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Evanston, IL: Chess coach sends pictures of kids to inmate, possibly along with graphic letters. (source)
Nottingham, UK: War gamer and war game site organizer murdered, possibly related to an argument on the site. (source)
Iowa City, IA: One man murders his neighbor in a confrontation over a Chess game. (source)
Missionary Conquest is a game that poses as a spiritual version of Risk, but is more of a money management, light-hearted game of collecting points by visiting different countries as a Christian missionary.
The interesting feature is that you can visit a “hostile” country and martyr yourself, thus taking you out of the game, but possibly handing you the victory anyway, as it gains you a lot of points.
It’s sold by Christian Book.com, who also sells 400 other games with Christian themes or suitable for Christians (many are Chess boards and books).
One which amused me was the book titled Dangerous Weapons: The French. It’s a Chess book about the “French Defense” strategy.
Chitag is Nov 20 to 23, and they’re packing in the activities this year.
Nov 20 to 21 (or maybe 23) is the Toy and Game Inventors Expo. Meet the big guys from the industry, learn inside tips, and maybe hit it big.
Nov 21 is a new Toy and Game Inventor award presentation.
Nov 22 to 23 is the fair, with renaissance chess, a young inventor challenge, and tons of toy and game exhibitors.
Upper Calarian, Phillipines: Village councilor shot while playing a card game by two man riding tandem on a motorcycle. (source)
St Kitts, West Indies: One man sentenced for hitting another with a wooden stick after a Dominoes game. (source)
Yonkers, NY: Two men with shotguns rob 6 people at a private card game. (source)
Albany, NY: Card game broken up when a man breaks in and begins shooting. One man at the party arrested for outstanding warrant. (source)
The Pacific Whale Foundation’s Lahaina Legends and Lore History Cruise, which has won a Keep it Hawaii award from the Hawaii Tourism Authority, incorporates the traditional board game of Konane as part of the cultural experience. Konane is an abstract game in the same vein as checkers, where players jump each other’s pieces on a grid until a player loses for no longer being able to make a jump.
(source)
Polyglot Puppets is putting up a performance / play installation called “The Big Game” at the Melbourne International Arts Festival.
Kids participate as tokens in various big board games, either as a fun activity for the family or as performance for onlookers.
Includes a giant dice sculpture, oversized dominos, Scrabble tiles, green houses of Monopoly, and a huge smoking volcano, as well as music, visual, and other elements.
(source)
The Weatherford Democrat has an article up about how board games are used to keep the inmate population happy and calm. Discipline issues are dealt with by denying the offender board game privileges.
Chess, cards, dominoes, Risk, and Monopoly are allowed. Texas Hold’em isn’t.
Offenders aren’t eligible to participate in these tournaments if they’ve been any sort of disciplinary problem. Disciplinary problems range from being caught with contraband to disrespecting staff. You have to really follow the rules to be able to compete this way. These chess players here are already starting to make the right moves in life, and that’s why they can be here.
(source)
Since you’re probably already doing your Christmas shopping for the 2009 holiday season (only 14 shopping months to go!), here’s a little store that wants you to think Christmas, and Christmas only.
Once you’ve tired of Christmas trivia, move on to Christmas bingo, Christmas charades, Christmas carols and songs Christmas, Christmas and Christmas golf balls Christmas, Christmas Christmas Christmas Christmas and dominoes Christmas – shut up you bloody vikings! – Christmas Chess, and Halloween dominoes (with Christmas).
Game Zone posted an article about a new game for mobile phones called Man Don’t Get Mad About It. They said it was based on a “well known and popular classic board game”. And that was it.
I wracked my brains trying to figure out what game this could be. Couldn’t guess. Finally I went to the publisher’s web site, only to find that they used the same words: “based on a popular board game”. I finally figured out which board game from the screenshot:
Of course: “Sorry!” Get it?
I’m wondering if the Scrabulous fiasco made them skittish about naming their game inspiration. If so, why couldn’t they just say “Pachisi”, which is hundreds of years old and not copyrighted?
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