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Quote:
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.
• Greg Lam's delightfully silly Chopstick Dexterity MegaChallenge 3000, first self-published through Lam's Pair-of-Dice Games in 2006, is being brought out in a new edition from Mayday Games. (KS link) The game remains the same, with players using chopsticks to dig colored tokens out of a common bowl based on a target disc revealed that round. I reviewed the game waaay back in 2006 for FunandBoardgames.com, a site I had started just before taking over as editor of BoardgameNews.com, and here's part what I wrote:Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.
Quote:
The game comes with 25 wooden tokens: five shapes in five colors, one plastic "serving bowl", three plastic plates, 30 claim discs, and three pairs of chopsticks. Players dump the tokens in the bowl, take one plate and one pair of chopsticks, then start the game by flipping one of the claim discs face up.
The disc will usually depict one of the 25 tokens. Players then race to grab all of the tokens that are the same shape or color as this disc and move these tokens onto their plate. There are nine tokens that match this disc, and whoever grabs the most tokens wins the claim disc; in a tie, the tied player who has the object matching the claim disc wins; if neither tied player has this token, the tied players replay the round. (Ties are possible only in three-player games.) Five of the discs depict only a silhouette of one of the tokens; players can grab only tokens of that shape, and ties are broken by having the tied players play another round. Play continues until all 30 claim discs have been won; whoever holds more discs wins the game.
Chopstick Dexterity MegaChallenge 3000 is as much fun as its name and is incredibly addictive to play. The rules take two minutes to explain, which means you're playing almost immediately. If the players are of roughly equal skill with their chopstick handling, each round turns into a bitter struggle for tokens; if not, the game is a one-sided blowout. You can handicap players to give youngsters or those who use forks at Asian restaurants an advantage; simply give the inexperienced a head start each round of 10, 15, 20 seconds, then loose the pros on them.
The three-player game can be an exhausting struggle each round, especially with (speaking from experience here) players who have all been to Okinawa and studied karate. They're simultaneously blocking and grabbing, dominating the bowl as if they were starving and fighting for the last noodle on Earth. The rules suggest having the round winner in a three-player game sit out the following round; this change is a good way to both avoid a runaway winner and keep the rounds short with no ties.
My wife and I are hosting an exchange student from China this school year, and I beat Zoe twice in a row before she was able to convert her well-honed chopstick skills from eating to fighting in order to best me.The disc will usually depict one of the 25 tokens. Players then race to grab all of the tokens that are the same shape or color as this disc and move these tokens onto their plate. There are nine tokens that match this disc, and whoever grabs the most tokens wins the claim disc; in a tie, the tied player who has the object matching the claim disc wins; if neither tied player has this token, the tied players replay the round. (Ties are possible only in three-player games.) Five of the discs depict only a silhouette of one of the tokens; players can grab only tokens of that shape, and ties are broken by having the tied players play another round. Play continues until all 30 claim discs have been won; whoever holds more discs wins the game.
Chopstick Dexterity MegaChallenge 3000 is as much fun as its name and is incredibly addictive to play. The rules take two minutes to explain, which means you're playing almost immediately. If the players are of roughly equal skill with their chopstick handling, each round turns into a bitter struggle for tokens; if not, the game is a one-sided blowout. You can handicap players to give youngsters or those who use forks at Asian restaurants an advantage; simply give the inexperienced a head start each round of 10, 15, 20 seconds, then loose the pros on them.
The three-player game can be an exhausting struggle each round, especially with (speaking from experience here) players who have all been to Okinawa and studied karate. They're simultaneously blocking and grabbing, dominating the bowl as if they were starving and fighting for the last noodle on Earth. The rules suggest having the round winner in a three-player game sit out the following round; this change is a good way to both avoid a runaway winner and keep the rounds short with no ties.
Surprisingly, it wasn't until I was skimming Mayday's ugly and typo-filled rulebook that I discovered I've been playing wrong all these years! In a two-player game, you're supposed to compete only for the exact token depicted on a claim disc, but we've always played with the same rules as in the three-player game, that is, grabbing for everything of the depicted color and shape. (Apparently I am typo-filled, too.) Seems way more fun my way as we have lots of short mini-battles instead of fights for only a single token, but as with all games you're free to do as you wish once in the safety of your own home.
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• Publisher 64 Oz. Games is working on a KS campaign to improve the accessibility of modern card and board games for those who are blind or visually impaired, starting with packages of transparent sleeves for different card games that have been embossed with Braille letters, thereby allowing both sighted and non-sighted players to compete in the same game. (KS link) The project speculates on the ability to use QR codes or separate reference sheets to explain game details that wouldn't fit on a card sleeve. The project does include an original game of its own, the microgame Yoink!, which seems like a tactile crossing of SET and Spoons as players close their eyes (if needed), pass around cards that have raised features on them, then race to grab an object at the center of the table once they collect a set.
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Non-final cover
What's more, Tom Lehmann, who designed the New Society half of that expansion, notes on BGG that "if this stretch goal is met, backers can buy the other 24 New Society cards, including the seven revised cards (Mistress, Observatory, etc.), as an optional add-on. This add-on will be priced at cost. If not enough add-on pledges are received to make the add-on viable to print, any money pledged for the add-on will be returned." Read Lehmann's note for a fuller explanation of this addition to the project.
• Dragon Valley from Queen Games and designers Johannes Berger and Julien Gupta, Julien being the son of owner Rajive Gupta, invites players ages 6 and up to work together to move baby dragons to their home to keep them safe from a wizard. Since you can't touch a dragon, though, players need to pair up and use their magic wands to lift and move the dragons. (KS link)
• Assemblage of Eternity might sound like an example of Engrish, but it's actually a 2-4 player fighting game from Succubus Publishing and designers Phillip Kilcrease and Brooklynn Lundberg in which players each use a character with particular talents to compete in a variety of modes to thrash opponents with Ultra attacks. (It might still also be an example of Engrish.) KS to launch the week of March 31, 2014.
• Designer Corné van Moorsel from Cwali plans to bring a new edition of his card game Typo to print via Spieleschmiede. The revamped Typo 2D, due to launch on April 2, still has players laying down letter cards from the hands in order to create letter chains for which they must say words, but now players can lay out letters in a 2D grid as in crossword puzzles. If you can't play a letter, you must scoop up the longest "word" in the grid, adding half the cards to your hand, then try to play something.
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