Game Report: Andy S, Jenn, Mark & Jess

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A "couples special". In a remote vestry in Wales, with the wind howling outside... The perfect setting for a bit of domestic terror.

Better get this out of the way - Jess won. It was her first time and she protested she had no idea what was going on, but she won. So bear in mind that Jess hoodwinked us all by playing dumb.

Excitement was running high as the new prototype board was unveiled - complete with fully working Axis of Evil spinner. The War on Terror has come of age! The world was divided so: Mark in Australia, taking the entire continent for himself early on, but refusing, strangely to venture much further afield. Andy S had a weird Nowhere/N.American split in his empire. Jenn had Europe and Africa, whilst Jess dug herself into the jungles of S.America as well as planting the seeds of a wide-ranging empire in Asia.

Unfortunately the game was built around the idea of unfairness.Mark became evil early on, and build up his Australasian empire to four cities in a very short amount of time. It was a prime target for attack, but then he was evil and do you really want to stir things up with those on the wrong side of the Axis of Evil?

Proceedings were fairly peaceful, the world was a generally prosperous place and all empires were managing to live side-by-side in relative harmony. How this all changed is a bit of a mystery. The photo evidence just shows Andy S's empire suddenly vanish from the board. Hazy recollection says that an unnecessary sibling attack from Mark provided the only flimsy excuse he needed to turn terrorist. Certain people were running away with the game, despite protesting innocence, and desperate measures had to be taken.

Jenn feared for her safety, having a strong seam of developments down the centre of the board, but Andy S was after petty vengeance and keeping Jess from winning. A quick terrorist-provoked revolution, followed by WMDs, reduced one of Mark's and one of Jess's cities to rubble. Jess protested this was 'unfair', but unfortunately the game was constructed around the idea of unfairness... Mark was soon after coerced to join the terrorist force.

Jenn and Jess now faced terrorist brothers-in-arms and both were getting nervous. Jenn had a win in sight and so left Jess some valuable breathing space by developing instead of attacking. The next go, Jess rolled just enough developments to build her way to instant victory, the dark horse that she is. The terrorists never really got a chance to sink their teeth into the game.

Three hours in total.

Game Report: Andy S, Jenn, Michele, Mike, Alan & Fiona

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A long-awaited 6-player game. In fact, it's been a while since we played at all, what with all our spare time going into getting this thing designed and manufactured. Tonight we're playing with lovely plastic counters, the first real step away from DIY to proper sets. A collective nostalgic tear is shed before warfare commences...

The set-up round is remarkably free of friction considering six players laying their starting villages pretty much fills up all the prime space.

We're down to 5 Empires and a board covered in black mountains of doom ...Andy S is has the pick of Nowhere and Australasia. Mike is split between Africa and Asia. Alan - new to the game and the last to lay his initial villages - finds himself unfortunately sandwiched on the Europe/Asian border. His Empire grows little but boy does he coin it in - he deserves a small business award for the way he made 3 cities pay out. Michele shares South America with Fiona, who also has Europe and Jenn spends the entire game playing in North America by herself, unhindered and somehow overlooked.

Things start hotting up as soon as the Axis of Evil gets spun and Michele is the first to don the balaclava of evil. Despite threatening a lot, she holds off any gratuitous violent acts. Except, of course, destroying Andy S's only city purely because she "didn't like the look of it". Meanwhile Andy S has sneaked into Africa with an Explorers card and has dreams of conquering the southern hemisphere...

Mike and Fiona start duking it out across the Mediterranean and at one point there are no fewer than four Empires living edgily side-by-side in Africa alone.

Suddenly Fiona gets careless and drops a nuke in Mongolia, devastating one of Mike's strongholds and reducing Alan's stake in the game to a worrying 3 countries. The very next go, Andy S picks up the 'Insurgency Emergency' card (formerly 'Global Jihad') and the temptation is there - although he's doing well enough, the dark glory of a terrorist victory promises too much fun and he turns terrorist - a very rich terrorist at that. Down to 5 Empires and a board covered in black mountains of doom.

Unfortunately it seems like Andy S's terrorist tactics were too heavy-handed and the remaining Empires rally together and work, united, to defeat the terrorist threat. Some are bought up off the board, others are fought, moved around and even nuked in the snowy wastelands of Nowhere (what a way to go).

Despite Alan turning evil and threatened with obliteration, Andy S can't coax anyone to join his terrorist team. With everyone focused on defending themselves, it seems Jenn's being growing steadily. A lucky roll and some instant cash from a GDP card means she steals the game! Three and a half hours, one defeated terrorist and a North American victory.

