Tag Archives: Monopoly

4th October 2022

To mark the tenth anniversary of our first meeting, this week was a bit of a party. We started with a fish and chip supper (courtesy of Darren at The Happy Plaice) and followed it with cake, complete with “marzimeeples”. There was also a special “solo game” of Carcassone, where everyone chose a tile, wrote their name on it and stuck it on a board to be framed as a keepsake to mark the occasion. Unfortunately, Lilac was unwell and not able to come, and the chaos on the A34 (due to a burst water main on the Oxford ring road and an accident) conspired to delay Black, Purple, Orange and Lemon. Everyone else made it though, and after a quick round of Happy Birthday and some cake, the group moved on to play the now traditional “Feature Game“, Crappy Birthday.

– Image by boardGOATS

Crappy Birthday is a party game where players give each other comedy birthday presents and the recipient has to decide who gave the best and worst gifts. We house-rule the game to play a year so that everyone has one birthday, so on their turn, they receive a gift from everyone else. They then look through the gifts and choose the best and worst, and the givers of those gifts get a point each. The winner is the player with the most points at the end of the year. Written like this, the game sounds very dry, but there are three things that make the game a lot of fun.

– Image by boardGOATS

Firstly, the gift cards are fantastic; the pictures are great and the texts that accompany them are just enough to give a flavour while also allowing interpretation. Secondly, the way we play, the Birthday Boy or Girl goes through the gifts reading them out. It is not so much this, as the disgust, excitement or other response as people “open their gifts” that makes everyone smile. Playing board games can be very impersonal—for many people this is a good thing as it allows people who are shy or private to control what they reveal about themselves because everyone focuses on the game. As a result, gamers often don’t really know an awful lot about each other. In playing Crappy Birthday, however, players reveal just a little bit more of their likes and dislikes, helping everyone to get to know each other that little bit better.

– Image by boardGOATS

Finally, we only play Crappy Birthday once a year. This is really key, as without this constraint, the cards would get repetitive and the element of surprise would be lost. In terms of game play, it isn’t a very strategic or challenging game, so playing more frequently would likely mean it would quickly outstay its welcome. As it was, Pink started (his birthday was soonest), and he set the tone for the year. As usual, we discovered lots of interesting things about people in the group. Pink surprised everyone with his delight at receiving some Monopoly money toilet paper, though it was a close-run thing between that and a road trip across the Sahara as he’d always fancied participating in the Paris-Dakar Rally. He was much less impressed with the bungee-jump however.

– Image by boardGOATS

Pine was next and this time didn’t get his usual pile of equine and meat flavoured gifts. His choice of a giant lobster sculpture for his front yard was also unexpected, and he explained that it would be interesting to see where it ended up when the kids and drunks in the village decided to move it. On Plum’s turn we discovered that she liked the idea of a one-armed bandit and Chess lessons (no cheating, obviously), but preferred Flying lessons. Pink proved he knew Blue best when she picked a non-electric iron as her favourite gift, while Ivory was disappointed that when Teal eschewed his generous gift of a trip on the first trip to Mars. We discovered that Teal used to play the bagpipes, and that Lime was quite disgusted by the thought of a giant baby sculpture for the front of his house (to be fair, it looked quite hideous and not a little creepy).

– Image by boardGOATS

Leaping off or out of things seemed to be generally quite unpopular, with a parachute jump being Black’s least favourite gift, though he was delighted by tickets to a live metal music gig. Ivory complained that he kept drawing perfect gifts for people just after their birthday. On his birthday, Pink thought he had a winner when he gave Ivory a snow machine, and everyone else felt the same knowing how much he loves Christmas, but surprised everyone by choosing a space walk as his best gift and a permanent barbed wire fence as his worst. Pine showed his approval when Lemon picked bird watching as her choice gift, and most people could see her point when she ranked her deer-foot lamp as her least favourite.

– Image by boardGOATS

There was more surprise on Purple’s turn when she chose a custom chopper as her best gift, but her dislike of a trip on a submarine was less of a shock. The final birthday of the year was Orange who picked throat rings as his best gift. There was a lot of taxidermy-based gifts so it was perhaps fitting that his less surprising choice of worst gift was a good luck bat (not particularly good luck for the bat if the picture is anything to go by). Not that it really mattered, but everyone knew who the winner was long before the end of the year, as Lemon had managed to get a point in half of the rounds and finished with five points. The race for second place was much closer though with three people taking two and Black and Purple tying with three points apiece.

– Image by boardGOATS

There was a lot of chatter, some tidying up and more chatter, before Lime and Teal wished everyone else a good night and enjoyable rest of the party, and those remaining tried to decide what to play. Everyone was very indecisive, so eventually Blue made the executive decision that one group would play New York Slice while the others played Ticket to Ride, and Pink went out to the car to collect the rest of the games that had been left in the car when everything else was brought in. After some four-player, five-player, no definitely four-player shenanigans as Lemon shuffled from one game to the other, Ivory, Orange, Plum and Pink eventually got going with New York Slice.

