The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Sports & Leisure => Topic started by: jay-ell on August 23, 2012, 07:24:44 pm
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Split from another thread, another time, another place.
Agreed.
JL, I appreciate a game store website that links their new arrivals to the BGG page. Just sayin'
Agreed with this and also with what JW said (which I somehow missed earlier, with all the talk about reptile sex and everything). We have a website (http://www.allfunngames.com/), and it's not horribly outdated (except for the blog area). We keep the calendar current and all the pics are from the new space we moved into a couple of months ago -- but I feel like there is a lot of room to grow.
For instance, we don't have a "new arrivals" page AT ALL, and the "game library" section hard to find and a bit out of date. And the large scrolling graphic at the top with art from MtG cards is nice-looking, but has absolutely no function. The site was designed on the cheap (possibly free) by a store regular/college student/pseudo-employee/friend of the owner who serves as a volunteer technical jack-of-all-trades (because the owner is completely un-tech-savvy). I think we can do better, and I'm in a position to make it happen.
So, please -- peruse the site and tell me what needs to change. Let's crowdsource this bitch.
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The hours should be in the footer, especially since they're are non-standard. Do you charge to use the tables when there isn't a tourney? If not put that in the bullet about "open gaming space." Around here it's not unusual for a FLGS to charge for table time (usually with some kind of credit system. 1 hr/$10 spent is typical).
When you first stock an award winning game (like Village) that warrants its own news item.
Random idea: consider having an award-winning game night. Demo some Spiel/Orgins/etc winners from this and last year. Meetup shows me The Triangle Strategy Games Meetup Group. Contact them and see if your shop is big enough fro their meetups. If so see if they're willing to do something regular there.
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I would not have bought Puerto Rico (my favorite game) if my friend who is the manager of a gaming store hadn't drunkenly dragged me to the store and shown me how it works.
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I would not have bought Puerto Rico (my favorite game) if my friend who is the manager of a gaming store hadn't drunkenly dragged me to the store and shown me how it works.
Have you played San Juan?
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San Juan is one of my favorite games ever. I have only played PR a few times, but I play SJ every chance I get -- which isn't often, because the few friends who know how to play are tired of being beaten at it by me.
BFF and I just got approval to start a competitive tabletop gaming league at the store. We're offering prizes starting at $10 store credit and increasing based on the number of partici#####. We're running two tournaments at a time, asynchronously (so you come and play three or six games, depending on whether you signed up for one or both tournies, any time that works for you and your assigned opponents during a six-week period.) There's a $3 entry fee, or $5 for both tournaments, which will allow for prize support with as few as four competitors. Our September/October games are Ticket to Ride (USA) and Carcassone, because we think those are so well-known they border on mainstream and will draw in a large crowd.
We're also demoing the tournament games at the beginning of the play period so that people who may not know how to play one or both games can try it out before signing up. We're trying to draw in people who already know a lot of games but want to meet new people to play them with, and also people who are looking to learn new and unusual games. They are distinct groups, but they work well together.
I am seriously considering running Puerto Rico and San Juan for the November/December tournament. My BFF and my boss both want to run a Settlers tourney, but I'm one of the four people on Earth who doesn't really care for Settlers much. Plus, it requires 3-person pods, and that's more difficult, logistically. Regardless, it mainly depends on if there are any important new releases out. One reason we chose TTR for September is to help promote the Asia expansion that came out last month.
We're also increasing our stock of the league games and offering a 25% discount off list price on them for the duration of the tournament. I think it will really drive sales. Magic: the Gathering is our bread and butter, but we have a huge amount of retail space devoted to tabletop gaming and Eurogaming is really becoming popular among twenty- and thirty-somethings right now. We need to move our stock, and the best way to do that is to create a community of store regulars who boardgame. We have that with MtG and, to a lesser extent, the Warhammer crowd, but there is very little cross-pollination from those groups. Whereas boardgamers (especially Gamers of a Certain Age) are more likely to play Warhammer, MtG, card games, and RPGs as well.
