisher startup in Alberta, appears to be running a ...

6 Nimmt, El Grande

I managed to make a mid-week gaming session at Mike’s, a rare occurrence these days.  It turned out to be a nice crowd – we were expecting six but George was...

My Friend Tom Interviews My Friend Nick

Tom Vasel recently posted an interview of Nick Medinger, head of marketing for Funagain Games.  I had the pleasure of spending quite a bit of time with Nick ...

Pueblo, Descent, and Roma

Last week before my trip to DC we worked in a game of Pueblo before bedtime.  This was an Essen pickup for me, and as an abstract, one I thought might really...

Gaming Near Dulles

Cool – twice in two weeks I’m able to hook up with a local gaming group while away on business.  Last Thursday I joined David Fair and a group of his gaming ...

In Birmingham They Love the Boardgames

I’m hooked on not-too-obscure musical references.  Or maybe it was too obscure – you tell me. Anyway, I spent last week in Birmingham, Alabama on business.  ...

The Year I Was a Champion

Wow, only four posts so far this month.  Getting this post in before midnight puts me at five, tying my record low of five in Feburary 2005.  I’ve got a dece...

Torres, Yahtzee Deluxe Poker

There’s been a dearth of game playing in my life for the past two weeks.  Mucho travel (I guess I should post some pictures of Brussels and Amsterdam), some ...

Superbowl Gaming

Mike hosted another great day of Superbowl gaming last weekend and posted a detailed session report. I finally got around to editing some photos that you ca...

Chess for Success 2006 Regional Tournament

Saturday was the regional tournament for Chess for Success, the Oregon-wide organizational body for scholastic chess.  Laurie and I chose our team from the t...

GameStorm Game Day

After Jacob’s Game Maker class two Saturdays ago (January 21) we drove up to northwest Portland to attend the GameStorm game day.  I was pretty amazed at the...

Pizza Box Football and Doom: the Boardgame

Turns out I’m the Geek of the Week over on Boardgamegeek.  Check it out and feel free to ask some questions. Time to catch up on some session reports.  Two w...

1st Annual Jack Weeks Challenge Cup

It has been almost a year since I posted anything about the chess program I run at Archer Glen elementary here in Sherwood.  We just kicked off tournament se...

Another SimplyFun Night

Julie and I attended a SimplyFun party last Friday night at Eric’s house, with Mike Deans providing the consulting power.   I didn’t expect to see much new b...

Strike One Off the List!

I showed Julie the game Ido tonight, recommending that she use it as a combination art literacy / gaming session at the school.  As we were fiddling with the...

Get Ready for GameStorm 2006

When it comes to gaming conventions in Portland, there’s really only one game in town and that’s GameStorm.  We’ll be running a number of events this year, i...

Tal der Könige, Bus, and More

I made it to Mike’s “South Tuesday” game night tonight, a good step towards meeting my New Years resolution.  We had a great crowd of 9 tonight and decide to...

Star Wars D20, Antike, Wyatt Earp

I recently made a commitment that I would post more about the role-playing game sessions I run.  These don’t happen frequently, but they are an important par...

New Year’s Gaming, (Final) Day 4

Monday is a day of cleaning up, packing, and heading home.  That doesn’t mean we can’t fit in a few games. I woke up fairly early to watch the Iowa / Florida...

New Year’s Gaming, Day 3

A stormy day at the coast means there’s no good reason to leave the house.  More gaming goodness. I started off the day with a four-player game of Barbarossa...

New Year’s Gaming, Day 2

First, Happy New Year!  We’ve had a great day of gaming at the coast, including some 3–on–3 basketball action down at the outdoor half-court. Highlights for ...

New Year’s Gaming, Day 1

Friday was the kickoff day for our weekend gaming at Salishan with the Rude and Humphrey families.  That makes 13 bodies in all, so there are plenty of oppor...

Podcast Roundup

I continually tweak my podcast subscription list based on interests, quality, word of mouth, and time budget.  I posted previously giving an assessment of th...

