Edible Maps

An tasty assortment of edible maps...

An exercise in map symbols from Ms. Welch's Class:





Marzipan Europe from Strange Maps:



A Somalia cake from Ms. Jimenez's Class (watch out for the pirates):



And finally, Catan Cake. An edible version of the boardgame, Settlers of Catan:



MMMmmmmmmmmaps!....

#268

Seattle Space Needle in Jeopardy?

Ken Jennings (yes, that Ken Jennings, the guy that holds the record for the longest winning streak on the U.S. syndicated game show Jeopardy!) has a website and blog where he talks a bit about his life and his family, and a lot about games and puzzles and other things that he finds interesting.

Yesterday, he posted about finding a sticker album for his son. "He’s a bit of a nerd, and likes maps and stuff."

I beg your pardon! There is nothing nerdy about liking maps and stuff!

Geeky, maybe...

Anyway, Ken was offended by the lackluster and inaccurate depiction of Seattle's most famous landmark, the Space Needle: "I feel I know the Space Needle. And you, odd gray Cylon-looking phallus, are no Space Needle. You’re not even close."

Check out his post to see the even more egregious offense, the image they chose to represent Notre Dame University, in South Bend, Indiana...

Free Gas? Your Choice

During a recent stay at a hotel, I noticed a poster for their summer promotion. Make three hotel stays at their hotels and get a $50 gas card. The advertising material is designed to look like some sort United States board game:



While I'm not endorsing Choice Hotels (although I did have a pleasant stay), I do like hotels that use maps in their advertising.

The game looks about as interesting as Candyland, but perhaps with that $50 gas card, I could afford one of those "Land o' the Free" road trips...


#233

Power Grid

My latest boardgame aquisition is Power Grid. As eurogames go, this one is middle-range in complexity. Success requires analysis and planning. I have played this game for several years, and a few weeks ago, I actually won for the first time! So I decided it was time I owned a copy.

The object of this game is to supply the most cities with power. To accomplish this goal players purchase power plants and the raw materials needed to run the plants. These materials include coal, oil, garbage, and uranium, but also includes wind and solar-powered plants. The winner of the game will create the most efficient network of plants powering the most cities. The base game comes with a map of the United States on one side:



and a map of Germany on the other:



Official game expansions include Italy, France and the Benelux countries:



However, many enterprising Power Grid fans have created their own maps, allowing them to play in Scandinavia:








...and Connecticut



As it often happens, I found something cool while looking for something else. GameInk.net is offering Power Grid (and other boardgame) themed T-shirts:



Power plant #44 in the game deck is one of the most desirable in the set, as it powers up to five cities, but because it uses solar and wind power, you do not need to purchase resources to burn.

"Money isn't everything, but it is a tie-breaker in Power Grid"

Game board images from BoardGameGeek.com

#227

Brave n00b World

Who says there are no new lands to discover and explore?

At Interesting 2008, James Wallis, geophysicist and game design consultant, presented some findings from his recent research:

I have spent the last few months on sabbatical, visiting a persistent fantasy world known as ‘Of Warcraft’. During this time I have made some preliminary observations about the nature of the world, which I am going to publish here in a series of short papers. It is my hope that this work may lead to further examination of this curious habitat, and the foundation of the academic field of Azerothian Studies, with a nice chair and honorarium for myself, &tc. &tc.

Among his findings, he as determined that the size of "Of Warcraft" is approximately 113 square kilometers; roughly the size of Newcastle. Additional findings discuss the size of "Of Warcraft" as a planetoid, as well as physics and time relativity issues.

Clearly, more reasearch is called for. View the full lecture below or here.



Thanks to Hunter for the link.


#209

Origins Game Fair

This weekend, I am attending the Origins Game Fair in Columbus, Ohio. Origins is one of the largets consumer game shows in the country. Dungeons & Dragons, collectible card games, minatures, family games, strategic board games and everything in between will be played, demonstrated, bought and sold. Thousands of gamers, game designers, publishers and distributors will be at the Columbus Convention Center.



If you're looking for me at Origins, most likely you will find me in the "Boardroom", a special section set aside for board games, operated by the Columbus Area Boardgaming Society. If not there, then I'll be with the Train Gamers Association, playing games like Railroad Tycoon and Ticket to Ride.




#203

FreePoverty

Test your geographical knowledge and help impoverished persons get water...