If this takes off, we may run three tournaments in Jan/Feb and start a junior league for kids 8 - 14. Or we may cut it down to one game at a time and cut the play period down to three weeks. It depends what kinds of feedback we get. But I am really excited about it (can you tell?) and welcome any suggestions you guys have.
I love all the ideas you are giving me and don't have time to reply to them individually right now, but I will print them out and take them to my BFF for further discussion. We are also considering starting a periodic event (Quarterly?) for local indie game developers to meet, share ideas, and play-test each others' games. This would be with an eye toward eventually carrying some copies of locally-produced, self-published games in the store, if I can sell my boss on the idea. (I think he'll be down if he feels like the copies will move; I'm 95% certain he would be willing to take them on a consignment basis.) So if you guys have any suggestions for that I'll take those as well.
Should we split this thread and put it up in the main forum area?
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I would be pleased if this were split so I would know not to read it like all the other threads about games people play.
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TTR = Ticket to Ride? My wife and I stumbled across that one recently. Its a really good game with an intriguing amount of subtlety.
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Man, some people are into some crazy ass board games these days, I guess.
This makes me feel weirdly old, like when people are talking about their Medal of this and their Guitar that and I'm all...
"Man, I sure liked the F-Zero on the Super Nintendo. Do the kids still play F-Zero?"
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I would be pleased if this were split so I would know not to read it like all the other threads about games people play.
Done.
TTR = Ticket to Ride? My wife and I stumbled across that one recently. Its a really good game with an intriguing amount of subtlety.
Yes! I love how quick it is to learn, and straightfoward enough that even an 8-year-old can play, but that it's never easy. There is an iPhone/iPad version that is pretty amazing as well.
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To address these quickly --
Do you charge to use the tables when there isn't a tourney?
When you first stock an award winning game (like Village) that warrants its own news item.
Random idea: consider having an award-winning game night. Demo some Spiel/Orgins/etc winners from this and last year. Meetup shows me The Triangle Strategy Games Meetup Group. Contact them and see if your shop is big enough fro their meetups. If so see if they're willing to do something regular there.
1) No, we don't, but no game store around here does. We should still advertise it, though. We pay for the open play space by selling drinks and snacks on the side. Most regulars will buy a drink from us as a way of "paying dues," so we don't feel a need to charge.
2) We are just setting up "new arrivals" and "upcoming releases" flyers on the bulletin board, and I plan to re-merchandise the frontmost shelving units to showcase new releases. It will be simple to add this to the website via blogging software. Good idea. Do you know of a website (other than BGG) that serves as a clearinghouse for new and upcoming release info on boardgames? It's easy to find that info for video games, but boardgame manufacturers seem really reluctant to give out and/or stick to street dates, it's frustrating.
3) That is a fantastic idea. We may have some regulars that are part of the group, and we definitely have enough space -- we have a dozen 6' buffet tables in our game room, with plenty of room to walk around in between. Plus we have two private rooms with two six-foot tables in each. We have more play space than retail space, it's awesome. I will get in touch with them ASAP.
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The only thing that springs to mind is one of your competitors. The bottom of the Thought Hammer home page lists all the upcoming games by estimated street date. Though games rarely actually come out on their street dates.
I know in my board game meetup the biggest challenge is finding space. Maybe things are different there but we have to book library meeting rooms two months in advance and pay $65/day to use them (when they aren't booked solid). Somebody offering us free space would be fantastic.
And to go back, most people I know can't stand Settlers. I know one guy who will only play if he's trying to use it as a gateway game for somebody who's heard of it but not much else. Of course he also spent 40 minutes telling me how much he hates Cards Against Humanity.
sMets, these games are better than the Sorry/Monopoly/Life that we grew up with. The person who plays better is much more likely to win than the person who roles the dice well. And they're typically designed so that all the players are still in the game (or at least think they are) until the end. So you don't get that Monopoly Syndrome where one person is clearly going to lose it just takes another hour for it to happen then the remaining 3 players keep going for another 2 hours.
I really prefer the worker placement games. In most classic games you either have 0 or 1 options (I rolled 5, I must move 5 vs. I can buy the property or not). In something like Agricola you have 6 things you really want to do but have to pick just one each round (I want to expand my farm but I also need to build fences and if I don't take that clay I know John will and those 2 boars are really tempting but ...)
