The Giveaway Geek is giving away Solar Quest from Universal Toys.

Actualol will be giving away seven games. Watch the next video for details.

Dave Graffam Models has put 100 printable terrain products—buildings, bridges, boxes—on sale for $1 at Wargame Vault.

Mom vs. the Boys is giving away Star Wars Eye Found It from Wonder Forge and BuggaLoop from Ravensburger—one giveaway but prizes, one each, going to two separate winners.

Greater Than Games is launching new deals each weekend in December. This week, it’s a special on The Great Heartland Hauling Co. and other products under the Dice Hate Me Games label.

Toys “R” Us is giving away $1,000 and a Hatchimal from Spin Master every day but only to members of its Rewards “R” Us program who’ve made a purchase that day in-store.

Complete ThinkFun’s Social Media Survey and be entered in a prize drawing. For what, I don’t know. But why not?

For 20% off Columbia Games’ products under $25, use coupon code “santa”.

Suburban Wife City Life is giving away a package of six games, among them titles from Educational Insights, Wonder Forge, and MindWare.

Classy Mommy is giving away three games from Wonder Forge: Stick Stack, Suspicion, and Really Bad Art.

The Board Game Group is giving away The Manhattan Project Energy Empire from Minion Games.

Precis Intermedia has a Holiday Sale with discounts up to 50%.

Cakebread & Walton products at DriveThruRPG are 40-60% off.

From Strat-O-Matic, buy three season rosters and get a fourth free with coupon code “moremoremore”.

Donate to Worldbuilders and for every $10 receive an entry in True Dungeon’s giveaway of a complete set of 2017 tokens (even the ultra-rares).

Character-themed game rugs are on-sale 40% off at Toys “R” Us.

Everything direct from White Wizard Games is 10% off.

Most Werewolf PDF products are 50% off in the Rage Across the Holidays Sale at DriveThruRPG.

The newest deal at Bundle of Holding is for Through the Breach, an RPG set in Wyrd Miniatures’ western-steampunk-horror world of Malifaux. Get the whole shebang (nine books) for under $30.

Emily Reviews is giving away the Disney Princess Electronic Talking Magical Tiara Adventures Game from Wonder Forge.

In its Holiday Sale, Privateer Press is offering special discount pricing on core faction bundles and a buy-two-get-one-free deal on plushies.

In Eagle-Gryphon Games’ Holiday Blowout Sale Part II, discounts are 40-50%.

Get 25% off and free promos from Green Couch Games with promo code “greatlittlegames”.

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The 2016 World Chess Championship in New York ended with Magnus Carlsen of Norway still at the top, though as I watched the match proceed, I was starting to wonder if he had it in him. After seven draw games, the first win went to challenger Sergey Karjakin of Russia. But two games later, Magnus scored a win of his own, and at the end of the 12 regulation games, all was tied. The tie-break rapid games were where Magnus showed his strength. The first two settled on draws but the next two went to the champion. Still, an impressive performance as well by Sergey and a very interesting series of games.

In the women’s Chess circuit, Ju Wenjun of China finished ahead of the Women’s Grand Prix, qualifying her to face Hou Yifan also of China in the 2017 Women’s World Championship.

Chris Cadman of Scotland took home the Silver Perudo Cup trophy of the World Perudo Championship (Liar’s Dice) in London.

The Top Chess Engine Championship was won by Stockfish. The score in the final 100 game match was Stockfish 54.5, Houdini 45.5. In third place was last year’s digital champion, Komodo.

Many Rubik’s Cube world records have fallen recently:

• The standard 3×3 was solved by Mats Valk in 4.74 seconds at the Jawa Timur Open in Indonesia. His record didn’t last long, though. Feliks Zemdegs beat it by one one-hundredths of a second (4.73 seconds total) at the POPS Open in Australia.
• At Melbourne Cube Days, Feliks Zemdegs also solved a 5×5 in 41.27 seconds.
• At the Shanghai Winter, Kaijun Lin broke three blindfold world records, solving a 3×3 in 18.50 seconds; a 4×4 in 2 minutes, 2.49 seconds; and a 5×5 in 4 minutes, 46.74 seconds. Two of those didn’t last long either. Roman Strakhov did a 5×5 blindfolded in 4 minutes, 42.06 seconds at the Finnish Championship. And Kijun Lin bested himself in the 4×4 blindfolded, solving it in 1 minutes, 41.90 seconds at the Bid ‘n Blind in Guangzhou, China.