– Image by boardGOATS

New York Slice is a re-implementation of …aber bitte mit Sahne, a game we’ve played a couple of times over the summer. Having enjoyed the pizza version last month, it definitely deserved another outing. The idea is that one player makes the pizza and cuts it into segments equal to the number of players, then players take it in turns to choose one of the segments. When a player takes a segment, they can either eat the individual slices or store them for later. Those they will eat are worth points at the end of the game with the score dependent on the number of pepperoni slices on top. The pieces players keep are scored depending on who has the most of each type at the end of the game.

– Image by boardGOATS

Each piece of pizza has a number on it which tells players the number of that type in the game and also what the player with the most will score at the end of the game. Some of the pizza slices have anchovies on them and any that are visible at the end of the game are worth minus one. Each pizza is also served with a Special—a side order bonus tile with rule-breaking powers which accompanies one of the portions. These can be good or bad, and add something to the decision making all round. This time, the game was very close with just four points between first and last.

– Image by boardGOATS

As often happens, most people didn’t compete for the majority in the lucrative Meat Feast pizza, instead gobbling up the pepperoni straight away giving Orange the eleven points relatively cheaply. The most valuable pizzas were collected by Orange and Ivory, whereas Plum made most of her points from her Specials: “The Everyone-Else Diet” and “Seconds”. The Everyone-Else Diet” was handy because it gave negative points to everyone else for every two slices eaten. It was perhaps “Seconds” that just gave her the edge though, as it allowed her to eat one set of slices just before scoring, enabling her to see what she wasn’t winning and eat that. As a result, she finished a single point ahead of Ivory with Orange taking third.

– Image by boardGOATS

Meanwhile, on the next table, Blue, Black, Purple and Lemon settled down to a game of the new Ticket to Ride: San Francisco. This is the latest in the Ticket to Ride series and is making its debut at Essen this year. The games all follow the same basic pattern: on their turn players draw coloured cards, or spend them to place trains on the central map. They score points for trains placed, but also for completing any tickets they kept at the start of the game or picked up and kept during it. One of the smaller games, Ticket to Ride: San Francisco only plays four and has fewer pieces so games are shorter.

– Image by boardGOATS

Like all the other versions of the game, however, San Francisco also has a small rules tweak: when players make a connection to a tourist destination, they can collect a token. They can only collect one per turn and one from each location. Each tourist destination has different tokens, and players score bonus points at the end of the game for each different token they have collected. These points are significant, varying from nothing to twelve, with the number of points increasing exponentially as players add more to their collection. Otherwise, the map is different and instead of trains, players have cable tram-cars to place, but otherwise it is similar to the other versions of Ticket to Ride.

– Image by boardGOATS

Black’s starting tickets both went north-south, but one was on the east side and the other the west side. So he picked one and immediately went fishing for a more. Everyone else was slightly better off, and although Blue’s were better aligned they were fairly low scoring so once she had made a little progress she also took more tickets. Black and Purple went for the potentially lucrative Tourist tokens, while Lemon kept forgetting to pick them up and ended up collecting a handful at the end. Although the more a player has, the more they are worth, it turns out that getting the last couple is really difficult, and they are the ones that are worth the most points.

– Image by boardGOATS

Blue tried to claim the long route from Fort Mason to the Golden Gate Bridge, but couldn’t get the multi-coloured-wild or the last yellow card she needed despite the draw deck apparently being stuffed with them. In the end, she ran out of time as Black brought the game to a swift end. In the end, it was a really close. Black had the most points from placing trains on the board, closely followed by Purple, who was also very close to running out. Blue had the most completed tickets though so it all came down to the Tourist tokens which meant Black edged it by a single point from Blue with Purple just a couple of points behind that.

– Image by boardGOATS

Ticket to Ride was still going on when people had finished their pizzas, so although Ivory headed home, Plum was tempted to stay for one last game of Draftosaurus. This was new to Orange, so while Pink set up, Plum explained the rules. Draftosaurus is similar to games like Sushi Go! or Go Nuts for Donuts except that instead of drafting cards, players draft wooden dino-meeples, which players then place in their Dino Park. Unfortunately, Orange wasn’t familiar with either of those games, so Plum explained that drafting is where players start with a handful of dino-meeples, take one and pass the rest on.

– Image by boardGOATS

So, in Draftosaurus, each player begins the round with a handful of wooden dino-meeples and a player board for their dinosaur amusement park. Everyone chooses one meeple from their handful to place in their park and passes the rest to the next player. Each turn, one of the players roll a die which adds a constraint on which pens players can place their dinosaur in. The different pens have different scoring criteria and some also have restrictions. The game is played over two rounds, with players passing meeples clockwise in the first round and anti-clockwise in the second, ending with twelve meeples in their park.

