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Anthony BoydellUnited Kingdom
Newent. Glos
Unspecified
Every homo sapiens needs an outbuilding within the curtelage of their property
Welcome...to my Shed!
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As a very young man, my parents bought me an integrated hi-fi unit: amplifier, record player, cassette deck and radio in one cuboid lump - hardly an audiophile's dream but, for a 10 year old, it was a revelation! I could record my favourite songs off the radio and further kill music by home-taping the handful of LPs in my (then) collection. The next discovery was (naturally) 'live gigs', of which there were many between 13 and 30; once upon a time the wardrobe was stuffed with 'M' and 'L' tee-shirts and programmes commemorating those noisy, exhilarating evenings: Robert Plant, Jellyfish, The Flaming Lips, British Sea Power, Live Aid, Joy Zipper, Antony & The Johnsons, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Tom Waits, Stiff Little Fingers, The Ramones (late 80s) and a hundred others.
Since becoming an old(er) man, drama and comedy have taken over and there's nothing I like more than retaining my hearing at the end of an evening after a tub of artisan ice-cream and two hours of the spoken word; this month saw Stewart Lee on the first of a three-night run at the (provincial) Cheltenham Everyman Theatre:/pic7344837.png)
"Basic Lee"
If you know of his work then you'll also know that we all had an hilarious evening of self-deprecation, surreal diversions, acid quips and precision-honed comedy delivery: the man is a fucking genius.Quote:(from the Wikipedias)On stage he is withering, confident and faux-aggressive; off-stage, at the merch stand after the show, he is hunched in massive overcoat and reluctant to make eye-contact: the contradiction of the celebrity performer. He signed my copy of his Pea Green Boat vinyl and accepted my adulation graciously.
Stewart Graham Lee (born 5 April 1968) is an English comedian, screenwriter, and television director. His stand-up routine is characterised by repetition, internal reference, deadpan delivery, and consistent breaking of the fourth wall.
The show doesn't really translate to a blog post re-telling - its too rich - but I would highly-recommend you divert an hour or so of your time to viewing his best works on YouTube (and some of the four BBC series' can, occasionally, be found on streaming services).
From the sublime...
...to the ridiculous:
Everyone Needs A Shed
Life and Games (but mostly games) from Tony Boydell: Father, Grandfather, Husband and Independent UK Game Designer.
Archive for Tony Boydell
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Anthony BoydellUnited Kingdom
Newent. Glos
Unspecified
Every homo sapiens needs an outbuilding within the curtelage of their property
Welcome...to my Shed!
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(I am, currently, out in the Forest of Dean woods shooting paintballs at Arthur and he at me - so here is something combat-related)
Last year, while on our second visit to sunny Cornwall, we happened upon a most splendid day out; tucked in one of the higgledy-piggledy cabinet displays was a board game that I put onto my mental acquisition list. Patience is, indeed, a virtue and a copy has now become available and been acquired and been delivered:/pic7344693.jpg)
Bomber Command is a simple four-way, four-stage, roll-and-mover missing - sadly - the 'fold up' die and the player counters but the Boys' Own cover illustration more than makes up for it./pic7344692.jpg)
Slightly menacing are the 'falling bombs' over the central, Berlin space./pic7344694.jpg)
There was a war on...
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Anthony BoydellUnited Kingdom
Newent. Glos
Unspecified
Every homo sapiens needs an outbuilding within the curtelage of their property
Welcome...to my Shed!
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The weeks are whistling by and the evenings are getting lighter but Spring is still a month away; the chilly fog that accompanied my wandering down to The Kings Arms reminded me of that! Waiting in the warm Bar were the Henly boys (scoffing a Specials supper) and, on a rare trip up the Wye Valley, pal Gerv: we supped upon ales and exchanged all of the since Christmas news. It wasn't long before the others began drifting in, so we all decamped to the Back Room.
Sandra, Joe, Pete and Dave were jonesin' for some Lost Ruins of Arnak:/pic7350403.jpg)
Windows In The Jungle
Paul, Tom and Richard were doing a bit of dungeon crawlin':/pic7350407.jpg)
Rubber Bullets (and big swords?)
On our table (and nostalgic for a number of older 'Modern' items), I'd packed both Cubist and Hawaii along with a batch of small boxes. First up was some tropicality:/pic7350406.jpg)
Dreadlock Holiday
In summary: spend feet to move from resource space-to-resource space/the beach/remote islands and buy (using conches) the buildings, equipment and peoples to build into your village(s); make the villages 'long enough' and they qualify for scoring at the end (as well as providing VP and income tickles during play).
