board games

Games, Rules, Courtesy, and Cheating

I’m a competitive person by nature. I’ve always loved playing games, but–here’s the confession–I’ve loved winning them more. I don’t typically play to just have a fun time. I have difficulty turning off the desire to win, even when I really should be able to. I’d play a lot of games growing up–against my siblings or my cousins or my friends–and the goal was always the same: win. I don’t consider myself to be a sore winner or loser. Once the game is over, I tend to calm down fairly quickly, unless it was a really close game. In that case, […]

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Hearthstone Review: Free Computer Card Game Greatness

I love me some card games. I’m also a big fan of computer games. And last but not least, I’m a huge fan of free. Put them all together in one big glossy well-produced package, and you’ve got one happy Bryce. That’s just what it looks like Blizzard is up to right now in Hearthstone, a new free-to-play card game that just went to open Beta. (What does that mean? It means the real game isn’t released just yet, but you can play it in the test phase. They might make some tweaks to it, but you still get access

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The Game of Risk and the Dangers of the Slippery Slope Mentality

I’m a board gamer. Love me some board games. And while I don’t play it much these days, one of the games that started me off was most definitely Risk. I had a version on my old Mac, and I played against the computer time after time. It was a blast. What does any of this have to do with slippery slopes? Allow me to explain. Too often, I think we set ourselves up in a situation where we’ve put all our defenses against something into a single push. One continuous battle line that’s heavily fortified, but behind that line?

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Board Game Review: Dominion

Played a new game (to TRC, not to Denisa and me) yesterday evening: Dominion. This is actually a game Denisa and I have played quite a bit, and since TRC likes Magic: The Gathering, I thought he might be up for another card-based game. DC played with us, on Denisa’s team. Dominion, for those of you who don’t know, is a deck building game. You all start with the same amount of resources, and then you spend those resources to “buy” other cards, that then let you get more resources, buy more cards, penalize other players–a whole variety of things.

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Board Game Review: Seven Wonders

I love me some board games. Last year for Christmas, we got 7 Wonders as a gift. I’d read that it could be played with just two players (my long standing requirement for most board games I asked for–the other being that it hopefully would appeal to Denisa). Once I got it and looked at the rules, I discovered it was really intended for 3 or more players, so it sat on the shelf for quite some time. While we were in Germany, I stayed with my friend Dan Wells for a few days. He’s possibly a bigger board game

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