– Image by boardGOATS

The parks boards are double-sided, but this time the group played just one round on the summer side. The game rocked along quite nicely, though Plum struggled to find mates for the dinosaurs in her Prairie of Love, while Pink and Orange had fun with the Forest of Sameness and Meadow of Differences (which have to have either all the same or all the different dinosaurs in them). A few scaly beasties ended up being thrown into the river because of the dice restrictions, but everyone did a good job of picking the right King for their Dino Park. Orange was king of the King of the Dinosaurs with the most Tyranosaurus rex, but he wasn’t the king of Draftosaurus—that was Pink who finished with thirty-nine points and a lot of Hadrosaurs.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning outcome: It’s great to be ten, but bring on eleven!

Boardgames in the News: The Effects of Covid-19 Continue into 2022

The global pandemic has had a huge impact on every area of life, including gaming. Although a lot game groups have been forced to move their activities online or even close and manufacturers have struggled, there was also a reported increase in games sales (including games as diverse as Monopoly, Dobble and Warhammer) as families searched for activities to keep them amused while stuck at home. Many games conventions were cancelled or moved online in 2020 and were reduced in size with restrictions put in place for 2021.

– Image by boardGOATS

It was hoped that 2022 would bring the end of such things, however, it has recently been announced that both the New York Toy Fair and Spielwarenmesse (aka the Neuremburg Toy Fair) have been cancelled. The company that runs Spielwarenmesse also now also run the International Spieltage, SPIEL (at Essen), but it is not yet clear what effect this will have on that if any.

Boardgames in the News: The Museum of Board Games in Newent

On 28th August, in the small Gloucestershire market town of Newent, The Museum of Board Games opened its doors for the first time. The owner-curator is Tony Boydell, highly regarded designer of Snowdonia, Ivor the Engine, Guilds of London and Scandaroon amongst other games. The exhibition is largely the boardgame ephemera he has been collecting over years of designing and playing games with friends and family.

– Image by boardGOATS

At first sight it doesn’t seem like much—it is very compact, but actually contains a really surprising amount, and the games table front and centre, draws in unsuspecting visitors. There are always a couple of games out on this table for people to fondle and play. This could be anything from the fantastic War of the Daleks to Tiddley-Golf or Froschkönig. As well as exhibits available to play, there are also little quizzes to encourage people to explore the displays and everything is labelled and tagged by the museum cat.

– Image by boardGOATS

For the most part The Museum of Board Games comprises games from the 20^th century, but there are also copies of The History of England (until George III) from 1803 and more recent games like Glory to Rome and Ticket to Ride: The Card Game. The most unusual and rare pieces are on display in cases, but one of the nicest things about the museum are the stacks of game boxes ready to be taken off the shelf and looked at in detail.

– Image by boardGOATS

When anyone shows an interest in something, it will readily will come out of its box for closer inspection. There is a remarkable number of games with a tie-in to TV shows, but also unusual items like a beautiful home-made copy of Monopoly themed round Richmond (London) and copies of L’Attaque! (which became better known when it was reimplemented as Stratego).

– Image by boardGOATS

In recent years, there have been exhibitions at the V&A Museum of Childhood and The British Museum, but this is a much better experience. Although the exhibits are (of course) the centre of the museum, what makes a visit really special is the curator, Tony Boydell himself, and his remarkable knowledge of the games on display and of games in general. Tony can talk for hours on the subject (and he will, if you let him), and as conversation meanders, he will reveal more treasures from the nooks and crannies of the museum.

– Image by boardGOATS

As an afternoon out, the Museum of Board Games is well worth a visit, though speculative visitors should be aware that it is currently only open on Fridays and Saturdays (10am-4pm). It is also exceptional value, but anyone who really wants to support the venture, should visit the museum’s Patreon page. For those who can’t visit in person, there are a couple of reports on the BBC as well as Tony’s Blog on Board Game Geek.

– Image by boardGOATS

Boardgames in the News: The Monopoly Community Update

As well as the variety of different editions, over the years, there have been a number of updates to the classic Monopoly game. These include include changes to the iconic cast iron tokens including the popular addition of the cat a few years ago. In the eighty-six years of the Monopoly Brand, however, the Community Chest cards have remained unchanged. Until now that is.

– Image of unknown origin

The original Monopoly game was set in Atlantic City; according to The Monopoly Companion by Phillip Orbanes, the Community Chest was the city’s “forerunner of the United Way” and was a welfare organisation. For this reason, the Community Chest cards mostly give players money (compared with the Chance Cards which usually move players to another space). There are just sixteen Community Chest cards in the classic Monopoly game, and the space is marked by the iconic treasure chest logo.

