Tektolio is a strange game from sggc Oktabo. Actually, their entire web site is rather strange. It’s a little hard to figure out exactly how the game plays.

The description:

Players explore the strange island Villa of Tektolio where you have become stranded. You find all sorts of junk. You’ll encounter some uniquely odd characters and be plunged into some bizarre and possibly life-threatening situations . You have to use the items you find to build Kontraptions that will remedy the situations. The first player to reach 500 points wins the game and may leave the island. . . if the other players allow it. . . .

And something to do with cards and dice. That’s just the start …

How the designer came up with game:
One night I am in a dream: I am wandering through a building. Sometimes I am alone, sometimes with assorted friends and relatives. Each time I or we go somewhere, things are startlingly different and bizarre: in someone’s garage, replete with a mounted deer head, cops break in on a bust; from a theatre rehearsal studio I sense I’ve been in before, I go outside into bright daylight to see that the building is an old (now-demolished) tobacco barn near the house where I grew up; on a warehouse loading dock, there is a raid by leather-clad gang members; outside, in twinkling twilight, the building is the church I attended in my formative years, and paramedics come racing in to whisk away an unidentified person…. I awaken, a bit shaken, thinking, “Hm… that was weird.”

From there you can go to the playtesting stories, such as:

Carl, an aeronautics engineer, was only momentarily fazed when a Room Event had him dressed in a sequined evening gown and spike heels. He was falling into a piranha pond, and figured by scrawling some complex mathematical problems on his slate, those smart little de-fleshing engineers would be too engrossed to attack him. Meanwhile, he kicked off those heels and swam to safety.

And end with stories of the volunteer work they did to help out on September 11 in downtown Manhattan.

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Tongue Tanglers is a party game from Enginuity.

Rather than coming with a preset list of tongue twisters, each round you place an additional word on your opponent’s disk and he or she has to say the resulting sentence as fast as he or she can in ten seconds.

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The Enterprise Game is another in the list of high-priced games whose price is supposedly justified by its being a “business” tool. In this case, the aim is to be an “educator’s” tool, and versions of the game are aimed at senior or junior school levels.

Customized versions are also available, and, depending on how many copies you want, they will cost you between 50 and 85 pounds each. With the purchase of the game you also get access to downloadable resources to accompany the game.

There is also a maritime version.

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The Berkhamsted Chamber of Commerce, UK, has launched its own board game, which, if it does say so itself, is “an ingenious and innovative way to help Berkhamsted businesses promote themselves.”

To win, you need to collect ten points by answering questions around the town.

(source)

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Checkmate and The Rake’s Progress is a ballet first produced in 1937, with music by Arthur Bliss and choreography by Ninette de Valois.

From the Wikipedia entry:

The ballet proper begins with the Red Pawns assembling on the chessboard. The Red Knights arrive on the scene, afterwards joined by the Black Knights. The Black Knights prostrate themselves at the entry of the Black Queen, who fills them with fear. The Black Queen makes advances to the Red Knight and tosses him a rose, and the Red Knight becomes infatuated with the Black Queen.

The Red King and Red Queen arrive, with the old Red King requiring assistance. An initial “game” between the two sides finishes as the Black Queen has the Red King in a “check” position. This game leads to a duel between the Red Knight and the Black Queen, where the Red Knight is victorious over the Black Queen. However, he cannot bring himself to kill her because of his love for her. In one moment, he turns his back and recalls the rose from the Black Queen. The Black Queen takes advantage and fatally stabs the Red Knight. The funeral cortège for the Red Knight is described as “Death leading, Love at the end of the procession”.

The Black Queen then turns on the Red King, and the Black forces surround him. The Red King has one last moment of recalling his youth before the Black Queen stabs him in the back with a spear, in the final “checkmate”.

You can get a copy here.

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