Yet another one of those "click on this and help a charity" sites (see The Hunger Site and Free Rice). They say that these sites are legit and contribute to the needy. In the case of FreePoverty.com, regardless of how much goes to charity, it is a fun quiz:



You're on the clock. Locate world cities and landmarks. The closer you get to the answer, the more cups of water donated.

Can you beat my score?

Via GeoLounge


#199

Railroad Tycoon

I have often written about my boardgaming hobby and games with maps. Many of my favorite games have a railroad theme. Currently, my most favorite game is Railroad Tycoon, and its sequel, Rails of Europe. In this game players compete to build the best routes linking cities throughout the eastern United States. Points are earned by delivering goods. But invest wisely, or you could find yourself so heavily in debt, your liabilities outweigh your assets, and you'll end up losing victory points. The game mechanic for Railroad Tycoon: The Boardgame, is based on an earlier railroad boardgame, Age of Steam, and the game name and theme was licensed from Sid Meier's classic railroad computer game.

The game board for Railroad Tycoon is huge, and can accomodate up to six players. Be ready to use the dining room table, as this will not fit on a standard card table:



The quality of the components is exceptional. City rail links are created by purchasing track hexes. Once connected, certain cities will demand specific goods. Use your rail links to deliver the goods.



Rails of Europe is an expansion that requires the original game (for most of the components), but provides a new map, and can take up to five players. The cities are less congested, but building through the Alps and the Pyrenees offer new sets of problems to overcome.



#193

How To Find Your Way Around Atlantic City

Submitted to the Toy Swap 5 contest at Worth1000.com (Swapping playthings for everyday items), by bicyclewilli.

After Iraq

It is always a delight to see where a map might lead me... This week, while browsing the magazine stacks in the library, I was awe-struck by the map design on the cover of the January/February, 2008, issue of The Atlantic magazine. How did I miss it when it came out? I immediately appreciated the artists intent by his use of game pieces and dice on a map of the Middle East, as if it was all some sort of game.

After Iraq, by Jeffrey Goldberg, discusses the effects of the Iraq War on the Middle East including the possibility of independence for Kurdistan from Iraq. British influence in the Middle East led to the formation of Iraq and the separation of Palestine. A large-scale conflict between Shiites and Sunnis in the Middle East could occur. Intelligence expert Ralph Peters comments on U.S. plans for the unification of Iraq and the spread of democracy.

Peters also discusses the artificial nature in which Middle-Eastern borders were created following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire:

All states are man-made. But some are more man-made than others. It was Winston Churchill (a bust of whom Bush keeps in the Oval Office) who, in the aftermath of World War I, roped together three provinces of the defeated and dissolved Ottoman Empire, adopted the name Iraq, and bequeathed it to a luckless branch of the Hashemite tribe of west Arabia. Churchill would eventually call the forced inclusion of the Kurds in Iraq one of his worst mistakes-- but by then, there was nothing he could do about it.

That quote about Churchill and the arbitrary nature in which borders were redrawn after the Great War reminded me of a book I read just last year, Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World, by Margaret Macmillan. The author describes the six months following the end of the First World War when leaders of the great powers, as well as men and women from all over the world, all with their own agendas, converged on Paris to shape the peace. Wilson had noble (and naïve?) intentions of reshaping Europe (and the Middle-East) to create a lasting peace, but his frustratingly vague concepts like 'self-determination' often confused even his own advisors. Eventually, many of the borders drawn in Paris served only to forestall conflict. Just as the fall of communism exposed the underlying currents of racial strife in the Balkans, the fall of Iraq has served to re-ignite religious and ethnic tensions enclosed in the new borders.

Below are two maps from Paris 1919 that illustrate some of the many plans for divvying up the Ottoman spoils:





Another aspect of Goldberg's Atlanic article are his speculations on how the map of the Middle-East could change in the next ten to fifty years, as regimes rise and fall, and ethnic and religious differences lead to reduced, enlarged and newly created nations.



In his article, "Blood borders: How a better Middle East would look," in the June, 2006, issue of the Armed Forces Journal, Ralph Peters took a turn at re-imagining the Middle-East:



Jeffrey Goldberg talked to Peters in preparation for his Atlantic article:

Peters drew onto his map an independent Kurdistan and an abridged Turkey; he shrank Iran (handing over Khuzestan to an as-yet-imaginary Arab-Shiite state he carved out of what is now southern Iraq); he placed Jordan and Yemen on a steroid regimen; and he dismembered Saudi Arabia because be sees it as a primary enemy of Muslim modernization.

