In Betrayal, players take on the role of characters exploring a spooky mansion. You begin the game in the entrance hall, comfortable in the knowledge that you’re all on the same side, and feeling ready for an adventure. The mansion slowly reveals its secrets as you explore, which (spolier alert) pretty much always include some truly daft architectural choices, given that the room tiles are drawn at random. Some rooms contain items (often useful stuff like weapons, etc), while others trigger creepy little events or, most excitingly, reveal omens. Each time an omen is appears, six dice are rolled, and if the total number that comes out is lower than the number of omens you’ve encountered so far… then it’s officially SPOOK TIME, because The Haunt is about to begin.
This is the point at which Betrayal really comes into its own. The basic game comes with a book of 50 different scenarios which can trigger at this point. Which one you end up with is determined by the number on the omen card that tipped the balance, and which room it was found in (who’s to say a scary plot line can’t begin with a look-up table? Certainly not us!). The only thing the scenarios have in common is that they will pit one player (the traitor) against the rest. Who becomes the traitor is determined by the scenario, but whoever they are, they will now become the keeper of the Traitor’s Tome which will provide them with their new, secret win condition and let them know their new spooky powers.
We’ve played a few games of Betrayal ourselves and had a LOT of discussions with people who’ve playing it at the Treehouse, and are always astonished at the variety of plot lines. Yes, some of them are better-designed from a gameplay point of view than others, but we’ve never been disappointed with the narrative that develops: this game has genuinely produced some of our favourite board game storylines. If you’re up for some super-nerdy viewing, check out this episode of Wil Wheaton’s Tabletop, which does a great job of demonstrating just how funny and unpredictable Betrayal can be!
Pretty much the only downside to this game at the moment is that you do need at least three people to play it, and ideally 5-6 to experience it at it’s best. If you’re lucky enough to have the player count right now, we strongly recommend giving this one a go.
I am looking for a board game along the lines of Monopoly, but, where people in the game can make children and take turns being the parents and the children.
In the middle of the board is a "year clock", that ticks forward one year with each go.
In each go, people take cards like in Monopoly to see what happens as they move around the circuit.
There, could be, many variations of this game.
Where can I find such a game?
Thanks.
EDIT: I could have made this a really nice game, but, didn’t, have time, to write down all the ideas.
People could also collect ideas, teachings, changes, lessons learned, desires, and other things, as gadgets (in the game), which may affect how people move through the game.
There could also be an AI-powered board fate controlled, smartphone, placed in the middle of the board, so that players could play a large infinitude of games with the same board and pieces (the center AI could be powered through an app (and there could also be custom apps for given boards, and users not having a board and pieces could copy them at home with material based on standard board compendium descriptions provided on websites).
“We are still enjoying online games with friends and family, including improvised Just One using pen and paper; a little rough and ready homemade web version of Telestrations coded by a friend; a phone-based version of Cards Against Humanity called All Bad Cards, and most of the Jackbox games (repeat faves are Quiplash, Drawful, Fibbage and Trivia Murder Party). We’ve also been meeting our friends in Board Game Arena to play Hanabi which is nice because they live in Hamburg.
I’m lucky enough to be researching design fictions on my PhD so I’ve been able spend time playing some old and not so old text based adventures and narrative games (in the name of research!) on Steam and Itch.io, some of which I grabbed in the latter’s ‘Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality’ a while back.
We’ve had a few breaks in play, but when we can get everyone together we continue roleplaying using Discord and Foundry Virtual Tabletop. We are about six sessions into the Enemy Within Campaign from Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.
We’ve also recently discovered that Airbnb now offers online experience tours, so we can finally realise our literal board game name location challenge: we’ve been saving two bottles of Jaipur IPA so that we can play Jaipur while drinking Jaipur, and now we can have a complete date night of that plus an online tour of Jaipur, India!”
Patrick:
“In our house we’ve been enjoying online card games like Magic: the Gathering Arena and Legends of Runeterra. They’re not quite the same as sitting opposite an opponent to duke it out, but they both scratch a strategic itch! Magic in particular is in a good place right now, and it’s great to just drop a game or two over the course of an afternoon.”
Then, last but very definitely not least… Ella:
“I’ve been making board games into drinking games (Cobra Paw) and I’m going to make a huge Battleships board to put drinks on in place of ships, then if your opponent hits your boat you neck whatever drink is on that square 🤪”
I’m looking for any information about a card game that was taught to me by a friend, who claims this game is of Turkish origin.
The game plays fairly similar to shedding card games like Mau-Mau, Uno, or Crazy Eights. It is played with one deck of standard French cards per two persons, including 2 jokers per deck (so 3 and 4 persons play with 2 decks + 4 jokers). The player who sheds their last card wins the round. At the end of the round each player counts the value of their remaining cards and adds it to their tally. If the last card played was a joker every opponent gets another 100 points each added to their score. At the end of the game the player with the least points wins.
