Old School gaming gives me the opportunity to occasionally wax nostalgic on a news site. But for those of you who might be a little confused about what these retro-clones are cloning, with a hat tip to Stargazer’s World, I wanted to point to this fantastic guide to modern imitations of classic Dungeons & Dragons games.

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Hasbro recently extended its contract with Marvel until 2017. This is their joint site. It includes toys and games for Iron Man, Spiderman, Transformers, Hulk, Fantastic Four, Wolverine, and others.

Hasbro has a deal with Disney, too. Games and toys, not to mention their joint toy store in Orlando, Once Upon a Toy.

Now Disney bought Marvel for $4 billion. (Marvel sued Disney back in 2004, claiming it was owed royalties after Disney bought Fox Family Channel, which in turn owned Marvel cartoons.)

What does this mean for Hasbro? Disney is more likely to want to save Marvel TV programming for its own networks, rather than let Hasbro create Marvel programming for its new TV network. (source) Disney also has license agreements with Mattel; this will give it considerably more leverage when dealing with Hasbro.

Upper Deck also has a “multi-year” Marvel license.  This is their joint site (playmarvel.com). Upper Deck also has a Disney license, here.

What does this mean for Upper Deck? Well, for one thing, Upper Deck’s major competitor, Topps, which won an exclusive MLB license earlier this month (source), is run by former Disney CEO, Michael Eisner. (source) (Upper Deck tried to buy Topps in 2007, but Eisner outbid them.)

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Following discovery of the world’s largest Chess set, allow us to preset the world’s largest Go and Backgammon sets.

Go

On Saturday, the 2009 International Weichi Tournament was held near the Great Wall of China. The pieces (called Chessmen) on the board were reflected on a larger board for spectators by humans dressed in black and white. When moving, the humans performed Kung Fu maneuvers. (source)

(image by CRI online)

I don’t know if the board is bigger than what took place at the 21st world amateur Igo festival in Oita ten years ago, in which the reflected game was played with gigantic disks on a lawn board. (source)

Backgammon

For the Million Dollar Backgammon Tournament in 2007, the organizers commissioned this 100,000 square foot backgammon board painted onto a field in the Bahamas. (source)

Also see largest Cribbage board.

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Here’s a sampling of recent academic journal material involving board games, aside from those already mentioned on this site:

Making Real Games Virtual: Tracking Board Game Pieces, Steven Scher, Ryan Crabb, and James Davis, University of California at Santa Cruz [PDF],  International Conference on Pattern Recognition (ICPR) 2008
Software to control a camera pointed at a physical game such as Chess or Go that will digitize the game moves as it is being played, regardless of interference from changing light sources or obstructing hands and bodies.

The long history of gaming in military training, Roger Smith [PDF],  Journal of Simulation and Gaming, 40th Anniversary Issue, September 2008,  Sourced at Model Benders
Starting from the Stone Ages, through abstracts, historical war games, to computer games.

Monte-Carlo Tree Search in Settlers of Catan, Istvan Szita, Guillaume Chaslot, and Pieter Spronck [PDF] [PPT],  ADVANCES IN COMPUTER GAMES 12, Pamplona, Spain, May 11 – May 13, 2009
An extensive look at playing Settlers using random bots. Tons of other talks available on the proceedings page.

At Georgia Institute of Technology, the Synaesthetic Media Lab has created another interactive tabletop surface – the Tangible Tracking Table – and used it to design another version of laser chess – Optical Chess.

Organic Board Games with Tangible Tiles: interaction methods for small hexagonal tiles, Michael Howard Rooke [PDF],  Master’s Thesis for Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, April 2009
Inspired by Settlers of Catan, the thesis explores a Siftables-style interface of hexagons that play and change as they are added and moved onto a table.