It was an act of knowing whimsy, he said. But it was seen by tbe Middle East's more fevered minds as a window onto the American imperial planning process. "The reaction was pure paranoia, just hysterics," Peters told me. "The Turks in particular got very upset." Peters explained how he made the map. "The art department gave me a blank map, and I took a crayon and drew on it. After it came out, people started arguing on the Internet that this border should, in fact, be 50 miles this way, and that border 50 miles that way, but the width of the crayon itself was 200 miles."

It certainly looks like we are nowhere near an end to turmoil in the Middle-East, and I fear that there will be more blood shed before there can be a "lasting peace". It is possible that to achieve that peace, new borders will need to be drawn...

Yo Ho Ho! A Developer's Life For Me

A recent issue of Microsoft's Visual Studio Magazine included this fold out map for the board game, "A Developer's Life for Me". The mechanics of the game (roll and move) are less important than the clever illustrations.

Yo Ho Ho! Developing code on the high seas is a dangerous adventure...

Just when you think you have an interesting project, with a reasonable timetable, you run into the "Island of Boss's Folly"



Or even worse... a dreaded "Meeting With Suits"!

The Microsoft Visual Studio system is a suite of development tools for creating console and GUI applications along with Windows Forms applications, web sites, web applications, and web services.

You can download and print your own copy of the game here.

Thanks to Hunter for sending this map to me.

Crossing the Rubicon

Earlier, I wrote about my experiences in the Diplomacy Hobby, as a gamer and a zine publisher. This t-shirt was given to me as a wedding present by a couple of my old Dip buddies, Scott and "Goz". I suppose I could wear it to a tournament and not need a conference map...

Back when I was publishing my Diplomacy zine, Crossing the Rubicon, my friend, Bill Williams, designed this logo for me. I share it here because, knowing my love of maps, he incorporated an antique globe into the design. Bill had a special color printer that could make t-shirt iron-on transfers. Unfortunately, we forgot to reverse the image... so we printed it again and put the mistake on the back of the shirt:



I am using the old zine name, and the logo Bill designed, for a new blog I started last month. Crossing the Rubicon is primarily my boardgaming log, but I may get around to other articles about boardgames, and reprinting my old zines.

UPDATE: I later decided one blog is enough...

Dungeons & Dragons

Over the weekend I had the opportunity to spend a day boardgaming at The Arsenal Game Room in Indianapolis. The clever folks here have combined a game store with a café. Good food and good games. What more could you ask for?

While I was there I met Craig Johnson of Campaign Adventures. His company makes large (36x48 inches) laminated maps designed for use in Dungeons & Dragons adventure campaigns; on the surface or down below...





Gather your Elven Mage, Dwarf Fighter, and Halfling Thief minatures and begin the plunder...

1960 The Making of the President

On this day before Super Tuesday, is there a better time to play a boardgame based on a presidential Election?

When I was a kid I played a game called Landslide from Parker Brothers. Players rolled dice, moved around the board, and attempt to get the most votes in each state. The player with the most electoral votes from those states is elected. While the game was fairly simple, it cemented in my mind fairly early how our electoral college works and the importance of winning in the all-or-nothing large states.



Over the weekend I played a new game based on a U.S. Presidential election. 1960 The Making of the President is based on the down-to-the-wire race between John Kennedy and Richard Nixon.



Produced in 2007 by Z-Man Games, this game uses a card-driven system, "all the major events which shaped the campaign are represented: Nixon’s lazy shave, President Eisenhower’s late endorsement, and the 'Catholic question' are all included as specific event cards. The famous televised debates and final election day push are each handled with their own subsystems. Candidates vie to capture each state’s electoral votes using campaign points in the four different regions of the country. At the same time, they must build momentum by dominating the issues of the day and attempt to gain control of the airwaves."

Because the actual election was so very close, each player has an opportunity to win.

I enjoyed this game. It didn't take long to figure out the mechanic, and just like real campaign managers, I was forced to weigh the relative value of campaigning and spending political capital in states that I could win, and concede the states that I could not, while trying to hit that magic number of 270. In this, my first, game, I played the Richard Nixon campaign, and did only slightly better than reality. I lost 292-246, whereas in the real election, he lost to JFK 303-219.

Guillotine

Guillotine: "The revolutioniary card game where you win by getting a head."

From the back of the box: "This irreverent and humorous card game takes place during the French Revolution. Players represent rival guillotine operators vying for the best collection of noble heads."

This has become one of my favorite card games. This simple game can usually be played in 30 minutes. Just the right kind of filler in between longer, more complex games. Appropriate for ages 12 and up (just don't think too much about the theme).