New Blog - Best of Boardgames

Alfred’s Best of the Blogosphere is moving to a new location – Best of Boardgames.  Subscribed.

Mesopotamia

Greetings from the Oregon coast, again.  I’m back here for New Years weekend so expect to see some more posts with gaming goodness. Last night I had the oppo...

Antike

Tuesday night I hosted “south Tuesday”, my monthly turn with the RipCity gaming group.  I was eager to try out Antike again, and as I was expecting about 4–5...

Christmas Gaming

The Christmas holiday out at Salishan vastly exceeded my gaming expectations – almost everything I brought was played!  Dave/Lisa, Mike, and Geoff were parti...

Railroad Tycoon and 10 Days in the USA

I took advantage of a free evening without the family here to invite over the crew for an unscheduled game night at my house.  George and Mike responded and ...

Havoc Review on Boardgamenews

Tom Vasel’s review of Havoc: the Hundred Years War is up on Boardgamenews.  Very favorable – nice to keep the buzz going.  You can buy it at Funagain.

Financial Reporting for a Gaming Startup

Ever wonder what an income and expense graph looks like for a startup, mono-game company that releases a product at Essen?  Here you go.  Scale removed to pr...

Age of Mythology

With Brandon spending the night tonight, I wanted to make sure we sat down to play a boardgame and not let the kids be completely consumed in computer games....

(Re)Decorating the Game Room

Julie just wrapped a redecorating project in the game room (formerly the play room – the boys informed me that they are too old to have one of those).  The p...

Duel of Ages Expansions

OK, all you Duel of Ages experts out there – what expansion brings the most bang for the buck?  Tom, you said in a review on BGG that people should buy the M...

What to Bring to the Coast for Thanksgiving?

Tomorrow afternoon we’ll load up the car and drive out to the coast for Thanksgiving weekend, which we’ll spend with Jan and David.  We’ll be sure to get som...

Havoc Launch Party at Rainy Day Games

KC, Rita, and I held a Havoc launch event at our friendly local game store, Rainy Day Games.  We did this on Sunday to kick off National Games Week.  Turnout...

Railroad Tycoon x2, Caylus, Wits and Wagers

One of my only purchases at BGG.CON was the new Eagle Games release Railroad Tycoon.  I held off on purchasing Age of Steam once I knew this was coming out, ...

BGG.CON 2005 Day 4

This will be my final report on BGG.CON.  We started the morning with a game of Alhambra down in the plaza courtyard (apropos, yes?).  This was a six-player ...

BGG.CON 2005 Day 3

For those of you that have been following the Flickr photo set for BGG.CON, please note that my camera’s date/time was off by about 12 hours (forward), so so...

BGG.CON 2005 Day 2

Hard to keep up on these reports with so little sleep.  I’ll try and catch up and give a brief report on how Friday went. I finally got to play one of the bi...

BGG.CON 2005 Day 1

It’s late but there’s always time for a quick post with some photos and game comments.  Probably more photos than comments today.  Reminder: you can follow m...

Travel to Dallas for BGG.CON

KC, Rita, and I safely arrived in Dallas tonight for BGG.CON.  This will probably be our last convention to exhibit until Essen next year, and our goal is to...

South Tuesday Gaming, Drive and Caylus

It was my turn to host a Rip City game night.  My travel schedule has forced me to bow out of several of the last events and have someone else host in my pla...

Germany Day 6 - Koln and Essen Arrival

The transition from Koblenz into Koln is pretty dramatic – it became clear that we were leaving the hills and forest of southern / central Germany and headin...

Havoc Comes To Life

Last Saturday was a very meaningful day for me and a number of my closest friends.  You see, HAVOC: The Hundred Years War from Sunriver Games made the final ...

Magic: the Gathering Ad Campaign

Has anyone else noticed the massive ad campaign in progress for Magic: the Gathering?  I’ve seen adverts in computer gaming magazines, the dropped a CD for M...

Strange Online Alhambra Game

I just won (a rare event) an online game of Alhambra at Boiteajeaux, and I must say it is the strangest game I’ve played there (or anywhere).   I had a great...

