From the monthly archives:

May 2006

Math trades and Spiel des Jahres

May 29, 2006

I’ve been rather excited with the concept of math trades. There’s loads of math trade activity in the Geek, just check the trade forum (the math trade guide is good if you don’t know what this is all about). I haven’t been involved in those, as it doesn’t make sense from Finland and I’ve yet [...]

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Touché

May 25, 2006

Since I got it, I might as well try it, right — so we cracked open my brand-new copy of Touché. The game is simple enough: play card to place a token on a matching square on board. The goal is to create three formations of your pieces. First player to do that wins. We [...]

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Ghost Olympics

May 23, 2006

I finally got around and played Schloss Schlotterstein with Johanna. We dove straight in for the Ghost Olympics, a spooky five-event competition. First up was Haunting Balls, where you must collect mysterious metal balls. I won that event, with a six-second margin. It’s a tricky event, as the balls react to the ghost very strongly. [...]

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Objective vs subjective

May 21, 2006

Yehuda asks: Is there a solid line between objective and subjective evaluation? Most people don’t agree with my particular assessment of Saint Petersburg, and not only due to my subjective criticisms. It’s possible that my objective criticisms are more subjective than I am willing to believe. Is it tautological that when people disagree about a [...]

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Eurovision Song Contest: Lordi rules!

May 21, 2006

39 years of being a loser, now it’s over! Lordi came, saw and conquered! A crushing defeat for everybody else! Lordi wins the song contest with the highest score ever! Finland goes crazy — I don’t think there’s ever been a single moment when this many Finnish blogs have been updated, for example. To understand [...]

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Alastair Reynolds and Puerto Rico

May 19, 2006

If you’re into science fiction (with a hard emphasis on science, not just any speculative fiction), you should be aware of Alastair Reynolds’ work. Particularly the trilogy of Revolution Space, Redemption Ark and Absolution Gap should be on your reading list; it’s a stunning piece of literature. The tie with Puerto Rico, everybody’s favourite game, [...]

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Through the Desert

May 17, 2006

New review up on the Finnish site: Through the Desert. Through the Desert is in Reiner Knizia’s top ten by any measure. The pastel camel game must be one of his best-recognised games and according to the BoardGameGeek ranking, the game is the seventh best Knizia title. That’s a well-deserved ranking, if you ask me. [...]

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Visit to Tactic

May 14, 2006

Yesterday we (meaning a group of active Board Game Society members) visited the Tactic head office and factory in Pori. It was an interesting and educational visit; it was nice to see a real board game factory. Too bad it wasn’t running at the time we visited it. They’ve got a pretty impressive production line [...]

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For Sale

May 10, 2006

Another review from my Finnish site: For Sale. Stefan Dorra’s For Sale is definitely one of the better small auction games. It’s a two-part deal that’s done in about fifteen minutes. Two rounds of bidding In the first round, players use their initial stock of coins to buy houses (cards with values from 1 to [...]

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Halli Galli

May 10, 2006

Here’s my Finnish Halli Galli review. Halli Galli is an entertaining speed game. Each player has a deck of cards. The cards are turned over one by one in turn, so that each player has a discard pile in front of them. Whenever the top cards of the piles show exactly five fruits of a [...]

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