Players use a variety action cards to rearrange the order of the nobles as they wait their turn... Marie Antoinette and King Louis are worth 5 victory points, while governers, generals, and the Archbishop are worth 4. My only objection to this game is that the Royal Cartographer is only worth 1 point! Surely he is more important than that! Even Robespierre is worth 3 points!

An important part of the charm of this game are the humorous illustrations by Quinton Hoover and Mike Raabe.

The Rubicon of a Diplomacy Player

One of the greatest boardgames ever invented, that uses a map, is the game of Diplomacy. Created by Allan B. Calhamer in 1954 and released commercially in 1959, Diplomacy is a strategic board game set in Europe just before the beginning of World War I. The game is best played with seven players, each controlling the armed forces of a major European power (England, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Turkey and Austria-Hungary).

The game employs relatively simple rules whereby each player aims to move their units - and defeat those of others - to win possession of a majority of strategic cities and provinces marked as "supply centers" on the map; these supply centers allow players who control them to produce more units. The unique part of the game is that no one player can win the game alone. In order to advance, you must make alliances with other players. However to ultimately win, it is likely that you will have to break that alliance, or "stab your ally in the back."

The game requires that participants are "good sports" and know that hard negotiations, and sometimes lying, is part of the game.

Diplomacy is also the first commercially published game to be regularly played by mail, and eventually by e-mail. At one time there were hundreds of postal Diplomacy newsletters, or "zines". The game is well suited to PBM or PBEM play, because a face-to-face game can sometimes take 5-8 hours to complete. I used to be very active in the Diplomacy Hobby. Recently Doug Kent, the publisher of Diplomacy World, the hobby flagship zine, asked me to write an article about my experiences for the 100th issue. I'll share that article with you here:

The Rubicon of a Diplomacy Player

Doug has been bugging me for months to write up something for his Diplomacy World 100th issue. For some reason, he thinks my hobby-life story would be interesting, even though I am no longer an active Diplomacy player. I also suspect I was one of the few hobby old-farts that he could track down that didn’t turn him down outright...

Like many of us, I started out playing Risk. I saw it in a Sears catalog and asked for it for Christmas. I must have been nine-years-old. This game soon became a staple for my Dad and brothers, as well as my buddies in the neighborhood. I loved every chance I had to play it, as much as I cringe at the thought of playing it today. But then sometime around age 14 (1974, and I still have a vivid memory of this) I walked into John Richter’s basement and saw a Diplomacy board with all its colorful pieces set. I was immediately intrigued. John told me that his older brother, Mark, played this game by mail. What a concept! I soon bought a copy and Diplomacy became my favorite game. Whenever we could get four to seven guys together (not easy when none of us drove) we’d spend an afternoon sticking knives in each other’s back. Risk was soon put aside as a boring kid’s game.

It wasn’t long before I was introduced to the postal hobby. My first Dip zine was Pelucidar, published by Burt LaBelle. I also recall a zine called Totenkopf and played Dip and Nuclear Destruction through Flying Buffalo, Inc. I didn’t get very far in any of my games. In fact I cannot recall ever actually finishing a game. I probably NMR’d myself out, and I went on to other interests (drama club, girls) and mostly forgot about this hobby. While attending university I dabbled a bit with an occasional Dip game, but also spent many years playing Dungeons & Dragons. It was pretty cool for college guys to play (and girls played too!) but I started losing interest when high school, and then junior high aged kids, started showing up? It wasn’t so cool anymore.

Fast-forward to the early 1990’s, married with children. I’m not sure how it got started, but at some point I got together with John (with whom I also attended college), Richard, Don, Gary and some other old college buddies. We would get together for an occasional Saturday afternoon game of Diplomacy, when the wives would let us. Also, right around this time I rediscovered the postal hobby. I don’t remember how, but I vaguely recall responding to an ad in Avalon Hill’s The General. I mailed a few dollars to the publisher of Zine Register, and received a large envelope full of Dip zine samples.

From what I can tell, I jumped back in at the tale-end of the “Golden Age” of Diplomacy zines. This was just before the Internet took over, and there were dozens of zines being published from all over the world. Soon I was subscribing to, and playing in, the likes of Doug Kent’s Maniac’s Paradise, Pete Gaughan’s Perelandra, Brad Wilson’s Vertigo, Andrew York’s Rambling Way, and of course, Diplomacy World. It wasn’t long before I got the itch to try my hand at publishing. I started out as a subzine of Maniac’s Paradise. Plausible Paraphernalia offered word games and featured PBM Scrabble.