The ChiZo Rising site is finally online

The ChiZo Rising site is finally up.  There’s some great content there… hopefully the game will hit distributors and retailers soon so I can pick up a few mo...

Will GenCon Stay in Indianapolis?

Apparently the Indianapolis Star reported yesterday (can’t find the story online) that GenCon is leaving Indianapolis.  Peter Adkison, CEO of Gen Con LLC, po...

Parthenon - Best Game of 2005? Maybe…

After returning from the coast this afternoon, Ken and Brandon joined Jacob and me for a four-player game of Parthenon: Rise of the Aegean.  Here’s a combine...

Crayon Rails for Windows XP

This went under my radar, but a recent post in the BGG forums brought it to my attention.  Check out this crayon rails implementation for Windows XP courtesy...

International Gamers Awards - 2005 Finalists

As announced on the GameWire, the finalists for 2005 are out. Nobody asked for my opinion, but here goes.  In the General Strategy category, I’ve played 6 of...

Gathering of Engineers

There’s a new group gaming weblog on the block ( feed ).  Yeah, it is a bit “me too” but I still think it will be worthwhile and fun.

SimplyFun Game Night

SimplyFun is a relatively new game company with a novel business model – direct sales of games through SimplyFun independent consultants (similar to Tupperwa...

ChiZo Rising - Second Impressions

I’m not ready to review this game yet, but I can share some first impressions after having read the rules and playing a partial game with Jacob last night.  ...

GenCon 2005, Day 4

This will be my last GenCon report.  Hope you enjoyed them and feel free to ask any questions, either in the comment area or by sending me an email. Sunday s...

GenCon 2005, Day 3

Must… get… sleep… Each night I start these reports later and end up with less text.  The tradition continues this late Saturday night as we just returned fro...

GenCon 2005, Day 2

Ahhh, this takes too much time each night!  But, if I don’t take the time then I rarely remember important details and almost certainly fall too far behind i...

GenCon 2005, Day 1

Day 1 is over – a great start to what looks to be the biggest year ever for GenCon.  They appear to be running out of room at the convention center and are o...

Going to GenCon 2005 - Meetup

We head out for GenCon Indy this Wednesday morning for some quality family time and four days of gaming goodness.  This has turned out to be a successful for...

Attacktix Are the BOMB!

I learned about Attacktix from Mark Johnson and picked up a starter set and booster at Target last week.  I thought the kids might get a kick out of them.  T...

New Boardgame Weblogs

There are a few new(er) ones on the block worth mentioning: Lumbersmiths - Jeff has been a long-time reader of my weblog and is now recording the adventures...

Reviewing the Boardgame Podcasts

I somewhat reluctantly started listening to Podcasts about a month or two ago.  I say reluctantly because initially I didn’t really see the point of download...

Wizard Kings, Candamir

After returning from the beach on Sunday afternoon, Jacob suggested we give Wizard Kings a try.  I love the block game format and picked this up on eBay with...

PC Version of Ingenious

My friend David Chappelle (aka Codermonkey) is working on a PC version of Ingenious.  I’ve been testing it a bit over the past week and he’s doing a solid jo...

When Worlds Collide

I guess this shouldn’t be a surprise given the strong positive correlation between those who game and those in IT, but I was certainly a bit surprised when I...

Age of Steam - Scandanavia, Oltremare

Matthew’s baseball tournament this weekend was cancelled, leaving some time free on Saturday to join the RipCity folks for some gaming on Saturday.  Eric was...

Unplayed Games

Reading Eric’s list of unplayed Euros got me thinking: There are some games on his list that I definitely should play with him It is time for me to update m...

Ticket to Ride, Einfach Genial

After baseball practices from 4-8pm on Friday, we drove out to the coast with Julie’s brother Mike to spend the weekend at Salishan with Jan (Julie’s mom) an...

Australia, Carcassonne Princess and Dragon

I was in the Phoenix area this week on business travel and managed to join some old friends in Tempe for an evening of gaming.  I last met these guys back in...