Before the start of the game one player shuffles the cars. The player to the left of them then cuts the deck anywhere and openly draws all of the "significant" cards or clubs, until they have either 7 cards or there is a regular card. The dealer then combines the lower pile on top, the upper pile (the one that just got drawn from) on the bottom, so that every player knows the last card. From this pile the dealer deals each player cards up to 7 cards. The remaining cards are then placed face-down in a drawing stack.
The player to the left of the dealer begins the game by playing a club or a jack. Every player also has to play a club or jack. Significant cards that force another player to draw a card can be played, but have no effect. When the turn switches from dealer to 1st player (or vice-versa), these restrictions are lifted.
If a player is unable or unwilling to legally play a card they have to draw one card from the drawing stack. If it enables them to play a legal card they may do so in that same turn, but they can not continue to draw more cards. If the drawing stock is depleted it is NOT replenished, instead you have to skip as many turns as you would have drawn cards.
When you play your second to last card you have to announce Tek, or else you will have to take a penalty card (I think Tek is just Turkish for last card). You can chain significant cards to skip that announcement. For the next game the player that did the initial cut of the deck now becomes the dealer.
Significant cards are as follows:
Ace: Every other player has to draw one card, you are required to continue your turn by playing another legal card.
10: Direction of play changes, you may play another legal card, but you don’t have to.
Jack: You can determine the suit to be played by the next player. The next player can also play a jack instead.
7: The next player has to draw 3 cards from the drawing pile. If they themself have a 7 in their hand, they can instead play that 7 and the next player has to draw 6 cards, and so on. The player drawing the cards is allowed to continue their turn as normal. This card can not be combined with the joker.
Joker: Same effect as the 7, but instead the player has to draw 10 cards. It can not be combined with the 7. It
can be played on every suit. After a joker play resumes to whatever card was played before the joker.
The cards are valued as follows:
Numerals: Their number
Queen, King, Ace: 10
Jack: 25
Joker: 100
This game was taught to me over 10 years ago by an acquaintance of Turkish origin. Since then I have played this game with many friends and family. It is our absolute go-to card game, as it is taught easily, it requires some strategy, but is not too involving as to not have a little chat while playing it. With my closest friends we even have coined a little trophy that the winner of each session gets to keep. Usually when we all get the chance to meet up we tally our scores over multiple days, but we don’t add them up until the very end to keep the rankings a secret.
The game rewards building up chains and keeping high valued cards until the end. Ending your game while others still have their jokers on their hands, seeing their desperation growing with each card you play is a priceless feeling. 😀 In the opposite direction, jokers can sometimes feel like they are "burning" in your hand.
This type of game tends to vary the rules a lot, and we had to come up with some ourselves to deal with edge cases. Therefore the rules depicted here may not reflect the exact rules you know – however I am looking for any game from the same region with sort of similar rules. We refer to it as Tek simply because the name stuck, but I’m sure the actual name was different. Any hint is appreciated.
Slowly but surely we’re getting a clearer picture of what’s in store for us over the festive season at the end of this weirdest of years. It’s looking like getting family together around a table will be ‘a thing’ this year in our part of the world, but with pubs shut in a lot of places and household mingling still limited, Christmas merriment might still need a bit of a helping hand.
That’s where (you guessed it) board games come in! Long a traditional component of Christmas for lots of families, board games have come a very long way over the past decade or so, and have never offered so many effective ways to get the fun started. Here’s our Christmas Games Guide 2020 to help you navigate these crowded waters and find the perfect family game for Christmas…
It came up in some discussions today about an old card game called "Svick" that was played about 35 years ago. We can’t really remember how this game was played, or all the rules to it, so I took on the job of trying to find out more about it. Unfortunately, Google cannot find anything (And autocorrects it to "Stick") beside a single reference of the game. We are unsure if the game is a Czech game, or from somewhere else.
The period covered by Baltic Empires saw the Ottoman Empire at the absolute height of its power. The steppes of southern Ukraine and Russia were controlled by the Tatars of the Crimean Khanate, who were vassals of the Ottoman Empire, while the southern border of the Poland-Lithuania was inhabited by semi-independent Cossacks federations. Tartar raids to capture loot and slaves were a common problem along this border. Most of the time the Tatars served as a buffer between the Ottoman Empire and Poland-Lithuania. The Ottomans generally had no direct interest in this region, as their attention was primarily focused on the Habsburg and Polish lands to the south and west of the Baltic Empires map, but Polish and Russian reactions to Tatar raids at times forced the Ottomans to come to the aid of their vassals which resulted in large scale wars between Ottoman and Russian or Polish forces in the region.
