Board Game of The Week

[Stomski]

This weeks game...

JENGA

Seriously, it rocks. One of the best games I ever had was ON A BOAT. Playing wth 4 of us, somehow the tower stayed up for a good 5 rounds after we all thought it was falling over.

Extreme Jenga is pretty sick, with the pieces slanted so the tower can lean out to the left or right.

Weeeeeeeeeeee...

I've since created alternative rules such as:
Wallenga
- Put 5 pieces in a straight line, and then build offset by half a block brick style upwards to make a wall. Then take pieces out 1 by 1 as per normal. You'd be surprised how well the wall stays up. This was inspired by a Timmy Mallett saturday morning game from the 80s, where kids would push big blocks out and try not to knock the tower over (anyone remember this?)

Trienga
Quadenga
Quintenga
- Have a base of a triangle, square or pentagon and build upwards, with each new row offset by half a block on the row beneath. Normal rules apply.

[The Doctor]

Jenga is indeed tops. There used to be a pub in Glasgow that had giant sized foam jenga. Oh, it was grand.

-Ralph

[Stomski]

Foam pieces? WTF? Surely the weight distribution would be all out of whack?
This brings me on to the imitations...

TRU sell one that is so crappy that the width of the pieces is not 1/3rd the length, it's less. This means that if you have the pieces stacked correctly (close together so as to add friction to the sides) the tower rows jut out. This makes taking some pieces out easier. LAME.

I also find with the imitations that the pieces are not sanded down in the same way or made out of different wood, thus changing the weight/friction again. All mucho sucko like a cheap whore.

[The Doctor]

I demand Transformers Jenga!

-Ralph

[Shockprowl]

My offing is the MR MEN CLUEDO that my aunty made me and my brother when we were, blimey, 6 and 7 or something. It's Cluedo, but instead of boring old Captain Purple or whoever, you've got MR MEEEEEEEENNNNNN!!!!!!!! Genious. From memory, amoung the characters were misters Nosey, Bump, Tickle, Strong, Happy and silly. Aunty Eileen used Mr. Men pencil tops as the characters. Oh happy days.

[Stomski]

You can wait and I may consider your board game as part of Cluedo week, if that is, there is a Cluedo week... For now we discuss Jenga and its woody awesomeness.

[Deleted]

When I was a kid I had this game called The Grape Escape. It had a board and littered with several plastic 'traps' a-la Mouse Trap and the playing pieces were grape characters made out of playdoh. If a playing piece landed in one of the traps and another player landed on a specific square on the board they could activate that trap and squash the grape to a pulp. Excellant entertainment value until the playdoh dried up and we had to hunt around various shops for more.

[Stomski]

Dude- Make your own playdoh out of flour and shit. Not literally shit, that would be gross.

This weeks board game:

SCRABBLE

Personally I like to play defensive and use 2 and 3 letter words to screw everyone over. AHAHAHAHAH!!

[grahamthomson]

Shouldn't this week be about Mr Men Cluedo?*

You're not playing by the rules, man!

*This sounds weird.

[Stomski]

Each game shall get its week when I deem it is so deserved!!

(or if I haven't updated by Tuesday in a week feel free to jump in and take over)

[blueshift]

Nov 15, 2008 20:56:44 GMT @zudobug said:

When I was a kid I had this game called The Grape Escape. It had a board and littered with several plastic 'traps' a-la Mouse Trap and the playing pieces were grape characters made out of playdoh. If a playing piece landed in one of the traps and another player landed on a specific square on the board they could activate that trap and squash the grape to a pulp. Excellant entertainment value until the playdoh dried up and we had to hunt around various shops for more.

The Grape Escape was amazing and led to hours of grape-related torture fun.

[Stomski]

Hollah...

Cluedo

Yes, I've bowed to the pressure of the masses.

I'm guessing the strategy is to mark down what other people search for to try to deduce who doesn't have what. If you know that people are playing in this way, you can then pretend you don't have a card to make people deduce falsely. Then it becomes a mad rush to double check the facts. Playing in this way also introduces an element of bluff to proceedings, which as a poker player, I fully encourage.

Discuss Cluedo and (Mr.Men) variants...

