Translation Party! - The Game Quiz (Answers)

If you want to play, go to the original post before reading the answers.

Translation Party! Game Quiz (Answers)

1. Get - ACQUIRE
2. Bad touch - A TOUCH OF EVIL
3. Hooks and crooks - BY HOOK OR BY CROOK
4. Manic Channel - CANAL MANIA
5. Chikinchachacha - CHICKEN CHA CHA CHA
6. Cause of the Universe - COSMIC ENCOUNTER
7. Drop: Dark Tour - DESCENT: JOURNEYS IN THE DARK
8. Banihamu the needs of the Devil - DEVIL BUNNY NEEDS A HAM
9. Foreign - DIPLOMACY
10. Town dying - DICE TOWN
11. Control: conspiracy - DOMINION: INTRIGUE
12. Erugurande - EL GRANDE
13. Social - HIGH SOCIETY
14. Hyundai - MODERN ART
15. Mutation: Castle Siege - MUTANT CHRONICLES: SIEGE OF THE CITADEL
16. The plot of the Queen - QUEEN'S GAMBIT
17. Gyarakushiresu - RACE FOR THE GALAXY
18. Role, through the Middle Ages - ROLL THROUGH THE AGES
19. Snow Fairy - SNOW TAILS
20. Warning capacity - SPACE ALERT
21. Neolithic - STONE AGE
22. Iron flow - TIDE OF IRON
23. The Night of Power - TWILIGHT IMPERIUM
24. Crucible - WITCH OF SALEM
25. Bet wisdom - WITS AND WAGERS

Viva Buymoria

Not only is CHUCK coming back early (January 10th!) but NBC has ordered 6 more episodes (for a total of 19). For more details, check out the video below and The Ausiello Files blog over on Entertainment Weekly's website.

I could not be happier right now.

Video Recaps | Full Episodes | Webisodes

Translation Party! - The Game Quiz

Thanks to Wei-Hwa, I started playing around with Translation Party!...  and came up with a way to entertain ourselves while all the BGG.con folks are gone. Here's what he said about it:

For translation back-and-forth fun, http://translationparty.com/ is strangely addictive. You put in a phrase and it puts it back-and-forth into Google Translate to Japanese and back, until it "stabilizies." I once put in a bunch of different quotes and created an "identify the original quotes" puzzle: http://onigame.livejournal.com/43395.html

I really liked his puzzle... and got inspired to create one of my own! 

Translation Party! Game Quiz
Figure out the names of these "translated" games.

1. Get
2. Bad touch
3. Hooks and crooks
4. Manic Channel
5. Chikinchachacha
6. Cause of the Universe
7. Drop: Dark Tour
8. Banihamu the needs of the Devil
9. Foreign
10. Town dying
11. Control: conspiracy
12. Erugurande
13. Social
14. Hyundai
15. Mutation: Castle Siege
16. The plot of the Queen
17. Gyarakushiresu
18. Role, through the Middle Ages
19. Snow Fairy
20. Warning capacity
21. Neolithic
22. Iron flow
23. The Night of Power
24. Crucible
25. Bet wisdom

Here's the clues:

• The answers are in alphabetical order.
• The really difficult one is NOT an obscure game.
• There is one game that is listed by the least common name out of multiple editions... sorry.
• The number of words is not necessarily equivalent to the number of words in the original game name.

I'll post the answers tomorrow in a separate thread. Good luck!

Kid Games Review: Hungry Wolves

Hungry Wolves (Würfelwölfe)

• designer: Marco Teubner
• publisher: Haba
• date: 2009
• BoardGameGeek rank/rating: not ranked/7.50
• age: 5+
• # of players: 2-4
• print status: in print
• cost: $12.59 (maukilo.com)

One of my favorite Haba games from 2008 was the delightful push-your-luck dice game, Cheese Snatching, which was part of the "Bring-Along" line from Haba. ("Bring-Along" is Haba-ese for "small yellow box that's slightly larger than a paperback book.") So when I saw that Haba was doing another dice game, I was very excited.

Hungry Wolves isn't a push-your-luck game, however... it's a real-time race, complete with player making animal noises & rushing about the room like, well, hungry wolves. It's also an absolute blast to play.