Sultan Mehmed IV(1642-1693)
Mehmed came to the throne of the Ottoman Empire at the age of only 6 after his father was overthrown in a coup. He would become the longest reigning sultan in Ottoman history after Suleiman the Magnificent and was known by contemporaries to be a particularly pious ruler. In a Baltic context he is mostly known for his wars against Poland and Russia in the 1670s. The greatest of these was the War of the Holy League or Great Turkish War of 1683-99, which saw the legendary siege of Vienna in 1683 and the equally legendary relief of the city by allied forces led by the Polish king Sobieski with his winged hussars. Mehmed would be overthrown in 1687 by soldiers disenchanted with the course of that war.
Getting the Mehmed IV card into your court in Baltic Empires represent your Power securing an alliance with the Tatars and/or the Ottoman Empire. He thus represents not only himself but also the Ottoman Empire and other associated peoples more generally. By later discarding the card, you are calling on the Ottomans to intervene in the region with a major army. Placing three Independent units at once and allying with them all for one turn (as well as with any other units that might already be in the Ottoman & Tartar Lands) can be truly devastating for the unfortunate target. But once the blow has been struck the effect is over and the region might then be filled with Independent units that anyone can ally with, which can cause of lots of problems for both the Poles and the Russians. This card is obviously of major value for both the Russian and Polish players, but can be just as valuable for any power fighting against Russia and/or Poland as it allows them to devastate their enemies or at least force them to spend scarce resources to defend against Mehmed. Indeed historically the Swedes allied with the Tatars on several occasions and Charles XII even sought refuge in the Ottoman Empire after his disastrous defeat at Poltava in 1708.
As the card is lost when used it is worth considering the timing of its play, as there can be many circumstances where the continued threat of unleashing Mehmed can be at least as useful as actually using the card.
The Habsburgs and the Holy Roman Empire
Compared to the Maritime Powers and the Ottomans the interests of the Holy Roman Empire and the Habsburg dynasty that controlled them were mostly defensive in nature when it came to Baltic matters. The religious divide across Europe in general, and Germany in particular, caused by the Reformation just prior to the start of the game was however a cause for conflict, as the Catholic Habsburgs wanted to restore the true faith throughout the Holy Roman Empire (as well as centralizing Habsburg power in the process). These religious conflicts culminated in the Thirty Years War of 1618-1648, which became intertwined with Baltic affairs as first Denmark and then Sweden saw an opportunity to expand their realms into the wealthy German lands by intervening into the war on the Protestant side. As Sweden was simultaneously fighting a war with Poland, who was allied with their fellow-Catholic Habsburgs, and Prussia-Brandenburg was being steamrolled by the armies of both sides, Northern Germany had suddenly become the focal point for most Baltic rulers.
The period from the end of the Thirty Years War in 1648 to 1721 (the end of the period covered by Baltic Empires) saw Sweden entrenched as a major power in Europe with holdings in Germany, and with a firm alliance with France – the Habsburg’s main rivals. This situation naturally led to more Habsburg involvement in Baltic matters, such as when an Imperial contingent was sent to Denmark to fight against Sweden. In Baltic Empires the Independent provinces in Northern Germany are very attractive. They mostly start the game with their full complement of Cities and Workshops and several of them produce rare Goods or even, as is the case for Hamburg, contain one of the three super valuable Trade Centers. Compared to the similarly rich, but completely undefended, Independent provinces in the Livonian region (the modern day Baltic states) the provinces of Northern Germany are not easy pickings, however, as most of them start out with enough Fortresses and other Independent units to rival the starting strength of most of the player’s armies.
Emperor Leopold I(1640-1705)
Elected in 1658, Leopold became the longest ruling Habsburg emperor, and the first to understand that the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 meant a marked decrease in importance of the role of Holy Roman Emperor. To compensate he sought to strengthen Habsburg authority within their own lands along absolutist lines. His reign saw many large wars against both France and the Ottomans, but in the Baltic context he is mainly known for the direct Imperial intervention against Sweden in the Northern War of 1655-60, which saw Imperial troops campaigning as far as Denmark as part of a Danish-Polish-Imperial coalition army. The infamous “Habsburg jaw” was most prominent in Leopold, and after his jaw was depicted unusually large on a 1670 silver coin, he was nicknamed “the Hogmouth”.