Medina

Last night we all played a game that had been sitting on my shelf unplayed: Medina.  This is a very nice looking game with a bunch of wooden pieces. ...

Through the Desert

I played Through the Desert today at lunch with my Corillian gaming buddies.  This was my third or fourth play of the game and I like it more each time I pla...

Game Storm 2005, Stuff I Did, Day 3

The main event for me on Sunday of Game Storm 2005 was family gaming from 9-noon.  With Jay’s help I was able to run over 8 different game sessions with a wi...

Game Storm 2005, Stuff I Did, Days 1 and 2

As I mentioned before Jacob and I spent last weekend at Game Storm, the annual gaming convention on the north side of Portland.  The newly renamed Thunderbir...

Outage, GameStorm, and More Travel

Sorry about the outage today.  Sometimes with dasBlog (my weblog software) a big clump of entry files will show up with zero content and a weird datestamp, c...

Lord of the Rings, St. Petersburg

I periodically do bulk game orders for my local group through Boards and Bits, my favorite online retailer.  This works reasonably well, though with my work ...

Archer Glen Chess Team

I’m past due for some postings, so expect to see a bunch over the coming week.  Work and travel have been exceptionally heavy recently so there hasn’t been m...

More Vanished Planet

I came upstairs to the playroom around 7pm and found Jacob setting up Vanished Planet for a solitaire playing.  I offered to join him and he kindly accepted ...

Cooperative Fridays

Perhaps a new tradition?  We’ll see… Last night Jacob, Matthew and I played our two favorite cooperative games (ok, our only two): Lord of the Rings and Vani...

Salishan Gaming, Day 2

All right folks, this one’s coming at you photo-blog style.  On Saturday Eric was able to join us for most of the day - proving that you can get in a solid d...

Salishan Gaming, Day 1.5

Let’s see, where was I… Have I mentioned that work has been pretty busy lately?  I’m at the point where I almost feel guilty taking any time to write entries...

Salishan Gaming, Day 1

Last weekend I had a small group of friends out at the beach house for some gaming.  This is my mostly regular gaming group, the RipCityGamers, and was an ex...

Doom First Impressions

OK, I caved in and bought Doom: the Boardgame last Friday after work. The kids have played the computer game, it is of course dripping with theme, and the li...

Anno 1503, Hansa, Samurai, and more

I’ve managed to attend a few different gaming sessions over the past 10 days.  Two Saturdays ago Jacob and I traveled to Vancouver to attend a game day at Do...

New Years Gaming

We invited the Humphrey and Rude families out to Salishan for an extended weekend of fun and games. This was our first test of the house for a large group of...

How Much Data Do We Need About Boardgaming?

Mark Johnson poses the question “what’s right for 2005?” in terms of year-end reports (games played, 5/10 reports, etc.).  I don’t know either, but I can say...

Fresh Fish Rises from the Ashes

Looks like I have permission from Plenary Games, publisher of the fine Fresh Fish game, to resume development work of the Windows-based implementation of the...

Salishan for Thanksgiving

Julie, the boys, and I drove out to Salishan today for Thanksgiving weekend.  Jan and David came out on Sunday and we are all very excited to have our first ...

Gaming in Atlanta

I had some business travel to Georgia last week, and my meeting ran to late to catch a flight back on United so I had to spend the evening there on Thursday....

Playtesting Report

KC, Rita, and I ran two playtest sessions here in Portland in November.  Our goal was to get feedback on four of KC’s designs and narrow down a list of publi...

Catchup - Goldbräu, Power Grid x2, and more

I’m well overdue on a number of session reports, including recent playtesting reports for KC’s games.  Hopefully this is part 1 of 3 posts I’ll make tonight....

New Publisher on the Block: SimplyFun

Found on Gamewire: there’s a new game publisher starting up called SimplyFun.  They have an interesting business model: The company won’t be selling their g...

Acquire, Buyword, Lightning D-Day, Boomtown

I’ll have a sizable post tomorrow about the playtesting we conducted over the weekend, but till then here are a few games played over the weekend. I managed ...