Steve got off to a spendthrift start - but then stuttered with the reducing income - while Ralph, Gerv and I quietly reinforced our villages with income-generating huts. As the five rounds progressed, it looked like a neck-and-necker between Gerv and I as we stretched away thanks to end-of-round scoring bonuses and lucrative island exploration. Ralph, though, was nurturing a monumental pair of fruit-rich settlements that closed the gap in the final reckoning and snuck him a couple of points ahead of me! Hawaii, as Gerv noted, has all the familiar Euro tropes but now seems a little rough - "old" - around the edges; it was a lot of fun to play, of course, and its presentation is gloriously colourful.
All change at the mid-point so I took Tom and RIchard aside for Cubist while others were trapped in a Forbidden Sky:/pic7350404.jpg)
Art For Art's Sake
There is something about the simplicity and elegance of Cubist that makes it a 100% lifetime keeper for me.
With a couple of long journey home departures came the final table shuffles of the evening: the Arnak-ers networking the skies.../pic7350405.jpg)
I'm Mandy, Fly Me
...while Steve and Gerv and I ended up with the surreal, card-driven genetic manipulation that is Familienbande:/pic7351111.jpg)
The Things We Do For Love
Steve found his niche with this clever filler and won both games with relative* ease. Someone really needs to pick this up and reprint it because its absolutely fabulous!
As 10PM rolled around, it was time to settle my Bar tab and catch another episode of the BBC's excellent The Gold: another great session.
*see what I did there?!
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Anthony BoydellUnited Kingdom
Newent. Glos
Unspecified
Every homo sapiens needs an outbuilding within the curtelage of their property
Welcome...to my Shed!
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How Splotter games make me feel...
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Anthony BoydellUnited Kingdom
Newent. Glos
Unspecified
Every homo sapiens needs an outbuilding within the curtelage of their property
Welcome...to my Shed!
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A couple more extremely-generous donations from Mr Roy Truscott arrived on the doorstep this passed week; he's certainly providing items I've not seen before and they're fascinating to explore...mostly!
The "Ace" Football Pool Game is as simple - and as random - as it can get: roulette with a deck of cards, basically!/pic7336992.jpg)
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Now, Stumpz is more like it!/pic7336996.jpg)
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With separate components for the Fielding player (a bowling deck, figures to place in the field and an Umpire spinner) and the Batting player (a deck of 'stroke played' cards), this is a sumptuous table-top recreation of the Lord's Own Game:/pic7337008.jpg)
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Mechanically, this reminds me a lot of Ben Bateson's recent 18-card Cricket which does everything in a far smaller package*/pic7337000.jpg)
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Slowly but surely, my Robert Ross & Co. collection inches toward completion with the board for The Great Air Race:/pic7337011.jpg)
I have some cards from the main deck (a separate Lot from a couple of years ago) but the quest continues (BTW, I'll be doing a little piece on this Publisher in an upcoming Tabletop Spirit magazine).
*insert own joke here
Wed Feb 15, 2023 6:20 am
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Anthony BoydellUnited Kingdom
Newent. Glos
Unspecified
Every homo sapiens needs an outbuilding within the curtelage of their property
Welcome...to my Shed!
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Ah, those heady days when someone would publish a (maybe) less-than-favourable review of one of your games and you would immediately take literal pen to actual paper and post off a response for publication a month (or two) later!
Games & Puzzles magazine is the gift that keeps on giving - exhibit A, m'lud, is David G. Watts with Railway Rivals:/pic7343229.jpg)
(Issue 35)/pic7343223.jpg)
"(Issue 38)
Exhibit B, yurronna, is Andrew McNeil with Kingmaker:/pic7343225.jpg)
(Issue 40)/pic7343226.jpg)
(Issue 41)
But what of the following Issue 39 review passage?
"...the full game is 1829 at its best despite its apparent appeal to insomniac railway enthusiasts only."
I'm hoping a disgruntled missive from Mr T will be forthcoming in one of the later issues I've yet to get my hands on!
Oh, but they were simpler, more honourable times.
Tue Feb 14, 2023 6:15 am
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Anthony BoydellUnited Kingdom
Newent. Glos
Unspecified
Every homo sapiens needs an outbuilding within the curtelage of their property
Welcome...to my Shed!
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Anthony BoydellUnited Kingdom
Newent. Glos
Unspecified
Every homo sapiens needs an outbuilding within the curtelage of their property
Welcome...to my Shed!
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Everyone should know that Elizabeth J. Magie (Phillips) invented Monopoly and not Charles Darrow; indeed, Lizzie was referring to her design - The Landlord's Game - as Monopoly by the 1920s. If you don't know the story, then I'll let you read this excellent article from my latest addiction: Games & Puzzles magazine.