– Image from
fineartamerica.com

The Community Chest cards currently include include “Bank error in your favour, “Hospital fees” and “You have won second prize in a beauty contest,” and do sound a little dry and out-dated. So, yesterday, Hasbro announced that they will be changing all the cards and asking the public to vote for possible replacements with the new version available in Autumn.

– Image by boardGOATS from
monopolycommunitychest.com

13th October 2020 (Online)

The evening began slowly, with people signing in and confirming they had their parcels and had not yet opened them. There was a bit of chatter about isolating, and about Green and Lilac’s new house (which had very similar decor to the previous one). Pink had acquired yet another Panda and proudly had it on display.

A Panda not crossing, with details of a Panda Crossing

– Image by boardGOATS

From there the conversation took a bizarre turn on to the subject of Panda Crossings, which really did exist (along with the other “Animal Crossings”), in the 1960s. It was no surprise they were phased out after just five years, though, given how complicated they were, and the fact that safe operation relied on the difference between a “Pulsating” Amber and a “Flashing” Amber…

– Image from cronkshawfoldfarm.co.uk

At 8pm, the Special Guest arrived; Elizabeth and some of her buddies from Cronkshaw Fold Farm in Lancashire joined the meeting. Elizabeth is very talented and has a particular penchant for yoga. So much so, in fact that she and her friends have been the subject of a half hour documentary filmed last summer. As Elizabeth and friends galloped about and showed us their delightful home, everyone sang “Happy Birthday” and then opened their boxes.

– Image by boardGOATS

The boxes were part of the celebration of our eighth birthday. As is now traditional, the “Feature Game” was Crappy Birthday, a silly little filler/party game that is great fun when played very occasionally (and about once a year is perfect). The idea is that each player takes it in turns to receive gifts from everyone else and then they choose the best and the worst; the players who gifted the selected presents get a point. So in this game players are aiming for extremes making it almost the opposite of games like Dixit or Just One where players are aiming for the centre-ground.

– Image by boardGOATS

With the current challenge of “remote gaming” we had to play Crappy Birthday a little differently this year. So, everyone “wrapped their parcels” last time we met and this time everyone took it in turns to unwrap them. While people ate their treats, names were drawn out of the Crappy Birthday box lid and everyone took it in turns to “open their gifts”, while everyone else ate their cake, biscuits and chocolate.

– Image by boardGOATS

Blue went first to show those that hadn’t experienced a GOATS birthday party how to play. As always, it was a learning experience all round. This time, we learnt that Blue would quite like a trip to the middle east (complete with riding camels), but that Monopoly toilet paper might block her drain and everyone else was concerned about the possibility of paper cuts. Green and Lilac both dislike smoking and have been to a Star Wars wedding and Lilac would like a ferret. Black quite fancied unicycle lessons and Purple thought a giant fake bear rug would really add to the ambience in their living room. Although Black likes fish, a hundred pounds is a lot especially when raw, but as he could put it in the freezer, he decided that the persistence of his own Mariachi band would be worse.

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Ivory disliked the sound of “Organ Holiday by Ethel Smith”, and would not be swayed even by Pine’s hurt protest that it had pride of place in his collection. Then he saw the hideous living room tapestry, and although he loves the game (and had really enjoyed playing it with the Plans and Ploys Expansion and Pink and Blue recently), he said it was also not for him. Since the LP would be for just a year and the tapestry was permanent, the wall covering was therefore rejected as his least favourite.

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A lot of people seemed to think that Burgundy would really appreciate physical extreme sports but the one he rejected was bungee jumping. Unlike everyone else who seemed to reject any long term, life-changing experiences, his Burgundy’s preferred gift was a an eagle as a life-long companion, though Blue was concerned it might interfere with Games Night.

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Mulberry calling in from California fancied a fighter jet ride and rejected a bus ride to Florida, and not only because it was such a long way away. Meanwhile, animal gifts were quite popular and although Pine would have loved the opportunity to be licked by a giraffe or go on an African safari, those gifts were received by Violet, calling in from Aberystwyth. She accepted the safari, but, not being a child of the 70s, was unimpressed by the fluffy dice.

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Pine’s wildlife gifts were in the form of hairless cat, a weekend with some monkeys in a hot spring and the chance to hunt and and clean his own Thanksgiving turkey. Having had a landlady with a cat with galloping alopecia, Pine spurned the unfortunate moggy. Then, despite the fact the turkey was the vegetarian’s obvious least favourite, that was Pine’s preferred choice as there was nothing to say he couldn’t give it it’s freedom once it’d had a wash.