When is a cartoon not a cartoon?

It's hard to ignore the recent insanity caused by a cartoon. Just goes to show that art can be provocative stuff...

While it's been amusing to watch irony-free protesters freely parading placards with slogans like "To hell with free speech!", it's frustrating to see others threatening the "next 9/11" while protesting about a cartoon that has insensitively and inaccurately linked an entire religion to terrorism. Is it just me, or do these squabbles take you back to the playground?

And amid the hand-wringing about "responsible free speech" and "cultural misunderstandings", few people are asking the question, "When is beheading ever a rational response to anything?" - whether it be a cartoon or another beheading. It's hardly the route most likely to open up negotiations, is it? Primarily because you're now negotiating with a headless corpse.

No one seems to be asking the question, "When is beheading ever a rational response to anything?" What really gets us though is how the radical elements on all sides exploit this comprehension divide and deliberately escalate it beyond its importance. Suddenly this incident becomes: the latest recruitment tool for would-be terrorists/ the latest reason to sign up and blow them terrorists to kingdom come/ the latest proof that Muslims are taking over the world/ the latest proof that Jews/Christians/Infidels are taking over the world/ fuel for whatever paranoid theory you sign up to.

So what have we learnt today, class? Extremism in all forms is misinformed, dangerous and regressive. Personally, I think the only way to stamp out extremism, is through an extremist approach: abolish all religion and dissolve all borders. There, everyone happy.

In other news, we've just discovered the amazing blog search engine, Technorati. This is a link to claim we own this blog so they can index us: Technorati Profile.

UK Toy Fair 2006 - Part Two

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What a mad old week it's been.

Since launching the website a few days ago, we've had 135 pre-orders (from as far away as Qatar and Australia), a tonne of press interest, distributors showing keen and it looks like we'll soon have enough funding to manufacture our first run. Things are moving quickly - with any luck, WoT will be in the shops before you know it.

The Toy Fair was good fun and very useful. We gave Thursday a miss, mainly to lie low. On Friday, we went back again without our balaclavas, but for consistency's sake we wore "evil" t-shirts instead. A little more subtle we thought. Sadly, this didn't work at all since they were watching us as soon as we walking in the door. We got talking to the CEO of MindWare - she was very interested on a personal level, so we gave her a postcard. Security were obviously on standby because we got swooped by no fewer than 3 people telling us we'd already been "warned" on Wednesday. Sheesh, these guys are uptight.

... we got swooped by no fewer than 3 people telling us we'd already been "warned" on WednesdayAfter a brief discussion about what we were and weren't allowed to talk about and with who and what we could and couldn't give out, we were released and spent most of that day talking to small boardgame makers who were mostly at this stage a year ago. They were all very friendly and helpful and we got some good tips and advice.

The organiser saw us later that day, walked past us, then turned around and barked "jackets closed, lads". What the? Andy T even had his jacket closed.

Went down early on Saturday for the free breakfast (oh yes, we are living the HIGH LIFE now) and spent the morning talking to everyone we didn't cover on Friday, plus a couple of distributors/ larger publishers. Lots of interesting noises. Lots of leads to follow up.

Disturbingly, by Saturday, we were almost universally recognised as "the terrorist twins", or the "evil boys". Fame was never meant to be like this...

Tomorrow we've got an interview on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire for their breakfast show. Today Cambridge, tomorrow, the world!

UK Toy Fair 2006 - Part One

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Our first Toy Fair! It's all very exciting...

Arriving shortly after 10am, we decide to waste no time and put our well-honed guerilla tactics into effect. Balaclavas on, game box out. Wander around looking threatening.

Amazingly, this haphazard approach works. Everyone is terribly nice and receptive to two blokes wearing balaclavas and we realise it's probably one of the few places where you won't get jumped by the anti-terrorist squad for dressing up as a weirdo.

Then we had a run-in with a giant badger dressed as a policeman ...We had our photo taken a lot. We perfected the art of snarling. Still need some practice there. Then we had a run-in with a giant badger dressed as a policeman. But much more fearsome were the Toy Fair staff who soon put an end to our fun.

We had to ditch the balaclavas and box, since this was construed as "selling without a stand". An offence which carries a hefty jail sentence, so we were lucky to be let off with just a warning.

For the rest of the day we drifted around, talked to a few people, made a few interesting contacts. All very .... interesting. We also drank our own body weight in coffee.

Heading back on Friday and Saturday with the aim of talking to more buyers/ distributors.