Whipped up a homemade wooden (white oak) copy of Micropul today. It didn't turn out as nice as I'd hoped (I rushed) but it is playable. I think I'll take another shot at using some of the print and play designs for another attempt.

My son, Noah, has taken a few violin lessons from Christian Howes, attended one of his Jazz Violin Camps here in Columbus, and periodically attends a group lesson with him. Here's a small sample of some pretty neat impromptu jamming.

Sophie, Noah, and I played Long Shot this morning. From the image, it looks like my 3 horse was doing pretty well but unfortunately we were battling for third place. Sophie cleaned our clocks by owning the 1 horse; it came in first, and she had $20 bet on it. My 9 horse came in second and Noah's 6 horse third.

We had a good time playing. Lots of laughs and grumbles at the good and the bad dice rolls. Long Shot is a relatively chaotic experience but it's still proving to be lots of fun for us.

Got in a quick game of The Climbers with the whole family after dinner tonight.

Over the last several weeks I've been exchanging emails with Sophisticated Games and United Soft Media Verlag GmbH, the makers of the Ingenious iPhone application. I've included a link on the Ingenious game page that will take you to the iTunes Store where you can purchase the iPhone app (circled below). And as a special bonus it's on sale for only $0.99 until Valentine's Day! So, if you're an iPhone user, take a moment to check out the app by clicking through the link.

I'm starting to think David has a "problem" but taking a quick look at the games piling up on my shelf and knowing I have several waiting on backorder at Game Surplus, well, let's just say I sympathize.

Matthew,
this is another one of my patented 'multiple shipments arriving on the same day' :D

The main shipment was a Coolstuff Inc. order to celebrate the release of Cosmic Incursion. Since I didn't have enough to make a full 'free shipping order', I merely tacked on some expansions I'd been eyeballing for a while.

Cosmic Incursion
Power Grid Iberia/Brazil
Hive-Mosquito
Primordial Soup-Freshly Spiced

Also arriving the same day:

Atlantic Star-very fair value on BGG marketplace-this is a nice set collection game with several push your luck elements (when to take a tile for free or pay, or take to hose someone else, where to place on the completed track-max points or safer payout, etc.).
Kingsburg-arrived via trade. This die roller/worker placement game is very popular in our group and an easy sell to get to the table.

JUST missing the cut: I won Mare Nostrum + expansion in a recent Geeklist Auction. I had arranged for my sister to pick up the game from the seller, since she was flying out to visit Thursday 2/11. So I would have added Mare Nostrum to the photo EXCEPT that she got caught in the horrid blizzard hitting the east coast and won't be able to fly out until the weekend. So I have that coming in a few days, but not to make the photo :D

davido

I got a couple of close gamer friends together for an impromptu game day at my house. We warmed up with Die Aufsteiger/The Climbers.

We quickly moved on to Power Grid. Power Grid is an economic, route building game of supplying power through a network of cities on a map. Players bid money for auctioned power plants that require different types and numbers of resources to operate (coal, oil. trash, nuclear, wind). After acquiring power plants, players must purchase the necessary resources to operate them from the market. As resources are purchased, they become scarcer and therefore more expensive. Additionally players build upon a network of cities that their power plants supply. The only way to obtain more money, is to power the cities in your network at the end of each turn. When the game ends, the player that can power the most cities on the final turn is the winner.

I'm not a big Power Grid fan though. I owned a copy and we'd tried to play it numerous times but could never make it through the entire game in one sitting. The first step of the game (up to 7 cities) is relatively straightforward, but the second and third steps get a bit fiddly with the power plan auction market. There isn't quite enough meat in the first step to make it a "real" game but I don't enjoy the last two steps so I'm in a quandary. I enjoyed playing it more with only three players rather than the full complement of players. It moved along at a faster pace but I'm still glad I traded my copy away.

Next up was Chinatown. The game was new to all of us so it was a learning game. I'm not fond of negotiating games and to do well you have to be able to see what's worth negotiating for and how best to value that position on the board. I ended up winning but I don't think that had much to do with my skill at the game.

Players draw cards and from that set keep a few and discard a few. The cards depict numbers that indicate where on the grid (Chinatown) you can place a "control" stone. Players place their stones on the numbered squares for the cards they keep and then everyone draws tiles blindly from a bag. You job is to try to collect and or negotiate for trades and/or controlled positions on the board such that you can lay identical tiles in groups. The tiles represent types of businesses being built in Chinatown (e.g. Laundry, Restaurant, Fish Market, Tea House, ...) The larger your establishment gets, the more points it's worth at the end of the round.

I enjoyed playing the game well enough but not enough to seek out a copy for my collection.