– Image by boardGOATS

After some rude comments about his taste in clothing, Pink explained that being on the reality show “Can America Disco” was his idea of a nightmare and that he quite fancied an Easter Island moʻai statue for his front garden. And then, the last player, Lime, also rejected publicity in the form of his own personal paparazzi posting hourly updates on his doings. Like Pink, he also chose the garden ornament, as Lime wanted a new patio and thought a giant chess board would be just the job.

– Image by boardGOATS

And with that, all that was left was the scores. This time, we found that Team Greeny-Lilac and Pink were particularly good at this game, but it was Lime who seemed to take a point every time, taking seven out of a possible eleven points. That said, it was remarkable how many people gave gifts they thought people would like that ended up winning a point for being the most disliked. That’s half the fun though. With the birthday celebration dealt with, we then moved on to playing other games. We are getting better at this, though our repertoire is still quite limited. There had been a few requests to play Railroad Ink again, however, so we started with that.

– Image by boardGOATS

Railroad Ink is a very simple “Roll and Write” route planning game. The idea is that four dice are rolled and everybody adds all four to their map. Three of the dice show straight and curved sections and T-junctions for road and rail. The other, the fourth die shows stations connecting road to rail, and a fly-over (crossing, but not connecting). The game is played over seven rounds, after which players score points for their longest road segments, their longest rail segments, the number of locations on the edge of the board have been connected, and the number of spaced in the central grid that have been filled.

– Image by boardGOATS

Having played it before, it didn’t take too long to get going and there was a sort of focussed silence as everyone concentrated, punctuated by occasional moans when the dice didn’t give people what they wanted. Sadly, these games are very much “multiplayer solitaire”, and we really only found out how people did when adding up the scores. This time, it was really close with just five points separating the top six players. Initially it looked like it was a tie between Blue and Pink, but a recount pushed Blue into second just ahead of Green and then Pine.

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Ivory and Lime followed Mulberry taking their leave, and everyone else settled down to something quick and light in the form of Second Chance. This is a very simple Tetris-style game where two cards are revealed and players chose one of the two shapes to add to their tableau. Players can add shapes anywhere and in any orientation. If they can’t use either of the shapes they get a second chance—another card is revealed, but if they can’t add that shape either, then they are eliminated.

– Image by boardGOATS

The winner is the player with the fewest unused spaces, so the winner is not necessarily the player that stays in the longest. This and the fact that the game is not over-long means that player elimination is not a huge problem. This time, all the large and awkward shapes came out first which meant there was sudden and catastrophic collapse as almost everyone crashed out together. As a result, the scores were really close. Lilac’s beautiful colouring earned her a worthy second place and she was unfortunate to be beaten by the very jammy Pink, who sailed through with several second chances and finished with just three unfilled spaces.

– Image by boardGOATS

By this time, it was starting to get late and people drifted off leaving just five for our, now regular, game of 6 Nimmt! on Board Game Arena. It is very simple: simultaneously, players choose a card, then starting with the lowest value, these are added to one of the four rows. The player who adds the sixth card takes the other five and the player with the most “nimmts” at the end loses. It is very random, but somehow gives the illusion of control, right until the wheels drop off…

– Image by boardGOATS

We play this so much because it is light and great fun, with no downtime. And with the “Professional Variant” that we now use where cards are added to both ends of the rows, the game has had a new lease of life for us. It works really well with fewer players too. This time, Black was first and second to pick up, and it didn’t get much better as the game wore on and it wasn’t a surprise when he triggered the end of the game leaving Burgundy to taste victory, just ahead of Green.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

Then, Green said good night leaving just four. Having enjoyed several games of Sushi Go! last time, we decided to give it another try, this time with the Soy Sauce mini expansion. This is one of the simplest of the card drafting games—players have hand of cards, keep one and pass the rest on. With Sushi Go!, players are collecting sets with a sushi theme and trying to collect the most points over three rounds.

– Image by boardGOATS

This was another close game. Burgundy and Blue tied the first round, one devoid of puddings, but Black and Purple weren’t far behind. The second round was much less even though and was taken by Blue with a massive eighteen points. She wasn’t able to keep it up for the final round which Black took with sixteen points. It wasn’t quite enough, to overtake Blue though and she finished with a total of forty-three, just two ahead of Black, in a game where there just wasn’t enough dessert to go round.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

There was just time for one more game, so after a brief discussion, the group opted for another set collecting game, Coloretto. This is another very simple game where players have the simple choice: Take a card and add it to a truck, or take a truck and add the cards to their collection. Players score positive points for their three top scoring sets, and negative points for all the others. Normally, the scoring is according to the Triangular Number Series, where more cards score increasingly more points (one, three, six, ten, fifteen and twenty-one).

