What comes to mind when you read the phrase “video game adaptation”? Jean Claude Van Damme as Belgian Guile? XCOM: The Board Game: The Companion App? Endless Resident Evil sequels? An absolutely epic pile of cardboard tokens for Civilization? Turning a video game into a movie or a tabletop game is a difficult challenge. Robots Love Ice Cream: The Card Game,
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As a city planner, you naturally want to make the most beautiful and crowd-pleasing city. But watch out! Other players may offload their problems to your beautiful city, even as you upgrade your buildings to become more useful. Will you flip for Flip City, or is it more of a flop?
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Arr, mateys! We be pirates, sailing the high seas in search of Loot. We play cards to capture or defend merchant ships. Loot is one of the earliest games from designer Reiner Knizia. It’s been available in the United States since 2005 from publisher GameWright, but the newest version has updated artwork and comes in a metal tin.
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BLANK is basically a starter pack for the interested designer; it provides a template to create rules and effects to make the game your own.
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This week’s podcast, we talk to Brian and Jill Bollinger from Wild East Games. We have mentioned their games Pie Rats of the Carob Bean Farm and Pitman in previous episodes. They have a new expansion for Pie Rats, out on Kickstarter now.
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Did you know that ghosts can scare each other? Neither did I until I played BOO, a compact game for two players from Perplext. Did this ghostly game grip us, or were we perplexed by this petite phantasmal puzzler?
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“There’s a war out there, old friend. A world war. And it’s not about who’s got the most bullets. It’s about who controls the information. What we see and hear, how we work, what we think… it’s all about the information!” – Sneakers, 1992 For some of us, it’s quotes like these that are about as close to hacking as
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Aditya Batura is co-founder and CEO of Codomo Inc., a technology education group based in Singapore. They teach children about programming at an age-appropriate level, and wanted to bring that to a larger community. Enter Potato Pirates, the game that “teaches 10 hours of programming in 30 minutes”.
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Sometimes you just need to buy a game in person, whether it’s because you don’t want to buy online or because you need to pick up a last-minute present. We share with you our top games that we found at our local Target store.
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Nothing says family fun like marshmallows on a campfire. Can you toast your marshmallows to a beautiful golden brown, or will your opponents cause you to roast them, leaving you with nothing but a blackened crisp?
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As we mentioned last week, we’ve been camping! We talk about several camping-themed games from Education Outdoors.
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A s’more traditionally consists of two graham crackers, one marshmallow, and one piece of chocolate. S’mores: The Card Game tries to re-create the fun of assembling a s’more in a card game. Can you craft a s’more from your cards before the deck runs out?
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A baobab tree has a thick trunk and flat, spreading branches. Why? Because the players have to build it that way! Can you build a spectacular canopy, or will your tree tumble?
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It’s an odd-numbered show, so that means we have a guest! This week, it is Chris Nichols, inventor of The Card Caddy. The Card Caddy was born of necessity; when Chris’s son was younger, he wanted to play Uno everywhere. The cards were always getting mangled by rubber bands, or slipping out of the crummy paperboard box to scatter everywhere.
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As we mentioned on our interview with Chris Nichols, we are giving away a Card Caddy (single decker) to six lucky winners! Enter using the Rafflecopter widget below. What game would you keep in a Card Caddy? a Rafflecopter giveaway
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Scuttle! by Jellybean Games is a card game full of pirate adventure, attacks, conquest, and fun, for 1-5 players. Manage the shifting seas of cards like an old salt, be the first to collect enough treasure, and you’ll win the title of master pirate captain.
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Oh no! All the animals have escaped the barn and are hiding out. Can you fill your pen with the most valuable animals and avoid the sneaky crows? Barnyard Roundup is a simple bluffing game for 2-6 players designed by James Hudson and published by Druid City Games.
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One of my recently adopted criteria for a good family game is total length – from setup, through play time, to teardown. In this, Clear for Takeoff excels. Designed by Hagen Temeryazev, an airline pilot, illustrated by Etienne Hebinger, and published by Blue Orange Games, Clear for Takeoff is a card game that has you racing to get all three of
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Unbelievable tales of legend filled with debauchery, treachery, and heroism make the stories of the Greek gods fascinating to anyone who enjoys a good adventure. From the snakes of Medusa to the rippling muscles of Hercules, to the near invincibility of Achilles, every hero and villain captures our imagination with their epic tales of adventure, victory, and heartbreak. With virtually
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Hoyle, the familiar name in playing cards, is introducing its own line of original card games for kids, under the brand name Hoyle Play. Their motto is “fun with room for a lesson”. The Family Gamers were given three of these games to try. All three reinforce early math skills, but are they fun enough to keep playing?
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