Each player gets a single custom die & a wooden dog. The board is put together (it's a 4 piece puzzle - it's not daunting, ok? My 4 year old can do it) and the dogs are placed on the track at an equal distance from each other. (A nice touch from the folks at Haba: the board is double sided. One side is for 2 players & the other side is for 3-4 players.) The sheep counters are placed next to the board... or, if you're the Jackson family, they're placed on the sheep pictures on the board, because that's the way Collin likes it.

At an agreed-upon signal (you can yell "Go!" or shake your fists a la Rock/Paper/Scissors while saying "Woof! Woof! Woof!"), all the players begin rolling their dice & doing the appropriate action:

• If a player rolls a dog, he says "Woof!" and moves his dog one space forward.
• If a player rolls a sheep, he says "Baa!" and does not move.
• If a player rolls a wolf, he runs around the table. (Or, if space is tight, he stands up & spins around.)

Players roll & do their various actions simultaneously... and as quickly as possible. There are no turns, per se... as fast as you can roll, make animal noises & do whatever you're supposed to do, you can roll again.

When one of the dogs catches up to another dog, the player yells "Stop!" and the round ends. The player who ended the round gets a sheep token and the game is reset for another round of controlled mayhem. The first player to get three sheep tokens wins the game.

It is as loud & crazy as you can imagine... and kids as young as 4 can easily join in the fun. What's unusual with Hungry Wolves is that it works as well with 2 players as it does with 3 or 4 - typically, raucous "run around the table" games don't work as well with smaller numbers of players.

As always, games like this come with the standard "don't play in a room full of collectible knickknacks or valuable electronics" warning. Of course, I think that's a feature, not a bug.

Kid Games Review: At Full Throttle

At Full Throttle

• designer: Robert Fraga
• publisher: Haba
• date: 2009
• BoardGameGeek rank/rating: not ranked/6.43
• age: 5+
• # of players: 2-4
• print status: in print
• cost: $8.99 (maukilo.com)

Robert Fraga, the designer of At Full Throttle, is the Genius of Real-Time Gaming. He's the mad scientist behind Treasure, Ready, Go!, Dancing Eggs, Squad Seven & Trotofant. (For the non-gamers in the audience, "real time" games are those in which players are racing against each other simaltaneously. A common real-time game that a lot of non-gamers know is Double Solitaire, also known as Dutch Blitz or Ligretto.)

This time around, Mr. Fraga manages to wring an excellent little game from 14 cards, a color die & six tiny wooden cars. (There are actually 2 different fourteen card decks in the game - but you only use one at at time.) The colors on the die match the color of the six cars... and the pictures of the cars on each of the cards. Every card has 3 pairs of cars attached by squiggly lines that cross each other.

For each round, three cards (or more, if you're playing with the difficulty ramped up) are turned face up, then the color die is rolled. Starting on the leftmost card, players find the car that matches the color die & trace the line (mentally!) to the next car. Once they've found that car, they jump to the next card & trace the path from that car to the next car. Repeat that one more time... but when a player finds to the final car, he grabs the corresponding wooden car from the middle of the table.

The player who is correct gets one of the track cards to show that he has won a round... then you deal three new cards, roll the die & you're off to the races again. The first player to win three rounds wins the game.

Following a dashed line isn't difficult... or at least it shouldn't be difficult. But the time pressure & the competition conspire against my brain and I jump lines or mistake colors or just basically have a couple of synapses blow out, thus giving my son the opening he needs to beat me.

Once you've mastered the basic skills needed to play the game, you can move up to the second deck of cards, where the lines are MUCH more twisty. You can also play with longer races (more cards in the tableau).

The age recommendation (5+) seems spot on - my 4 year old thinks the cars look cool but otherwise doesn't enjoy this, while my 8 year old enjoys beating his old man and chortling about it. I especially like how portable it is - it's in a smaller box to start with & could easily be transferred to a baggie to make a great "waiting somewhere" game.

The Origins Project

Ancient Text. Present Context. Future Textures.

“For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God…” (Acts 5:38-39 NIV)

Our Passions: Jesus, Humanity, and Innovation

• Jesus: Jesus and the inspired Scriptures are our guide for everything we do.
• Humanity: God's extreme love for people infuses this mission with urgency.
• Innovation: Creativity will be normative for our mission.

First major Origins event - Los Angeles, July 22-24 2010

We have a date for our first major Origins event. It will be in Los Angeles on July 22-24, 2010. We will be announcing more details, but this will be an event that will be more of a festival than a "conference". It will have times of teaching, sharing, art, film, music, spoken word, poetry, think tanks, creating and dreaming together about the mission of Jesus and how we can be fully engaged in the world for the sake of others. We will be sharing more in the months ahead, but wanted to announce the date and place. (information from the Origins newsletter)

I've had the privilege over the years to know & learn from the folks & the churches at the heart of this community - and they mean what they say. I can't recommend connecting into this highly enough - check out The Origins Project.