I can't believe it but I forgot to take a picture of our game of Cavum so all you get is a bogus box shot I took a few days ago. Cavum is a brand new (thanks BGG Secret Santa!) title from my collection and I'd only played through a sample solo game. In Cavum, players did tunnels into a central mountain looking to "uncover" loads of gems. Players place tunnel tiles deeper and deeper into the mine and build stations that block travel through the tunnels for other players. The goal is to collect the right kinds of gems during a traversal of tunnels between two stations. Tactical placement of stations, blocking players, destroying tunnels, and connecting to the cities that surround the mountain are critical.

The game can be rather cut throat since players can place dynamite tiles that blow up tunnels and they can place tiles on top of existing tile to reroute the tunnels for offensive and defensive purposes. I liked the game but there are a lot of moving parts and things to think about.

Our final game was Notre Dame. October 2007 was the last (and only!) time I'd played. It's been to the table a few times in game nights where we've split into two tables but I've always been at another table. I was happy to play it and really enjoyed it. I really need to get this game to the table more. Notre Dame is somewhat of a solitary endeavor. Each player is assigned a lobe of the city with Notre Dame in the middle. With one exception, your play is limited to placing cubes into boroughs of your section of the city. You place cubes and a pawn (your trusted friend) into individual boroughs pay playing cards from your hand. Each borough affords you different actions to perform and the more items you have in the borough the more powerful that action gets.

Players interact in a few ways passing cards to each other, vying for dominance in Notre Dame, and moving a carriage around the city. You're all trying to earn victory points but you've got to deal with the plague-ridden rats that attack at the end of every turn. I really enjoy Notre Dame and it's a shame it's been so long since I've played.

Thanks for coming over for the impromptu session and I hope to do it again soon.

Okay, it was an impulse buy but my copy of Die Aufsteiger, a.k.a. The Climbers, arrived today. I was surprised that it came so quickly given that I'd only ordered it on Friday morning but by Monday afternoon it was sitting on my porch, packed well in a USPS Priority Mail box.

The game is heavy, weighing in at 4 pounds 6 ounces; you don't want to drop that on your foot! The shoe-boxed sized box, shown next to my phone for scale contains chunky wooden blocks, five wooden "climbers", five blocking "stones", and ten ladders (in two sizes).

You begin the game by placing two large gray blocks vertically and then everyone simultaneously places blocks around them following a few simple rules. When all the blocks have been placed, the two gray starter blocks must be completely hidden. The image above was the arrangement Noah and I arrived at for our first game.

Players take turns optionally moving a block and then attempting to climb their "climber" up the block mountain following a few relatively simple rules concerning what colors you can climb on, how many climbers can stand on each block, and limitations on how high of a block you can climb upon without using a ladder. Ladders are only good for one use and are removed from the game. Each player gets a single small and a single large ladder so use them wisely.

The game ends when during a turn nobody moves to a higher level. The player at the highest level wins or in the case of a tie, the first player to reach the tied level wins. There are optional minor modifications to the end game rules when playing with two.

Since the set up is random but still carried out by humans, you might think there would be cause for making sure nobody is stacking the deck, pardon the play on words, by placing blocks in a fashion to make it easier for their color. However, that's taken care of by the fact that you don't know what color of player you're going to be until after the initial set up.

Noah and I had fun. It's a light but interesting mental puzzle, good for an opener or closer or with light gaming company. I'm interested to play it with more to see how that plays out. It's a very photogenic game and I hope to try to get some artsy-fartsy shots in the coming weeks.

It's been awhile since any one sent me a shipment picture but here's davido's recent haul and his note:

Matthew,

I had some extra holiday money and when Coolstuff, Inc. offered a 5% off promo (alas, NOT piggybackable w/ my regular 2.5% loyalty bonus) I snagged some odds n ends. I missed the Haiti relief fund promo by a day, though. Anyways, the good stuff:

Ticket to Ride: Europa 1912 expansion. TTR:E is my fave of the TTR series, so more tickets plus warehouses/depots can only be more of a good thing.
Jungle Speed: always on the lookout for fun fillers
No Thanks: about time I owned this classic filler.
Railways of England and Wales. Railroad Tycoon is a '10' for me. I didn't like Rails of Europe, but LOVED my initial plays of RoEW-especially with 3-4 players.
Hive: my 7yo daughter is my main gaming partner, so I'm on the lookout for accessible 2p games. that and Bakelite is cool :D
Stone Age: I've enjoyed my plays of this, so time to add it to the collection
Stone Age Token Set: 'coz the bits matter :D
Small World: Another game that I enjoy everytime out. The expansions will be in the next order.
Baker's Dozen: I had Poison, but my wife didn't like the 'theme' for the 7yo-so here's hoping the Moldy Doughnuts make to the table more often.

Eligible for Free Shipping and after the 5% promo, total was $155