by Tony Boydell
So our pals Malc & Angie (from the West Midlands) came over at the weekend - just for a little while - with their boys and their dogs and their breathless exuberance and some bottles of beer. We ate far too late and and quaffed ale and grape and set the world to rights while the lads played
Magic: The Gathering or shot each other with Nerf guns. A passing comment about 'the old days' reminded eldest daughter, Alice, about my
Black Overcoat Game - a (mechanically) M:TG-inspired (first ever) board game design based on a long standing cartoon character of mine. The game is horrifically lop-sided, has massive swings in card effect balance, makes reference to rules and keywords long since forgotten/mislaid in various house moves and contains cards hand-illustrated (and subsequently laminated) by friends and family. It's a board game 'in joke' and is utterly priceless; when my eldest was a babe-in-arms and needed cuddles, we'd pass her - clockwise - ahead of us when it came to our turn. I once played a game when everyone won simultaneously...and one where everyone died at the same time, ending the whole thing in a draw.
The Black Overcoat Game (aka BOG) in it's eternal playtest gloryYou're trying to collect three map piece cards - either by lucking in to drawing them from the main deck or conspiring to steal them from opponents - to then get a one turn head start on being the first player to move their marker to the appropriate room in the house. Cards can be objects that can be 'twisted' (tapped) or discarded for an ability; they can be effects - one offs like TCG 'instants'; they can be food items to heal damage inflicted by other cards; they can be allies - people you find wandering the Halls...and so on.On this occasion, four - of the seven of us - were killed by two successive 75th Birthday parties and then minor traps lying around the Stately Home. Of the three survivors, they swapped bodies and it all ended in a frenetic race to the Attic. It's more of a comedy 'Murder By Death' experience than a proper board game, but it has card combos and nasty interaction and - most importantly - a naive charm.
Tsuro: hyper-accessible, tile-laying goodnessIn other news, Arthur always enjoys gaming and is quite keen to learn new things - so out came Tsuro; spacial awareness and sadistic glee are essential...as is a decent tile draw, of course. He quite likes the abstracts, does Arty:
Blokus,
Kamisado and this...
Pillow Fighting Frenzy!A family visit to Staffordshire introduced the cousins to the delights of
Kissenschlacht; a catapulting corker from a prior Spiel wandering, it's a wonder no-one's had an eye out with all those fluffing, flying raviolii...er, I mean pillows.
I even managed to sneak in a 'by way of introduction' game of
Keyflower too (58 to me, 51 to Malc, 39 to Beebs and the less said about Luke's 24 the better TBH).