– Image by boardGOATS

This time we decided to play with the alternative, “Difficult” scoring, where small sets score the most and their value peaks at eight points for three cards, falling gradually for larger sets. This changes the game significantly, as taking a fourth or fifth card has the same impact on a player’s score as starting another set. And everyone has fewer points to play with… It took a couple of rounds for people to realise the implications of this change to scoring. Then players started taking trucks when they were almost empty and when a “+2” card came up it was taken straight away.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

As a result, there were more rounds and the game became one of avoiding things going wrong. And for most people, once it started going wrong, things generally went from bad to worse. First was Purple, then Black, then just before the end, Blue was landed with pile of cards she didn’t want. So, it wasn’t a huge surprise that Burgundy, who had managed to avoid falling off the precipice, finished with the most points. Purple was by far the best of the rest though having been most successful at stemming the flood of unwanted cards. Then it was time for the last of the birthday boys and girls to go to bed.

– Image by boardGOATS from boardgamearena.com

Learning Outcome: A gift’s worth is in the eye of the recipient.

Boardgames in the News: New Editions that aren’t an Improvement

Everyone has experienced a disappointing remake of a favourite film; while we always hope for an improvement, only occasionally do we get one. Board games have a similar problem, but as with films, things are often not clear cut. For example, the new version of Camel Up arguably has nicer art and a better pyramid dice shaker than the original. The Crazy Camel mini expansion and the partnership betting (from the original Supercup expansion) also add quite a bit to the game play, especially at higher player counts, but the money isn’t as easy to handle and the dice and camels themselves are plastic and don’t feel as nice.

– Image by boardGOATS

Similarly, the recent editions of Glen More (Glen More II: Chronicles) and Snowdonia (the Deluxe Master set) are beautiful and include lots of extra content. As previously discussed, this is at the expense of shelf-space though, and portability which means they are less likely to get played. In other cases, the revision is considered a definite step back. For example, the revised edition of Colosseum by TMG is widely believed to compare unfavourably with the original Days of Wonder edition.

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In a recent new edition of Monopoly, female players initially receive $1,900 with a salary of $240, while male players start with $1,500 receiving $200 when they pass “Go”. On the plus-side, as part of the publicity, three teenage entrepreneurs received a grant of $20,580 each to invest in their own inventions. Otherwise, Ms Monopoly is widely thought to be hugely patronising to half the population while claiming to celebrate empowering women, something that is apparent in the adverts.

– Video by Hasbro on youtube.com

These days, a lot of gaming is being done online. One new electronic game that has been seen as a retrograde step is the new Scrabble app, Scrabble Go. This is a new product that, thanks to changes in licensing, replaces the previous offering from Electronic Arts (EA). The problem is that the new version seems to have been designed to appeal to the Candy Crush generation with vivid colours, treasure-style rewards and in-app purchases. Unfortunately, Scrabble is a very traditional game and its players generally don’t appreciate that approach. To date, nearly eight thousand of these have registered their disgust through an online petition.

– Image by boardGOATS from play.google.com

The Carcassonne app has also received a similar licensing-inspired change and although the new Asmodee version is less offensive, many seem to prefer the older, Coding Monkeys version. So, before deciding to upgrade a game, keep in mind that a new version, often isn’t a better one.

Playing with Money at The British Museum: Currency and Games

Following on from their visit to see the “Game Plan: Board Games Rediscovered” exhibition at the V & A Museum of Childhood, under beautiful blue skies, Blue and Pink set out to Oxford Parkway once more, to visit The British Museum to see their “Playing with Money: Currency and Games” exhibition. Entry to The British Museum is free, which is excellent value given the number of truly remarkable, internationally significant exhibits that are there, including the Rosetta Stone and the Elgin Marbles.

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Of more interest to gamers are a large number of pieces from the Lewis Chess Set, one of which was recently discovered in a drawer in a family home in Edinburgh. These are actually a number of pieces from at least four sets and maybe more, but are iconic and were used as the basis of the design for the Chess set in the film, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. In addition to the Lewis Chessmen, The British Museum also has a permanent display entitled, “Games: People and Pastimes”, which includes a Nigerian Chess Set, a Syrian Mancala board, and a selection of Iranian playing cards.

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There is also currently a specific exhibition entitled “Playing with Money: Currency and Games”, which is available until the end of the month. This is in a small, side-gallery and and really focussed on the development of money in board games, from it’s use in The Landlord’s Game and Monopoly, to more recent games like Speculation, Dominion and Black Friday. The Noble Game of Swan, Ratrace, and Magic: The Gathering also featured, though the gallery was quite small so there were not as many exhibits as there were at the Museum of Childhood, nor were they as varied. One of the most interesting displays was perhaps some of the money cards from Alhambra with the actual coins that inspired the artwork on the cards.

The British Museum, "Playing with Money: Currency and Games"

– Image by boardGOATS

Given the other exhibits, The British Museum is well worth a visit although the “Playing with Money: Currency and Games” exhibition is only open till 29^th September 2019.

