The Star Telegram covers “42″, a local dominoes variant it (and Wikipedia) claim is the “national game of Texas”. Could be. It dates back to 1887. It was created by two Baptist kids who were forbidden to play with card and so were messing around with dominoes.

Celebrity fans include Willie Nelson and President George W. and Laura Bush. The article includes play instructions and links to play online.

(source)

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Along with the newest Magic block’s first set, Shards of Alara, come changes to the distribution and rarity of magic cards.

Card sets will be smaller. They are introducing a new rarity level called “mythic rare”, which will be seven times more rare than “rare”. Boosters will include 1 rare, 3 uncommons, 10 commons, 1 land, and 1 tip card or token card. One out of 8 boosters will include a mythic rare instead of a regular rare. And there will be something in the way of “intro packs” for new players.

(details, more details)

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The Haverhill Echo wrote a gush piece on a mom and pop local and online game store Essential Board Games.

The article claimed that the company shows up in the top five search results for “board games” on Google. By which they meant Google UK, not Google.com, in case you were curious.

(source)

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The Lake District National Park Authority, Cumbria County Council, Cumbria Tourism, Cumbria Vision, English Lakes Hotels, Windermere Lake Cruises, and the Furness Railway Trust, will get together tomorrow to decide on key issue affecting the future of England’s largest natural lake by playing The Building Futures Game.

The Building Futures Game was designed by the Royal Institute of British Architecture.

The LDNPA director of planning and partnerships Steve Radcliffe says: “The lake is one of the nation’s greatest and most treasured assets. Its future needs to be carefully planned, particularly where visitor attractions are concerned.”

BFG is actually more planning activity than game, but who’s counting?

(source)

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Ana Mojica hadn’t seen her brother for 30 years. After an article in the NYT appeared about a dominoes game in the Bronx, Ana’s next door neighbor noticed someone named “Ruben Mojica” in one of the pictures and showed it to her.

Turned out to be her long-lost brother.

(story)

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Boardgames Australia is running awards for, among other things, best Australian game of the year.

According to the source, the Australian board game market is small enough that a game won’t get distribution unless it first becomes a hit elsewhere and then gets shipped back to Australia. Knowing what I know about shipping games to Australia, probably at twice the price. Same in many other countries, by the way.

(source)

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Among this month’s specials from Looney Labs, creators of Fluxx, is a nifty purple bag, pictured here. It’s $10, or free if you’re buying $100 worth of stuff from them, anyway.

Other specials include a wooden box for Zombie Fluxx with a special zombie card.

(product)

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Monopoly is now available to play on your IPod for $5.

That’s all I have to say on that.

(source)

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