Monday Morning Download

Need to be working - have a sermon to write on generosity as well as small group curriculum to pick & leaders to recruit - but I need to download some random thoughts/observations from my brain to "clear the tracks" before any of that can happen.

• I'm concerned that the whole Hidden Immunity Idol thing may have gone completely off the tracks (game-wise) on Survivor... but I can't argue that it's bad television. Thursday night's Tribal Council was a hoot & a half.
• Don't want to spoil The Amazing Race for you - but travel & stress are not bringing out the best in Sam & Dave. This has been a great season, BTW - we're going into the final four with only one team (the aforementioned brothers) that I don't particularly like.
• Speaking of the The Amazing Race, Linda Holmes (formerly known as "Miss Alli" over on TWOP) is recapping this season on her blog, Things What Things. (It's a "thank you" to folks who donated generously to an education website.) She is still the best recapper around.
• My life is not just TV... though watching the Green Bay/Cowboys game did occupy a chunk of my time yesterday. Watching it also caused me to wonder if there was a rip in the fabric of time & space - the 2- 6 Titans smacked down the Bills while the 6-2 Cowboys rolled over & played dead for the Cheeseheads.
• Braeden & I got in the next battle in our Battle Masters campaign. Braeden managed to finally kill my Ogre Champion, but I still won the battle and am left once again with 7 elite squads. With the score 2-0, the next battle has a "fog of war" start which should be interesting.
• Shari & I saw The Time Traveler's Wife at the $3 movie theater on Saturday night. (Thank you once again to Anna & Chris for letting the boys have a sleepover with Canaan.) The movie raises more questions that it answers... and, like all time travel stories, has some pretty big plot holes. Still, the premise is interesting enough for Shari & I both to want to read the book.
• Yet another quote for the National Outreach Convention: "Maturity is not based on age or experience but on the willingness to obey Jesus." (paraphrased from Eric Michael Bryant)

Kid Game Review: Can You See What I See?

Can You See What I See?

• designer: Brian S. Spence, Garrett J. Donner & Michael S. Steer
• publisher: Gamewright
• date: 2009
• BoardGameGeek rank/rating: not ranked/6.83
• age: 4+
• # of players: 2-6
• print status: in print
• cost: $14.07 (Amazon)

Good games for younger kids are hard to come by. Most of them are simple memory variants or spin'n'move (or roll'n'move) games, gussied up with some kind of licensed tie-in.I'm happy that while Can You See What I See? is a licensed tie-in (to the book series by Walter Wick), it doesn't feel like standard kid game fare. At the same time, it's simple enough for small kids to join in & play right along with everyone else at the table.

The game is easy to learn. Each player is dealt 10 "Keep Me" cards, each of which have 4-5 overlapping objects pictured on them. (With two players, each player gets 12 "Keep Me" cards.) Then you turn over the top tile in the "Find Me" deck, which has one object on it. Players who have that object on one or more of their "Keep Me" cards get to discard them. The first player to discard all of their cards wins.

I know what you're thinking... I can hear your thoughts shooting through the Internet. (Either that, or I left a podcast running on my iTunes.) Seriously, I know that doesn't sound like much. But my 4 year old son asks for it on a regular basis... and my wife & I actually enjoy playing it with him.

I have some theories about why this works as well as it does:

• It is really well-made. Games published here in the USA (esp. those for kids) tend to be made out of flimsy cardboard & cheap cardstock. The cards & tiles here are thick and beautifully printed.
• It is not terribly difficult to find the various objects... but does require a little bit of work from younger players. The designers have wisely calibrated that difficulty so that kids have the joy of discovery without the frustration of not being able to play well.
• Honestly, it's a Bingo variant... and, though Bingo is barely a game, it's easy to enjoy the tension of "will the number I need be drawn next?" That's the heart of Can You See What I See?
• Another excellent bit of design - the game is short enough to invite multiple plays in one sitting.

The game also includes a set of advanced rules, in which player have hands of tiles and claim cards from a central tableau. There's a little more "game" with these rules, but I think the game really shines with the base game & younger players.

The Chaos Army Is On the March!