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I particularly like the comparison table...which clearly shows a clear correlation...but was not clear enough for the Patent folks, apparently! I also like that the Parker company took the time to reply (albeit to say "We're staying out of this!")/pic7328536.jpg)
A recurring theme in design-related G&P articles - and, for example, in the correspondence between amateur designer Trevor Warren and various parties in his vast prototype archive - is that of protecting one's intellectual property using Patents and/or Trademarks. The recurring anxiety that one's idea(s) would be stolen without recourse seems anathema to us nowadays; indeed, only one - slightly tangential - instance springs to mind: the trademarking of the 'tap' symbol by Richard Garfield and Wizards of the Coast in the wake of a million M:TG clones.
Perhaps this paranoia, and consequent reliance on Legal support, stemmed from controversies like Magie vs Darrow? More likely is that an analogue communications infrastructure - the constraints on the availability and geography of printed media - left maligned designers isolated: how could an amateur manage (or publicise) the misbehaviour of a bullying Corporation?! Nowadays, bad experiences can be rapidly-disseminated worldwide online; support - and righteous ire - can be gathered in a heartbeat - it no longer benefits a publisher to 'steal' work.
Those days are gone anyway; I don't believe we'll see the like of a new Monopoly or Scrabble or Candyland again*; our options for leisure time have grown exponentially and there's no place for such narrow dependencies anymore. It's rather liberating, actually.
*Settlers, Codenames, Wingspan etc selling between 5 and 10 million copies each is NOT in the same league; it's nowhere near.
Sun Feb 12, 2023 9:37 am
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Anthony BoydellUnited Kingdom
Newent. Glos
Unspecified
Every homo sapiens needs an outbuilding within the curtelage of their property
Welcome...to my Shed!
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Ooo - a new(!), vintage train game for the Museum's Choo-choo Corner*:
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En Route, from J. Jaques & Son, is a simple-but-beautifully presented roll-and-mover from the 1920s.../pic7336986.jpg)
...with a nice twist to the (by then) tired-and-familiar formula: you can branch your route to a final destination rather than following the same, shared path!/pic7336987.jpg)
Along the way you will need to spend and gain tokens, collect (and then present) your Passport and/or travel tickets and - ultimately - wend your way across the Continent./pic7336988.jpg)
Though you start on a particular colour of track, you can make use of the junction cities to change course and have a proper wander. I'm still a bit confused by what a winner 'wins' though: the Pool Rules are a bit convoluted./pic7336991.jpg)
Raggedy around-the-edges, I'll need to give it a bit of TLC before it goes on display:/pic7336990.jpg)
Lovely.
*fancy having this corner named after yourself? Then pop along to Patreon and pledge at the £25 level (www.patreon.com/themuseumofboardgames)!
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Anthony BoydellUnited Kingdom
Newent. Glos
Unspecified
Every homo sapiens needs an outbuilding within the curtelage of their property
Welcome...to my Shed!
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Another quiet Wednesday in the sticks and the Museum's games club - snug in The Kings Arms - found ten for an evening of wood and cardboard joy. I'd originally planned to join Gary's Everything Thunderstone table but we were short of teachers and, "reluctantly", I joined Sandra and Pete and Jon for Agricola:
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Everyone acquitted themselves admirably and Peter was a very pleased (and well-deserved) winner after suffering a pasting - from both sides - the last time he gave Misery Farm a go (see the noisy pub recollection here).
On the other tables, the happy band were be-fruiting Fincas.../pic7336370.jpg)
...having fun in factories and tin mining in Cornwall:/pic7336371.jpg)
For the Agricoleans, we followed the trials of medieval farming with the tribulations of glass blowing in Bavaria:/pic7336372.jpg)
The tl;dr - for those in the know - is 'Spiritually, it's Nusfjord with the worker placement replaced by clashing action card-play' and the actual teach is mainly focused on how the resource wheels operate. Jon, cautious in 'Gric, really found his groove in Glass Road and chalked up an impressive 21.5 points debut (and the win) while Sandra's snaking chain of contiguous ponds flowed her into a 19 points second place.
We closed with a brief discussion of the Dice Tower's recent Top 100 Games of All-Time (voted by the listeners) which - of course - reads, more accurately, as Top 100 Games of Recent Memory. My view is that a true and accurate list needs to have Senet, Ludo, Snap, Top Trumps, Monopoly, Chess, Go, Snakes & Ladders, Draughts, Happy Families, Trivial Pursuit, Scrabble and Cluedo in it (and in the top third too) - but only Chess comes with impressively-sculpted miniatures so we're on a hiding to nothing! All are influential, widely-played and successful: surely, the mandatory criteria for an 'all time' list?!
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