Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Hello youse.

When you want to initiate someone you like into the great hobby we call PLAYING BOARD GAMES AND DRINKING AND EATING AND TALKING you have to make some very special preparations. You get one shot at this, and one shot alone. It goes without saying that the first thing you do is make sure that Carcassonne is not involved in the process at any point, because this bland, unsexy game will kill your attempt immediately. Once you’re sure of avoiding that mistake, you can move onto my tips for seducing your friends and lovers with cardboard
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Hello youse.

Not every game needs to be perfect. Flaws are a good thing. Some of my favourite films, albums, video games and people are those ones with major flaws. Indeed, with board games, there is a danger that we all slide down the one safety chute, and all end up playing the same things. This is bad and harmful and will not advance board game design at all. Can I rant on this? Let me rant a bit on this.
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Hello youse.

After my enormous Talisman column last week, I thought it might be nice to take a little breather and just take a quick look at what’s happening on the board game scene right now. Last year, thanks to Kickstarter and such, there were almost too many new board games filling the shelves on a weekly basis. And this year looks no different. It is, quite frankly, exhausting. And only Elton John has a house big enough to hold all those board games. And he’s too bad-tempered to play them.
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Definition of talisman
~ noun (plural talismans)

an object, typically an inscribed ring or stone, that is thought to have magic powers and to bring good luck
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As I fell, drunk, out of a carriage in Baker Street, I reflected upon my relationship with that great man Sherlock Holmes. He was a bit of a pain in the arse, cocky, and a junkie. I was a doctor, a learned man of great responsibility. We were strange bedfellows indeed, but we had never shared a bed. That rumour, spread by London villains to discredit Holmes, had destroyed my marriage. Holmes and I had only ever shared a kiss – we had become a little bit giddy in a bubble bath after a night at the opera.

I knocked on the door and was received by Holmes’ landlady, Betty Rawcook. “Dr Watson!” she exclaimed. “Where are your trousers?” I pushed past her, fell, and my face smashed against an oak sideboard. When I came to, I was in Holmes’ room, and the great man was standing over me with a grin on his face.
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Hello youse.

Yesterday I was doing an interview about a gaming strand I’m presenting for Glasgow Film Festival. The interviewer and I got to talking about board games, and why there seems to be a little bit of a “boom” happening right now. Why are so many people starting to play board games again? Why are so many games websites covering boardgames too? I suggested that it might be because computer and video games are becoming less and less physical. As downloadable games become the norm, we lose the ability to hold our treasured things in our hands. Gone are the big thick manuals and the books of lore, gone are the cloth maps and the otherworldly coins. Game collections seem increasingly like nothing more than temporary personal access to some strange ghostly lending library.

We like something we can hold. We like something we can lay out and look at. That’s my theory anyway.
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Hello youse.

With so many board games out there right now, and so many of them supported with expansions, player-created content is becoming a bit of a dying art. Certainly, when I was young, it was a given that you would only enjoy the contents of a box for so long before you started stuffing it full of your own scrawlings and game-breaking ideas. I expect you would struggle to find a second-hand copy of HeroQuest that hasn’t been amended or “enhanced” by a previous owner. These days we make less of our own shit. Maybe we just have less time.

This is an exciting development. Come take a look.

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Hello youse.

I hope you had a great, human Christmas and an inhuman New Year. I celebrated Hogmanay by rolling down a hill, wailing at the skies for mercy. I kept rolling, and tumbled in through the stage door of a giant haunted theatre. I came to a stop on stage, blind drunk but maddeningly aware of the brutish realities of human existence. And it is from that haunted theatre, from that stage, in front of an audience of ghosts and shades, that I present to you…

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Hello youse.

Today I want to tell you about a new game called ESCAPE: The Curse Of The Temple. It’s a game that plays in 10 Minutes. It’s frantic. And I felt that the best way to explain it would be to try to somehow capture the character of the game in text form.

And that’s why this week’s column is one I will write in TEN MINUTES. I am going to start a timer, start writing, and when the timer stops I will take my hands off the keyboard. There’s a lot I want to say, so please forgive any typos or mistakes. I have nothing pre-planned. And I am in a rush.

You ready? Let’s go.
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Hello youse.

I know this might horrify you, but it’s almost Christmas. I’m getting ready for it right now. My tree is up in my living room, and my house is so garishly lit it looks like a modern console game. Santa Claus is coming, my friends, and we must get prepared.
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