I recently traded Martin Wallace's Mordred (not a bad game, mind you, but one I wasn't playing much) for a copy of Stephen Baker's Battle Masters... which has some flaws (the insanely random nature of the card draw/order system, for example) but is an absolute hoot to play. The huge plastic battle map and the truckload of plastic miniatures & flags make it a major "toy soldier" experience. (This is, BTW, the second time I've owned Battle Masters - I sold my original copy some years back because it was so hard to transport. Dumb, Mark, very dumb.)

You may be unaware of the designer, Stephen Baker - but he's become a hero of mine... this is one of the main guys behind Heroscape as well as Battle Ball, Risk - Lord of the Rings & Die Schlacht der Dinosaurier (The Battle of the Dinosaur Riders). If you love plastic miniature combat games, this is your guy.

Of course, Braeden (my 8 year old) instantly fell in love - we played a couple of games to get the hang of it and then we began the campaign. The first battle was actually fought to a stalemate - Braeden managed to kill all of my figures but my Ogre Champion before the aforementioned Ogre finished off his troops. However, the Ogre can't occupy the tower, which is the winning condition for the battle, so we declared it a draw.

We fought the second battle tonight, with his forces of good (the Imperial Army) attempting to contain my Chaos Army (led by the now-elite Ogre Champion) behind the river. A well-placed shot from the Mighty Cannon took out my Chaos Knights... but the Ogre did his work, cutting a big enough hole in the defenses to allow me to win the battle with seven units surviving & obtaining elite status.

The next battle is the free-for-all "no one starts on the board" massacre... this will cut into the advantage of my elite units if they get left off board for too long. As things stand, I'm winning the campaign 1-0. (Each of the first 3 battles are worth 1 point, the 4th battle is worth 3 pts & the last battle 5 pts.) I'll keep y'all posted.

Final note: there are two expansions for Battle Masters that I just found out about (thanks to Boardgamegeek): Imperial Lords & Chaos Warband. They were only published in Europe... so finding them is going to be a real challenge. Any help from my loyal readers is highly appreciated.

Have A Merry Christmas & A Haba New Year!

It's the time of year again - when the thoughts of children everywhere turn to what games they'll be getting under the tree.

OK, maybe not. And chances are pretty good that if they're getting games, it'll be Candyland (shudder, wince, groan) or Chutes & Ladders (a perfect game, btw, if you want to teach your child about predestination and/or the futility of meaningful choices in the face of the all-powerful hand of Fate.)

But, I, Mark Jackson (aka "pastor guy", aka "fluff daddy"), Doer of Good Deeds Where Kid Games Are Concerned, am here to remedy that... thanks to the help of Haba USA and Gamewright. (I apologize for not working Gamewright's name into the title of the post, but [a] it didn't parse very well when I did, and [b] Haba sent me more games.)

Over the next few weeks, I'll be reviewing some of the newest games from both companies... making your Christmas shopping oh so much easier. The posts won't come in any particular ranking or order, but I will use a format similar to the one I used for the Kid Games 100.

As always, your comments & questions are welcome!

Thank You

Originally uploaded by jjlthree

Your service makes so much possible in my life & in our country.

You are not forgotten.

MIA #1: Cheese Snatching (Kaseklau!)

Cheese Snatching (Kaseklau!)

• designer: Wolfgang Dirscherl
• publisher: Haba
• date: 2008
• BoardGameGeek rank/rating: not ranked/7.25
• age: 5+
• # of players: 2-4
• print status: in print
• cost: $12.59 (maukilo.com)

And we've reached #1 again - this time of the MIA (missing in action) games from the Kid Games 100. Once again, it's a Haba game (the Kid Games 100 #1 was Kayanak) and once again it has been a rousing success with every group of people I've roped into playing it, regardless of age or gaming background. In fact, I think this would almost have certainly have ended up in the top ten of the Kid Games 100 had I played it before I made the list.

The premise is simple & timeless: it's "Tom & Jerry" meets Can't Stop. In turn, players roll the dice & move the mouse and the cat clockwise. If the mouse ends up on a space without the cat, he can take the top cheese card on the pile. Then comes the big decision: keep scavenging for cheese or keep what you have?

You only get to take the cheese cards into your scoring pile when you end your turn... unless your turn ends by the cat & the mouse ending up on the same space. In that case, you lose all the cheese you collected that turn.

