What you see above is a picture of a game created by my friend Tony, a game inventor who is just breaking into the market. In an earlier post I mentioned his game "Dissed." Now he has this new one out, Magniverse. It is 6 games in one. The marbles are magnetic, but sometimes repel each other in surprising ways.
Tony is interested in the "Aha Moment" when the brain makes a connection when solving a riddle or a puzzle - or getting a joke. He's currently working on his Ph.D. relating to this, and is doing cool stuff like taking MRI's while people solve puzzles. I love making connections and knowing what makes people's brains tick, so in my next life that's what I want to do too! :-)
I'm doing my best to make such connections in my Master's program, but I don't have access to any MRI machines!
Tony is currently selling the game from his own site but has a company interested in buying it (Gamewright). If you'd like to check this out - or his other game: Dissed - or just have the link for future reference - as more games will certainly be created by him, here it is:
http://www.duckbunnyproductions.com/index.html
Click on the individual game names in the left column in order to check them out! Also, check out his Mission Statement, which I applaud!
Sorry (especially to Anthony!) for the poor quality pictures. I hope the fun we had comes through nonetheless. Oh, we both lost big time but had lots of fun! We're hoping to take in the release next Friday. Good times!!
Well, I may not have time to try to create anything like what's in my last post (nor the talent either!), but I did take time to draft with Anthony tonight. We were paired in the first round, which was kind of a bummer since it is single elimination. He beat me, BUT he won the draft. I guess it's not so bad losing to the person who won overall - especially not when he's my son. And I got a card I've been wanting since the set came out (see image) so I'm happy.
Today was major geek day for me and Anthony. We played in our first ever PRE-release Magic Tournament. This was for the Shards of Alara set. You can't even buy these cards yet. The release is scheduled for next Friday night. I finally had the inaugural wearing of my totally awesome geek-shirt birthday present (see above).
Here we are - candy and dice nearby - decks built - ready to GO!!
Clearly things are not going my way right now. I've mentally blocked out exactly what happened, but I see when I enlarge the picture that my life total was at 3, so I think he had just made the killing move. This guy is REALLY good, though, so it's respectable to be beaten by him. I won 2 of 4 rounds overall and felt pretty good about that for an old lady! (Do you notice any other women in any of these photos? No. I alone am upholding the honor of womanhood in the domain of Magic the Gathering!)
Well, I realized anew how the stress has gotten to me at all levels when I left my division meeting today, reached into my "purse" to get out what I needed to open the van, and walked about a hundred feet with it towards my van before realizing that the hairbrush I was holding was not going to unlock the door!
I guess the time when you can least afford a break is the time when you most need to take one, and Anthony provided that for me tonight by asking me to go with him to a Magic draft. Magic is a game I was into when he was a baby (only child). I'd been taught by my uncle. (Thanks Uncle Dave - remember that late night out in Illinois when you taught me and were dinging me a life-point at a time with 'Tim?'). Anyway, I taught Anthony to play before he could read; he had to ask me what the cards said and then memorize what they did. I dropped out when I had more babies and got too busy. It's a game with new installments coming out all the time, so you have to keep up with it. I taught him to play, and now he is returning the favor by bringing me back into it and teaching me the finer points. Now he's the one who keeps reminding me, "Mom, you've got to know what your cards do!" Within the last month or so he has gotten me totally addicted to where I'm now not just playing with the cards but collecting them also and trying to keep them in mint condition.
Above Jacob and Dad face off in round one.
Here's a close-up of the opening moves between Mom and Anthony.
Jacob ponders Dad's move.
We even convinced "UT" to play - to the great joy of his adoring nephews.In case you don't know about Magic, it is a role-playing card game in which each player begins with 20 life points and has a deck of cards (self-made through selecting about 40 cards from in our case 270 available today). There is a lot of strategy involved as you try to select cards that work well together. Many are creature cards (elves, goblins, dragons, etc.) that have a certain power and toughness. You can "attack" with them, and your opponent can block with creatures, play "spells" to try to prevent damage, or they can take damage. There are also cards that allow you to gain back life points. Once you are down to zero life points or below you lose. Each round is best 2 out of 3. There's a lot of strategy involved, some great artwork on the cards, and a lot of imagination if you want to engage it! It's a favorite in our family.
I'd like to introduce you to A.J. McCaffrey, a person
One of his games has been produced. It's called "Dissed,"
bel is supposed to look like a duck and a bunny. It is the logo of A.J.'s company, "duckbunny productions." The name of the duckbunny is "Seymour," because it is A.J.'s mission to help people SEE MORE, to enjoy themselves while doing so, and also to find ways of making the world a better place by being able to creatively solve problems through seeing more!
This game has basically three elements: the goal is to move your pawn acrosss the board before your opponent moves his across, on your turn you may place a wall or move your pawn one space, and you may not entirely block off your opponent from reaching the other side. It is so simple a young child can play it, yet the strategy can get so deep that serious game-playing adults can be captivated by it. This is definitely a classic!
This is an extremely elegant variant of tic-tac-toe with three twists: you need to get four in a row, what you need to get in a row is not "your" x or o but rather 4 pieces sharing an attribute (short, light, flat-topped, round, tall, etc.), AND your opponent chooses the piece you play. Again, a game a young child could play but also allows for tremendous strategizing - elegant and satisfying. This too is absolutely a classic game.
This is another variation on tic-tac-toe. Each cube has 4 blank sides, one x and one o. On your turn you may select a piece from the side with your symbol on it (x or o) or a blank cube which you will flip to show your symbol, remove it, and slide it back into that row from the top or bottom or from the far side. In this way everything shifts. It also allows for lots of strategizing and a good balance between defense and offense. The sliding introduces an element of surprise.
Quads is a game of territory. You play darks or lights, and you have to play on pieces already laid, but you have to match any newly laid piece to each side of other pieces it touches - dark to dark, light to light, neutral to neutral. The goal is to move the game to a place where your opponent is unable to play a piece.
This is a nice casual word-card game. It works well with a group larger than two - slower paced than the other games and less strategic, but fun. It seems like a nice game to play with a group that you want to talk with at the same time. The cards are beautiful.
Qwitch is a game of quick reflexes. It also is better with more than two (and on the box the lowest number of players recommended is 3, but there were only 2 of us, and we were on a mission). We figured out why they recommended 3 or more - with 2 it is too evenly matched and you have to stop too often to flip another card and replinish your hand. I look forward to trying it again with our whole family - seems like a fun game for kids and parents to enjoy.