The team from Greece won the World Magic: The Gathering Cup surpassing other top 8 finalist teams from Finland, Australia, Ukraine, Panama, Belarus, and Belgium.

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Chris Gral, the vice president of marketing for Visit Indy, announced that Gen Con will remain in Indianapolis through 2021 “and beyond”. Gen Con, the world’s largest analog gaming convention, had been looking at other cities to host the event after the current contract expires in 2020. “As Gen Con has grown, Indianapolis has grown,” Gral said. “We would have been devastated if another city had gained their business, so there’s a sense of honor, a sense of pride and a sense of relief that Gen Con is committing to Indianapolis.”

Gen Con’s estimated impact on the city is approximately $71 million. The Future Farmers of America convention, also with approximately the same attendance (estimated 60,000 to Gen Con 2016’s 60,819), has about half the impact on the city, according to former Indianapolis mayor Greg Ballard.

Gen Con 2017, the 50th anniversary of the convention, will be held on August 17-20, in Indianapolis, Indiana.

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Today, Dungeons & Dragons, the swing, and Fisher-Price Little People were inducted in to the National Toy Hall of Fame in Rochester, New York. Each year, the Hall of Fame at The Strong’s National Museum of Play recognizes two or three toys for longevity, innovation, achieving icon status, and fostering discovery.

Regarding D&D, Curator Nic Ricketts was quoted:

More than any other game, Dungeons & Dragons paved the way for older children and adults to experience imaginative play. It was groundbreaking. And it opened the door for other kinds of table games that borrow many of its unique mechanics. But most importantly, Dungeons & Dragons’ mechanics lent themselves to computer applications, and it had a direct impact on hugely successful electronic games like World of Warcraft.

Past inductees include the Barbie dolls, Chess, the Atari 2600 Game System, Lincoln Logs, the rubber duck, Slinky, Twister, and other toys and games.

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You can now snag the Early Access of Smash Up on Steam for free. You’ll have access to the Dinosaurs, Ninjas, and Geeks in the standard version, while you can purchase the Zombies and Aliens separately for $2 each. There’s also a Start Pack for $9 that includes the Zombies and Aliens for now, but will add 4 more factions later once they’re released.

I’m at work right now, so I haven’t had a chance to give this a shot. I’ll make sure I post a bit more once I have a chance to really dig it.

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ABC Television and Mattel are partnering on a new competition TV series, The Toy Box, scheduled to premier in the 2016-2017 season. The show will feature toy designers developing their inventions through a series of trials. Judges on the show will be children.

Mattel says it’ll have the winning toy design in stores for the airing of the final episode.

[via Broadway World]

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University Games is running a speed contest for Rubik’s Race, remote via recorded video. The contestant who submits the fastest game wins a prize package of Rubik’s stuff.

Buy something from Len Peralta’s web store or contribute to his Patreon campaign and he’ll enter you in to a drawing for a bunch of Munchkin games that he’s illustrated.

Paizo is selling some Titanic Games at steep discounts, including for example, Key Largo at 88% off. Indications are, though, that the sale may be just for today.

The prize for October in Game Salute’s monthly giveaway is  a copy of Black Orchestra. To enter, tell the company what historic event would make a good basis for a game. But beware, try to come up with something unique. Duplicated suggestions will be disqualified.

Tokens in Australia’s The Advertiser and Sunday Mail starting October 15th can be used to purchase mini versions of Hasbro board games, and a collector’s box, for $3.50 each.

Get free tombstone and coffin tokens with the purchase of Bring Out Yer Dead from Upper Deck.

Get a free Halloween Munchkin Monster Box with a purchase of $125 from Steve Jackson Games’ Warehouse 23.

