Lotus Dice Bags, Ahoy!

Here is one really peachy keen find from last week: The lotus dice bag. Now, if you know me, you know that I have way too many dice and dice bags. In fact, I have a Dice Goblin bag (pictured at right--isn't it cute?) that hasn't found a proper use yet. Sad. So there's no way in hell I needed more dice or more dice bags/boxes/jars/buckets. But, alas, I bought a new one anyway. This one's different though--I swear!

These lotus dice bags are the bomb-diggity because they close like a normal pouch, but when they open up, they act more like an open dice box. Their opened flat-bottom design allows you to view all of your dice easily. Below is a hey-I-took-a-crappy-picture-after-midnight-because-I-was-punch-drunk-on-coffee-and-didn't-realize-how-bad-the-lighting-was-in-the-convention-hall image of my brand new dragon brocade lotus bag.

I bought the medium size, which, according to the manufacturer (Games by Gamers), should hold about 100 regular dice. Plenty for any D&D excursion. Not that I play D&D much anymore. But if I did!.....

Well, anyway, I paid just $9.00 for this adorable handmade bag. (They were hand-sewing new ones on-site last week to keep up with demand!) Now, even though I have a recognized illness for buying excessive amounts of dice and dice bags, I am daring to admit that I think I might still need to order their MEGA size. It holds 2-3 lbs. of regular dice. Man, I have no idea when on earth I'd ever need to carry 2-3 lbs. of dice around, but what I find really need about the jumbo size, is that it's large enough to function like a cloth dice tray (when mostly empty). Trust me, I've lugged around my wooden dice tray to more than a few gaming events, and the damn thing is clunky and chunky! This pouch is perfect for those of us who love dice-rolling implements, but don't want to lug around something ginormous. If you haven't checked out these dice bags yet, I suggest you go do it. Right now. Okay, maybe wait until you've read a few more posts here. But then, go.

Building a Jenga Dice Tower

Let's start with the obvious question: What in tarnation is a Jenga dice tower? For those of you not in the know, a dice tower is any kind of small tower (usually made of cardboard or wood), in which you place dice in the top of the tower, and they roll out the bottom, effectively rolling the dice for you. Because, ya know, it's a lot of work to roll those dice. All those days playing Alien Frontiers or Risk, I've been thinking "Blast! If only there was some way--SOME WAY!--I could relieve this dice-rolling wrist stress and still have a perfectly random outcome." Well, a dice tower is the answer.

So granted, I rebuffed, rejected, and roundly mocked the idea of making (or worse, buying) a dice tower for a long time, but the greatest husband in the world persisted. Stubborn monkey. And thank goodness he did; It turns out that the function of a dice tower is to be just plain FUN! It's another cool useless gadget that makes people smile. So consider me pro-dice tower from here on out.

Now to get ourselves a dice tower, we turned to a particularly creative mind over at BGG: user BadgerWithAGun. He has posted a brilliantly created PDF mock-up of directions for building a cheap and awesome dice tower using Jenga blocks (view the plans HERE).Yes, Jenga--that game that no one plays anymore, and dumps off at every thrift shop in the world.

Here is the story of how we sat down last night and decided it was time to build our dice tower, and hopefully you'll see how fabulous and easy it is. Maybe you'll be making one of your own this weekend (If so, we want to see pictures! )

Step 1: Gather Your Dice Tower Materials

You'll need the following items to build your Jenga dice tower:

• 30 Jenga blocks (one complete game set comes with more than 30)
• Wood glue
• Foam board, or game board that you'd like to chop up
• 3 wooden clothespins
• Sharp scissors 
• Paper towel
• Felt (optional)

All of this is going to be uber cheap. Check at a couple thrift stores and garage sales, and you should be able to get a used Jenga set for about $1.00-4.00. A new bottle of wood glue cost us $3.00. Felt costs you pennies, and the rest we had on-hand. So the total cost of this dice tower, for us, was just over $5.00.

Step 2: Start Gluing Your Jenga Blocks

Per the instruction sheet, use the wood glue to start assembling pairs of Jenga blocks into "Ls", and then glue together the "Ls" (as shown in pics) to form 1 Jenga block x 1 Jenga block squares.

These will be the levels of your tower. In total, you will need 6 of these squares. Hold off on stacking them on attaching the squares to each other--it's not time to stack the tower just yet. (In the pic below, I've just stacked them to make sure they're all coming out even, I haven't attached the squares together yet.)

 

Tip: Make sure you keep a small sheet of paper towel on-hand, and keep wiping away excess glue before it dries. And remember, since the blocks are sitting on their sides, and will eventually be stacked on top of each other, "Jenga" logo orientation doesn't matter. 

Once you have all 6 of your Jenga block squares glued and dried, you're ready to move on to Step 3.

