Seven Springs, NC: 8 arrested at a high stakes poker game. (source)

Carson City, NV: Caesar’s Palace fined $250,000 for allowing a Baccarat player to dance on the table during a game. (source)

Ahmedabab, India: 14 arrested for gambling on cards. (source)

Memphis, TN: Man shot and robbed while playing dice. (source)

Srinagar, India: Police open fire on men playing a board game, killing an 11 year old boy. (source)

Ogema, MI: One man stabs another twice in the chest in an argument over a card game. (source)

Tahoma, WA: Detectives look into the possible connection between online D&D and murder, since the murderer indicated that he went to relax by playing online D&D after the murder. (source, via)

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The Sun News in Macon pimps the indirect educational values of mainstream board games. (source)

NPR pimps card games, mostly the classics, but also Too Many Cooks. (source)

The NY Times Tech Talk podcast pimps Scrabble Flash and MonopolyRevolution. (source)

The Jewish Chronicle pimps games, including Alfred’s Wyke, Age of Steam, Carcassonne, Power Grid, and The Settlers of Catan. (source)

Meanwhile, more parents diss the iPhone version of Scrabble, because its dictionary includes offensive terms. (source)

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As a reminder, I don’t include card shufflers, sorters, dealers, or trackers, nor lotto or gambling machines, nor electronic-only games unless I find something of particular interest.

System and method for providing online SMS games – Gaming by SMS, including presenting a list of games.

Method for controlling an intensity of an infrared source used to detect objects adjacent to an interactive display surface – By Microsoft, another patent for the Surface.

Gaming apparatus using integrated rollers for game pieces – Checkers, where you can’t lose the pieces:

A similar patent used dials to indicate the pieces; there is a “need” for one with rollers.

Game at cash register – Cantor Fitzgerald again. The abstract describes a simple game to play on your mobile phone when you buy something that might result in the return of your purchase price as a reward.

The patent goes on for 56 pages of incomprehensible text regarding short distance network communication, casinos, and who knows what else.

Board game system utilizing a robot arm – A board game system with a human playing against a robot arm on a touch screen. The touch screen is important, because a) the robot does not need to know how to grasp different sized pieces with interference, and b) it can be reused for any type of game. Assigned to Taiwan Tech.

East-west casino based upon chinese poker deck – Yet another patent by Gamelot for the same item.

Game having an electronic instruction unit with a mechanical die agitator – By Big Monster Toys, a game design shop for the likes of Hasbro and Mattel. An electronically controlled Pop-o-matic, such as included in the game X vs. Y by Techno Source.

Educational restaurant and travel game system – The idea of putting a bunch of small games into a box. Nothing to do with restaurants, etc. It just means some simple games that are handy to play at a restaurant, doctor’s office, etc.

Card game – By Cantor Fitzgerald. A deck of 24 cards, ace to six in four suits, to play dice games. Where do they get these crazy ideas?

Card game – A second patent for the same card fanning gadget. See Feb 09.

Automatic dice shaking system – A second patent for the same dice shaking gadget. See Jun 10.

Game set – New Wave Chess from Paradoxy Products.

Board game with 3D dynamic game play – Looks a heck of a lot like The Game of Life.

But I’m pretty sure that it’s the game Relic Raiders: Haunted Ruins. According to the patent, while there already exist board games with variable paths, and board games with 3D paths, there have never been board games with variable 3D paths. So it’s not obvious.

Proposition wagering card game – A design patent:

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Articulate Your Life is the latest incarnation of the hit game Articulate from Drummond Park. It has a new electronic timer (which gives you a random amount of time) and new categories:

• Getting Away
• Social Life
• Sporting Life
• Home Life
• Entertainment
• Working Life

I can’t seem to find it available anywhere.

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Evil Mad Scientist has put together a wicked cool tabletop touch-screen demonstration of Conway’s Game of Life (which is not actually a game, but whatever). Applications to actual games are obvious.

Read about it at the link and at source.

(source)

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SCVNGR is a location-based mobile service that bills itself as “a game about doing challenges at places.” As the company builds new games for new locations, it encourages its employees to use a deck of cards with game mechanics for inspiration. The 47 cards in the Game Dynamics Playdeck include such concepts as “extinction,” “rolling physical goods,” and “variable ration reward schedule.”

[via TechCrunch]

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It looks like just a concept right now, but if it becomes a reality, that would be awesome for board games on the iPhone. (i)Pawn seems to use different voltage cell-sized batteies to distinguish different playing pieces on the iPhone (I’m guessing iPad too.)

Volumique is working on the app, and has some videos of it in motion here.

The uses of such a technique are limitless in the world of games.  It may even bring back the dreams we had when we heard about the no defunct Philips Entertaible.

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Ex illis from Bastion Studios offers fantasy miniatures war gaming with an online component. The software (which works on a PC, Mac, or iPhone/iPod) tracks each unit’s attributes, lets players know what tactical options are available on their turns, and executes the calculations necessary to resolve combat. It seems that Bastion’s approach was to develop a highly detailed and complex rules system, but couple it with software that would try to make it fun rather than burdensome for the players. The Rule Keeper software also animates combat and allows individual units to benefit from experience. That is, the miniatures level up from one game to the next.

Bastion releases a new unit most months for Ex illis and their latest is The Archangels. The six figures in the box can be assembled as either Evocati or Nephilim (good or evil). When activated with Rule Keeper, the software will record the player’s chosen side.

Also on display at Gen Con but shipping in October was The Emissarius, a towering monster for the battlefield.

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It’s an electronic game, so I’m not entirely sure that it counts, but anyway …

The game is the final project of an MIT course in micro-computing.

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Fantasy Flight Games is planning to release Sid Meier’s Civilization: The Board Game designed by Kevin “Arkham Horror” Wilson.

This is a completely new game, not related to 2002′s Eagle Games’ Sid Meier’s Civilization: The Boardgame, by Glenn Drover, or its crowd-sourced house rules rewrite Civilization CHR.

Nor is it related to 1980′s Civilization by Francis Tresham, or the 1991 rewrite Advanced Civilization by Bruce Harper.

It is, however, related to the video game series which was inspired by / partially based on / coincidentally unrelated to [1] the original Tresham game, and which in turn was the basis for the 2002 game.

[1] Depending on who you believe.

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