Maureen Sherry bought an apartment on upper Fifth Av in Manhattan, and ended up hiring Eric Clough to do the architecture because he was less “cookie-cutter” than the other architects with whom she met.

Turns out she was right. In addition to making the non-standard designs she requested, he ended up hiding six months worth of mysterious clues, hidden panels, cyphers, keys, poems, and other assorted objects in the apartment just for the heck of it.

It’s a fascinating read from the NY Times:

The finale involved, in part, removing decorative door knockers from two hallway panels, which fit together to make a crank, which in turn opened hidden panels in a credenza in the dining room, which displayed multiple keys and keyholes, which, when the correct ones were used, yielded drawers containing acrylic letters and a table-size cloth imprinted with the beginnings of a crossword puzzle, the answers to which led to one of the rectangular panels lining the tiny den, which concealed a chamfered magnetic cube, which could be used to open the 24 remaining panels, revealing, in large type, the poem written by Mr. Klinsky.

(It’s more than I would usually quote from an article, but it’s not even the whole sentence.)

(hat tip)

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Out of the Box has a new game out: Rock. There are 60 cards with pictures of items that are made from, or are some form of, rock, paper, or scissors. Each player gets half the cards, and you flip. The first to call out which card beats which wins both. So it’s like War, but more a game of visual perception.

Coming soon is Backseat Drawing, where one person stands behind the other and tells them exactly how to draw an object, and then the drawing person has to guess what he’s just drawn.

Also coming soon is Chain Game, which is just a boxed version of an old word game. One person says a two word phrase, and others have to say another two word phrase containing half of the previous phrase.

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Irina Krush and Anna Zatonskih tied in the 2008 Women’s Chess Championship final, so the game was decided by a game that looks something like chess, but has very little relationship to it: an armageddon speed chess match. Anna won the game, which looked more like a brawl, in the last possible seconds (the first minute or so of the following video is all that you need to see).

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNQjXHjRkNQ]

Many people have since complained that ending a Chess championship (which has more to do with playbooks and deep strategic moves) with a game of speed chess (which has more to do with nimble fingers, and tactical, on-your-feet thinking) is ridiculous, looks ridiculous, and would be better served by a subsequent match of real Chess, played long-distance if necessary, or even a coin toss.

But the scandal doesn’t end there.

Since losing the tie-breaking game, Irina has been openly protesting that Anna was making her moves before she finished her own, thus taking advantage of the short clock cycle. As an outsider, it would seem to me that her knocking over and resetting a piece during the game would also be considered an irregularity, but what do I know? And knocking her king off the board and halfway across the room in frustration after she lost may have been understandable and even justified, but didn’t look very classy.

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Frontline General™ is “a hybrid tabletop / board wargame of intense World War II strategy centered around resource management, logistics, the selection of forces to deploy and reinforce, combat engagements, historical scenarios, skill, and a little luck.”

The game is by Byron Collins and Phillip Martin, and will be available as a free print and play game starting in August. If you can’t wait, you can get one of 100 limited edition boxed versions at Origins Gen Con, Indy 2008.

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Richard Garfield played the board game Cosmic Encounter a lot in the 1980s. He loved it so much, he decided to create a card game that had a similar feel to the board game. The result was a little game known as Magic: the Gathering. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?

Magic replaced the alien powers with individual decks, and the chaos of encounters with many different types of cards. Beyond that, there’s not much similarity.

Now Jack Reda, creator and editor of The Warp, a fan site for Cosmic Encounter, has produced an unofficial card game that more closely resembles, without exactly duplicating, the original board game. It looks pretty wild.

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The last issue of the Boulder [Colorado] Friday Magazine carried a cover story on the resurgence of roleplaying and board games. Featured games in the article include Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering. Included with the article online is a video of people playing D&D, and Karl Schwols, owner of local game store Karliquin’s Game Knight, commenting how pleasantly surprised he is with interest in the new edition.

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Saturday, June 21 is Free RPG day, a day for getting the masses inspire to play RPGs, according to some group called Impressions Advertising & Marketing.

You will be able to grab a few free books from some publishers at a lot of places for some reason.

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Paradigm Concepts is releasing for Origins a new supplement for their Witch Hunter roleplaying game. The Grand Tome of Adversaries describes forbidden societies, horrific monsters, and fiends from the Invisible World, and provides advice on how to use these to put the fear of the Adversary into the hearts of Witch Hunter players.

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In one week will begin one of the premier national gaming conventions in the United States. Origins Game Fair will be held in Columbus, Ohio June 25-29 and feature every type of tabletop game—board games, roleplaying games, war games, miniatures, and card games—as well as LARPs (live action roleplaying). At Origins will be over 200 exhibitors, 4,000 tournaments, and extensive opportunity for casual play. There will be a Play with the Creator series of games and the Origins Wedding Chapel. I’ve heard especially great things about The Board Room and The War Room, run by the Columbus Area Boardgaming Society and set aside for open board gaming and war gaming, respectively—beginners welcome.

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Get your official board game of the 2008 presidential elections: Obama vs McCain: Battle for the White House.

It’s by the same guys who brought you Clinton vs Obama: Battle for the Delegates. You can watch that being played here:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UISafH1U8Q]

Spigner Enterprises, the publisher, is hosting an Obama fundraising event on July 25 in Moreno Valley, CA. Proceeds from sales of the game will be donated to the campaign (at least, I think that’s what it says). The event is listed on Obama’s official site.

I can’t find any other information about Spigner Enterprises; anyone?

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