First the sales…

Geek Chic is running a virtual tent sale for orphaned orders, factory seconds, and show pieces. You can get their amazing furniture at significantly reduced prices. Unfortunately, the company is too busy to post the list of available pieces on the web site and I don’t have room for it here. If you’re interested, I suggest emailing them.

Mongoose is unloading out-of-print items from the warehouse at reduced prices, including RPG books and miniatures.

War games are on sale at GMT.

Also for the war gamers, the C4 Corner Cutter is on sale through Labor Day.

Now, the giveaways…

The NewbieDM blog is giving away a copy of the Red Box Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set. Standard comment-or-tweet requirements.

Myriad Games is giving away games to Facebook fans every Friday.

North Star Games is also giving away games on Facebook, monthly for meeple photo submissions.

Big Daddy’s Creations is running a contest for Neuroshima Hex on the iPhone/iPad. Ten people who solve the puzzle will get promotional codes for free downloads.

Aspiring game designer, Michael R. Keller, wants a logo for his venture, Visible Hand Games. He’ll give one prototype game now and one published game later to a selected designer.

Thomas McDonald’s State of Play blog has Bicycle Poker Playing Cards and Dice to give away.

Cincinnati Coupons is giving away Education Outdoors’ Camp Board Game Travel Edition and S’mores Card Game. Every method of following is another entry.

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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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My newfound interest in Lock N Load Games continues, this time with Operation Garbo.

Operation Garbo is an expansion to World at War, so you’ll need either World at War: Eisenbach Gap or World at War: Blood and Bridges to play it. The expansion incudes six scenarios and comes with 2 11″x17″ maps, 176 counters, the rules, and a “nifty” ziplock bag to store it all :)

You get Swedish and British forces with it, and I’m totally becoming a sucker for all this.

It won’t be long before I finally place an order for SOMETHING at Lock N Load.

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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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Call Me Capable is from the fine line of educational games by Franklin Learning Systems. It was first published in 2002 by Carol Leish, who is no stranger to overcoming disabilities, having suffered speech and vision problems since a car crash (hit by a drunk driver) when she was a young child.

It’s in the genre of “pick a card and discuss your feelings”. Carol has developed motivational presentations to go along with the game.

(source, info)

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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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No, it’s not exactly another version of Monopoly (like the new The Rolling Stones edition), and it’s not related to a Mobopoly released in 2005.

The board is a city map with subways and places of business, and you control a mob boss and any number of thugs. MOBopoly, by sggc Creative Strategic Games, is a roll-and-move and pick a card game at heart, but it also has combat with a CRT and various area control elements.

(da rulez)

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Re-Tally-8, “created by a team of academics and technical advisors” and published by the oddly-named sggc Microcompanion Marketing, is yet another tile-laying numbers game where the object is to make legal equations within a grid.

Several bonus tiles and other bonus points rules give players of different math abilities an equal chance to score highly (so long as those poorly skilled in math are at least slightly skilled in strategy).

Promo video:

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Invasion From Outer Space, by Jason Hill from Flying Frog Productions, uses the same game engine as their previous effort Last Night On Earth. The two games can actually be used in tandem, with your martians invading your zombies, and vice versa.

Comes with a spooky CD.

Here’s a look at the components, which is what you’re really interested in, anyway.

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Colormonsters by sggc Art of Life Plus is a Settlers-like game in mechanics, though quite different in theme.

Grow and move your monster to collect various gems which you can trade in for action cards and gold; 7 gold wins the game. Each round, the dice determine which gems repopulate. When gems are eaten, rubble remains on the board, impeding movement and growth. [1]

The theme is cute, and there are pictures and a review over at Hiew’s blog.

[1] This game has a number of board elements and mechanics that are strikingly similar to a game I was working on about two years ago. It’s a complete coincidence, since I haven’t actually talked about the game with anyone, but it goes to show you how different designers can come up with similar ideas independently (and there are still many differences in our designs, too.)

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