[karla]

cluedo is a good game, but I always cheat and not in a very sly way either lol. I do enjoy stealing the figures on the board and someone would say something weedy like "Where did my figure go?" I never ever wanted to play with reverend green either, just the thought of touching that little fat thing in the game made me cringe. Mrs White was ace, just went round with her rolling pin beating information out of everyone. Miss Scarlet was a hussy and if you were her you have things said to you like "oooo miss scarlet show us some leg!" Professor Plum was a dick, Mrs Peacock was always the murderer and Colonel Mustard was the man of the hour, on the eternal hunt for more drink!

I prefer checkers or chinese checkers (so cute that game ^^) the cthulhu board games are good, so was the buffy one that came out and HERO QUEST!!!

Did transformers ever have a board game out apart from transformers risk? (hate risk, always lose)

[The Doctor]

Transformers Monopoly was produced. There was an 80's one I forget the name of it. You pushed cars round a board and 'transformed' them by standing them up. I recall playing it in the pub with the Scots crew.

There are also a few Japanese TF board games.

Now, Cluedo. I like to play it by hamming it up as much as possible.

-Ralph

[legios]

Nov 24, 2008 16:12:09 GMT The Doctor said:

Transformers Monopoly was produced. There was an 80's one I forget the name of it. You pushed cars round a board and 'transformed' them by standing them up. I recall playing it in the pub with the Scots crew.
Ralph

"Transformers Warrior Robot " or some such I seem to remember. I to remember it being played by us in the Tardis Pub, and great hilarity did ensue. I haven't played Cluedo in about twenty years (it was never really my thing to be honest) if that.

Karl

[kayevcee]

"There was an 80's one I forget the name of it. You pushed cars round a board and 'transformed' them by standing them up."

That would be the "Warrior Robot Game". It's not a great game and rather poorly balanced, but it can be fun if you're a bit of a sadist and enjoy sending your opponents back onto trap squares.

-Nick

[The Doctor]

I enjoyed that game.

-Ralph

[blueshift]

I never owned Cluedo, but when we were little me and my sister made our own out of card and Fimo!

[Stomski]

This weeks board game:

TALISMAN

Last year Black Isle published the 4th edition of this classic Games Workshop game. I however still have my brother's 2nd edition with multitude of expansion packs.

As far as I can tell, the 4th edition is basically an updated version of the 2nd edition, forgetting the 3rd edition (which looked terrible).

With a simple formula for combat and keeping track of stats, this is a desktop RPG for the common man... I've even had girls play and enjoy it, pretty sweet.

For more info check out www.talismanisland.com/.

I still don't understand how my brother always managed to get the Prophetess and end up in the Timescape expansion to get the anti gravity platform and battle armour. My other brother says he used to cheat, but I find this hard to believe...

[Gav]

Holy shit, i love Talisman. We dig it out every few months or so and have adventures.

Damned Craggs!

[Stomski]

Oooh... Now here's something I played with my friends as a 9 year old...

GHOST CASTLE

On doing some research, it seems that in the US this was called Which Witch and later reformatted as The Real Ghostbusters game. In the UK it came out in the 70s under the guise of Haunted House. Ghost Castle had a glow in the dark skull instead of a ball bearing in the original versions, sweet.

This game has clearly influenced the re-design of Mouse Trap a few years ago.

[Stomski]

This weeks game...

POKER

Not a board game as such, it's a card game. But I couldn't have any sort of games list without mentioning it.

I love poker. Once you get beyond the "OH MY GOD, I HAVE 2 SUITED CARDS" stage of playing No Limit Texas Hold'Em and move on to learning about what hands are worth playing in what position, how to read betting patterns, the different types of players (tight/loose, passive/aggressive) and how to spot them, physical tells (often discounted these days due to modern approach to the game and the hoards of players coming through the internets), pot odds/counting outs etc. the game becomes very interesting.

If anyone is interested in progressing their game, may I recommend the excellent "Harrington On Hold'Em" series of books.

Beyond Texas Hold'Em of course there are other games to play. The variations on Stud and Omaha are great. Limit/Pot Limit variations and split pot Hi/Lo games all add a lot of variety.

And for those truely hardcore, play HORSE. A limit game where you play Hold'Em, Omaha Hi/Lo, Razz (Stud Lo), Stud and Stud Hi/Lo in rotation. This game tests so many all round poker skills and is why the $50k HORSE tournamet at the World Series of Poker (WSOP) is considered the real main event by the pros (when compared to the $10k No Limit Hold'Em event which attracts 6000+ entrants these days).