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Thinking back over 2009, I played a fair number of new boardgames. These are my top 3. None of these games were actually published in 2009, but I was introduced to all of them last year.

1. Pandemic

Pandemic is the most original and interesting game I’ve played since being introduced to the board game revival a few years ago. In short: it’s a fully co-op game where you work as a team to rid the world of viruses. You play with a team, each player has certain special skills.

With 3 ways to lose and only 1 way to win the game is also really, really challenging…in a good way. The gameplay mechanic is such that you’re essentially racing against the clock, in a losing battle against global pandemic on multiple fronts. Also because it’s a fully co-operative game, players often in a situation where they need to coordinate moves and ability.  I’ve found that the main opponent is often the players egos. We’re so used to competing against others for a solo victory that actually co-operating and managing resources amongst each other is the most challenging element.

The game is technically set up for 2 – 4 players. I’d recommend a full 4, the smaller games are essentially scaled down from the 4 player game.

Publisher’s Site
Best Dang Games Video Review
BoardGameGeek

2. Agricola

Agricola is a farming, resource collecting game. It is well balanced, complex and loads of fun. The starting conditions of the game are so variable that I have yet to come up with a general strategy for Agricola. It’s been the #1 game on BoardGameGeek for quite some time, the only reason I’m ranking it lower than Pandemic is simply because I think pandemic is a more unique game.

The game is playable with 1 – 5 players. Agricola is a little different than most games, you have an almost completely different set of starting conditions and a different deck of available cards depending on the number of players. This lends to it’s extreme re-playability.

Board Games With Scott extensive 30 minute video review
BoardGameGeek

3. Bang!

Published in 2002, this game certainly isn’t new and it’s not actually a board game. Bang! is a wild west theme card game. Each player has a hidden role card (except for the sheriff) and different win conditions based on their role, this guess and bluff gameplay element makes it a great party game. Additionally, players are dealt character cards with unique abilities and hit points.

I don’t think the game is as well balanced as it could be, it’s quite hard for the sheriff to win and extremely hard for the outlaws to lose. But the game is quick, lasting about 15 – 30 minutes, so you can easily play 3 or 4 games in a sitting. If you think of each game as a “round,” the fact that players change roles each game lends to great fun overall.

4 – 7 Players. I recommend at least 5.
PS. It’s translated from Italian, some of the rules a nonsense. Read the FAQ.

BoardGameGeek
Wikipedia

Most Over-rated Game of 2009: Powergrid, currently #3 on BGG. The mental math is extremely difficult and really takes away from the game experience. It’s also unclear what steps need to be taken in order to win, the win condition is not concrete enough. The art is nice though.

Most Anticipated Game of 2009: Battlestar Galatica. Seems fun. That is all.

I found this post sitting in my drafts folder from earlier this year. Seeing as I haven’t updated the blog in awhile, I thought I’d finish off some of the sentences and hit the ‘publish’ button.

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The newspaper industry is facing the perfect storm of declining readership, declining print ad sales, lackluster online ad revenues, the ever-present threat of blogs and the real-time web.

I had a Eureka! moment earlier today when I originally started this post, it occurred to me – newspapers could learn a lot from the Nine Inch Nails distribution model. In a nutshell, the NIN model concedes that music is free, instead of trying to charge people for something that already free, they charge fans for limited edition tangible goods: things like special run vinyl, signed copies of things, tee-shirts, etc.

A couple of ways I think the newspaper industry could add value to their dead tree version:

1) NO ads
2) ONLY distribute coupon type ads in print, don’t make them available online. Encourage advertisers to pay extra for these premium coupons.
3) Free stuff – throw in some tickets to stuff, maybe a glossy photo of scantily clad firefighters. Whatever the audience would apprieciate.
4) Allow subscribers to opt-in to receiving an email copy of their favorite section of the newspaper. An emailed copy would be easy to take with you on a mobile device like an iPhone without having to lug around a fat wad of paper.

I have no idea how the finances work out for any of these ideas. I just really think that if the print newspaper needs to survive, then publishers need to inject some value.

As mentioned a few posts ago, Apple’s iTunes sales reporting tools are a joke.

In walks AppFigures.com. This site provides exactly the type of data I would expect Apple to provide. It automagically grabs your iTunes sales reports every day, then uses the data to generate Google analytics style charts and graphs.  Before using this site I only had a vague idea of how many apps I’d sold.

If you’re an iPhone developer I highly recommend you drop everything and start using this app.

(Thanks to Josh for the comment recommendation)

I’m actually a little surprised that the podcast/nerd-media hasn’t jumped on top of this site yet. Omegle.com is 100% anonymous, 100% random one-on-one instant messaging service – the brainchild of 18-yr old “Lief K-Brooks” (if that’s really his name). The site presents you with a simple IRC-like chat window that connects you with a random stranger. You are not allowed to assign yourself a witty username and you are not given any identifying information about the strange at all. You are identified as “You” and they are identified as “Stranger.” It is a truly anonymous conversation.

I spent a few hours this week trolling random strangers, just to see how this type of conversation could possibly work. I was surprised to find myself getting a major feeling of deja vu. Omegle reminds me a lot of my early days on the internet in the late 90s. It reminds of random conversations on ICQ before spam bots forced me to lock down my profile; or IRC conversations. Even though you technically had to identify yourself with at least a nickname or email address; back in those days social networks really didn’t exist and ever major search engines weren’t that great. A search for someone’s nickname or email address was not likely to turn up any results.

On to the review:
A lot of the strangers I bumped into were outright trolls. I’d say a good 70-80% of the people on there are teenage boys (in spirit) trying really hard to offend random strangers, with stupid ASCII art, gross-out links, stupid phrases/memes, request to “cyber,” random gibberish, the usual. It’s worth mentioning that there are no reporting mechanisms, you cannot flag or ban a user – that, after all, would make the service seem less anonymous. It’s the perfect breeding ground for trolls.

The interface makes it easy enough to shutdown a conversation and start a new random chat. So despite the rampent troll population, I found it possible to have a normal/serious/civilized converation. The key seemed to be to start the conversation by saying something to the affect of “please be normal.” It was when I had these (few and far between) “normal” conversations that the deja vu really set in. I had conversations about the weather, what I ate for lunch, the strange customs of far away lands, faux debates about religion, politics, websites…I got the feeling that I’d had every one of those conversations 10 years ago.

What was old is new again.

It’s hard to say whether the site is going anywhere, or if it’s creator even wants more out of it. In it’s current state, it’s nothing more than a moderately amusing time wastes. But I thought the same thing about twitter when it first launch.

I’ve just released my first iPhone app – iPlayPhone – it’s a toy phone for toddlers. I built it for my 1yr old son who’s always running off with my phone. It’s simplictic but super fun. All the buttons play goofy sounds. The onShake sound totally baffles my son, he’s like “woah, i shake it and is makes sounds…weird.”

Here’s the iTunes link: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=308425921