Metro 2

I took off for the east side of Portland to help Rita setup for a games playtest day we are running today to showcase and evaluate 4 of KC’s game (Pizzza, Ha...

November Games Journal is out

The November issue of The Games Journal is out.  My favorite article this month is “Living the Dream 2.0: Promotion.”  Check it out.

Keythedral, St. Pete, and Empire Builder

Time to catch up on a couple of session reports. Last Saturday KC and Rita came over to discuss some planning for the upcoming playtest days we are running i...

Piecepack Solitaire

While watching the Cardinals look ever more futile this evening, I managed to try out a few solitaire Piecepack games. First up was Tula (ppwiki), which feel...

Gaming Birthday Party

We finally celebrated Jacob and Matthew’s respective birthdays with their friends on Sunday afternoon.  The opted for a joint gameday, with each inviting 4-5...

Acquire

Time to catch up on some session reports.  I had some good gaming activity over the weekend, starting with a Friday lunchtime session at work.  Side note: I’...

Musings on St. Petersburg

Last week I participated in a four-way discussion on the pros and cons of the card game St. Petersburg.  Obviously I like this game.

Übergeek?

This is where I am today.

Games Magazine Awards

You can find the Games Magazine 100 list, along with the awards for 2005, over at Funagain.

Play Ticket To Ride Online

You can beta-test Ticket to Ride online over at Days of Wonder.  I played a 2-player game with Eric H tonight - well done implementation.

Gaming with the Billabong Boardgamers

Tonight I had the fortune of spending a few hours gaming with the Billabong Boardgamers of the greater Melbourne (Australia) area. Alan Stewart was kind enou...

Solitaire Middle Earth: the Wizards

I awoke this morning at about 4:30am local time.  Not too bad in all - that’s about 7.5 hours of sleep and I’m on may way towards adjustment.  I wanted to go...

BoardGameSearch

BoardGameSearch is a useful site for searching prices for online games.  This is a good start, but I want more (actually, my friend George wants more and I a...

Bargain Games

There are a few good deals out there that are worth looking into: ToysRUs is still offering Roller Coaster Tycoon for a paltry $5.97 plus shipping.  Well wo...

Lunchtime Gaming at Corillian

I recently organized a lunchtime gaming group at Corillian in our cafe.  A couple of us had met spontaneously for some gaming over the past year, but about a...

Playing CCGs Without Collecting

Many folks into German- or European- or Family Strategy Games or whatever you call them these days played collectible card games in the 90s, especially the o...

Spycraft CCG

Jacob and I gave the SpyCraft CCG a play while at the coast over the weekend.  We also played several other games - I’ll post some pics shortly - but I wante...

Robo Rally

I didn’t see much of the kids this week due to work committments each night, so I was eager to sit down and spend some quality time tonight.  We decided to p...

Join Me in Wallenstein

Come on over and join me in a game of Wallenstein.  The name of the game is Wildcard, password is “cubswin”.

Heroscape, Taj Mahal

On Monday, Jacob and I ventured across town (about as far across town as you can imagine) to KC and Rita’s home in Gresham.  KC, Rita, and I are planning a p...

Weekend at Salishan

We managed to spend Fri-Sun this weekend at Salishan.  We mixed in a bit of housework with some fun - best of all, Jan and David (Julie’s mom and step-dad) w...

Chinkway / FÜNF

Got my latest issue of Counter magazine last week, and there was a nice article by Derek Carver about a trick taking card game he designed.  What made the ar...

St. Petersburg PC Game

Thanks to Aaron Haag and his post over at BGG, I’ve just learned that there’s a PC version of St. Petersburg available for download.  If you are an English s...

Gaming this Week

I managed to get in a few games this week, both at home with Matthew and at Die Hard Thursday with the RipCity gamers. Wednesday night, Matthew and I had som...

GenCon 2004, Day 3

GenCon is now over, it’s hard not to be a little saddened by how quickly it wrapped up and how much I hoped to do/see but didn’t have time to.  No worries; t...

GenCon 2004, Day 2

Day 2 at GenCon is at a close, and here’s my report for the day.  Today was quite different - less time at the show, and I brought Matthew and Jacob today.  ...