When 3 rooms (spaces) are empty, the game is over. You count up cheese (each card has 1-3 pieces on it) and the person with the most cheese wins.

OK, I'm a little worried that being able to explain the rules in 7 sentences will turn people away from this wonderful little game - but the simplicity is part of what makes it so darn likable. You can teach anyone how to play in less than 30 seconds... and the game takes no more than 10 minutes. It packs a nifty push-your-luck wallop into a very small time frame.

It also is highly portable. The box isn't huge to begin with, but for our last vacation I put the components in a sandwich bag & we played it in airports, on coffee tables & even in the floor of our bedroom.

Finally, the recommended age of 5 is only necessary for counting up score - the actual playing of the game is easy enough that a 3 year old can do it. At roughly $13.00, it'll be one of the best kid gaming investments you're likely to make this year.

MIA #2: Chicken Squabble (Zoff im Huhnerhof)

Chicken Squabble (Zoff im Huhnerhof)

• designer: Marco Teubner
• publisher: Haba
• date: 2006
• BoardGameGeek rank/rating: 3349/6.35
• age: 4+
• # of players: 2-4
• print status: in print
• cost: $35.99 (maukilo.com)

It's a good thing that the crow is warning the chickens about the approach of the fox... otherwise they wouldn't have enough time to dash back to the hen house when he appears. Of course, you'd think the rubber-armed farmhand who's flinging wooden chicken feed at them would figure that out himself, but that's the way it goes in agribusiness.

Zoff im Huhnerhof (literally "Trouble in the Henhouse") brings this whole farming thing down to a very simple level - the individual chicken. Players are hungry hens who venture deep into the pen, hunting for spots where the lowly farmhand has thrown the feed. At the end of the game, the chicken with the most feed amassed wins the game.

So, other than sounding like the least interesting Agricola spin-off expansion ever, why would I put this game near the top of my MIA from the Kid Games 100 list? It really boils down to two things:

1. It is a gorgeous game - chunky wooden chips, a very responsive farmhand/flinging figure, and an inside-the-box playing area complete with individual "pits" for the feed, a hen house twice as high as the box side & the crow/fox timer built into the side of the board.
2. It is loads of fun - I happily played 3 games of this (with adults!) in one afternoon at a gaming convention... and with other "important" games calling for my attention. This just has such a high FPM (Fun Per Minute) ratio that I gladly jumped into it again & again.

Each player begins the game with 10 chicken feed - and, in turn, they flick a piece of feed onto/into the game board, both seeding the board for chickens to feed and, by the nature of the space they shoot into, determining how/if their chicken will move & if the crow (game timer) moves forward. Accuracy helps... you need your chicken to fly (so to speak) if they're going to get out to the highly profitable spaces that are seeded before the game with feed before the fox appears.

Wherever a chicken ends their move, they pick up the feed in that space & put it in their supply... the same supply they fling into the pen in order to move. So, a safety tip: you don't want a lot of turns where you aren't moving & picking up feed, because you're spending it regardless.

When the fox appears, the chickens turn & run back to the coop - only now they are in full panic, so they can't stop & pick up feed... so every turn burns feed until the chicken reaches the safety of the coop. Burning feed = bad, btw, since feed = end game score. (I'm so math-y.)

I think the game is playable by 4 year olds (as claimed by the box) but real accuracy won't kick in for a year or two after that. Of course, there are a number of adults who will never grok the Way of Feed-Throwing Farmer... doesn't lower the fun factor of this game one bit.

Abston Church of Christ

I got forwarded some pictures of this epic Lego building, but with no link (and, sadly, some of the usual "forward this if you love Jesus" hoo-ha that makes me irritable and keeps me from forwarding it out of sheer spite for trivializing the message of Christ with such crapola... even though I do love Jesus.)

Anyway, I thought I'd share a picture here (look carefully - it's made COMPLETELY of Legos) and link you back to the Abston Church of Christ - a work of love by Amy Hughes. If you like monster Lego projects and/or cats, go check the site out.

Did anyone else notice that there are no "back-row Baptists" at this church? In fact, there are a lot of people down front! Evidently I've pastored the wrong churches - the front row has always been kind of a moat between the pastor & the congregation.

