Chatting Rivers and Lakes with Tao

 

Brian Bankler from Tao of Gaming, a blog I have been following for many years, read my recent post on Rivers and Lakes, a business simulation activity I designed for my leadership training work. He was intrigued and contacted me to chat more. We did an interview through email exchanges. We went into more details about the activity itself, my experiences running it, and also the thinking processes behind the design. Here's our conversation. 

If you are interested in my leadership training, contact me. 

Email: cs@simplifypeople.com

Website: simplifypeople.com 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hiewchoksien/ 

Link: Boardgames teach children problem solving

 

I wrote an article on how boardgames develop problem solving skills in children. 

Link: Emotional resilience in children

 

I wrote an article about how board games develop emotional resilience in children. 

Link: The importance of learning to learn

 

I wrote an article about how board games teach children how to learn. 

Nithrania Game in a Nutshell Youtube channel

I recently discovered the Nithrania Youtube channel by Branislav Berec. He explains games in a series called Game in a Nutshell, and they are very well done. Clear, concise, professional, well-prepared, well-written, well-edited and very importantly, no rubbish rambling like what I see in many other boardgame explanation videos and boardgame review videos. I watched his explanation of Hallertau, the new Uwe Rosenburg game.  He deserves many more subscribers and I hope many other video makers learn to make videos like how he does them.   

geekgroup.app website

Do you use   boardgamegeek.com to keep track of games you own and games you play? If you do, check out this nifty website geekgroup.app. It extracts your data from BGG and presents it in many interesting ways. 

Try this link below. Replace the "hecose" part with your BGG username. 

https://geekgroup.app/users/hecose/insights/collection

What I enjoyed most was watching the evolution of my most played games. I started recording my plays in 2004. Watching 16 years of my own game play history was a sentimental moment. You can try it using this link below. Replace "hecose" with your own username. 

https://playback.geekgroup.app/hecose

Miniature painting service (Malaysia)

Note: Tengku Iskandar is no longer accepting commission work. If you are looking for miniature painters, try this Facebook group.

~~~~~

Posting this for a fellow Malaysian Tengku Iskandar. 

Original link here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/boardgamestogoMY/permalink/3195422777203566/

~~~~~

Greetings boardgamers,

Since MCO started, I've not been able to secure a job and a job opportunity of mine has been postponed indefinitely.

I've decided to start opening a miniature painting service to provide for my family, for now. If you're looking to have your boardgame/D&D miniatures painted but don't have the time/skills to do it yourself, we might be able to work on a deal.

I'm still building up my portfolio website, but below are some examples of miniatures painted by myself, varying from 2018 to 2020. I've only had experience painting Warhammer / Games Workshop miniatures, but I will be able and would love to be able to paint your boardgame/D&D miniature sets.

I've been painting miniatures since 2015 and recently had won a local miniature painting award (https://www.facebook.com/battlebrossmr/photos/a.587661971937358/587662095270679/?type=3).

Since my portfolio website is still under construction, you can see more of my work at my painting log Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/merahkuningminis/

Do FB message/email me at tengkuiskhandar@gmail.com if you're interested or have any questions. We can discuss first and I'll give you a quotation. If your boardgame is something that I'm currently very interested to paint, I might even give you a special price.

I reside in Klang Valley, so those outside of Selangor might be a bit hard due to shipping risks. But we can try to discuss first.

Thank you and stay safe!

 

 

 

 

Board Game Bakes

Something a little different from what I usually post - a video on making Settlers of Catan cookies from Danielle Schneider of Board Game Bakes Youtube channel. Check it out if you're into both boardgames and baking.

link: Cardboard Buzzsaw (from Fortress Ameritrash / There Will Be Games)

Board game reviewers and critics are no longer relevant? Being drown out due to how the boardgame hobby is becoming about endless consumption and churn for most hobbyists? I saw this article at Fortress Ameritrash - https://therewillbe.games/blogs-by-members/6532-cardboard-buzzsaw. I mostly agree. I'm thankful I'm doing blogging only as a hobby. It's only for self-satisfaction and I'm not making a living or generating any side income out of this. The industry trend doesn't affect me much. I'm happy as long as there are still good games to be played and to be written about. Doesn't matter (at least not to me and not directly) if there are many more mediocre games out there.

---

Cardboard Buzzsaw

by Vysetron

Updated March 15, 2019

I'm increasingly uncertain as to the future of critical board game content. As the board game industry continues to expand and the number of released games increases year after year there has been a massive shift in how games are marketed and sold. The endless assault upon the seemingly perpetually open wallets of prospective customers comes from all angles. Traditional publishers stagger their line throughout each year, timing it to grab as much of the convention season market as possible. Smaller, slower scheduled publishers unleash a torrent of marketing leading up to their releases to ensure that they don't get lost in the churn. A new Kickstarter campaign seems to go up every day. Remarkably, all of these methods are successful. More games, more games, and yet more games to feed the ever hungry audience.

This fuels and is also the direct result of another significant shift, this being in the audience itself. The majority of "board gamers" are no longer looking for the best in their favorite genres or simply waiting to try the next game from their favorite designers. Rather, they are looking to have as many new experiences as possible. To learn, play, experience, and consume the new. Newness in and of itself is the desired quality in a game, and newness has a expiration date that rapidly approaches the moment the shrink wrap is ripped from its box.

Publishers have recognized the desire for newness and have responded with more. Consumers consume, then demand yet more. The cycle continues. And somewhere in all of this, there exist relics of the previous era. Critics.

Modern board game coverage has shifted from the review to the preview. Consumers simply want to be made aware of upcoming titles so that they can place another $100 order at CSI and receive their serotonin rush when it arrives months later. To look at a game that is already out, or has been out, is useless to them when they're considering how many games to purchase rather than considering if they should purchase. Many content creators and networks have adapted to this trend and have shifted their content in this direction, providing preview commentary for games before they reach the hands of buyers/backers.

Of course there exist popular reviewers that cover games in a critical manner, but even they are often restricted to the top of the BGG hotness in order to maintain relevance with their audience. To cover a game that isn't the focus of the zeitgeist? That way madness, and poor metrics, lie.

There has been a cultural shift against criticism. Nowadays it is often viewed with skepticism rather than an open mind. To say a game is mediocre or worse is not something that is useful to the majority of modern board game media consumers. They are looking for attractive objects. Why would you bring something poor to their attention, or worse, tell them that their upcoming acquisition is a poor game? To do so is an attack on everyone involved in that game's success, which now includes themselves as board game creators and customers become ever more financially intertwined. To critique a game with any degree of harshness is to tell them that their judgement was poor, that their eye was not keen enough, that their money was wasted. It's no longer a warning against a purchase because the game is already bought - it's an insult. And a direct one.

Publishers have no reason to send games to a self-professed critic when they can commit their press copy budget to outlets who vow not to speak an ill word of their product, sometimes for a nominal fee. This feeds the trend of content drifting ever earlier from the game's release date. A critical reviewer cannot compete with a game previewer, some of whom even sport the same title of reviewer, who makes a show of legitimacy with their preproduction copy and assures consumers that their money is well invested. By the time the game actually exists the publisher's needs are already met and all prospective purchasers have already either shelved the game or loaded it onto the sell pile. Either way, a critical review no longer helps as the game is no longer going to be played.

I have seen board game critics of various means and mediums, many of whom I respect, contemplate abandoning the persuit. If they have a financial stake it's often no longer worth the time put in. If they do it for validation it's often giving them the opposite. This leaves the people that simply do it for themselves, and as one of those myself I can tell you that our output varies wildly depending on what we're able to play when. We're outsiders, competing with a massive network of publishers and their established media personalities, penning reviews for games that just came out and yet are already too old.

I wish I could say that the pendulum is at the end of its swing. That as the board game bubble bursts, board game consumers will once again become board game players and critics will once again be able to serve as the quality filter that all entertainment hobbies need. But I am no seer and I don't want to lie to you. I don't know where things are going or what the future of games criticism is and I won't claim to. Instead I'd like to wrap up with a bit of homework. I know, but bear with me. You might enjoy it.

Pull up your favorite reviewer's site, blog, Youtube page, whatever. Check their content from a year ago today. Then a year before that. Go back in large jumps like that and note the changes. You may start to notice that what brought you there in the first place is missing from what they're producing now. Alternatively you may find that they are as sharp as ever and you can still trust their word. Either way you will have gained insight into where their work has gone and if it serves your needs. I hope you find it lands in the latter category. Audit your board game media feed. You may be surprised at just how much of it is opt-in commercials.

link: Bruno Faidutti - reviewing reviews

This article from Bruna Faidutti really struck a chord with me - Reviews. I too dislike giving games a number rating, and I think the most valuable part of a game review is what the writer thinks of the game - why he likes it or why he doesn't. Who would like the game and why? That's the reason my standard format for blogging about games has a Thoughts section. It is for the convenience of those who wish to literally "jump to conclusions". That's what I like to do.

link: a Netrunner story

A good article I read at Shut Up & Sit Down - a story at the 2015 UK Netrunner Nationals.

link: I'm Gonna Lose

One interesting article I'd like to share - "I'm gonna lose" at Hyperbole Games, about Android: Netrunner and participating in competitions and leagues. Netrunner is a game I gaze at longingly, wishing I had the time, determination and dedication to play properly. Recently my older daughter Shee Yun (9) has been playing some Hearthstone of her own initiative. Suddenly a spark of hope ignited. Can she be my sparring partner in Netrunner? *sigh* *shake head* Gamer dads...

Thank you to iSlayTheDragon, where I found the link to the article above.

Alerts via Facebook

If you are a Facebook user and want to get notifications in Facebook whenever I have a new post, follow this link: Hiew's Boardgame Blog Facebook page. I used to automatically cross post from Blogspot to Facebook, but Facebook removed this functionality some time ago. Recently I found a way to automatically post updates at Facebook whenever I have a new post, using dlvr.it. It's not a full post, but some of you may still find this small convenience useful.

69

There's a best boardgame websites voting going on at BoardGameLinks, and my blog is currently at #69. Go check it out. Please "like" my blog if you like my blog. :-) You may also find some interesting blogs / sites that you have not heard of before.

one of the top sites

I only recently discovered that my boardgame blog has been listed as one of the top boardgame sites at Frugal Dad. Woohoo! It’s a long list with 33 entries, but still. Here’s how my blog was described:

"Sharing insightful reviews and analysis of a variety of different board games, Hiew’s Boardgame Blog lives up to its name. Each review includes detailed descriptions of the game and the instructions, as well as impressions from actual play. The comprehensive thoughts shared in each review help provide a clear picture of each specific game."

This list appears to have been made quite some time ago though. Some of the websites on the list are no longer active. BGG is not on the list, and I’m curious why. Anyhow, I am going to stick that fancy-looking logo on my sidebar.

11 Jan 2013: There link to Frugal Dad's list does not work anymore. It seems the page has been taken down, or they have done an overhaul to their website. Now I can only find their logo. I'm using this old logo because this was their logo when they released their top boardgame sites list.

why we keep buying boardgames

Oh I like this article at the Superfly Circus very much. It's about buying games. The points discussed remind me of the game taster post that I wrote in 2010, where I decided that I can tell myself it's OK to be a game taster, that it is okay to buy, learn and then play a game only a few times, or even just once. Self-acceptance is a wonderful thing.

blogroll

I recently added a blogroll to the side bar of this blog. I follow many blogs using Google Reader. I only recently found a way to easily export my subscription list into a widget, which I could then add to my side bar. If you are interested to look for some more boardgame blogs to follow, check out the blogroll.

16 Feb 2011 9:26pm. Oops... in case you are reading this on Facebook, the main location of my boardgame blog is at http://hiewandboardgames.blogspot.com

blogging in Chinese

One thing that I have been contemplating is whether to start a boardgame blog in Chinese. I am a Malaysian citizen, born in Malaysia and brought up in Malaysia, and I am an ethnic Chinese. In July 2010 I added a widget to this (English) boardgame blog, which let me keep count of how many visitors I get from each country. After having tracked the visitors breakdown by country for a while, I was a little surprised and also a little disappointed that the number of visitors from China (CN)- most populous country in the world - was very low. I didn't expect the number to be high, this being a blog in English, but I didn't expect it to be that low either. They have the same number of visitors as tiny Macau (MO)! I understand the number of visitors from USA may not be accurate, that some of them may actually come from other countries. I wonder how much the statistics are skewed by this.

A snapshot of my flag counter on 23 Nov 2010. This is about 4 months of data.

I have read that boardgames is booming in China, being a new hip pastime. Boardgame cafes have mushroomed. Games are getting licensed to be published in Chinese. There are games designed in China specifically targeting the local market. There are even pirated versions of boardgames. I have seen some when I visited Hong Kong recently. When the pirates are active in an industry, that means the industry is probably big enough to be lucrative for them. I'm not sure whether boardgames will be just a fad, but hopefully not.