GenCon 2004, Day 1

Jacob and I spent our first day at GenCon Indy today, lasting from 8am until about 5pm.  Overall the experience was great; I would say better than last year....

My GenCon Schedule

This is mostly for my own reference, but here's my schedule at GenCon this weekend: Friday, August 20 8-10am -Giant Seafarers of Catan (Jacob and I, BG0035...

GenCon Meetup

Going to GenCon? Interested in meeting up for some open boardgaming, perhaps at Gamebase 7? If so, leave a comment here and I'll post a schedule and locati...

Runebound

About a week ago, Jacob and I joined Ken and Brandon at the Rude household for a game of Runebound, the fantasy boardgame from Fantasy Flight Games.  This ga...

Back to Some Gaming

Last week our annual vacation to Keuka Lake finished (perhaps I’ll post a few more pictures this weekend), so we are gradually working ourselves back to some...

Review of the Iron Dragon Computer Game

Shannon Appelcline wrote a nice review of the Iron Dragon Computer Game over at RPG.Net.  Funny thing, I just discovered this game on Saturday after a referr...

Gaming at Kevin’s

Jacob and I spent Saturday afternoon at Kevin Graham’s for some gaming.  We picked up Ken and Brandon around 12:30 and arrived at Kevin’s place on the east s...

Avalon Hill Goodness

I mentioned last week that some parts were missing from my Axis & Allies: D-Day game.  Sent an email to Hasbro/Avalon Hill/WOTC and got this quick respon...

Jacob’s Oregon City Tournament

Forgot to mention - Jacob’s baseball team took second place out of 8 teams at last week’s Oregon City baseball tournament.

O Zoo Le Mio and Alexandros

Quick session report this time - I’m in Sun River with the RipCity group and got a bit behind.  Gotta catch up so that I can start posting photos from the we...

Mark Johnson’s Gathering Thoughts

Mark wrote a very insightful post about his recent experiences at the Gathering.  Even though I’ve lobbied for an invite, it would take some serious thought ...

Doug’s Gathering Report

My good friend Doug Walker (and wife Mimi) spent last week at The Gathering of Friends in Columbus, OH. This is a private, invitation-only event sponsored b...

First Impressions: Dracula, San Juan

Jacob and I spent most of the weekend in Corvallis at the Oregon Destination Imagination state tournament (more on that later). I brought along three of the...

Gaming in Redmond

Finally some gaming! I was in Seattle/Redmond today on business

Family Gaming

Julie’s mom Jan was in town for most of the week, which is spring break for the kids.

Puerto Rico Online

I gave the new version of Puerto Rico Online a try last night.

West Side Saturday - March 20

This will be a rather long session report - there was a ton of gaming going on last Saturday at Mike’’s, mostly due to the unusually large crowd of 12 people.

Gaming at Doug and Mimi’s

Yesterday Jacob and I made the long trek up to Vancouver's east side to attend a game day hosted by Doug & Mimi. It had been too long since our last vi...

State Chess Tournament

Today I take the Archer Glen chess team to the Chess for Success State Tournament in downtown Portland. We have a strong team but frankly, I don't know what...

New Gaming Blog

Clay Blankenship has started a new blog, rss feed here.

Recent Acquisitions

I picked up a few games over the past few weeks - some from the great online store Boards & Bits and some at the recent Game Storm. Here's a sampling: ...

GameStorm - Day 3 (non-Uberplay)

The better of day 3 at Game Storm for me was my Uberplay Games demonstration session, which was supposed to last from nine until noon but actually lasted f...

GameStorm - Day 1

Today was day 1 for GameStorm in Portland, OR. I had to get there by 4pm to hand deliver KC's New Eden prototype; I thought I gave myself plenty of travel ...

A Game of Thrones Online Back in Business

The AGoTOnline team and Fantasy Flight Games reached an agreement this week that will allow the online site to continue operations. Games already in progres...

Gaming in Sherwood - Sunday, Feb 15

We welcomed a small crowd into our home again this weekend for some gaming on Sunday. Gameplay lasted from about noon until 8:30pm, and we were fortunate to...