In 1995 I moved from Michigan to Dayton, Ohio, and it was at this time that I became aware of the Hoosier Archives and the plans to save them from destruction. Walt Buchanan, one of the founding fathers of the Postal Diplomacy Hobby, had eight file cabinets full of zines from the earliest days to the mid 1980s. No longer active in the hobby, these cabinets had to go. Pete Gaughan began a campaign to raise funds to have all the zines shipped to him in California. This was expected to cost hundreds of dollars. Instead, I offered to drive a rental truck to nearby Indianapolis and store the Archives in my basement. This adventure was documented in an article that appeared in Diplomacy World #78, "The Pulp is Past, or How I Came to Be the Custodian of the Hoosier Archives and What I Found There." You can find it here or here. Apparently this is the most famous thing I have ever done, because if you “Google” me today, this article is usually at or near the number one hit. Eventually, the archives found a permanent home at the Bowling Green State University’s Popular Culture Library, in Bowling Green, Ohio.

Jamie Wins “Mr. Congeniality” (David Hood on the right)
It was also shortly after the move to Ohio that I finally decided to take the plunge and publish my own postal diplomacy zine, Crossing the Rubicon. CTR included standard Diplomacy, gunboat, and Colonial Dip, along with Scrabble and other word games. I also had subzines from Dave Partridge, Pitt Crandlemire, Scott Morris, Phil Reynolds, Andy York, and Tim Lurz. I worked hard to make it an attractive looking zine, and for that reason, Jim Burgess predicted it would be short lived, and he was right. CTR only lived for 16 issues. It was great fun, and I made many friends, but it just was a bad time.

During the two years I published my marriage ended and my job went to hell. During this time I also attended three DipCons, twice in Chapel Hill and once in Columbus. At least one of the Chapel Hill events was also a World Dip Con. It was at this event that I won “Mr. Congeniality”. David Hood called it the “Player’s Choice” Award, but it was an honor nonetheless. When David informally polled players throughout the weekend, one after another mentioned that they enjoyed playing with me. I also started my involvement with the Internet Diplomacy Hobby. I spent some time as the editor of the Postal section of the Diplomatic Pouch, and was introduced to email Dip using the Judge system.

Colonial Diplomacy at an Early Rubicon Games (clockwise from left: Jamie, Mike Gonsalves, John Richter, Joe Carle, and Ward Nahri).

The best offshoot of Crossing the Rubicon was that I started my own housecon, Rubicon Games. The first event was in October, 1996, and the attendance was very small. Four showed up on Saturday and another four on Sunday. We never played any Diplomacy that first year, but it was a start. I played my one and only game of Avalon Hill’s Advanced Civilization. However, by Rubicon Games II, I had a full house for the whole weekend. Several of my CTR subscribers made the trip to Dayton, from Louisville, Cleveland, Indianapolis and Pittsburgh. There were FTF games of Diplomacy and Colonial Diplomacy as well as other board and card games.

Rubicon Games survived the CTR fold, and grew and evolved over the years, however by RG IV & V, it became clear that this event could not be sustained as a Diplomacy event. Since I was no longer an active Dip zine publisher, I had fewer Diplomacy players attending, and the gamers in the Dayton area have little interest in Dip. This was the time of the Euro games explosion. Every year, a new game would become THE game of the year; Settlers of Catan, History of the World, and Puerto Rico have remained Rubicon Games favorites. The annual event followed me as I moved to four different houses, and it has outgrown my space. So, this year I tried something different for Rubicon Games XII. For the Saturday portion of the event, I rented a large conference room on the University of Dayton campus. We had nearly 30 attendees and more than enough room for all kinds of games, including for the first time in many years and game of Diplomacy! In the coming years, Rubicon Games will continue to grow from a “housecon” to what I hope will be large regional board gaming event.

To be quite frank, my interest in the game of Diplomacy has waned. Over the years I would dabble in an occasional postal game, or more likely an email game. I am a member of the Vermont Group, played in several gunboat tournaments and GM’d many games for Newbies. However, I finally came to the conclusion that as a player, I’m just not very good at Diplomacy. In addition, when I have time for gaming, I’d much rather play three or four other board games in the time that I can play one game of Diplomacy.

In Dayton, I have been the coordinator for Game-Day: the Dayton Area Boardgaming Society. We meet 4-5 times per month at several locations in the Dayton area and play every sort of board game: Euros, Mayfair rail games, war games, and card games. This group, and Rubicon Games, will continue to be my Hobby focus. Yet I will always treasure my experiences in the Diplomacy Hobby, the good times and the good friends I made. Congratulations to Diplomacy World and it’s 100th issue.

