Chess sets are pretty common test pieces for 3-D printers. But Joe Larson has gone one better with his specs posted to the MakerBot community site, Thingiverse. The pieces of Joe’s Action Chess can be assembled in to a fighting robot—checkmate.

[via Digital Trends]

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The city of Evansville installed a new life-sized chess board (in the hopes to get people outdoors and more active). Columbus already has one. But St. Louis has them both beat with the world’s largest chess piece—14½ feet tall.

Matthew Fishbein won the Maine State Chess Championship but is only 14 years old.

The president of the World Chess Federation held diplomatic talks with Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad (perhaps at the request of the Russian government) and asked him not to retaliate against rebel regions of the country. In contrast, a 10 year old Tunisian refused to play against an Israeli opponent in the World School Chess Championship.

A World Chess Championship title match opens Thursday between defending champion Viswanathan Anand of India and Boris Gelfand of Israel. The contest will take place in the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, Russia and proceed for 12 games over 3 weeks.

The 2012 U.S. Chess Championship and U.S. Women’s Championships started Tuesday in St. Louis. In the former, 12 players are competing in an 11 game round-robin tournament. In the latter, 10 players in a 9 game round-robin.

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Doug Satori has just released version 1.0 of The Game of Gale for the iPad. The game is an abstract strategy game based off the classic game of the same name. Some people may know the game under a different title, as it’s been published by Hasbro under the name Bridg-It.

The goal of the game is to complete a connection of your color from one end of the board to the other. Right now the game supports local multiplayer, and playing against an AI.

It looks pretty interesting, and I’m sure I’ll be giving it a shot soon.

It’s only available for the iPad (no iPhone at this time), and is free in the iTunes Store.

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[source: Daniel Solis]

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This week Kickstarter board game projects will pass the $1 million dollar mark for 2012. This represents half of all of last year. And if we look at the projects that have already passed their funding goal but are still active, there are 25 projects that add an additional $321,733. Giving us a total for the year of $1,245,713.

There is no sign that this is slowing down. If anything, the number of projects and backers will continue to climb as Kickstarter begins to enter into the mainstream. The media is beginning to sense the magnitude of the movement and will drive more awareness and more backers. The board game community will continue to benefit from this influx of interest.

My podcast, Funding the Dream, this past week interviewed Tracy Hickman, co-author of the Dragonlance series. In addition we discussed some of the impact taxes have on a successful Kickstarter project. I also cover my own experience launching a Kickstarter campaign. Be sure to tune in and get a feel for the other side of Kickstarter projects.

All projects new to the list for this week are in bold.

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This week the odds caught up with us, 6 projects failed or were canceled and 6 projects funded. A 50% success rate. But those that succeeded did very well. There was more than $132,000 successfully pledged this week bringing the total for the year to $657,000.

Congratulations to The Presidential Game for setting a new Kickstarter record in the board game category. They currently hold the record for the largest funding goal to successfully fund. They asked for $35,000 and ended up with $38,000+. Unfortunately for them their record will be fleeting. The Deluxe version of Masquerade asked for $50,000 and has already raised more than $75,000 with three days to go. It is within easy reach of the second place funding target for all-time funding as well.

But if Masquerade sets a record for 2nd all-time funding, their record may also be fleeting.  Agents of SMERSH, with 6 days to go, is already at $73,000, within easy striking distance of the $82,000 second place spot as well.

And even Agent of SMERSH needs to be looking over their shoulder as Gunship: First Strike, with 18 days to go is sitting at more than $60,000, within striking distance and capable of catching them all.

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Michael Mindes of Tasty Minstrel Games is giving away some games from his personal collection. Subscribe to the company’s newsletter for a chance to win.

The Simple blog is giving away either Rory’s Story Cubes: Actions or The Scrambled States of America Game Deluxe Edition, both of which are made by Gamewright.

Pandasaurus Games wants help in naming the company’s mascot. The winner of the Name That Pandasaurus Contest will win a lifetime subscription to the company’s games.

Frugal Novice is giving away one of everything from Bananagrams: Bananagrams, Pairs in Pears, Appletters, Zip It, and Fruitominoes.

For 8 more hours, all Adamant Entertainment products are 50% off at DriveThruRPG.

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Winning Moves’ lineup for 2012 includes four products based on classic games and puzzles, plus one word game. The four classic products are:

Tower Challenge, which is based on the Tower of Hanoi puzzle, where different-sized discs are moved from rod to rod but a larger disc can never be put on top of a smaller one;

Scopa, the traditional Italian card game;

Mah Jongg the Chinese tile game but with cards (and endorsed by the American Mah-Jongg Association); and

Brain Blocks, similar to the Soma puzzle except that the sides of the pieces have convex and concave sections such that they lock together.

Winning Moves’ new word game is called Scribbo and plays similar to Bingo. Players take turns calling out letter-number combinations, for example “19-E”. Everyone fills in that numbered square on their score pad with that letter. When the 5×5 grids are filled in, words that have been formed in straight lines score points. However, because each score pad’s grid puts the numbered spaces in different positions, a letter in a good spot for one player may be in a bad spot for another.

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CHH Quality Products makes high end traditional table games—chess, backgammon, mahjong, etc. Among the company’s chess products are dragon, faerie, and knight sets featuring themed pewter pieces and glass boards mounted above poly-resin scenic bases. The company also produces two historical sets of chessmen, one Napoleonic and one Crusade-themed.

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Purple Pawn checked over 8,500 companies  who make money from analog, tabletop games from across the globe to see if they were still operating. We conducted our annual survey of over 6,900 operating companies and received 391 responses. You can download the 18 page report for free here [PDF].

Summary

Over the course of a year, around 7.5% of the companies in our db closed. Single-game game companies, brick-and-mortar retailers, and miniature manufacturers closed at a higher frequency than other companies. Sometimes new retailers open in the same locations as ones that closed.

We received 391 responses from 35 countries and 39 US states. 2011 apparently was much like 2010. Of those companies that didn’t close, the overwhelming majority are doing fine or even better than last year – only 13% report doing worse than last year.

Among the responding retailers, the top performing game lines from last year – MtG, Catan, Dominion, and Warhammer – were the top again this year (and in the same order). Pathfinder products outperformed D&D products by 2 to 1 (last year they were about even).

To participate in future surveys, send your name, company name, website address, and email address to admin@purplepawn.com .

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