EverythingBoardGames is giving away Clank! from Renegade Game Studios and three copies of Oh My Sheep! from Canvas Studio.

NSKN is giving away copies of Shadowscape, some to visitors at Essen and some to those at home.

Sign up for a Toys “R” Us credit card and get 15% off the first purchase and then 10% off in-store every Thursday.

Running at Bundle of Holding is a deal for Penumbra, the d20 fantasy setting from Atlas Games.

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A group from France beat out a field of 64 teams to win the Hide-and-Seek World Championship. The event was held in the abandoned town of Consonno, Italy.

In one game at the Chess Olympiad in Baku, Azerbaijan, Dana Reizniece-Ozola defeated the Women’s World Champion, Hou Yifan, despite being ranked 400 Elo points lower. Dana is no stranger to such lofty achievements, however. At 34 years of age, she is a longtime Chess competitor , holds graduate degrees in Translation & Terminology and Business Administration (in addition to further graduate studies in Law, International Business, and Aerospace Management), can speak six languages, and is also the Finance Minister of Latvia.

Grandmaster Timur Gareyev broke the world record for consecutive games of blindfold Chess. In fact, most of the 64 games (54 wins, 8 losses, 2 draws) he played while pedaling an exercise bicycle.

After declaring Monopoly an official sport, the Lagos State Sport Commission of Nigeria hosted a world record 1,300 people playing Monopoly at the same time in a single venue. That achievement was recorded at the state’s Under-17 Monopoly Championship, where also Elizabeth Braimoh of Top Field College took home the trophy and a NGN600,000 education grant prize (about $2,000).

Eight winners secured second interviews at an annual Mahjong tournament meant as a job recruiting event for university students in Japan.

At the Asian Rubik’s Cube Championship in Beijing, Kevin Hays of the United States solved a 6×6 Rubik’s Cube in a world record 1 minutes, 32.77 seconds.

Not for speed, Tony Fisher demonstrated in a video solving the world’s smallest Rubik’s Cube (5.6 mm on a side). To get one so small, he had a 6 mm one 3D printed by Shapeways and then filed it down further.

Among the activities that Cem Karabay of Turkey kept himself busy with during a world-record scuba dive of 142 hours, 42 minutes, and 42 seconds were underwater games of Backgammon.

Allan Silva of Brazil has won his fourth consecutive Pan American Draughts Championship.

The North American Scrabble Championship and a $10,000 prize was won by David Gibson, who in the final defeated his opponent 397-371 with words such as “drearies”, “serrano”, orcinols”, and “spelter” (none of which are recognized by my spell-checker).

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The National Toy Hall of Fame at The Strong National Museum of Play has announced 12 finalists for potential induction in the class of 2016. The finalists are:

• Bubble Wrap
• Care Bears
• Coloring Book
• Clue
• Dungeons & Dragons
• Fisher Price Little-People
• Nerf
• Pinball
• Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots
• Swing
• Transformers
• Uno

Final selection of inductees will be made by a national advisory committee and the results announced November 10th. Usually 2-3 are chosen. Criteria include:

• Icon-status—the toy is widely recognized, respected, and remembered.
• Longevity—the toy is more than a passing fad and has enjoyed popularity over multiple generations.
• Discovery—the toy fosters learning, creativity, or discovery through play.
• Innovation—the toy profoundly changed play or toy design.

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We’ve known it’s been coming for a while, but Hasbro has finally announced the launch of Beyblade Burst. The new line has already been released in Canada, with a US release hitting shelves in January of 2017. The Beyblade Burst app for iOS and Android has been released in both territories, and is free to download. Launches for Europe, Latin America and certain other markets to follow in 2017.

The new animated series is created by production company OLM and includes new characters, stories and dramatic battles. The series will air in Canada beginning Saturday, September 10 at 3pm on Teletoon with other broadcast deals to be announced.

Beyblade Burst features a new “bursting” element to Bey battles where a Bey can burst apart during play. Having played with the Takara Tomy imports for about a year or so, I can say it’s a very exciting game mechanic.

More info to come as I get it.

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