The folks over at Hasslefree Miniatures have released the “Glaswegian Police Box” miniature, a 1/55th scale laser-cut miniature based on a photograph of an original police box. If you’re a Doctor Who fan, you might find that the miniature looks rather familiar. It might even be an inexpensive (4.25 GBP) decoration for your office or den, even if you don’t play any games where it might be useful to you.
When you think about your local school, college, or public library, you probably think of them as a place to borrow books you might be interested in reading. If you’ve been there recently, you might even be aware that most libraries offer check-outs of music CDs, audio books, and DVD videos. What you probably don’t imagine is that many libraries also loan out hobby games, including video games.
That was the point of a presentation made this afternoon by Christopher Harris, the coordinator of the school library system of the Genesee Valley BOCES. Mr. Harris has been working with the Verizon Foundation and the American Library Association (ALA) to look at how libraries can embrace games as a part of their collections.
Some libraries, Harris told us, are loaning a variety of games. While there is concern that the public may have a problem loaning games such as Grand Theft Auto (GTA), there are many tabletop and video games they’re OK lending to patrons.
Harris told us that, according to a study done in 2006/2007, about 20% of libraries are loaning games. About 44% of libraries have some kind of formal gaming program, which may or may not include loaning games. 10% loan the more traditional games like Monopoly and Risk. 8% loan PC games. 4% loan puzzles. About 2% loan puzzles. And that was in 2006. Harris thinks the numbers will be higher in 2008.
One thing libraries worry about is what they can do if pieces turn up missing. Harris reports that after a year of loaning games in his library system, this hasn’t been an issue. In fact, game manufacturers have been willing to work with libraries to provide spare pieces and other resources. It’s typical for libraries to loan games for about a week, limiting patrons to 1-2 games at a time, with $1/day late fees, and respect to the games’ ratings to ensure that younger library patrons don’t access the more adult titles.
Harris encouraged libraries to, in essence, get their feet wet in gaming by loaning video game strategy guides as a starting point. They can also include game-related books like the Dungeons and Dragons books in their collections, too. If they’re able to find retailers or web stores willing to accept purchase orders, they can include game titles like Settlers of Catan and others.
Harris mentioned that there are resources online for libraries that want to consider including games in their collections. For example, the site gaming.ala.org is a good starting point. Library patrons may discover what games are available at local libraries and those which are available for inter-library loan at worldcat.org.
If you’re a librarian looking to include games in your library’s collection, you might want to check out the links above.
I took quite a few photos at Origins 2008, both to document some of the more interesting things I saw and to share with those who couldn’t or didn’t attend the convention a sense of what they missed.
As you walk around Origins, you’ll find gamers setting up everywhere, at all hours of the day and night. Pick-up games, demos, and planned events can be found everywhere, like these tables in the walkway between the convention center and hotel:
Here are a couple of players setting up a Heroscape table:
And here are just a few of the board games in progress as I walked around the convention center:
It’s possible to check out games from the Origins library to play, even if there is no specific instance of that game scheduled at the time:
If you’re into train-oriented board games, you can join in the fun and even win some awards:
At the back of the room were some intense CCG championships:
In the Mayfair Games room you could play a “giant” Settlers of Catan game:
You could also have joined in on any of these other games:
As you look at these photos, you should notice that Origins attracts young and old, tall and short, slim and “not so slim”, men and women, the costumed and the plainclothed, etc. It’s a pretty good cross section of society, all in one place to have fun.
The following article was imported from our old content management system on 08/10/2008. It may contain missing links and missing images which we do not plan to go back and correct.We apologize for any inconvenience.
The Operational Studies Group (OSG) has released its OSG Report for February 2008. Topics include:
Contents:
Page 1) Announcing 3-vol. Study on 1807
Page 2) Double Issue for Wargame Design Magazine
Page 3) New Editor at Wargame Design
Page 4) Habit of Victory Replay
Page 5) Habit of Victory Questions
Page 6) A Question of Bridges
Page 7) Special Offers
The Special Offers include "The Habit of Victory" at 20% off, Napoleon at the Crossroads for 20% with the purchase of The Habit of Victory at 30% off, and a couple of other deals you can read about at the link above.
The following article was imported from our old content management system on 08/10/2008. It may contain missing links and missing images which we do not plan to go back and correct.We apologize for any inconvenience.
On Saturday, I picked up some Armorcast terrain pieces for use in my sci-fi miniatures gaming. The pieces were relatively cheap and should add some nice detail to the table. I also picked up some War-Torn scenery pieces from the good folks at Red Shirt Games. I got 5 good-sized sci-fi terrain items for about $25.
The folks at maps.kayuda.com were very aggressively promoting their online service for sharing gaming maps. They describe it as having a "Google Earth" type service for your own gaming world.
