Roll'n Bump is a Canadian Toy Testing Council Best Bet!

How did I just find out about this!? The Canadian Toy testing Council (CTTC) awarded Roll'n Bump it's top honours of 'Best Bet'!! 

Great Saturday Spent at Cardstockawa!

Every year (sometimes more), Martin Éthier of the Game Artisans of Canada invites us all into the woods for a cottage weekend of board game design and testing we've come to call Cardstockawa! 

Got Two Games From Tasty Minstrel

I got a package from Tasty Minstrel Games today containing Coin Age and This Town Ain't Big Enough for the 2-4 of Us. Both of these games were part of a series of microgame Kickstarter campaigns that Tasty Minstrel ran a few months ago. 

Theme ≠ Setting

Game designs discussions, especially around board games, often round the corner of comparing the value of theme versus mechanisms. Well, I say we've been using the word "theme" wrong. I posit that what we really mean to say is setting, not theme. So, what's the difference?

Rare Glimpse Into Ottawa Protonight!

Yves Tourigny, who hosts weekly design sessions at his place, recently got himself set up to do time lapse video of the testing. Here is attempt number one! Those of you who read my post about last weekend's game jam might recognise the first game in the video. Big thanks to Yves for the video!

Nominate Roll'n Bump for the Golden Geek Awards!!

Attention all Roll'n Bump fans! Here is your chance to let the world (Board Game Geek users) know that you think Roll'n Bump deserves mad props! Hit up this link and follow the instructions to nominate Roll'n Bump for each category you think fits. The Golden Geek awards are awarded annually through the Board Game Geek website and are entirely decided by you, the gamers! So, let everyone know what they've been missing!
(Just a note, I had a hard time finding it in the list in the left side bar, but using the search option above it worked.)

Another Global Game Jam Come and Gone!

Last weekend I participated in the 2014 Global Game Jam hosted by the Carleton University School of Information Technology. This was my fourth year participating though my usual partner wasn't available so I teamed up with another local board game designer, Daryl Chow to produce what we call Eye of the Hunter.

The Global Game Jam is an event where teams are challenged to create a game in 48 hours based on a theme that's only revealed at the start of the jam. This year the theme was the phrase "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." Daryl and I quickly agreed on the idea of giving players unique objective cards in order to work the theme into the game. Since each player has his or her own set of objectives to strive towards, they each view the game from their own perspective. From there we batted around several ideas for game mechanisms and settings before settling on what would become our submitted game. In Eye of the Hunter, two players play food tiles to the board to attract animals in from the forest in order to capture them according to the hunter cards they hold. It's a quick playing game and we are still interested in doing some development on it, mainly striving to get the number of tiles just right to keep the tension up as players hope to play as many of their hunters as possible before the tile supply runs out. If you are interested in checking out the game, there's a print and play version available from the GGJ site. I plan on posting an updated version to Board Game Geek soon as we ended up presenting a slightly different version on the last day of the jam based on things we tried out on the spot.

It was pretty different for me this year. As I mentioned, my usual partner, Leo, wasn't available so I roped in Daryl at the last minute. Leo is usually the one who does the art while I focus on the rules so I got to do the art this time. I'm glad Daryl and I had a pretty firm grip on the game play by the end of Friday as it allowed me to get started on the art Saturday morning. After a bit more testing with Daryl mid-day, I went back home and ploughed through the remaining art tasks, printed the components, assembled them and gave Daryl's rules an editorial pass, leaving me enough time on Sunday to create example images for the rules.

Checking out the games at the Jam on Sunday afternoon was super cool, as always. Though the competition aspect of the event is downplayed, local industry folks are invited to judge each year. This time, top honours went to first time lone wolf jammer Daivuk, a friend and colleague of mine for his game My Own World. I had a feeling he would do well at this!

So, another year, another Game Jam. Man I love it! It's a weekend of super concentrated game design and development, a great learning experience, great practice for the experienced and huge fun every time! I highly recommend participating to anyone who's into game design.

Blueprints and Northwest Passage At Ludo Outaouais 2013

It was Ludo Outaouais time again this week end and attendees on Saturday got a special treat in the form of early sale copies of Blueprints and Expedition: Northwest Passage courtesy of game shop Multizone! So, these are a couple of great games, but the really awesome part of all this is that they are both designed by local Ottawa designer Yves Tourigny! Hit the jump for more on Yves and the games.

Pro's and Con's Review: Rise of Augustus

Format: Board Game

Designer: Paolo Mori

Publisher: Hurrican, Hobbity.eu

I recently attended the Toy and Game Expo on behalf of Roll'n Bump distributor Îlot 307 inc. where I ran a tournament of one of the brand new games they distribute: 2013 Spiel de Jahres nominee: Rise of Augustus.

