Recently in Outside world Category

The new version of my board game web site is now open. Lautapelaaja.net is gone, welcome Lautapeliopas, more modern - some might say Web 2.0 - version. Just about everything from the old site is present on the new and I've also added the contents of my board game book, updated and refreshed. I've also recruited more people to write content and added some stuff to make participating more interesting - visitors can now rate games and comment everything, for example.

The most-anticipated release of the year is now out! Baby number two turned out to be a girl (ok, so we knew it in advance, but didn't tell anybody!) and is doing fine. Johanna is also doing fine, much better than after the first time. This one was much quicker, so quick I almost missed it... But fortunately just almost.

I'll have to revisit this entry with the proper tag once we decide to go public with the name, that's another thing I know and you don't...

Sampo Sikiö did the really cool redesigns of Preußische Ostbahn and Wabash Cannonball, but it doesn't stop there.

Go take a look at some real talent! His Flickr photostream has more pictures of his work and also general photography, while his homebrew games portfolio displays more of his work with board games.

The Winsome game remakes are his best work so far in my opinion, but there's more. He's been working on a board game version of the old computer classic M.U.L.E., and that game, L.L.A.M.A. looks awesome, too. His version of Medici is also really neat.

I don't know about you, but if I were looking for board game graphic design talent for a project of mine, I'd hire Sampo right away.

Finnish Board Game Society wishes Merry Christmas to everybody. Sampo Sikiö did a great job with the greeting card, so I wanted to share it here:

Since the Finnish mahjong resources are so scarce, I wanted to fix that. Thus, Mahjong-opas was born. Currently the site has some basic information on mahjong and the rules to the Chinese Official game and Riichi, but more will come - while it probably won't be another Sloperama Mahjong FAQ, I'm interested in developing this site a lot. That means lots of writing, but it'll be fun.

My timing is pretty good, as the anime/manga/Japan kids are starting to discover mahjong, thanks to Akagi, a manga (and an anime) about mahjong. It's the Hikaru no Go effect all over again.

I came up with this idea of creating a site for board game related eBay auctions. It took me quite a while to get the thing up and running, busy as I am these days, but finally - after some pruning of unnecessary stuff - I got to a point where I can just publish the whole thing: Board Game Auctions.

It's basically a bunch of categories for eBay auctions. The site also has some nifty RSS feeds, for example if you want to see the auctions of Rio Grande Games board games, just subscribe to the Rio Grande Games auctions RSS feed. Very simple.

There aren't that many categories yet, particularly for individual board games, but if this sort of stuff interests you, just grab the RSS feed and you'll remain updated whenever I add new categories.

Settlers of Catan meets M.U.L.E. in Seize Life! describes a M.U.L.E.-inspired variant of Catan where players must co-operate and win together:

In M.U.L.E. the player are all in coopertition, cooperative competition. They are colonists trying to make good for themselves but also must help their fellow players. At a certain time "those in charge" return to see how the colonists are doing. If the players have been playing a cutthroat game they usually won't have done well enough to be accepted as a successful new colony. They lose the game.

I applied this to Settlers. I kept track of several games and found that when playing competitively (4 players) the game usually ends around turn 15 with a combined point total of roughly 28.

We changed the rules. Now the game will end at the end of turn 15, and players must have reached a combined total of 35 points in order to win. If we don't make it, we lose as a group.

Sounds pretty cool! Thanks to Yehuda for finding this.

One of my favourite bloggers, Chris Farrell, is back! His new blog is called Illuminating Games. His insights on Glory to Rome are interesting, especially considering I just bought the game (I'm hoping to play it next Thursday, we'll see).

W. Eric Martin's Forty Thoughts on Gamers and Gaming is something worth reading.

Remember the online Chess timer I mentioned before? It was discussed on the Finnish Board Game Society forums and the lack of multi-player option was noted. Well, it didn't take many days before Zumba Gametimer was online. Check it out, if you need a multi-player timer.