OK, so this game is still a year off, but in Fall 2010 4Kids Entertainment will be releasing a licensed NFL trading card game.  The game will also have some kind of online, digital component using many of the elements found in the game Chaotic trading card game.

While I generally have no interest in football, and I really normally wouldn’t think about posting a game that wouldn’t be out for another year, for some reason this really caught my interest.  Call me weird, but I actually think this could workout really well.  Kinda of like a CCG mixed with a MMORPG…except you’re fielding players for football games instead of battles.

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Strat-O-Matic Baseball has been integrating real-life baseball stats into its game expansions since its debut in 1962, the same year that saw the last Negro League All-Star game and the disbanding of the last teams of the Negro American League.

Now Strat-O-Matic is adding Negro League players back into the game, with a new expansion: Negro League All-Stars. (source) The expansion includes 103 players, including the likes of Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson.

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Manhattan Users Guide pimps 11 games: Wits And Wagers, Balderdash, Wise and Otherwise, Carcassonne, Mad Gab, Mental Floss, Q90, Catch Phrase, Backseat Drawing, Taboo, and Buzzword. (source)

The Hartford Courant pimps Bridge, and the local Bridge club. (source)

The Irish Times pimps family gaming twice in one day: One, including Monopoly (source), and two, including Connect Four (source).

The Wall Street Journal pimps Monopoly and the story of Anti-Monopoly. (source) A number of blogs have also been doing this for the past few days (before the WSJ article).

The Joplin Globe pimps Pretty Pretty Princess in a humorous article. (source)

The BBC pimps the United States of Africa game. (source)

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One of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite shows.

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Wizards is making a triple release on Tuesday with Primal Power, Dungeon Tiles: Sinister Woods and E3 Prince of Undeath. While the dungeon tiles sounds like a woodland theme, it actually contains some indoor tiles that will add to your dungeon collection.

Primal Power provides new options for the primal classes in the Player’s Handbook 2 with the usual range of new class features, paragon paths, epic destinies, powers, feats, rituals and backgrounds. The book also contains some fluff about spirits in 4E which explains the primal power source (source). I’m excited to see the Swarm Druid which makes your beast form take less damage and disperse into area of effect attacks.

E3 Prince of Undeath is the epic conclusion to the first series of published adventures by Wizards. The final epic tier module will take 27th level characters to 30th, as they confront Orcus for the fate of death and souls of the world.

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We’ve been following the potential of surface computing for augmenting face-to-face games. The latest demonstration of this is a project out of the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University—a proof-of-concept for an interactive Dungeons & Dragons battle map.

Surfacescapes Demo Walkthrough from Visual Story TAs on Vimeo.

(Hat Tip)

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From which I exclude board games that rely primarily on dice, such as Backgammon, other race games, and all roll and move games.

Beetle (aka Cooties)

Each player rolls a die and draws a certain part of a bug, depending on the die roll. Certain parts must be drawn before others may be drawn. The first to complete his bug wins.

Bunco

Roll three dice, scoring the result. No decisions. Widely popular among suburban women in the US.

Chō-han (aka Chō-Han Bakuchi)

Very simple Japanese dice game. Six dice are rolled and the results kept secret. Players bet on whether the sum on the dice is odd or even.

Farkle (aka Zonk, Zilch, 10000, Wimp Out, Greed, Squelch)

A “push your luck” game, and the inspiration for Can’t Stop and other, similar proprietary games.

Roll six dice, banking any that can score (generally any 1, 5, or three of a kind). You can end you turn and score what you have banked, or re-roll the non-banked dice. If you ever roll dice and can’t bank any of them, you lose everything you have banked and pass your turn.

Hazard (aka Craps)

Craps is a specific variant of Hazard.

Pick a number from 5 to 9 and try to roll it (in Craps, the number is 7). If you roll the number you win. If you roll 2, 3, 11, or 12, you may lose, depending on which number you picked. Otherwise, try to roll the same number you just rolled again, before rolling the number that you originally picked.

LCR

A proprietary game only 17 years old from George and Company LLC.

Three dice have sides with L (left), R (right), and C (center), and three blank faces. Roll the dice, passing chips in the direction indicated; center means the center pot. The last player with chips left wins (and, if playing for money, takes all the chips in the center pot).

Its popularity stems from the fact that even after you have no chips remaining, you may still win if a player to your left or right passes you one before the game ends.

Liar’s Dice (aka Bluff, Dudo, Cachito, Perudo, Mexicali, Mexican)

The game of betting on the sum rolled.

Each player rolls a number of dice, looks at his own, and covers them. Players then bet, in turn, on how many dice have how high a face value, with each player having to either call or up the values on his turn. At a call, the calling player wins if the previous player was incorrect; otherwise, the previous player wins.

Mexico

Not to be confused with the above Mexican.

All players roll the dice, with the lowest rolling player tossing the stakes into the pot. Continue until all but one player is eliminated. That player takes the pot.

Pig (aka Pass the Pig)

A simpler push your luck game than Farkle. Roll a single die, banking your roll each time. Pass the die and score what you have banked whenever you want. If you roll a 1, you lose what you have banked and pass the die.

Poker Dice

These special dice have faces of 9 through A. Roll the dice, re-rolling any dice up to two times. Player with the highest poker hand wins.

Poker dice are often used to play Klondike, which is not related to the card game of the same name. The dealer and players roll, with the players winning if they beat the dealer’s hand.

Sic bo (aka hi lo, Grand Hazard, Chuck-a-luck)

Grand Hazard is not related to Hazard.

Players bet on the outcome of the dice (similar to Roulette), with payouts according to the chances of the roll.

Shut the Box

This game often uses a wooden contraption to keep score.

Player roll two dice, marking off any combination of numbers 2-9 (or 10) that add up to the total rolled on the dice. Continue rolling until you cannot mark any unmarked numbers for a given roll. End your turn and score the numbers marked.

Yahtzee (aka Yacht, Balut, Kismet)

Each player has a grid of dice values, each box of which scores a certain number of points. Roll the dice, re-rolling any dice up to two times. Score any box that you want to which the dice correspond, but that you have not already scored. If you cannot match your roll to any box, score a 0 in any unscored box of you choice. The game ends after all boxes are filled, with the highest total score winning.

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