Saturday Gaming

After spending 4 hours this morning at Beaverton Toyota getting my car worked on (regular maintenance plus some repairs from vandalism at the Portland airp...

A Game of Throne Online Goes Dark

Bowing to pressure from Fantasy Flight Games, the great folks that built A Game of Thrones Online have taken the game down. Apparently one of the concerns i...

Vanished Planet

I took a bit of a chance and ordered the game Vanished Planet

Weekend Update

After a long week of travel to the east coast, and a busy week of activities for the kids, we were all content to lay low and take it easy this weekend. On ...

Superbowl Gaming

My friend Mike Deans was kind enough to open his household for a day of gaming with a rather large crowd. All four us joined the crew from Rip City Gamers. ...

My Visit to Uberplay Headquarters

On my way home to Portland from Seattle on Thursday, I stopped by the Uberplay Entertainment headquarters in Issaquah. Almost a year ago Jeremy Young, invi...

Gaming in Seattle - Jan 25

I travelled to the Seattle/Redmond area this week for business, and managed to squeeze in some late-night gaming on Wednesday evening. Tom Powers from Boar...

Good Chess Books for Kids

Every once in a while I get asked what chess books for kids would I recommend.  I haven’t read too many, but here are a few recommendations: Starting Chess,...

PiecePack Solitary Confinement Contest

I can't believe I forgot to post this. A while back I mentioned the latest PiecePack design contest, Solitary Confinement.I even submitted a (very lightwei...

Senjutsu with Jacob

Jacob and I had some spare time this afternoon while Julie and Matthew went shopping for a birthday present. Looking into the game closet for a two-player ...

Some Used Games I Picked Up

I checked out Greg Aleknevicus' Games for Sale list and found a few things I wanted for a reasonable price - plus he was having a buy 2 get 1 free sale! S...

Casual Gaming in Sherwood - January 15

Our new friend Kevin McKenzie was still in town on business (we gamed with him last week), so we invited a few folks over for some gaming at our home on Wed...

Photos from the Chess Tournament

If all goes well today, there will be a barrage of postings as I clear out the backlog. It was a busy week and I just didn't have time to touch up and post ...

Holy Cow - Titan: the Arena is Back!

Just read on the Gamewire that Fantasy Flight will be re-releasing Titan: the Arena and will call it Colossal Arena.  I haven’t played the original Avalon Hi...

Rick Thornquist’s Best (and Worst) of 2003

Another good list reflecting on 2003, this time from Rick Thornquist of “gone cardboard” and “gamewire” fame.  I agree with his list, though there were sever...

My 5 & 10 Report for 2003

Many folks who play board games will provide a year-end report of games they played, often in a form known as a "5 & 10" or "five and dime" report. This...

New Year’s Eve Gaming

Our good friends the Rudes joined us for our second annual New Year’s Eve game night.

Gaming with the Rip City Gamers

I managed to spend most of Monday in nearby Tigard with some new friends in the Rip City Gamers group. It did a bizarre thing (for Portland) Sunday night: ...

Sherwood Game Day

Julie and I hosted an all-day gaming event/party at our home in Sherwood on Dec 13. I invited all of my usual gaming buddies plus the folks over at Rip Cit...

First Play of Serenissima

This game sat on my shelf too long - in fact, it was the only "big box" game remaining in my game closet that I had yet to play. I know, compared to many t...

What Games Are People Playing?

Mark Jackson took some time to summarize what are called "5 and 10" or "five and dime" reports culled from spielfrieks early this year. This was a bit la...

Train Gaming

Took the family to Seattle for Thanksgiving weekend ‘

Gaming with the Family

After another long week of travel, I was determined to spend as many waking hours over the weekend with Julie, Jacob, and Matthew. On Saturday, Julie and J...

Web Service Access to BoardGameGeek

A few of us over at the BoardGameGeek tech Yahoo group are exploring some ways to use web services to provide programmatic access to BoardGameGeek. Even i...