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Evidently some of these games I've never heard of can be played for free online? http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/9209/ticket-to-ride
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Done.
But then you go and make the thread title so intriguing that I can't help clicking anyway.
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and those 2 boars are really tempting but ...)
See and now you are making it sound interesting too dammit.
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I was always more of a Scrabble/Boggle guy, really. Stratego, if you can find a person who'll take it seriously.
Risk is fun but all that dice rolling is fuck*ng tedious.
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I was always more of a Scrabble/Boggle guy, really. Stratego, if you can find a person who'll take it seriously.
Risk is fun but all that dice rolling is fuck*ng tedious.
I like to describe Small World as "like Risk, but fun"
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LFM, my roommates and I own an XBox, a Wii, and an SNES. One month into our residency, only the SNES is set up. We play it every day.
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I like to describe Small World as "like Risk, but fun"
Yes, this.
I got Pedro a copy of Risk Legacy (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/105134/risk-legacy) for his birthday. Hot damn, that's an expensive game. But it looks awesome.
What makes this game unique is that when powers are chosen, players must choose one of their faction's two powers, affix that power's sticker to their faction card, then destroy the card that has the other rule on it – and by destroy, the rules mean what they say: "If a card is DESTROYED, it is removed from the game permanently. Rip it up. Throw it in the trash." This key concept permeates through the game. Some things you do in a game will affect it temporarily, while others will affect it permanently. These changes may include boosting the resources of a country (for recruiting troops in lieu of the older "match three symbols" style of recruiting), adding bonuses or penalties to defending die rolls to countries, or adding permanent continent troop bonuses that may affect all players.
Also, the Star Trek: The Next Generation deck building card game. We've only played a few deckbuilding games, but they are a neat concept. For those who don't know, you have a bunch of stacks of cards face-up on the table, and you start with a few cards which are essentially money. On each turn, you use those money cards to buy other cards from the faceup stacks and shuffle them into your hand. Some of them give you more money, which you can use to buy even more powerful cards. Some of them give you victory points. Some of them damage your opponents. The game ends when a number of stacks are depleted, and the one with the most victory points is the winner.
The trick is to balance the amount of money you need in your deck to buy good cards with the number of victory points you need to win. It all boils down to resource management, which is my very favorite kind of game to play. (San Juan is another example of a resource-management card-based game.)
The only thing that springs to mind is one of your competitors. The bottom of the Thought Hammer home page lists all the upcoming games by estimated street date. Though games rarely actually come out on their street dates.
We just got our copies of Game Trade Magazine in the store, that should help. We didn't have the September issue 'til yesterday, and I don't even know what happened to August's copies because they were gone before I even got hired.
I know in my board game meetup the biggest challenge is finding space. Maybe things are different there but we have to book library meeting rooms two months in advance and pay $65/day to use them (when they aren't booked solid). Somebody offering us free space would be fantastic.
I took your advice and joined a couple of meetups for our area. The Strategy Gamer's group you found not only approved me promptly, but sent me several invite to private home events and made me an event organizer right off the bat. So that's cool. The other stores in the area (Gamer's Armory and Game Theory) are both heavily involved in Meetup, so it's going to be an interesting balancing act not to step on any toes. We do not want to be overly competitive with the other area stores; we want to support the gaming community because it is definitely big enough to support three shops and we have some things (copious space, better prices) that they don't. Meanwhile, they have some things (Tier 1 relationships with Games Workshop) that we don't want to offer.
And to go back, most people I know can't stand Settlers. I know one guy who will only play if he's trying to use it as a gateway game for somebody who's heard of it but not much else. Of course he also spent 40 minutes telling me how much he hates Cards Against Humanity.
I was going to say that that is not a person whose judgement I would trust, but then I realized I don't actually like CAH that much, either. Which would infuriate my gaming buddies, because last time we played I kicked ass like crazy. They gave up when I had fifteen cards to the next-highest player's seven. (We played for three hours with six players, it was fairly epic.) But it's really...winning is kind of arbitrary. That's not satisfying. But it is funny.