Gaming
aardvarchaeology | July 12, 2017
Swedish 1960s translation of the Game of Life. I just found a uranium mine. According to Boardgame Geek, there are 13,879 better boardgames than this.
I bought a Kindle and I like it. Better than reading on my phone. No screen glare. Weeks between recharges. Bigger page.
As a boy I was shocked to learn that most people have to pay a monthly fee to keep a roof over their heads. I found this to be a horrifically unstable arrangement, similar to staying at a hotel. My parents had never spoken to me about their mortgage loan. I felt that the only monthly expenses anyone should by rights have to…
aardvarchaeology | May 29, 2017
Ascension with its four days off is shaping up to be the geekiest time of the year. This time I had three big events to choose from: the LinCon gaming convention, the Kontur/SweCon scifi convention and the 45th anniversary of the Tolkien Society. Tolkienians do things in nines.
I decided to spend two days at LinCon on the Linköping University campus and one day at Kontur/SweCon in an Uppsala hotel, saving the Sunday for family pastimes.
Here are the games I played at LinCon. And I had lots of free Nepalese tea from the tea bar!
Through the Ages II (2015). This update of a 2006 civilisation…
aardvarchaeology | May 22, 2017 Dungeon map by Tim Hartin (paratime.ca)
The original roleplaying game, 1974's Dungeons & Dragons, set the template for a hugely popular genre that persists to this day as RPGs, boardgames (such as Descent) and video games (such as World of Warcraft). The core activity in these games is to enter underground complexes of rooms and tunnels (dungeons), defeat their various inhabitants (dragons, if you're out of luck) and steal their treasure. The player characters who do this are termed adventurers – or, by some these days, murder hobos.
As you may have noticed, there are very few dungeon-…
gregladen | April 6, 2017Have a look at the list of books, below.
Would you like a subset, or all, of these books, in electronic format, for very cheap? There is a way to do that. Note: This is time sensitive, the offer running for just about two weeks and it started yesterday.
I've reviewed several of these books on this blog, and have recommended them. I'm going through Python Crash Course right now, and we've found the various kids programming books to be helpful, for instance. I've not looked at the grey hat or black hat books, but I'm sure they are fine.
The publisher, No Starch Press, has created one of…
aardvarchaeology | January 3, 2017Here are the nine boardgames that I played more than thrice during 2016. The year’s total was 87 different games.
Keltis (2008, travel version, very handy, and Cousin E loves its mathiness)
Sechs nimmt / Category 5 (1994)
Deception: Murder in Hong Kong (2014, like Clue + Werewolf) *
Heimlich & Co. (1984) *
Taluva (2006) *
Blokus (2000)
Carolus Magnus (2000) *
Qwirkle (2006)
Telestrations (2009) *
These are mostly short games that you can play repeatedly in one evening. Taluva and Carolus Magnus are a bit longer. A long game that I played thrice was Glory to Rome. All are highly…
aardvarchaeology | November 14, 2016This past weekend saw my seventh annual boardgaming retreat: 43 hours in good company at a small hotel (in Nynäshamn for the first time), all meals included. My buddy Oscar organises everything. This year we broke the attendance record, with 28 participants, mainly guys in our 30s and 40s. Before Sunday lunch I left early and went to the release event for Karin Bojs and Peter Sjölund's interesting new book on X-chromosome haplotypes, Swedish male-line descent and genealogy: Svenskarna och deras fäder, “The Swedes And Their Fathers”.
I played thirteen sessions of ten different games in…
aardvarchaeology | June 14, 2016There's a scifi convention in my home municipality near Stockholm this weekend: Fantastika 2016. I'm giving a talk on my Medieval castles project, and I'm also on a boardgame recommendations panel. Below is the list I'm bringing: it's a selection of my favourites with an emphasis on the period 2010-2016.
"BGG rank" refers to the Boardgame Geek web site, where lower is better. So the higher the number here, the less conventional the recommendation. To put the rankings in perspective, note that BGG covers tens of thousands of games.
Plato 3000: game design by Sheamus Parkes, art by Steven…
aardvarchaeology | May 9, 2016Spent two happy days at the LinCon 2016 gaming convention in Linköping. 1500 gaming geeks of all ages from newborn to dotage, and with a very good gender balance. The only age/gender demographic that was visibly missing was old women. But brown and black people were sadly almost entirely absent. My own main complaint though was that for the first time neither of my kids came along to the convention.
This year I didn't learn any new games, but I taught a couple and I took part (rather ineptly) in a little Blokus tournament. Here's what I played, all enjoyable games that I recommend.
Agricola…
aardvarchaeology | January 1, 2016Here are the ten boardgames I played the most during 2015. The year's total was 78 different boardgames.
Saboteur (2004) *
Istanbul (2014) *
Love Letter (2012) *
Manhattan (1994) *
6 nimmt / Category 5 (1994)
Elysium (2015) *
El Grande (1995) *
Magic: the Gathering (1993)
Province (2014) *
Boss Monster (2013) *
These are mostly short games that you can play repeatedly in one evening. Istanbul, Elysium, El Grande and Boss Monster are a bit longer. Another long game that I played a lot was Galaxy Trucker. All are highly recommended!
Dear Reader, what was your biggest boardgaming hit in 2015?…
aardvarchaeology | December 22, 2015
Most story boardgames don't let you do much tactically to influence the results or win. I've reported previously on what a game of Arkham Horror (2005) can be like. And I've played Betrayal At House On The Hill (2004) quite a lot. But the storiest of all story boardgames I've played is Tales Of The Arabian Nights (2009). Me and my friend Roland played it Sunday, which took us 22 rounds and about 4.5 hours.
