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Evolution of Recess

Playing with a Purpose

Telephone + Pictionary =

Posted February 24, 2011 - 4:32pm by michael

Game:

Telestrations

Fun:

Difficulty:

Player Interaction:

This game will forever have a place in my party game collection. I have played it 5 times now and without fail it I have laughed every round to the extent where my face starts hurting.

The game is actually really simple to play and learn. Everyone begins with a starting word and blank booklet. All they need to do is then draw their starting word on the first page of the booklet and pass it to the next player. Everyone is doing this step simultaneously, so when you pass your booklet to your left you are also going to be receiving a booklet from your right. Then you take a look at the picture on the page, turn the booklet to the next page, and write down what you think the picture was describing. Then you pass the booklet to your left again. This time you will be receiving a word from the person to your right. You take a look at the word, turn to the next page, and draw a picture of the word. This continues until you receive back your initial booklet.

Once the game is complete, everyone shows their completed booklets and the progression each of the words/phrases took. This is the best part because you end up with sequences like:

Naked Eye -> Transvestite Eye -> Hermaphrodite Cyclops

or

Lifeguard -> Caesar watching a gladiator drown -> Greek tragedy -> Opera

And better yet images like this:

Where they came from or what they mean I will leave completely up to your imagination. Hopefully I will be able to attach an entire sequence after the next time we play the game.

50864 comments

Beware of Sharks!

Posted January 31, 2011 - 2:18pm by michael

Game:

Survive Escape from Atlantis!

Fun:

Difficulty:

Player Interaction:

Survive Escape from Atlantis! is an incredibly simple to learn and quick to play board game. The version I have, made by Stronghold games, is actually a reprint of an older game. The board is the island of Atlantis and it is made up of 3 different kinds of tiles: beach, woods, and mountains.

As you suspected the island is sinking with first the beach tiles going under, then the woods, and finally the mountains. Before the entire island sinks you need to get your people off to surrounding dry land. You can do this by taking boats or swimming, but by the time the volcano blows you better have found land. Each player starts with 10 meeples and each turn by turn, place them somewhere on Atlantis to start. Then each player places his two boats.

Now the game can start. Each turn a player will get 3 movement spaces. The player can move one meeple 3 spots, or any combination of meeples up to 3 spots. You need to use your movement wisely so that you can get your highest value meeples off the island first. But wait, there's more! Trying to prevent you from reaching dry land are 3 hazards: Sharks, whales, and sea monsters. Sharks will eat any swimmer in the same tile as them, whales will destroy boats and force meeples to swim, and sea monsters will destroy and eat all the meeples in their tiles. It's dangerous out there!

Survive is a quick paced, easy to learn, and interactive game and I really love it. Below is a picture of what the board might look like halfway through the game.

1729 comments

Master of My Dominion

Posted December 18, 2010 - 6:55pm by michael

Game:

Dominion

Fun:

Difficulty:

Player Interaction:

Today was a special day; today was the first day that Ronny woke up in the morning and was able to see! Yesterday she got laser eye surgery and when she woke up this morning she went from terrible vision to 20/20.

Anyway, the point is that she wanted to thank me for the surgery so she lifted the moratorium on buying new games and bought me Dominon!

Dominion was made in 2009 and was the first of its type. It uses a deck building mechanic where each player starts with the same base 10 cards in their personal decks. They then use money type cards to buy and add additional cards to their deck, thereby creating a deck where all of the cards work well together. At the end of the game the player who has the most victory point cards in their deck wins.

It is an incredibly simple mechanic, you do three things each turn: A,B, and C.

A. Action - in this phase you can play 1 action card from your hand.

B. Buy - in this phase you can buy and add 1 card to your deck

C. Clean Up - in this phase you discard the rest of your hand to the discard pile and draw 5 new cars.

Some action cards allow you to play additional actions or buy additional cards. Dominion comes with 25 action cards and each game only uses 10 types. Therefore, there are a ton of different combinations that allow for a ton of possibilities.

Ronny and I have now played 2 games winning one each. She was a bit hesitant about the game when I explained it to her, but she loves it. Anyway, you should try it out.

12006 comments

Under Lock and Key

Posted June 20, 2010 - 12:00am by michael

First, a little bit about geocaching. One of the main tenants of geocaching is that when you find a geocache occasionally it will be filled with trading items. And if you want to take anything then you need to leave something. Most of the time the containers are filled with little knick knacks like glass stones, plastic figurines, or rubber ducks. In other words, nothing all that notable. But a few months ago I came across this old skeleton key.

I don't know why, but I've always thought that old fashioned keys were cool. And according to a magazine that arrived here the other day, some of the designers at Tiffany agree. It seems like keys are showing up in all kinds of jewlery recently. But I am straying from my point. So, I have this old rusty skeleton key and Ronny and I think it would be cool if we could shine it up.

First, we put it into a cup of vinegar and left it for a week or so. No difference.

Then, we put it into a cup of coke. A bit of rust came off, which is scary, but it wasn't shining like we wanted it to.

So, finally I took my dremel to it. In a matter of moments I was able to grind off all of the rust and was left with a relatively shiny key.

But, so what? What am I going to do with a key you say. I mean, it doesn't work on anything...or does it? In one of my typical 'what if?' moments I decided to make a lock for my key.

Let me preface this by saying that I have never made any type of lock before. I mean, I've seen inside of a door knob but thats as far as my expertise goes.

So I started by creating a small box out of 1/8" plywood:

Target Practice

Posted June 3, 2010 - 10:52pm by michael

They say that 50 is the new 30. Well if that is true, then that would make 25 the new 15. And I sure hope it is true, because recently I purchased myself an aresnal of new nerf guns, and they are just as much fun as I remember. However, after a few days of shooting the cat and the girlfriend, I decided that I had better make some changes if I wanted my living environment to remain peaceful.