In Baltic Empires Emperor Leopold I represents the advantages of securing a firm alliance with the Habsburgs and their network of vassals and/or rulers within the Holy Roman Empire. You get to produce Independent units in Independent Provinces each Production Phase, an ability otherwise restricted to the Prussian player. You also get to ally with a unit in the Habsburg Lands for free during the War Phase, so by using the ability to place in the Habsburg Lands you in effect get a free unit you can throw after the other Powers each turn if they cause trouble for you. This is obviously very powerful if you are involved in securing Provinces for yourself in the area, but can also be used by Powers such as Russia, who are normally far removed from the Habsburg Lands, as constant attacks from the Habsburgs can be a great way of distracting other players who would otherwise cause trouble in your lands.
Albrecht von Wallenstein(1583-1634)
A Bohemian military entrepreneur, Wallenstein was Born into a poor Protestant noble family but converted to Catholicism in 1606 and married a rich widow. Wallenstein made an enormous fortune and a name for himself as a mercenary captain in the service of the emperor in the early part of the Thirty Years War, where he was awarded confiscated estates for his services. His massive armies were instrumental in first defeating the Danish, and then slowing the Swedish, during their interventions in the war. His meteoric rise to power and growing independence from the emperor would prove to be his undoing as he was assassinated in 1634 by army officials with the emperor’s approval.
Technically speaking Wallenstein didn’t intervene directly into Baltic affairs but only fought against Danish and Swedish intervention into German affairs. As this happened within the area covered by the map of Baltic Empires, he is however included in this article and the game. In the game, as in history, the coming of Wallenstein will pose great problems for whoever is trying to take control of the independent areas in Germany. The player who gets Wallenstein into their Court gets to place a total of five Independent units within the German lands (as defined by being adjacent to Hannover). As befits Wallenstein’s historical conquering army these units can be placed in any of these areas and not only in friendly or Independent-controlled areas, and can therefore really set back an opponent who has spent lots of effort and expense to carve out an empire in Germany. As in history Wallenstein only works for the Emperor (and himself) and not for the player who got him in their Court, so he won’t directly help the player gain a foothold in Germany. On the contrary, the second part of Wallenstein’s card text even specifies that no Protestant powers may ally with Independent units for the rest of the Round, as well as the next, so the arrival of Wallenstein often shuts down players’ ambitions in Germany for some time.
So since I was a kid my grandma has always been playing the same kind of solitaire. But no one knows the name. After some digging I found out it must be some form of Yukon.
Deck:
Standard 52 card deck with no jokers.
Deal:
7 rows, first card face up, then 6 cards face down, repeat til the base is filled face up.
Then deal the rest of the cards on the six rows (face up) and let the first row stand alone with one card. (face up)
Play:
Same way as standard yukon, except you can only put the same type on each other in decending order: five of spades on six of spades etc.
Goal:
Build 4 foundations with ace at the foundation and building upwards from there in the same suit and type.
I play this all the time and would love to know the name!
At the moment, pretty much everyone in the world has got more than usual to deal with when it comes to mental health. Since the start of the pandemic, we’ve all had some learning to do on what it takes to keep ourselves sane when our usual routines are disrupted and many sources of enjoyment aren’t available to provide a pick-me-up, and that’s just those of us lucky enough to have avoided major trauma or bereavement.
I suspect most regular board gamers would be willing to at least speculate that the hobby was doing their brains some good. It turns out there’s plenty of real life science to back this up, at least in certain areas (abstract strategy games and dementia, for example). I’m not qualified to say anything clever about the research, although a lot of it does ring true for me: this post is a reflection on how board gaming has helped my mental wellbeing over the past twelve months and why I think that is.
This is a personal subject so I’ll introduce myself for a change: Hi, I’m Ruth. For the last three-and-a-bit years I’ve been running the Treehouse with my other half Andy. Unless stated otherwise it’s probably me writing the social media and blog posts and behind the camera taking the pictures. Things I’ve learned about my mental health in the last twelve months: being below a certain level of busy is bad for me; even small amounts of random chitchat with other humans is good for me; I’m still capable of experiencing boredom (genuinely a surprise); houseplants are so beneficial for my mood that it’s almost weird. Big things I miss: sitting round a table with family and friends; working with the rest of the Treehouse team. Small things I miss: the sound of the Treehouse full of people having fun; live music (this one might belong in ‘big things’ actually); PINTS.
In The Book, a fictional “Guide to Rebuilding Civilization”, which freely mixes factual and imaginary concepts and objects, one double page is a devoted to a board game.
I have only access to the Italian translation; here the game is described on pages 372-3 and is called La griglia (literally, “The grid”). It is a 2-player game on a 5×8 board with ten tokens for each player, five initially on the board and five to be added in later moves. Enemy pieces are captured by creating a row of own pieces, that allows one to “shoot” at an enemy piece as far as the row is long (if I understand correctly). The goal is to be the first to take five enemy tokens.
Does anyone know more details about this game? Is it an existing game or was it invented for the book? (Of course, it has in any case elements of many historical board games.)