– Image by boardGOATS

Boardgames in the News: What are “House Rules” and are they a Good Thing?

Occasionally, our game reports refer to “House Rules”. These are slight alterations to the game rules which our group introduce when we play. For example, the GOATS are quite slow players and, although we love Las Vegas, we find that it drags a little if the full four rounds are played, so we have a “House Rule” which means we stop after three. Similarly, for us Saboteur sometimes drags and we find the scoring element a bit pointless. For this reason, we usually skip the scoring and play each round as a short, independent game, which means we can play for as long as we want and just stop when we’ve had enough without worrying about overall winners. The group also recently discussed allowing two players to make a pact with the Devil in Auf Teufel komm raus when playing with six, to help those players bringing up the rear catch-up, and perhaps make the decisions a little more interesting for the other players too.

– Image by boardGOATS

“House Rules” are frequently quite controversial though, and the reason is largely philosophical: the game designer’s vision is based on “The Rules as Written”. Tampering with the rules can be seen as showing anything from a lack of respect for the designer, to ignorance. This is because the designer, publisher and development team will have the best understanding of the game through extensive play-testing, and that will be reflected in the rules. There is a point here, famously, many people play Monopoly “wrong”, for example, which changes the character of the game significantly making it overly long and often extremely tedious (especially for players at the back).

– Image by boardGOATS

When asked, most games designers will encourage experimentation though. This is for two main reasons. Firstly, most game designers enjoy experimenting themselves: to them there is no “one true rule set”, only the “current rule set”. This is true for the rest of us too, as some games change when new editions are published—for example, Carcassonne, where the first, second and third editions all have different scoring, or Orléans, where the rules for the Bathhouse changed between the first and second edition.

– Image by boardGOATS

Secondly, most designers understand that different groups have different characteristics and dynamics, and therefore enjoy different aspects of playing games. Designers also want people to get the maximum enjoyment out of their game and sometimes that means tweaking the rules slightly. So ultimately, they want people to play the way that makes them happiest. For the avoidance of arguments, it is clearly important to make any “House Rules” very clear to everyone playing, as there is an expectation that games will be played with “The Rules as Written” except by prior arrangement. However, if playing a game in a particular way is enjoyable, there is clearly absolutely nothing wrong with using “House Rules” as long as everyone knows they are doing it.

– Image by boardGOATS

Boardgames in the News: Radio 2 and Online

Over the last few years there has been a lot of anecdotal evidence that modern boardgames are becoming less of a niche activity, with a large number of reports in local and national media. Last month alone, there was a prime-time article on BBC Radio 2‘s flagship Breakfast Show, where Chris Evans interviewed Dicky Duerden, Head of Games at the Chance & Counters Games Cafe in Bristol. The interview took place shortly before 9am (2hrs 13 mins into the show) and discussed classic games like Connect Four and Kerplunk as well as their most popular games, Scrabble and Jenga.

– Image from bbc.co.uk

The interview included a couple of nice little anecdotes, for example, Dicky Duerden explained that Battleship began life as a French game called “L’Attack” and was renamed twice, changing to “Salvo”, then “Broadside” before finally becoming “Battleship”. He was also asked whether they have problems with players having temper tantrums and whether people lose pieces or walk off with them. Apparently, Chance & Counters has heavy unflippable tables with shelves to store the games and cup-holders to help prevent spillage. So, the most damage they’ve had to a game was when someone stole all the marbles from Hungry Hungy Hippos—presumably the thief couldn’t stand the noise!

– Image from medium.com

Modern boardgames have also featured in print and other media channels. For example, the literary and cultural commentary magazine, The Atlantic, recently reported how U.S. sales of boardgames grew by twenty-eight percent between spring 2016 and spring 2017. They put this increase down to the rise in popularity of card games like Cards Against Humanity, Secret Hitler, and Exploding Kittens as well as what they initially refer to as “hobby” boardgames. Although the article is written from a US perspective, it includes a nice commentary from Phil Eklund, head of Sierra Madre Games and designer of Pax Porfiriana, Greenland and Bios: Megafauna amongst others. The interview with Phil Eklund is excellent and well worth a read; it includes discussion of Essen and Spiel des Jahres as well as discussion of a wide range of games including Power Grid, Biblios and El Grande rather than just the usual Settlers of Catan and Ticket to Ride.

– Image by BGG contributor Schaulustiger

Every report about the growth of modern boardgames hides something less cheerful: the number of stores that have closed in recent time. As demand for modern games increases, so does their availability at places like Amazon, and that increases the pressure on an already squeezed niche. In the last year or so, several excellent and well established stores have closed including Shire Games and Northumbria Games. With prices continuing to rise—a new big-box game is rarely below £50 these days—and the growth of crowd-funding, more and more gamers are looking for discounts where they can. The boardGOATS are lucky to have three excellent outlets locally, Eclectic Games (in Reading), Thirsty Meeples and The Gameskeeper (both in Oxford). Perhaps the Chris Evans interview will encourage more people to pay them a visit.