That's when I decided to make some new targets. It was actually a rather simple process. Fortunately, I had a huge head start because about a year ago Ronny came home with a box of unbuilt catapults left over from a Girl Scount project. Lo and behold, it turns out that catapults are very similar to targets.

You'll need

[1] 3" x 5" piece of wood
[2] 3.5" x 2" pieces of wood (slanted edges)
[2] 4" dowel rods
[1] 6" x .5" piece of wood
[1] CD
2 sided mounting tape
Glue stick
Wood glue
Target Image (I printed this from the computer)
Scissors

It's a really simple construction. Gather all of your components together:

Then take the two slanted edged pieces and attach them together using the dowels, also thread the thinner piece of wood through the bottom dowel so that it rests leaning against the top dowel when the structure is standing:

Through the River and through the Woods

Posted April 15, 2010 - 3:51pm by michael

After a brief, well not so brief, 4 week hiatus I am back and have lots to report.

As a child one of my main activities was the boy scouts. It was never really of question of whether I would join. I mean, my dad was a boy scout, my brother was a boy scout, and a whole lot of my friends were scouts. It may not have always been that much fun, some of the meetings were boring, and I had a whole lot of trouble trying to earn my personal financing merit badge. But I have to say, as an adult or whatever it is you call people my age, I am really glad that I spent a week of every summer at boy scout camp.

It seems more and more common now a days that people don't get a taste of the outdoors when they are young. And then when older they don't appreciate it. Kids should play outside. They should learn how to swim, paddle a canoe, and climb trees.

My parents have always been the outdoorsy types, which is great because they invite me along on some of their trips. A few weeks ago we went on a canoe trip on Mattawoman Creek off of the Potomac near Indian Head MD. The outing was sponsored by the Sierra Club and Veronica and I were the youngest people there by probably 10 years.

With a azure blue sky above and calm seas, it was a perfect day for a paddle.

Ipad, huh, yeah. What is it good for?

Posted April 15, 2010 - 10:00am by michael

Apple's newest toy has come out and seems to be selling like hotcakes. But I am sitting here wondering, what would I do with it? My boss, an apple enthusiast, bought one the minute it came out and has been expousing the greatness of it, but it seems to me like an underpowered laptop and overpowered and heavy e-book reader. In what circumstances is it really worth using?

Well, I have found the answer to that: it's a cat toy.

But in all seriousness, has anyone bought one and if so, what do you use it for?

Making of Kill Doctor Lucky

Posted April 13, 2010 - 9:37pm by michael

Game:

Kill Doctor Lucky

Fun:

Difficulty:

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Like most children, I played board games when I was younger. Maybe I'm now jaded, but I felt like there weren't as many game choices back then, which is why when I mention the game Clue I am pretty confident that all of you have heard of it, if not played it.

Clue, the quintessential who-dun-it game where you find out who, where, and with what weapon Mr. Boddy was murdered. But maybe crime solving doesn't appeal to your darker side. Maybe you have other questions. Like, how did they do it? How come no one saw it happen? Why did they use a candlestick...I mean who would really use a candlestick? And most importantly, if your character was the murderer why do they have to spend all that time tracking themselves down? Well the answers to all these questions and maybe 1 or 2 more, can be found in Kill Doctor Lucky. Think of it as what happened right before Clue begins.

The premise of the game is simple: you follow Doctor Lucky throughout a mansion and try to get him alone in a room allowing you to kill him in peace. Meanwhile all the other players are trying to keep him alive so they can perform the coup de grace themselves. The board is similar to the Clue board in as much as you are moving through a mansion.

How to Train Your House Cat

Posted April 10, 2010 - 12:41pm by michael

Entertainment Value:

So Veronica and I, as cool people like us are wont to do, saw a animated flick on Friday night. We started out with the idea of going to see Hot Tub Time Machine or Date Movie, but after a quick check on Rotten Tomatoes, we saw that How to Train Your Dragon was sitting pretty with a 98% fresh score compared to the middling D ranges of our other options.

Wanting to get the most out of money, of course we went with the kids movie. I mean, we really had no other choice, right? And boy did we choose right. I mean, we never knew that our own furry cohabitant had secured himself a role in a feature film. Way to go Ninja!

It was actually kind of freaky how much they look and act alike in the movie. You'll have to see it to completely understand what I mean. But you can take my word for it, it was weird.

But in all honestly, the movie, which is brought to you by Dreamworks (Kung Fu Panda, Shrek, Madagascar, etc), was actually really enjoyable. It was in 3D, which is always good, and I am a sucker for a training the wild beast movies. It's not quite Pixar level yet, but they are getting close, and I definitely recommend giving it a look.

Ninja Slap Game

Posted April 9, 2010 - 3:50pm by michael

Game:

Ninja

Fun:

Difficulty:

Player Interaction:

I play a lot of games. I play video games, board games, card games. You name it, I've played it. I don't proprose that I am an expert in any of these, but like anyone else I have my favorites. The game I want to tell you about today is the newest game in my arsenal. This one doesn't sit on the shelf with the other 20 or so, this game has no pieces, and it only takes about 30 seconds to teach. Nevertheless, its one of my favorites.

It's the Ninja Slap Game. Yeah, sounds awesome huh? If you were at Fool's Fest last weekend you probably saw people playing. And we played it a lot. If not, check out this video:

And now imagine playing this with a group of 20-30 people in a giant circle. Yeah, pretty sweet. If you didn't gather it from the video the rules are simple: