Classic board games are games played before 1900 or so, such as chess, go, backgammon, dice, dominoes, and pachisi.


On Wednesday, The Strong in Rochester, New York announced its list of finalists for this year’s induction in to the National Toy Hall of Fame. The group includes four games, as well as a variety of toys, branded and generic:

  • American Girl dolls
  • chalk
  • Chutes & Ladders
  • Magic 8 Ball
  • Fisher-Price Corn Popper
  • Masters of the Universe
  • pinball
  • sled
  • Tic-Tac-Toe
  • Tickle Me Elmo
  • Tudor Electric Football
  • Uno

Final inductees will be announced November 8th but through the 19th of this month, the public can contribute to the selection by voting online collectively one of the 23 member committee.

Among the previous 65 inductees are playing cards, jump rope, Dungeons & Dragons, Monopoly, Mr. Potato Head, roller skates, Barbie, and Scrabble.

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Game Bandit - Scouring the net to find the cheapest discount boardgames and best free boardgame prizesThe Humble Digital Tabletop Bundle features a number of derived-from-tabletop digital games, including Ticket to Ride, Sentinels of the Multiverse, Mysterium, Pathfinder Adventures, Carcassonne, and Talisman.

Save 50% on admission to the Chicago Toy & Game Fair via Groupon.

Tinkerbot Games is selling Ghostel for 20% off with free worldwide shipping this month. Use coupon code “PURPLE20” to get the discount and Purple Pawn will get a small bounty too!

Save 25% on Hasbro games at Target with promo code “HASBRO25”.

Board Game Exposure is giving away a pledge level for Eagle-Gryphon’s Infamous Kickstarter project.

Marco Arnaudo is giving away Raids from Iello.

In honor of Labor Day, all of Gypsy Knights Games’ Clement Sector products with character-building elements are 30% off at DriveThruRPG.

Also at DriveThruRPG, there’s a sale on d100 system products.

To save 15% on orders of $100 or more in Litko’s Labor Day Sale, use coupon code “LABOR2018”.

Through Tuesday, save 25% at Miniature Market on discontinued games Arcane Legions, Golem Arcana, and AT-43.

A bundle of 3E and 4E Eberron products at Dungeon Masters Guild is currently 53% off.

Bundle of Holding is offering a deal on the Beasts & Barbarians campaign setting for Savage Worlds.

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There seems like there is no end in site to the boom of IP games. Power Rangers: Heroes of the Grid Board Game is a 2-5 player co-operative game. Based on the hit kids T.V. which ran longer than you think it did (it’s still on T.V. now). Base on the original team, you will be tasked with defending Angel Grove from Rita Repulsa and her foot soldiers. Each Ranger comes with a unique combat deck representing their particular skills and fighting style which makes each character unique. In each game, you’ll protect four combat zones that are being targeted. Every round enemies will invade these zones, and your mission is to defeat them. With six days to go this Kickstarter is shy of $500,000. You can fund the game here.

Crazier Eights: One Thousand & One Nights is a card game based on the premise of crazy eights. I know your scrolling down on this already, but hear me out. Players take turns drawing a card, discarding a card, and playing a card for an effect. The first player with zero cards wins. Despite being light in nature, two things make this game shine, the asset cards and the art. The asset cards can give you special powers or even change the end game conditions. And the art is AMAZING! There have been a couple of versions of this game (first edition, Camelot) and the art is always incredible. The price point is $14 and can be found here.

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One of several world-record domino felling attempts over the weekend in Nidda, Germany was ruined by a fly. Other records, including ones for largest wall and largest spiral, were achieved. However, a setup of mini-dominoes fell prematurely when a fly landed on one of the pieces. Not enough time was available before the scheduled event to reset the mini-dominoes, a process that requires the use of tweezers.

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Gamers near Plano, Texas have an opportunity to practice their crafting skills with Goliath Games. The company is looking for a part-time Prototype Maker.

The U.S. Chess Federation is searching for an experienced Director of Development. A new position with the organization, the Director of Development’s role will be to “create and implement a comprehensive development plan for short- and long-term revenue growth in support of the US Chess mission.”

WizKids is looking for an experienced Product Manager in Hillside, New Jersey to develop long term plans, develop packaging, and interface with operations on the company’s unpainted miniatures line.

Ludo Fact needs Machine Operators and Assemblers for board game manufacturing in Lafayette, Indiana.

For production of miniatures, Privateer Press needs a Metal Caster in Bellevue, Washington.

Topps has multiple openings at its locations in New York City and Scranton, Pennsylvania, among them a New Product Development Associate with drawing and modeling skills and a Brand Manager for non-sports entertainment properties.

Hasbro’s 100+ openings include:

TCGplayer has numerous openings in Syracuse, New York and Atlanta, Georgia. Lots for Software Engineers and Product Engineers. Also for finance and data analytics and shipping. Two individual positions are worth highlighting, though. There’s one for a Digital Marketing Manager to be responsible for online marketing campaigns. And the company is looking for a General Manager of Seller Services, who will be a member of the executive leadership team and responsible for the company’s line of business supplying software tools to retailers.

ACD Distribution has several warehouse opportunities in Middleton, Wisconsin and Fresno, California. Also sales positions in Wisconsin.

Alliance Game Distributors is looking to hire a Sales Specialist in Roseville, Minnesota, specifically to work with Asmodee North America. The company also has openings for a Sales Trainee and an Administrative Assistant at its home offices in Maryland.

Asmodee North America, itself, is recruiting for a Trade Marketing Manager to support the sales team with PR, media relations, trade shows, and merchandising.

Games Workshop has many openings for retail work at various locations worldwide, also for a variety positions at headquarters in Nottingham, UK, including:

Gamerati in DuPont, Washington is looking to hire a full-time Social Content Creator/Community Manager for the company’s services to game publishers.

Board game-related freelance jobs posted on Upwork include:

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The Broken Token will begin shipping this week a series of modular dice tower kits, each with a unique thematic design, including stairs, bones, pachinko, and others. The modules can be mixed and matched for a single dice tower up to several feet high.

One module even has a dice-shaming cage, so poor performing dice will have to watch their fellows tumble by.

On the backside, each module has a cutout for wall-mounting. And two bases are available, one standard in which the dice roll to the front when the tower is on a table, and one side-mounted so it doesn’t stick out when hanging on the wall.

Prices for the individual kits range from $10-22.

The Broken Token currently lists five tumbling sections for sale. Others will be listed soon, including a clockwork section with moving gears.

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Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan has presented that country’s People’s Honor Award to two board game champions, Mr. Yoshiharu Habu and Mr. Yuta Iyama. Habu secured the lifetime Ryou title and is the first to have earned all seven major titles in Shogi, or Japanese Chess. Iyama is ninth-dan ranked in Go and last year secured the seven major Japanese titles of that game for the second time.

The People’s Honor Award has been given now 26 times since 1977, recognizing achievement in sports, entertainment, and culture.

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Game Bandit - Scouring the net to find the cheapest discount boardgames and best free boardgame prizesMongoose has a major Traveller sale under way at DriveThruRPG. Discounts are 33-80% off.

Gypsy Knights Games is also running a sale on Traveller material, to celebrate the company’s seventh birthday.

Another sale running at DriveThruRPG is the BAMFsies Sale, celebrating superhero titles.

Superheroes are also featured in Bundle of Holding’s Heroes Unlimited offer from Palladium Books, while another offer at the site features Ulisses Spiele’s English-language translation, The Dark Eye.

Victory Point Games is selling everything at 10% off (except for Darkest Night products) in celebration of Valentine’s Day.

Giveaways:

At Amazon, Starship Merchants from Toy Vault is 71% off and Bloodsuckers from Fireside Games is 59% off.

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Today marks 10 years since Yehuda Berlinger posted the first article on Purple Pawn, a brief story about board games mentioned in the Sally Forth comic strip. I hope in that time that you’ve felt informed and entertained. We’ve tried our best to make a positive contribution. With 8,370 articles published so far!

Purple Pawn presents a unique voice in the game field, covering all types of tabletop games—board games, card games, collectibles, roleplaying games, war games, miniatures, and more. Games with modern movie tie-ins and traditional games played by generations. Games for the dedicated hobbyist, as well as the casual gamer.

Of course we report news of product releases but we also work hard to document the business side of the game industry, provide tips to the game consumer, and highlight the significant role that games play in culture and society.

Purple Pawn would not exist if not for the vision and guidance of its founder, Yehuda Berlinger. Thank you, Yehuda, for letting me keep it going when you decided to move on to other game-related endeavors!

Thank you also to our various contributors over the years: Ben Clark, Thomas Deeny, K.C. Lee, Lory Gilpatric, Phil Kilcrease, Randy Snyder, Richard Bliss, Josh Street, Rob Kalajian, Sam Mercer, and Tracy Tang! In the early days it was Yehuda as the snarky commentator, Josh as the fanboy, and me as the straight-man. Ben provided an amazing inside look at the business side of games with the Paper Money podcast. Sam gave us some cool graphics. Rob—who, other than Yehuda and I, was with Purple Pawn the longest—was of tremendous support to me personally, did a wonderful job of covering the independent publishers, and also solved many technical problems behind the scenes. Thomas, who is still with Purple Pawn, has an amazing knack for identifying the hot trends and controversies.

And of course, thank you to our readers!

As I reported before, board and card games have been known to cause seizures. But are board games also a factor in physical injuries?

According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, the answer is yes. Based on reports to the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS), there were an estimated 28,000 game-related hospital emergency room visits between 2012-2016. Another 38,000 visits were specifically associated with marbles.

About half the patients were children under 10 years of age. And in approximately 10 percent of cases, the patients were admitted following initial treatment.

The most common types of injuries involved:

  • Infants and toddlers swallowing game pieces.
  • Stepping or slipping on game pieces left on the floor.
  • Dealing playing cards or rolling dice that end up hitting people in the eye.
  • Wrist sprains from slapping cards down on the table.
  • Games that fall off the shelf and hit people in the head.
  • Dizziness and back pain from sitting too long.
  • Numbness, bursitis, or pain in the arms, neck, and shoulders from long hours of playing and dealing cards.
  • Falling off one’s chair.

However, some of the more unusual reports include:

  • “11 year old female slipped on a playing card and slid down 20 stairs on butt”
  • “2 year old female with a plastic bone in nose from the game Operation”
  • “3 year old female was choking; swallowed one of the little plastic balls that the Hippos eat”
  • “8 year old male fell onto Jenga game blocks and hit his mouth; there was damage to hardwood floor”
  • “16 year old female; patient was home playing <REDACTED>; hit nose onto boyfriend’s knee; diagnosis nasal trauma with [nose bleed]”
  • “Foreign body pubic region; 36 year old male embedded domino in penis ‘to please the ladies'”
  • “45 year old white female at home having rough sex and playing naked <REDACTED>; partner’s knee hit patient’s elbow; diagnosis elbow dislocation”
  • “42 year old male, 1 year ago carved down piece of domino, incised penis, inserted domino piece into penis; now wants it removed”
  • “42 year old male hit in head with Jenga block playing and now has closed head injury”
  • “19 year old male complaining of shoulder pain after doing extreme motions playing Charades at home tonight; diagnosis dislocation right shoulder”
  • “51 year old male with abrasions to scrotum; notes was sitting down playing cards for hours”
  • “32 year old male playing a game and jumped up hitting light fixture to head; diagnosis lacerated scalp”
  • “13 year old female was dancing on a table when she slipped on a board game and fell and injured her right foot”

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