Step 3: Glue Together the Tower Base

Now it's time to assemble 6 Jenga blocks into a 2 block x 1 block rectangle. This is going to be your base, your tray that the dice roll out into. At this point in our building process, it was getting a little late at night, hence the goofy shadows in this picture above. There was glue everywhere, and the cats were campaigning to go to bed. But no one can thwart us when we decide to build a dice tower late at night! Good thing our wood glue dries really quickly, though.

Step 4: Cut Out Your Ramps and Base

Set aside your Jenga blocks for now, and pull out that foam board you set aside for this project. Or, if you're crazy like us, you can butcher an old game board for this purpose. We chose an old Stratego board whose pieces had long ago been discarded. Using the scissors, we cut out two identical pieces of the game board that are just wide enough to fit inside one of the Jenga squares, and just long enough to extend from the top edge of the blocks to the bottom edge, so as to form a ramp. You'll have to gauge the angle the best you can. 

You'll glue these in place, and then grab those wooden clothespins mentioned in the materials section. Snip off small little wooden bits of the clothespins to use as braces for the ramps to sit on. Above is what the underside looks like once it's all been cut, assembled, and glued. You'll need to make a total of 2 of these, and these will become Layer #1 (top layer of the tower), and Layer #3. 

For the final ramp, we cut a piece of game board big enough to create a ramp from the top of Layer #6 to the bottom of the dice tray (so it'll be almost twice as big as the other ramps, since it spans two layers). Here is a sneak peek at the diagram from the PDF instruction sheet over at BGG. 

Notice in this diagram that there's also a piece of game board that is cut to the size of the base and attached as the bottom of the dice tray. This is the step where you should go ahead and cut out this base piece and glue it to the bottom of the tray.

I'd have more personal pictures to show of this step, but this is where it started to get really late, and I started to get easily distracted playing with the cats or doing other important things while the greatest husband in the world (GHITW) did all of this part. Here's a pic of the final result. In the center is the base tray, with the bottom piece of the Stratego board attached underneath, and Layer #6 on top, with ramp in place.

Step 5: Assemble Your Tower!

Zzzzzz. Zzzzzz. Mememememe. Zzzzzzz. What? What's going on? Oh, that's right. I was off, um, not paying attention while GHITW fidgeted with the ramps for a needless amount of time. Okay, it was really only about 20 minutes, but it felt like a really long time.

But now it's time to BUILD THE TOWER! Yeaaa! Before you bust out the glue, practice stacking the layers together (staggering each layer so its block formation alternates), with ramps in proper place, facing the proper direction. Once you think you have it right, do some test rolls of the dice. Try a few different sizes of dice just to make sure everything's lined up and working right.

Once you're satisfied, apply a generous amount of glue in between the layers to stack your tower up. Be sure to wipe excess glue away with your paper towel.

Once it dries, you're ready to let the dice roll! That's all it takes. 

Now, some people find dice towers a little noisy, and suggest gluing in mats of felt on the ramps and the bottom tray. I don't know. The sound with the game board ramps and the Jenga blocks is kind of neat, I think--sort of a fun wooden tinkle that sounds like a steam punk wooden gadget (or so I imagine). We'll be skipping the felt.

After that, the tower is yours to decorate. Leave it plain, if that's your bag. I plan to do some elaborate sketching and painting all over this one (photos to come at a later date if it turns out well!). Or, you might want to just grab a can of spray paint and go to town.

The most important thing is to have fun with this contraption. I've heard stories of these towers being built double-sided so that a D&D Dungeon Master can choose which slot to drop the dice into--one so the dice rolls out to a tray facing the players, and one so the dice rolls out to a tray concealed behind the DM's screen. Brilliant. Unnecessary, maybe, but brilliant. Make this tower your own, make it interesting, make it unique, and add a little extra fun to your gaming experience

And don't forget to share those photos of your own dice tower!

Zooloretto Summary Card

Are you a fan of adorable furry things? Do you like games that make you go "Awww"? Do you miss the days of preschool lessons about baby animals? Then you probably are sitting in front of a Zooloretto board right now. I have yet to write a full review on the Spiel des Jahres winning game, because it just seemed too boring to even write about. Sorry, Zooloretto and its fans. I guess that's kind of harsh. I mean, I do like fuzzy things with cute faces. But sans expansions, Zooloretto is about as exciting to me as playing most children's games.

Okay, I'll be fair though and stipulate that it may be a fantastic gateway game to pull in non-gamers or even your children. Yes, "Z" has its purpose. And for those of you whom absolutely love this game--and there are many of you out there!--I have a (specially requested) treat for you. Here is an image of the Zooloretto money action summary card:

SUMMARY CARD - ZOOLORETTO:

Just in case you lost or damaged your copies, or need extras, here it is for your printing pleasure. Also handy for pasting to wood blocks or cardboard boxes if you choose to pimp Zzzzzzooloretto. Cheers to many happy (and accurate) plays.