I do get a decent number of visitors from Taiwan (TW) and Hong Kong (HK), where Chinese is the main language. Surprisingly they contribute more visitors than Australia (AU). Singapore (SG) is a country with mostly ethnic Chinese, but they all speak English, so it is not surprising that I get many visitors from Singapore. Also Singapore is a neighbour of Malaysia (MY), and for a few years in the 1950's we were one country.

Now why do I get this urge to do a blog in Chinese? In a nutshell, it's because I'm Chinese. I read and write Chinese. I grew up in a Mandarin-speaking family, and now that I have started a family of my own, I too speak Mandarin with my wife and my children. However I definitely read and write in English more than I do in Chinese. I only use English at work, I read mostly English novels, I visit English websites, I watch more English movies than in other languages, I play English versions of boardgames. But English is always a second language. I probably don't write in Chinese better than English, but I have a feeling that some things that I want to express are just better expressed in Chinese. I'm looking for a feeling of community of people who speak Mandarin as their mother tongue, in particular those who speak Malaysianised Mandarin, or maybe even Sabahan Mandarin (Sabah is a state in Malaysia where I come from).

I added this little widget not long ago, because I was wondering whether it would help to encourage Chinese-readers to read this blog. Then I tried it. Conclusion: machine translation is pretty bad. Go ahead and try it (top right of page).

There's no noble intention or grand objective about thinking of doing a Chinese boardgame blog, like promoting boardgames to the Chinese community (whether in China or otherwise), or providing information to Chinese people who are already boardgamers. If I do it, it's only because I enjoy writing. When I started this blog in 2007 I said that I expected to be updating it once every few months. What an understatement. It amuses me no end to read my first blog entry. I enjoy writing and expressing my thoughts, and I certainly feel very encouraged when there are others who enjoy reading my blog and find it useful or informative. So what's stopping me?

• A blog in Chinese will likely be mostly a translation of what I write here in this English blog. It doesn't sound so enticing when I think about having to repeat myself.
• I always think of boardgame terminology in English. I don't know the terms used in Chinese boardgame circles. I don't know most of the Chinese translation of game names. In some cases I think the names are translated different in different Chinese markets, e.g. Dominion is translated differently in Hong Kong and China. There will be some struggle to get used to using Chinese terminology, and to find out what commonly used terms are.
• Not sure whether I'll have time to keep up regular-enough updates.

China... the boardgame. Sorry, couldn't resist...

I have not entirely made up my mind whether to not do this, or to just give it a shot. I don't feel like starting something that I'm not confident enough to persevere in. I tried to look at what Chinese boardgame websites are out there, to see whether I would be adding any significant contribution if I were to start a Chinese blog. I didn't search for long, because after finding just a few of them, I realised that reading about boardgames in Chinese is quite tiring for me, because I am so used to reading about boardgames in English. I'm too used to the English terminology. Much of the content that I found could be found at English websites. There is some content about games designed in China, but I didn't find them very interesting. So I probably will not be reading about boardgames in Chinese much in the future. I only subscribed to the RSS feed of one of the websites, WanZhuoYou.

Here are some Chinese websites that I found. Any other good ones anyone can recommend?

• www.wanzhuoyou.com 玩桌游 (Playing Boardgames) - their tag line is "No.1 Professional Board Game Media in China"
• Jool Boardgame Club 小古桌上遊戲俱樂部 - their tag line is "2nd largest boardgame discussion forum in the Chinese-speaking world". I wonder who is the largest. Jool is from Taiwan. I remember I used to visit this forum when I first got into the hobby. I worked in Taiwan then.
• BGC桌游网 (BGC Boardgame Network) - This discussion forum seems pretty active.
• 桌游世界 (World of Boardgames) - Lots of information, including about boardgame cafes.

Now this, is one very long rambling post about something that I am trying to convince myself not to do.

don't "fancify" boardgaming

I just read this article Games are Useless by Jacob Russell at Fortress Ameritrash and I quite like it. It's quite frank. Nowadays I too feel I can't be bothered anymore with trying to "convert" people to the hobby. I won't be shy about my hobby, but I won't be trying to actively "sell" it either. If I come across people who are interested, I'm happy to recommend games, or to invite them to game sessions. But I'm pretty sick of trying to make people like boardgames, trying to set up opportunities to introduce muggles to boardgames. It's much easier to just find others to play with who are already gamers.