Roland was Ali Baba and finally managed to win, which was no mean feat given that it's hard to get the damn game to end at all. You need 20 points to win. But we had 40 points each at the…
aardvarchaeology | November 16, 2015 Hans, Jan and Urban learning Istanbul.
This past weekend saw my sixth annual boardgaming retreat: 43 hours in good company at our usual small Nyköping hotel, all meals included. My buddy Oscar organises everything. There were a bit more than 20 of us this year after a few late cancellations, mainly guys in our 30s and 40s. After Sunday lunch I left early and drove to Norrköping where I gave a talk about my recent excavations to 50 keen members the Friends of the Town Museum association, just like after the 2010 retreat.
I played thirteen sessions of nine different games in Nyköping. To…
aardvarchaeology | January 1, 2015Here are the ten boardgames I played the most during 2014.
Sechs nimmt / Category 5 (1994, gets swift intense buy-in even from non-gamers) *
Innovation (2010)
Magic: the Gathering (1993) *
Plato 3000 (2012) *
Keltis (2008, travel version, very handy)
Glass Road (2013) *
Archaeology: the Card Game (2007) *
For Sale (1997)
Qwirkle (2006) *
Samurai (1998) *
These are mostly short games that you can play repeatedly in one evening. Only Glass Road, Qwirkle and Samurai are a bit longer. Another long game that I played a lot was Elfenland. All are highly recommended! Except Archaeology, a game of…
aardvarchaeology | November 19, 2014I spent last weekend at the annual boardgaming retreat organised by my friend Oscar. This was my fifth retreat, and I enjoyed it greatly. Oscar negotiates a good off-season all-inclusive deal for 25 of us at a small rural hotel, and then we spend two days gaming and sharing meals. People bring huge numbers of boardgames, many quite new and exciting. The gender ratio is always heavily skewed towards the male side. Most participants are in their 30s or 40s.
This year I played uncommonly long games, all of which where good, all of which were new to me, and at all of which I got roundly beaten.…
aardvarchaeology | September 3, 2014Here's a neat case of self-perpetuating archaeology. Medieval history spawned sword & sorcery literature. This literature spawned tabletop fantasy role-playing games and Medieval re-enactment groups. These games and groups spawned live action role playing. And now the larpers have created a market for faux-Medieval coinage, which they are buying at game stores, using at larps and dropping here and there. Metal detectorists are starting to find coins like the one in the picture and submitting them to intrigued museum curators.
Can anybody tell me the name of the company that makes/made…
aardvarchaeology | December 30, 2013Here are the ten boardgames I played more than twice during 2013.
Keltis (2008, travel version, very handy) *
For Sale (1997)
7 Wonders (2010)
Cave Troll (2002) *
Galaxy Trucker (2007) *
King of Tokyo (2011) *
Kingdom Builder (2011) *
Telestrations (2009)
Fluxx (1997) *
Tikal (1999)*
These are mostly short games that you can play repeatedly in one evening. Only Galaxy Trucker, Tikal and maybe Kingdom Builder are longer. All are highly recommended! Except Fluxx, which is just weird. I played it under duress at the Blåhammaren mountain hiker's resort.
I played 74 different boardgames in 2013…
carlyo | December 19, 2013By Stacy Jannis
Kavli Science Video Contest Manager
The Kavli Science in Fiction Video Contest challenges Gr 6-12 students to examine the science in fiction, including science fiction movies, TV shows, and games. Our contest advisors include science educators , scientists, and Hollywood scifi visual effects experts.
Sebastian Alvarado is a postdoctoral fellow in the Dept. of Biology at Stanford, with a research focus on epigenetics, as well as co-founder of the video game science consultancy group, Thwacke! Consulting. Thwacke offers scientific insight from a diversity of disciplines to aid…
aardvarchaeology | May 13, 2013Role-playing games of the Dungeons & Dragons variety come in the form of books that are functionally analogous to computer software. You get your operating system (core rule book) and then you can buy update packages (rule expansions), programming libraries (campaign settings) and application programs (adventure modules) for it. In this analogy, the computer that runs the software is you and your gaming buddies.
A difference between RPGs and computer software is that once you have a secure installed base for your operating system -- that is, with RPGs, once you've sold enough core rule…
aardvarchaeology | May 12, 2013Junior and I went for two days to LinCon, the annual gaming convention in Linköping (est. 1984). There was a fine crowd of geeks, all ages and with a good gender balance, many in steampunk finery. I said to Junior, "Look at them closely, son. These are your people."
Here's what I played. All good games!
El Grande (1995). Power struggle in 15th century Spain. This is the only 1990s game currently on Boardgame Geek's top-20, and so I wasn't surprised to find that it was the best game I played. Highly recommended!
Hacienda (2005). There was a room dedicated to the games of Wolfgang Kramer, so…
esiegel | April 13, 2013"There is an energy with stop-motion that you can’t even describe. It’s got to do with giving things life... to give life to something that doesn’t have it is cool, and even more so in three dimensions, because, at least for me, it feels even more real." -Tim Burton
Of course we always like to think of the world as being constantly in motion, with time flowing smoothly and continuously from one moment to the next. Living in our bodies, it feels -- as Ozomatli would say -- like no matter what, you
Can't Stop.
But our perceptions fool us. It's why you can take a series of stationary images,…
aardvarchaeology | February 12, 2013Karl Olausson has just submitted his Bachelor's thesis in history: a study of the post-WW2 Swedish boardgame market. The material he's used is largely interviews with people in our country's boardgame business. Karl has kindly given me permission to put the work on-line (in Swedish). Here's the abstract:
This essay is about the history of the Swedish board game-industry from the 1970’s to today. The essay focuses on the companies in the business and how they change during this period and about the causes of this change. This essay aims both at accurately describing the development of the…