MIA #3: The Rolling Gang (Die Kullerbande)

The Rolling Gang (Die Kullerbande)

• designer: Heinz Meister
• publisher: Haba
• date: 2006
• BoardGameGeek rank/rating: no ranking/6.67
• age: 5+
• # of players: 2-8
• print status: in print
• cost: $27.99 (maukilo.com)

Actually, only one of the members of the gang is rolling... but the other members of his posse have decided (due to the benefits of magnetic power) to stand really still and let their friend the mouse (who to all normal powers of observation looks like a small wooden ball) run between their legs. Your mission (should you choose to accept it) is to manipulate the aforementioned mouse through the aforementioned legs as quickly as possible.

This weird & wonderful crass between Croquet & the old Labyrinth tilting mazes comes from the fertile creative mind of Heinz Meister - I mean, seriously, when is the last time you thought of putting a thin sheet of metal in the bottom of a game box in order to turn it into a farmyard with six animals wickets?

The rolling part itself is simple - take the box in both hands & tilt it in order to maneuver the mouse (small wooden ball) between the legs (magnetically attached wickets) of the various animals. The order is determined by a set of twelve very chunky cards with whimsical artistic representations of our barnyard friends - there are two of each animal. The basic version of the game involves laying out a line of all 12 cards & doing them in order while a sand timer runs. The second (not necessarily advanced) version of the game uses the same cards, but another player turns them over and makes the appropriate animal noise to clue the roller as to the next domesticated beast to approach.

This, of course, is where it is only fair & right to let you see this in action, courtesy of Doug "Garrett's Games & Geekiness" Garrett...

There are two other variations in the rules: one which uses a stick (much like Haba's OOP Mause-Rallye) and one that is basically a Name That Tune-like gambling game. We haven't played either of these because we've had so much fun with the first two.

The game also includes a wooden semi-sphere to put under the box to make it easier for smaller kids... we haven't found this to work well in practice but that may be our problem. Either way, I think the age 5+ suggestion is a little low - I'd say the fine motor skills needed to play don't kick in for a year or two after that.

MIA #4: Fluch der Mumie

Fluch der Mumie

• designer: Marcel-Andre Casasola Merkle
• publisher: Ravensburger
• date: 2008
• BoardGameGeek rank/rating: 903/6.98
• age: 8+
• # of players: 2-5
• print status: in print
• cost: $36.90 (Boards & Bits)

Many, many moons ago, I bought this weird magnetic game called Zomax on the recommendation of Games Magazine... and I wasn't disappointed. It's not perfect, mind you - it's kind of like Risk crossed w/Conquest, but it's played "blind" because of the magnets & the vertical metal board.

One of my other early German game acquisitions was Ravensburger's Scotland Yard, where one of the players was Mr. X & used hidden movement to try to escape from the other players - the detectives. A similar hidden movement system was used in Clue: The Great Museum Caper... which is a great game with a 3D-molded plastic board, btw.

Imagine that you crossed Zomax with Scotland Yard & A-mazing Labyrinth... then drenched the game in kid-friendly mummy garb: you've got Fluch der Mumie. (In English, that translates to "Curse of the Mummy.")

One player is the Mummy of the title and sits on one side of the board - he can only see his piece. On the other side of the board sit 2-4 adventurers, who can see their pieces as well as the location of the mummy. Each player starts with 3 ankh symbols (life points) and a hankering for Egyptian treasure. (The hankering is represented by 5 different treasure tiles matching treasures printed on the board.)

The objective of the Mummy is to catch the players X number of times (X = a certain number of ankh tiles, depending on the number of adventurers). The objective of the players is to be the first adventurer to get all five treasures.

On a turn, the player rolls the five dice & chooses one of them to be his move. There are a range of numbers on each die, plus an arrow that indicates that the player may move in a straight line until he reaches another player, a wall or the Mummy.

There is also a Mummy symbol on the adventurer's dice - if you roll one (or more) of these, you set them aside. You may choose at the beginning of your turn to pick up all the saved Mummy dice set aside from other player's turns... but if you do, the Mummy gets an "interrupt" turn for as many spaces as there were set-aside dice.

Once each player has moved, the Mummy rolls his die (making suitable mummy-like groaning noises). He adds the number of set-aside Mummy dice to his number & moves the appropriate number of spaces. If he catches an adventurer, his movement is done... and he gets an ankh symbol from that adventurer as well as sending him/her to the bottom of the board.

A player who loses all his ankh symbols is out of the game (aka "dead"). OTOH, a player who finds all of the treasures on his cards wins the game.