Lord of the Rings: Risk, Balloon Cup

I've been traveling too much - only two days at home between trips this time. I'm back on the road again, this time in New Orleans for our big annual confe...

Could this be any good?

Front Porch Classics is (has?) released a "classic Coffee Table Game" for the whole family: Master & Commander, The Far Side of the World. I'm a huge fa...

Cranium Custom Cards

Every once in a while we will play more traditional family party games like Pictionary, Guesstures, and Cranium. Cranium is particularly popular with th...

Gaming at Doug and Mimi’s

Jacob and I were finally able to attend another group gaming session on Saturday, this one held at Doug and Mimi's up in Vancouver. We had a great time, an...

What Are Some Good Games for Kids?

A co-worker of mine asked me over dinner tonight what would be some good boardgames to introduce to younger kids (5-7). I have my own ideas, which I'll sha...

Age of Mythology with Jacob and Matthew

Today was supposed to be an afternoon gaming session at Kevin Graham's, but unfortunately Jacob wasn't feeling too well. We were all suffering from some for...

Jacob’s Top 5 Games

I gave Jacob and Matthew a project a few weeks ago - write down what your 5 or 10 favorite games are with reasons. I promised to publish them, so here is J...

Yet Another Blog About Games

Looks like this is really catching on. Great to see other people joining the fray and sharing session reports, reviews, and other thoughts on gaming. Tolen...

Teaching Chess

I mentioned a few days ago that I will be teaching chess classes at Archer Glen elementary school where Jacob and Matthew are in 3rd and 1st grade, respect...

Age of Mythology First Impressions

After a Saturday full of sports activities (Matthew's soccer game - he scored 5 goals! - and Jacob's football game), I sat down with the boys around 5pm to ...

Warcraft the Board Game

This has the potential to be very cool. Fantasy Flight and Eagle Games seem to have have struck a resonant chord with their recent introductions of compute...

Day 3 at GenCon 2003

Sorry for the late report on our last day at GenCon (Saturday). This was an abbreviated day - had to make it back to Shelbyville in time for a birthday celeb...

Day 2 at GenCon 2003

It is getting late but I still want to get my report out. This report will be shorter on words but I’‘ll keep the pictures.

Day 1 at GenCon 2003

Jacob and I just wrapped up day 1 of our GenCon adventure in Indianapolis.

Safe Arrival in Indy

Julie, Jacob, Matthew, and I arrived safely in Indianapolis tonight.  We had a great dinner at my sister’s place on the no...

FreshFish 0.2 Available for Download

I finally have a working standalone version of Fresh Fish available for download. In the download you will find the executable (just run FreshFishGUI.exe o...

Gaming in Brooklyn, NY - June 30, 2003

I posted a note to spielfrieks several weeks ago about a liquidation sale at my local Wizards of the Coast store, particularly the discount on Tigris & ...

Two New Games

Stopped by my friendly Rainy Day Games store over lunch today to pick up two new games: Balloon Cup and Quicksand. I walked in planning to get just Ballo...

Fresh Fish Development Update

 I’ve made great progress on development over the past week.  Quick status update: <![if !supportLists...

Gaming in Dallas with The Card Benders

My streak of hooking up with extremely cool groups of gamers across the USA continued this week. I'm in Dallas, TX for Microsoft TechEd, and managed to ho...

Session Report - Sunday Gaming in Sherwood

I scheduled a fairly impromptu afternoon of gaming at my house this Sunday - Doug and Mimi joined us, fresh from their trip to the Gathering of Friends in ...

Face 2 Face Games and Lawrence Whalen

I was in Providence, RI last week for a business trip, and had a few hours after my meeting before I had to head to the airport. I did a Google search for ...

Gaming at Allumbra

Benjamin Corliss has designed two abstract strategy games that he runs online at his web site. I've only played Breacan so far (against Benjamin), but I l...

Books About Games

Mikko has an interesting post on Books About Games.  It reminded me of a fantasy book I read in the early 1980’s called Hobgoblin, which was about a teen...

Battlecards

I ordered and received Battlecards earlier this week.