Use of board games, historical calendars, and trading cards in a history of psychology class, Abramson CI, Burke-Bergmann AL, Nolf SL, Swift K.,  Psychology Reports 2009 Apr;104(2):529-44
The PDF isn’t available online, but Prof Abramson was happy to send me a copy. Essentially, he reports on the success of using clones of games (Cranium, Password, Pictionary, Scattergories, Taboo, TriBond, Wheel of Fortune, and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire), a historical calendar, and trading cards (like sports cards, no game involved) to help students learn. Includes details as to how he created the materials, including the trading cards.

And the first International Journal of Role-Playing was published in January, with the second edition scheduled for publication in the near future. The editorial board includes Richard Bartle (creator of the MUD), Marinka Copier (Utrecht University), and others. Submissions for the third edition are now being accepted.

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Across the scale from the world’s smallest chess set is, natch, the world’s largest chess set.

A number of crybabies have tried to lay claim to this over the years, but this set in Germany looks like a strong contender for the current record. The board measures 1,200 by 1,200 feet, pieces are 30 to 60 feet tell (albeit, they are laid flat on the ground).

It is currently being played by IM Elisabeth Pähtz against the world via the internet.

(source)

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ABC News pimps board games, all old ones or makeovers of old ones. (source)

The Gen Con wrap-up pimps itself. It notes 27,900 attendees. (source)

Schenectady’s Daily Gazette pimps The Settlers of Catan as part of a day well spent with friends. (source)

A Learn English and Reading Now organization in Virginia is pimping Scrabble as a learning tool. (source)

The New York Daily Star pimps board games, mostly old ones. But then she pimps “new games”, such as Anti-Monopoly, Apples to Apples Bible Edition, and Clue Harry Potter. She then admits her ignorance, pimping BoardGameRatings.com and the top games at Amazon.com.

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The UK Dept of Health has released The Flu Pandemic Game, a role playing game/simulation aimed at helping businesses imagine the effect that swine flu could have on their business. The game was devised by the Camden Primary Care Trust in North London. To avoid making the game “unwieldy”, there is no possibility of death due to the disease.

This is not the first time the DoH has released a game or used role play in its efforts to reach the public. Earlier this month they released Exercise Cold Play II, an update to a previous activity for health care professionals to work through treating Flu response.

In 2004, they released Trust Me, I’m a Patient, a role play game for 20 to 100 participants about a town whose three GPs are replaced with a heath center (sound familiar?) Additional games include Diagnosis It, helping kids diagnose and treat medical conditions, and a role play based on a visit to surgery. The dept found these earlier releases to be successful.

According to source:

Katherine Murphy, [Director] of the Patients’ Association, said: ‘This game is a ridiculous use of time and money. The Government should be focusing on letting patients know how to get the drugs they need and whether they should be taking them.

‘The money and time spent on this game could surely have been better spent on organising the swine flu helpline better and actually helping patients.’

(source)

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In a bizarrely ironic turn of events, Mattel, the company whose six product recalls inspired the CPSC to institute third-party lead testing on all products aimed at children, has been exempted from these very tests.

Mattel spent $1 million dollars in lobbying to convince the CPSC that it’s own internal tests were both good enough and untainted by corporate influence. Naturally, this results in Mattel saving a bundle of money, while smaller companies without such internal resources get hit with the high costs of third-party testing.

The request and exemption was done quietly, with no advertisement and no press release, thus surprising many. The CPSC is now fielding similar requests for exemptions from other companies.

(source)

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Chronica Feudalis is a historical roleplaying game set in the Medieval period (but non-fantasy). The game is an interesting combination of traditional and indie, using step-die mechanics like Savage Worlds and aspects like Spirit of the Century. The rules treat skills, tools, conditions, etc., consistently. Character creation and development focus on the selection of mentors. The result is an approach that makes character background meaningful and lends risk to both combat and non-combat situations.

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Simple and clever (and probably centuries old), Across the Board is a simple and clever horse racing game.

Each horse represents a roll on two dice, with the horses with more frequently rolled numbers requiring more rolls to cross the finish line. Ans a pretty wooden board.

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