– Adapted from Image by Petras Gagilas (flickr.com)

Game Plan: Rediscovering Boardgames at the V & A Museum of Childhood

Inspired by the recent articles on Saturday Live and the Today Programme, on Easter Sunday, Pink and Blue decided to visit the V & A Museum of Childhood to see their “Game Plan: Board Games Rediscovered” exhibition. Catching a train from Oxford Parkway and negotiating the London Underground, they arrived in Bethnal Green. With its vaulted ceiling and exposed metal work, the Museum building looks for all the world like a re-purposed Victorian Civil building, a train station, swimming pool or maybe some sort of pumping station. Much to their disappointment, however, after extensive discussion and investigation, it turned out that the building was designed for the purpose, albeit after relocation of parts from “Albertopolis” on Exhibition Road.

– Image by boardGOATS

The exhibition itself was well presented and occupied a sizeable portion of the overall floor space. Although it was located in one of the upstairs galleries, the exhibition was well advertised and, from entering the main hall, games were brought to the visitors’ attention with table space and signs offering the loan of games should people want to play. It wasn’t an idle promise either, as there were several family groups making full use of the opportunity, albeit playing what might be called classic games rather than more modern, Euro games.

– Image by boardGOATS

A quick look at the model train cabinet and brief spell side-tracked by one or two other exciting toys preceded entry to the exhibition which was shrouded by an eye-catching red screen. The first exhibit was a copy of Senet, arguably one of the oldest games in the world – so old in fact that we’ve lost the rules and nobody knows how to play it. This was followed by some traditional games including a beautiful wooden Backgammon set made in Germany in 1685 and decorated with sea monsters and a lot of fascinating Chess sets, old and new. Next, there were some ancient copies of Pachisi (which evolved into Ludo) and Snakes and Ladders, both games that originated in India and were originally played seriously by adults.

– Image by boardGOATS

Further round there were many other curious games, for example, The Noble Game of Swan from 1821, which was an educational game for children, itself developed from the much older, Game of the Goose. Education was a bit of theme and there were a lot of games from the nineteenth and early twentieth century designed to teach geography in some form or another. These included Round the Town, a game where players had to try to cross London via Charing Cross, and Coronation Scot, a game based on travelling from Glasgow to London inspired by the eponymous 1937 express train made to mark the coronation of George VI.

– Image by boardGOATS

Education didn’t stop there either: for those that had been members of RoSPA‘s “Tufty Club“, there was a game promoting road safety featuring Tufty the Squirrel and his mates Minnie Mole and the naughty Willy Weasel. However, when designing this roll-and-move game, they clearly ran out of imaginative “adventures” with a road safety message, as they had to resort to “Picking and eating strange berries – Go back three spaces…”

– Image by boardGOATS

Progressing through the late twentieth century, there were the inevitable copies of the childhood classic games, including Game of Life, Risk, Cluedo, Mouse Trap, Trivial Pursuit, Connect 4, Scrabble and the inevitable Monopoly, all of which risked bringing a tear to the eye as visitors remembered playing them as children. The exhibition eventually brought us up to date with modern Euro-style games, presenting copies of Ticket to Ride, Carcassonne and Settlers of Catan.

– Image by boardGOATS

More interestingly, there was also an original prototype of Pandemic supplied by the designer, Matt Leacock, complete with his scribbles and bits of paper stuck over infection routes he decided to remove as the game developed. One of the final display showed how the influence boardgames have had on the computer gaming industry is sometimes strangely reciprocated, with a copy of the Pac-Man game, including the title figure wrought in sunshine yellow plastic.

– Image by boardGOATS

Leaving the exhibition, there was just one last game – “What’s Your Gameface?“. This cute flow chart entertained Blue and Pink for far longer than is should have as they tested it out with all their friends, relatives and fellow gamers (nobody came out as “Cheater”).

– Image by boardGOATS

With the exhibition done, there was still time for a wander round the rest of the museum and a quick cuppa in the cafe. Reflecting on the exhibition, perhaps one of the best aspects had actually been the quotations that adorned the walls. It seems luminaries from Plato to Roald Dahl have all had something to say on the subject of games. Perhaps George Bernard Shaw supplied the most thought provoking comment though, when he said, “We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” With this in mind, we did what gamers do when they travel, so tea and cake was accompanied by two rounds of Mijnlieff, the super-cool noughts and crosses game. With the museum closing, it was time to head home, but there was still time for a game or two of 3 Sind Eine Zu Viel! on the train back to Oxford…

– Image by boardGOATS

The Exhibition is only open till 23^rd April 2017, so there isn’t much time left and it is well worth a visit.