Posts authored by Heinze Havinga

Cardboard Kennel

Cardboard Kennel published on 5 Comments on Cardboard Kennel

For some of you it might be time for the summer holiday! We will be leaving shortly which leaves us with a bit of a conundrum what we can create on such short notice. But we’ll surely be bringing some games to pass the time between the beautiful views and being stuck in a tent because of rainy days.

But being on vacation also means time away from the game collection which is a shame! We’ve started with our Near and Far campaign and are having a blast so far! Ryan and his crew have really delivered an immersive world full of super cool things and interesting choices. The game does come with lots of different components which is why we decided to create a laser cut insert with a very swanky character tray.

Speaking of people doing cool things for board games, this week there are three worthy causes for your money. First up is the campaign for the second African board gaming convention. Board game designer Kenechukwu Ogbuagu is raising money online so attendance can be free for visitors, promoting board gaming in Nigeria. We think this is a very cool way of organizing and funding a convention, so we wish him the best of luck and the visitors the greatest of times!

On the internet side of our hobby, Shut up and Sit Down and Rodney from Watch It Played are both doing campaigns to continue their work getting people excited about playing games! We’ve featured both in our comics and we’re long time fans, so we hope they keep doing the cool things that they do.

Spreading the joys of board games can also be done by lending games to friends and people (you trust not to bend cards). We currently have three games left by friends and will lend people games they want to try or play some more in their own time. While three games doesn’t quite make a board game kennel we do love taking care of other peoples games :).

How often do you borrow or lend games?

Too epic for comfort

Too epic for comfort published on 16 Comments on Too epic for comfort

The start of today’s comic is actually true! Rachel had a surprise bachelorette party and her friends and I knew that she would’ve enjoyed the party less if there was a comic to worry about. So secretly I’ve made a comic using my art forgery skills. We’re getting married this Friday but Rachel has told me there will be an update next week (she’s really serious about giving you a comic each week!).

The game in the comic is an actual game and although we’ve never played it, the comic doesn’t seem to stray too far from reality. Twilight Imperium 3rd edition is a game that comes in a huge box, has a ridiculous play-time and comes with endless amounts of plastic ships, cards and tokens. In the game you control a interstellar race trying to build a galactic empire through trading, politics and combat. It’s one of those lovely decadent impractical games that lures me like a moth to an all consuming flame. I hope to get to play it one day because it’s such generator of great stories. Ars Technica wrote about it just this weekend and Shut Up and Sitdown (congrats to Quintin and Leigh for getting married as well!) have done a very fun playthrough video about it.

And even though it seems like such a blast, I have no intention of ever owning it. One of our friends sold it off because he never got to play it, and I think our copy would suffer that same fate. Rachel is reluctant about getting into games that take longer than 6 hours (the nerve!) and I’ve come to realise war-like game are something that can force you into a tiny corner of the map without giving you a lot of options to get back into the game, which will ruin the fun that player will have. But if anybody would invite me to a game I won’t say no (wink wink).

What game would you love to try, but would never buy? And because of which reasons?
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