Print and Play Birthday

So in honor of this birthday for the best-wife-ever, I have decided to get off my lazy rump and finally post. As you can tell by now we are a little obsessed with gaming. So much so that I decided to craft a game for Katie's birthday. Now let me say this right up front.... Despite the plethora of craftiness on this blog I am not a crafty guy. C+ was the highest my penmanship score ever reach. And just between you and me I need my four-year-old's help with scissors.

My initial plan was some amazing new game involving Dinosaurs, Steampunk and Caylus.

The problem with this was three fold.

1. The only thing 'Amazing' about it was me calling it 'Amazing'

2. Crafting the truncheon wielding raptors was a little out of my wheelhouse.

3. Key actions cards involving anabolic steroids failed to fit my overworked theme.

Back to the drawing board I went. Deciding that actually getting her a game she might enjoy, caused me to just buy her a game. Thanks to a friendly co-worker going to GenCon I was able to secure a copy of ......(Wait that would be spoiling, Katie you will just have to find that gift later). But alas, I was still left with an empty hole where my Grinch-like craft heart should be. I decided to turn to my good old friend Mr.BoardGameGeek. And thankfully he offered up a delicious selection of Print-and-Play games both fun and reasonably buildable.

First I turned to Clint Herron's RoboDerby: Express. As a bonus I had a left over copy of Jurassic Park III that wasn't completely devoured by raptors, and a few other indented dice. This game turned out to be fun to build with lots of fan made extras, a variety of art, and it serves as a nice fast homage to one of my favorite games that takes too long to be fun: Roborally.

Image Courtesy sunshiny via BGG

But again I felt hollow because this is much more of a game for me than for Katie. Then I found it. Artfully detailed in his own blog Matt S. (tasajara) posts about his own Ticket to Ride expansion creation. Northern Egypt. You can read about his creation process here.

This was perfect. It is a game best-wife-ever loves. Most of the parts are from something we already have and the cards were already uploaded to Artscow. Now all I have to do is make the board. I could have just had a poster printed and laminated, but that would have been WAY too easy. I decided my best bet would be to print the game on 8.5 x 11 label sheets and stick them to a thrifted game board. The Jurassic Park board was the right size but it was only 4 fold and wouldn't fit in the Ticket to Ride box, Trivial Pursuit boards were a good option but I would have had to seem two together. Luckily I had a copy of the Ann Arbor Trivia game, and for some crazy reason I wasn't attached to it.

Next step was resizing the image. While it was close to the board size(good for scaling) it would have cut off the edge(bad for keeping score). So I used PosteRazor to resize it into a convenient PDF.

So one night when best-wife-ever was out doing her civic duty disposing of stockpiles of dangerously flammable ethanol, I set up my project. At this point I would like to thank my aforementioned daughter Lily who did her best to help me work the paper cutter. To her I say I did the best I could. After cutting and applying the sticker sheets I came to realize that the toner did not hold up as well as I would have liked. So in an effort to save the project I used a few markers and a couple coats of sealant to patch it up.

All in all it is a fairly impressive creation and I have to take my hat off to the creator who put a tremendous amount of time and fan love into the art and playtesting. If I were to make another one of these I would print on some high quality glossy paper and glue that down rather than use labels. I was pleased with my choice to get the Artscow cards. They may not be perfect but they are far nicer than you would make anywhere, plus cheap is good. For any poor soul that made it this far in this post, I thank you and ask you to join me in wishing best-wife-ever a Happy Birthday.

My Holiday Gaming To-Do List

Sniffle. Snort. That's the sound of me snorkling and wheezing through my third cold in four weeks, dear readers. I'd like to thank all the preschool children who made this month of misery possible. (You're all lucky I don't own a taser.) What? Who said that?  Well anyway, we can't let a little phlegm get us down, since this is the time of year to remember the true meaning of Christmas: Extra vacation days that can be spent playing board games! The Best Husband in the World can't escape my germs anyway, and there's something wonderful about being wrapped head-to-toe in blankets playing games through a Nyquil haze. So without further ado (or disgusting references to phlegm), here's my...

Christmas Break Board Game To-Do List:

 1. Play The Da Vinci Code Board Game while watching The Da Vinci Code on Blu-Ray.
Yes, that's really the full unimaginative title of the game. And yes, I know there are many unnecessary parts of this plan, including watching The Da Vinci Code, doing so in Blu-Ray format, owning a game about said movie, and actually opening it up. But, you see, we got this game new in shrink at a live auction at Origins last year for one dollar. One dollar. It was sort of a joke that I even bid, and now I have to see it through. Maybe it won't be so bad? (Don't laugh!)

2. Give Small World another try.
I started out loving this game, once upon a time. In fact, it was one of my first real board games I ever got into. And now going back to it is kind of like having lunch with an old boyfriend who you made out with in school for the first time. Awkward, but maybe worthwhile. I "broke up" with this game last year after deciding that some of the races were just too unbalanced--mainly those damn reproducing skeletons (which I briefly banned from the game). But I think I may have been to hasty. (Notice I haven't traded it in yet.) Hey com'on Small World, baby, I think we can make it work.

3. Learn how to play Alien Frontiers.
This game came to us from Kickstarter.com, since we were one of the (many) original investors in getting this board game produced. It was a fun adventure to see it go from just a dream to a shiny, pretty reality, but so far all it's done is sit on our shelf. Not cool. You can bet your buns a review is coming on down the line pretty soon.

4. Continue the Clue marathon holiday tradition with my brother-in-law.
Every year he flies up to Michigan from Florida, and for the past couple years we (The Best Husband in the World, The Coolest Brother-in-Law in the World, and I) stay up multiple nights in a row into the wee hours playing game after game of Clue. What started as a Hey, wouldn't it be wild if we tried that game? idea turned into an amazingly good time filled with lots of meta-gaming, diagram drawing, and suspicion. We've also begun throwing Puerto Rico into the mix as well.

5. Print off the "Through the Seasons" expansion for Agricola.
If you don't know yet, YES! There's a downloadable expansion available for Agricola called "Through the Seasons." It's being hosted over at boardgamegeek, and I absolutely need to get my Christmas-cookie-padded ass over there and print it! If you are interested, here's a link to the expansion:
Agricola: Through the Seasons

If I forget to say it later this week, I want to wish all of the gamers out there a very...

Merry Christmas!

Wendy's Kids Meals: Now With Board Games!

Did I need one more reason to love Wendy's? I guess those junior back cheeseburgers (word to the JBCs!), scrumptious chicken apple salads, frosties, and healthy kids meals weren't enough, eh? Now they have to make me fall in love with them all over again by including...you guessed it...BOARD GAMES in their kids meals.

I'm so proud I think I'm tearing up.

So it looks like, for the time-being, Wendy's is working with Patch games to release a series of little games in every little baggy of chicken nuggets, chocolate milk, and orange slices. What's really impressive though, isn't just that there is a game instead of a useless toy inside, but the production value seems pretty high. These games come in well-made mini cardboard boxes with lift-off lids, just like the real deal big boys. And inside each box is a series of cards and a red decoder strip to read scrambled trivia answers. The games being offered are Know It or Blow It, Perfect Sense, Buzzword Junior, Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?, and Now What?.

True, none of these itty bitty games are Settlers of Catan...but I really appreciate that kids are getting their hands on games, lifting the dainty little box lids, and experiencing the fun of interacting with friends and family...and then soundly trouncing them and feeling like little gods of victory.

And if I must, I will do my part to support board game appreciation through this land, even if it means eating JBCs every day for the next month!