But as a parting shot, I have to share a couple of comics from board2pieces.com that channel my "Z" feelings:

7 Reasons Carcassonne is a Truly Great Game

Ah, Carcassonne, the beautiful tile-laying game of strategy and meeples. It is hands-down my absolute favorite board game of all-time for a number of reasons, which I will naturally detail below (otherwise the title of this post would be a big fat lie, wouldn't it?). I feel I have to jump to the defense of this board game, because it takes a lot of punishment on forums and in gaming communities. But I contend a lot of the negative press is backlash, similar to what people spout about Settlers of Catan, both being ubiquitous entries in the Beginner's Guide to Starting a Board Game Hobby. I will fight the wave of criticism with an airtight argument for why Carcassonne truly is one of the greats of the board game world.

First, for those not in the know, let me describe the beautiful simplicity of the game: It is perhaps the quintessential tile laying game in which 2-5 players take turns laying down the square tiles that form the game board, which takes on the shape of the town of Carcassonne. The tiles, of course, have to be placed so that sides match up with already placed tiles, and as the cities and roads are formed, players use meeples to claim territories on the board. Since claiming territories successfully scores points and is what decides the game, tile placement must be extremely strategic and thoughtful.

And if that isn't enough to convince you to run straight to the nearest gaming store and buy a brand-spankin'-new copy, here's my list of 10 reasons it is a simply marvelous game:

1. Works Best With 2 Players
I've played this game with 3 and 4 players before and was surprised to find myself yawning. Well no wonder!, I thought, This is why so many people pass the game by. The game truly shines when it's being played by just 2 players. There's a certain tete-a-tete that occurs when two players duke it out to carve out their territories and fight each other for points. Farmers are easier to keep track of, and the limited competition makes the tile placement more cutthroat. Hmm, I know, if I place this little city nub right next to his metropolis, I bet my jumbo farmer can run him out of town and totally pirate his beautiful city! Stealing your opponent's city is a beautiful thing. Plus--and this is a biggie--two-player games move FAST. Most turns the husband and I are slapping tiles down in a flash and smacking each others' hands to get to the draw pile first. Games (which in our household includes the basic set and two expansions) will typically take us 30-45 minutes, tops. And they are b-r-u-t-a-l.

2. Meeples
In case you don't already know, meeples are those little wooden guys that come with a handful of Euro games. In Carcassonne, meeples are the markers used to claim territories on the board (and to look cute and spell out your name while the game is still beginning). There's something entirely lovable about meeples, and they only add to the game's aesthetic and kitsch value. Plus, some of the expansions (like Princess & Dragon) have wicked awesome unique meeples. My dragon meeple is maybe one of my favorites in all of my games (even if it's a weak expansion).

3. The Ever-Changing Board
Some of the best board games I've ever played change up the board with every game, and Carcassonne is the epitome of this concept. No two games ever look the same, and it is virtually impossible to ever repeat the same game twice (cough, I'm looking at you, Monopoly, and even you, Agricola!).

4. Expansion Variety
There are loads, mountains, and dump trucks of expansions available for Carcassonne--some more playable than others. The down side to a lot of these expansions is that many of them completely change up the game. The up side, is that if you need to mix things up, adding an expansion or two can turn the Carcassonne game already in your closet into a brand-new game. My favorites? "Inns and Cathedrals" and "Traders and Builders". "The Tower" is also worth it just for the giant cardboard tower which acts as a darling draw pile and tile caddy.

5. "Farmer Lying Down on the Job" Jokes

Forget "Why did the chicken cross the road?", that's old hat compared to the quintessential Carcassonne joke, "Why is the farmer lying down on the job?". And let me tell you, it NEVER gets old. No matter how many times you tell the joke in a single evening to the husband. And it NEVER throws his game off.

6. Simplicity of the Rules
I don't know about you, but lately I've been bombarded with games, some of which are brilliant and excellent, but all of which have narcolepsy-inducing rules. Forget Agricola, Carson City, or Puerto Rico. This game keeps it straight-forward and is very teachable to "outsiders". <shifty eyes, shifty eyes>

7. No Dice
While there are certainly elements of chance in the game of Carcassonne (com'on three-sided city tile with a road trailing out the butt!), none of it hinges on a dice roll. And no chance draw of a tile results in the dreaded "Well now I'm screwed" moments that come with many dice games.

Now this is by no means a complete list of the virtues of Carcassonne, and I certainly welcome additional feedback in the comments section below. But the bottom line is that hopefully this list will convince you that if you haven't enjoyed Carcassonne in the past, maybe you haven't given it a fair shake. Sit down with your best (competent) gaming partner and enjoy a good two-player back-and-forth match. Preach!