Of course, having to run a tournament of a brand new game meant learning to play. And having my hands on a brand new game meant getting requests to teach it and sitting down to play it some more. All told, I think I got in about a half dozen games of Rise of Augustus by the time the expo closed its doors.

So what is Rise of Augustus all about? Well, I hate to bust out the same comparison all other reviewers have been using, but it's an apt one. Playing Rise of Augustus is a bit like playing Bingo for gamers. Before you go running off screaming at the thought of smoky parlours filled with listless players blowing pay-day loans just bear in mind this is a Spiel de Jahres nominee and, much like past alum 7 Wonders, offers easy to learn game play with enough meat to keep true gamers engaged. Read on for my full review from a professional and a consumer point of view.

Wicked First Day at the Toy and Game Expo!

I'm holding down the fort this weekend at the Toy and Game Expo on behalf of the distributor of Roll'n Bump, Îlot 307, and it's been a wicked first day.

Charity Event Declared Awesome! Thank you Everybody!

Well, I think a big thanks is in order to everyone who attended my charity event last Friday and to the awesome sponsors. A big thanks to Ka and Ashley of the Meeple's Republic for lending me the games for the event and getting folks into the groove. And I wouldn't have had such an awesome pile of prizes to give away without the generosity of The Comic Book Shoppe, Games for All and Îlot 307! And, finally, thank you to the local designers, Al, Yves and Daryl for teaching their games and helping out with the tournament! We raised a nice wad of cash for the kids at Actua.ca! Check out some pics after the jump. 

October Charity Events! Save the Dates!

Click through for more info.

Got Some New Goodies

I picked up some new board games yesterday thanks, in no small part, to Chairwoman Ashley of The Meeple's Republic. What games you ask!? Why the 'fresh off the presses' Dungeon Roll and Elusive Interstellar Mayhem! Hit the just for some closer shots.

Dirty Rectangles Talk Went Swimmingly!

A shot of me, mid lecture at last night's Dirty Rectangles meet up as captured by local tech-o-phile Jason Cobill.

Monopolatte Now Open

I took the time yesterday to pop into Monopolatte on the day of its grand opening to drop off a copy of Roll'n Bump for the patrons to enjoy.

If you're familiar with the independent game scene in Ottawa, you've likely heard of the Dirty Rectangles. The Rectangles are a group of indie game developers who are keen on promoting creativity and a healthy sense of community amongst game makers in the Capital Region. Every month they hold meetings and invite speakers to give presentations and local developers to show off what they're working on. You can probably see where I'm going with this. This month, I will be giving a talk entitled: "Lessons from the Tabletop, How board games can inform video games" exploring good practices in board game design and how they can translate over to the digital realm. For more information you can check out this post on the Dirty Rectangle's site. I'm pretty psyched and hope to see some of you there!

Meeple's Republic Outdoor Board Gaming Picnic!

Saturday June 15, the girls from The Meeple's Republic will be hosting a pot luck picnic at the McNabb Community Centre park from 4pm to 8pm. Bring food to share and board games to play OUTSIDE! You can check out their site for more info!

Meeple's Republic

I wanted to give a shout out to Ashley and Ka of Meeple's Republic who I met last weekend at Game Summit. They got a lot of eyes on Roll'n Bump on Sunday and helped steer a number of people over to the Mrs. Tiggy Winkles booth. (Thanks again so much you two.)

Not the Only Board Game at the Jam This Year!

This year was a little different at the Ottawa Global Game Jam site. How? Well, our game, Heart Rate Speed Date was not the only non-digital game!

Game Jam 2013: Day 2

Well, ok! After scrapping Friday's false start, things, finally, coalesced today as we started throwing up mechanism ideas based on a theme idea we had passed up on last night.

Oh, so, speaking of theme. The whole shtick with the jam is that you only find out the theme you'll have to incorporate at the start of the jam after the keynote video. I couldn't share it with all of you until today because of the six hour time difference between us and the farthest jam site in Hawaii (this is the GLOBAL Game Jam, after all). So, the cryptic as hell theme this year? An audio clip of a beating heart! Ya, I know. Thankfully, teams are free to interpret this any way they like. Much of a team's creativity shines through in its interpretation of the theme.

So, blah blah blah, what the heck did we come up with?

Well, we decided to create a game that riffs on the theme by being about matters of the heart while, also, getting your heart rate up. It's called Heart Rate Speed Date, and it's all about playing cards down as fast as you can in a race to match speed dating aficionados with their best possible matches! Check out the pics!