The flow of this game is almost perfect - in the early going, the adventurers are willing to toss each other "under the bus" (so to speak), letting the Mummy conk other players without being concerned about the ankh count. Later in the game, adventurers are torn between taking chances to race for the treasures & playing it safe so as not to hand the game to the Mummy.

As well, the "must reveal when & where you pick up treasure" mechanic means that whoever is in the lead is giving clues to the Mummy on where to find him/her - an excellent game-balancing mechanic.

This is one of those special games that is loved equally by kids and adults. With kids, the game is random but really a lot of fun. With adults, there's some strategy and some definite hosage. Highly recommended!

Green Beans & Humiliation

I first heard Chap Clark use the following illustration in the Next Time I Fall In Love curriculum for youth. (Yes, you can tell how dated a church curriculum piece is when you realize that the Amy Grant/Peter Cetera song it was named for was released 23 years ago.) In the process of trying to help kids figure out what love really means, Chap suggested that we use that one word in a lot of different ways. For example:

• I love green beans.
• I love my mom.
• I love my girlfriend.

Same word, three very different meanings.

As I've been reading & studying this week, I've had the same kind of weird experience with pride. I can say that:

• I'm proud of my sons. (Which, by the way, I am - I've got great kids.)
• I take pride in my work.
• Pride goes before a fall.

In one sense, pride is a good thing... it's the warm feeling you have when you enjoy the success of other people. Or, possibly, it's the satisfaction of knowing you've worked hard & done a job well.

In another sense, it's a completely out-of-whack view of your own importance. This kind of "proud" slides easily from a healthy self-worth (remembering that Genesis 1:27 tells us that we were created by God) into an arrogant disdain for anyone but yourself (Proverbs 16:18).

The Bible uses the word "pride" in the same wide variety of ways:

• I have great confidence in you; I take great pride in you. I am greatly encouraged; in all our troubles my joy knows no bounds. (2 Corinthians 7:4, NIV)
• Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else... (Galatians 6:4, NIV)
• When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom. (Proverbs 11:2, NIV)

The cure for pride is humility. Note: I didn't say "the cure for pride is humiliation" (though that will do a number on your inflated self-worth... trust me, I speak from experience.)

And all of you, serve each other in humility, for

“God opposes the proud

but favors the humble.”

So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor. (1 Peter 5:5-6, NIV)

Humility says, loud & clear, that other people are valuable, both to me & to God. It says that my worth comes not from my race or religion or bank account or employment status but from the fact that the God of the Universe both created me & gave Himself for me on the cross.

I'm going to be writing more about this... I'd appreciate your prayers. I'd also love if you wanted to contribute some to the discussion - email me at fluffdaddy@gmail.com or pop me a message on Facebook. Next time around, I'll be discussing the subtle but deadly game of "at least I'm better off than he is."

Extra Credit Quote:

A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Crackpipe Remote: Recap

It's an ongoing discussion here @ aka pastor guy on whether or not I watch too much television. (I, for one, am willing to admit I can set the remote on "overkill" every once in a while.) As always, those of you wanting to give me lecture #188 ("You should go outside more") or lecture #189 ("Don't sit too close to the TV") can jump right with your comments.

But today I want to enlighten you to the joy of recaps... in particular, 2 excellent places to catch snarky recaps of a variety of shows. I have to say that some TV (particularly reality television) benefits dramatically from someone giving it the 3 Stooges poke'n'trip treatment in print.

Here's a couple of examples...

Flash Forward (from Television Without Pity... btw, I really liked the first episode. The 2nd was pretty good as well.):

The guy crawls out of his overturned car, discovering the hard way that hot mufflers do not make the best leverage points for pulling oneself out, and once he's out in the open, he sees what can only be described as complete pandemonium: thousands of cars that have plowed into one another, a truck crushing some poor guy in a convertible, lots of bleeding and stunned people, someone running by whilst on fire. Or, as those of us who used to take the 405 in Los Angeles like to call it, "The morning commute."

The Amazing Race (from Entertainment Weekly)

Zev has Asperger's, which is on the autism scale, and at first I thought this was entirely the root of his flat, whiny, Rain-Man-like delivery. But then as the episode went on, and he grimaced at the thought of walking in Vietnam's flooded streets, and dropped dryly witty remarks that made his pal Justin roar, I realized, wait, he also sounds like many of my neurotic, funny, deadpan acquaintances who work in the media. So what does this mean: that Asperger's is only incidental to Zev's demeanor, or that 70% of all New York media types have Asperger's? That's a question for science, I suppose.