Here I Stand - Antike

I recently played two different boardgames that make use of a map of Europe:

Here I Stand: Wars of the Reformation 1517-1555 covers the political and religious conflicts of early 16th Century Europe. While I have been generally reluctant to play some of the more "heavy duty" wargames that are published by GMT, I appreciated that this one is card driven, and not only about conquest. It integrates religion, politics, economics and diplomacy. In this game, I played France, and spent most of the game embroiled in conflict with The Pope over control of Northern Italy. My mistake was making peace with Great Britain. Without the French as a constant pain in their side, they were able to make the necessary political, military and religious advances that gave them the game.

This is one I will like to try again.

Also played Antike, one of my favorites. This civilization building game focuses on the ancient peoples surrounding the Mediterranean Sea (however, if you flip the game board, you get a whole new map focusing on the ancient Middle East!). To win, civilizations must not only gain territory on the map, but also develop new technologies such as road building and navigation as well as trade and monument building. Another unique feature of this game is the use of the "roundel" instead of rolling dice. See Antike on BoardGameGeek for more details of the game and its mechanic.

As Phoenicia, I probably should not have won this one. I made several poor choices but was still able to stay even or one step ahead of the Germanic horde. Greece, stuck in the middle of the board, built too many of his temples too close to me. I was able to destroy two of them for some quick end-of-game victory points. (Note the Ohio Quilt in the background...)

Map Rugs for Home & Classroom

A few months back, I blogged about a relief map rug. Here's another map rug from World Maps Online:



These map rugs appear to be designed with the classroom in mind. In fact, the rug depicted above is actually a large game board for use with the STOPS Geography Trivia Game.

However, I think this Earthworks Rug would make a nice addition to a family room. I would enjoy having it in my home.

Ticket to Ride should become the new Monopoly

Ticket to Ride, is a delightful board game from Days of Wonder. A terrific "gateway" game for new gamers, it has simple rules that can be learned in a few minutes, but contains enough strategy and tension to engage beginners and experienced gamers, young and old.

DoW have already issued offical sequels and expansions for Europe, Germany and Switzerland, and multiple unofficial maps have also beeen created by fans.

We all know that Monopoly has hundreds of special editions, for cities other than Atlantic City, to promote movies, amusement parks, and favorite foods.

Valerie Putman, of BoardgameNews.com, has a brilliant idea for the folks at Days of Wonder... special edition collectibles of Ticket to Ride for cities, countries, theme parks, etc.:

Valerie Putman: Ticket to Ride Everywhere

How many of you have gone on vacation and brought home a souvenir to remember the place—perhaps a snow globe or a post card? I know one guy who collects Monopoly games everywhere he goes—and they are out there. You can get a Monopoly themed for just about anything. But what’s the point? They play the same, so additional copies are just for show. Now imagine Ticket to Ride collectibles—with new maps, new tickets, but few if any new rules, available at every tourist attraction and vacation destination. After a trip to Disney World, you pick up a copy of Ticket to Ride Disney and relive your vacation by planning your routes between the amusement park attractions. You have fond memories of your trip to New York City? Break out the Ticket to Ride NYC with subway and bus routes to retrace your steps.

I want to be absolutely clear. I am not being sarcastic about the fact that yet another Ticket to Ride game is available at Essen. I am the queen of Age of Steam and Power Grid maps—I love new ways to play my favorite games. And I think Ticket to Ride is the perfect non-gamer game that should replace monopoly as the one game in every American household. But even better, every time you visit a friend you look forward to playing Ticket to Ride because they have a dozen maps you’ve never seen before—like the one that came free with 12 box tops from Cheerios! The collectors would swoon.

I would expect Days of Wonder and Alan Moon to profit from it, of course, though I admit that I don’t know how licensing deals work. I know that Age of Steam has gained such a following because the maps are seemingly endless, but that this is fraught with legal issues. Surely if Hollywood can figure out how to allow 100 different Batman toys and games, it can be done. I would even like to see a Ticket to Ride Monopoly, with trolley routes in Atlantic City connecting Boardwalk to Park Place to Oriental Avenue!

Hmmm…time to go buy stock in DoW.

The Die is Cast!

I don't recall if this is a new logo for them or not... but I recently discovered the logo on the Boardgame News website:

More about maps in boardgames coming soon. But this one is too good to pass up. Thanks, BGN!