John Fleisher introduced me to War Torn Worlds a company that makes wargame terrain pieces from recycled rubber. Their products are very professional looking, inexpensive, and keep old tires out of landfills. Gotta like that!
Actor Richard Hatch of Battlestar Galactica (both old and new) fame was at Origins promoting the role-playing game based on his sci-fi novels, called The Great War of Magellan. (I didn’t even know he’d written sci-fi novels.) That’s him in the black shirt sitting at the table talking to someone in a maroon colored shirt.
Mongoose Publishing‘s Starship Troopers "bug" miniatures ran low at the Paint and Take event. Seems everyone was interested in painting them. I’m glad I managed to snag one and do a decent job painting it.
My brother Matt noted that bringing booth babes to a convention like Origins might not have the desired effect on sales that vendors think it does. He noticed several customers walking up to a booth in the exhibit hall that featured several scantily clad females, starting to look seriously at the merchandise, and then becoming so distracted talking with the girls that they walked away without buying anything… when it looked like they were about to purchase.
Privateer Press‘ rep told me that they have lots of new miniatures in the pipeline for Hordes and Warmachine. Some of the upcoming miniatures include burrowers, buffalo riders, and more. Some of the miniatures in their display case, which I got pictures of, won’t be seen on the site for a while. If I can manage to get my pictures online, you’ll be able to see them here before a lot of other places… including Privateer Press’ own site!
There was a company at Origins selling sort of "pre-fab" buildings for wargaming. They’re made from laser-etched and laser-cut sheets of thin wood and sort of snap together to produce the finished building. Their buildings looked pretty nice and the pricing per building was fairly in expensive, around $10.
Twilight Creations’ Zombies!!
Saturday night, Matt and I signed up to play Twilight Creations’ Zombies!! game. To be honest, I’d purchased the game from them last year at Gen Con Indy and had never even played a demo. I’d heard so many people saying good things about it that I decided to pick it up. After playing Saturday night, I’m glad I did.
If you’ve ever watched any of those zombie horror flicks like Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Return of the Living Dead, etc., then you know the material on which this game is based. Essentially, you’re a living human who is trying to escape from a town filled to the brim with the undead. To escape, you need to either kill 25 zombies without dying yourself, or make it to the helipad and escape in the helicopter there.
The game changes every time it’s played. The board consists of several tiles that each player places on the table on his or her turn, wherever he or she likes, as long as the exits connect. Each tile gets zombies placed on it, based on the number of exits there are from that tile (one zombie per exit). Certain tiles contain important buildings which house "hearts" (health) and/or "bullets" (to make zombies easier to kill) in addition to zombies.
Each player also gets a deck of cards, which offer weapons, special events to play on the other players, etc. This helps to keep the game interesting, as you never know when another player at the table is going to surprise you by doing something like filling your tile on the game board with zombies or moving you to the starting tile.
On each turn, a player resolves conflict with any zombie occupying the same map square as his playing piece. Combat is resolved by rolling a six-sided die. A roll of 4, 5, or 6 means victory over the zombie and the player holds the zombie figure as a counter of how many he or she has killed. If the player rolls a 1, 2, or 3, he has a couple of options. If the player has any bullets available, the bullets can be used to add to the number rolled. For example, adding two bullets to a die roll of 2 would make it a 4, and thus defeat the zombie. If the player has no bullets, or prefers not to use them, he may choose instead to give up a "heart" token and lose some life. After giving up the heart token, the player rolls again and hopes for a 4, 5, or 6. If the player gives up the last heart token, he’s dead. He has to start over in the town square and give up one half of the zombies he’s killed to this point. Suddenly, the player with 24 zombies who’s about to win could be in last place with only 12!
After resolving combat, the player rolls a six-sided die to determine how far to move. Based on the number rolled, the player may (but is not required to) move 1 to 6 spaces on the board. If this lands the player in a square with a zombie, the player must defeat the zombie in combat before moving on.
Once the player has moved, he rolls to move zombies around on the map. Based on the number rolled, the player may move up to 6 zombies on the game board 1 map square. This allows the player to use a bit of strategy to his or her own benefit and to the detriment of other players. For example, the player might move zombies away from the helipad so that he can get there more safely. The player might instead move zombies into the squares with opponents, in the hope that the zombie kills the opponent and gives the player an advantage over the opponent.
Finally, the player may draw one or more cards to return his total number of cards to 3. If the player wishes, he may play a card or discard one to receive a new card on the next turn. Some cards can be played at any time, even when it’s not your turn.
The base game, with 6 of us playing it, took about 4 hours to complete. I think we all enjoyed it, though we were getting a bit tired by the end. I’m told that a smaller number of players can complete the game in less time.