BTW, so far we've lost two obnoxious teams (the "yoga in the hood" couple & the "I'm projecting my problem with anger management onto my girlfriend" couple) and one clueless team (the "older internet dating" couple) from The Amazing Race. That's a pretty good percentage... now, if we can just ditch Lance & Keri...

The Amazing Race (from Television Without Pity)

In maroon are Lance and Keri, who, as Phil tells us, are "engaged, from Salem, Massachusetts." Phil tells us. Over footage of them working out in the gym, Lance boasts, "We bring too much mentally and physically into this game not to win." Oh good, that means I don't have to watch them, right? No? Keri claims that Lance is "smaht," and he confirms that he's a trial lawyer, which I think is the one thing he could have said to make America like him even less. It's just a crying shame that the world of jurisprudence robbed us of someone who could have been the greatest Joey Buttafuoco impersonator of all time.

And, if you're keeping score at home, the grades are:

• Heroes: C- (the 1st episode was OK, but I haven't watched the 2nd one yet & I have it taped)
• Lie To Me: B- (weird MPD lead story balanced by great 2nd story & great cast)
• Survivor: Samoa: B (I'm kinda looking forward to yet another Pagong-ing with the yahoos who make up Foa Foa)
• Flash Forward: B+ (really cool premise; are actually raising the whole predestination/free will question; need to make sure they're advancing the plot each week & not just rumbling along)
• Dollhouse: B (liked the 1st episode; was NOT a fan of the 2nd - felt like there was a major continuity break between the two... still, some great plot threads sitting there waiting to be tied together)
• The Amazing Race: A- (some great challenges + a return to actual puzzles that require racers to think & work + obnoxious teams seem to be dropping off the race = good!)
• The National Parks: America's Best Idea: ? (I have a bunch of it taped... but haven't got to watch any of it yet)

lovesong

prayer
Originally uploaded by josephine annika

I just was really struck by this image this morning... it's my prayer today.

MIA #5: Treasure, Ready, Go! (Auf die Schätze, fertig, los!)

Treasure, Ready, Go! (Auf die Schätze, fertig, los!)

• designer: Roberto Fraga
• publisher: Haba
• date: 2008
• BoardGameGeek rank/rating: not ranked/7.17
• age: 5+
• # of players: 2-4
• print status: in print
• cost: $31.49 (maukilo.com)

I'm already on record as a huge fan of Jungle Treasure, Roberto Fraga's frenetic mash-up of Time is Money (his own design) & Make'n'Break. (BTW, Jungle Treasure is published by Haba!)

So it comes as no surprise to my faithful readers (and even to my unfaithful ones) that I thoroughly enjoy Treasure, Ready, Go! This is a big box version of the aforementioned Jungle Treasure with some great adaptions to the game to make it more accessible to younger children.

Once again, we are seeking treasure - but this time we're on the island of Mad Roger Sword... and in order to successfully collect his gold coins we must complete a variety of tasks:

• rebuild the ancient ruins (using six 1-inch square colored blocks)
• locate important supplies (by rolling a custom die)
• reorganize the animals (there are four chunky wooden animals included)
• find matching treasures (8 treasure tokens lay in the middle of the board)
• recognize animals in disguise (the first player to do so, even if they aren't the active player, receive the card)
• imitate local wildlife (three different cards have players posing & making animal noises)
• take a penny/pick it up/then all day/you'll have good luck (there are some cards that are give free gold)

On your turn, another player flips the (roughly) 1 minute timer over and you begin flipping the over-sized cards & completing as many tasks as you can before time runs out. Once you finish a task, you can flip another card or call "Stop!" - of course, if you don't call "Stop!" before the time runs out, you get no treasure (points) for this turn. (Ouch.) Each player gets three turns... and the person with the most treasure at the end of the game wins.

It's amazingly simple to teach - once you explain the timer, you take the first turn & they'll figure most of the game out. Kids love the frenetic activity... but don't count adults out. I've tried this with numerous groups of adults only, always with success.

The rules contain a couple of great variants to tune the game to your taste:

• In Jungle Treasure, the timer is hidden behind a player's hand. You can do that here - in fact, it's a good balancing mechanic when playing with kids for the adults to use the hidden timer rule.
• You can also count cards instead of coins (marked on the cards), making it easier to little ones to count their points.

I've also used this with my 4 year old as an experience/imagination game - we each took turns doing 10 cards and just had fun.