#BoardGameSky and #sologames, I'm looking for recommendations. I want to play, or at least learn more about, environmentally-themed solo or co-op games. I'm not sure what the scope is exactly. Daybreak and Conservas are pefect examples. (1/2)

Third play of Lucky 7 about to start. Will this be my first win? #boardgames

I've been enjoying Conservas. After three games winning pretty comfortably at standard difficulty, I decided to redo March at the higher level. I lost that yesterday and am ready to try again.

Today's mailbox. I've been looking forward to both of these.

Specialist in climate and environmental communication Suzie Hicks ‘18 will be discussing interdisciplinary education and early career success in the Little Building, room 229, from 11am-12pm tomorrow. Come find out more through the presentation and a Q&A. See you there!

First play of Lucky Seven from @coincidence.games. A fun solo challenge. There's something about using cards as movable pieces on a grid that I like, see also Summoner Wars and Crownfell. (Other suggestions?) I lost. I had four squad members survive to the end, but did not eliminate all threats.

#mathsky, #boardgamesky Does playing board games in itself entail quantitative reasoning? I'm teaching a math of puzzles and games class at the moment, whose ultimate goal is to improve the quantitative reasoning skills of the students. (1/n)

Today's #boardgame delivery: 3 Witches. Looking forward to trying this @coreyyoung.com three-player trick-taker with the family.

If you're looking for a quick present for someone, ebooks are always great, and I've got a great one for the poli-sci, cyberpunk, big data nerd, and/or sci fi political thriller fan in your life. www.kobo.com/ww/en/ebook/...

Not to be like a pushy d-bag but time is running out & I have 2 kids to feed so if you want a great gift for the boardgamer in your life get them my book The Game Changers (UK) / Across The Board (US) all about how games shaped civilization & make us human. Many critics have vouched for them!

The Last Lighthouse from @buttonshy.bsky.social set-up and ready to go. I think I understand the rules, and I'm on normal difficulty. Let's see how long I survive. #sologames

Today’s A Nice Cuppa came in at 9pts, just about “satisfying tea” and still satisfying to play. Less good, I messed up the printing on Pentaquark so i couldn‘t even try that. #sologames

We've just launched the Kickstarter campaign for 52 Duels, our latest release from @postmarkgames.bsky.social ! It's a 1-2 player game using 2 decks of standard playing cards to duel with your opponent. Lots of different characters and strategies to explore! www.kickstarter.com/projects/pos...

13pts and perfect tea on my first play of Scott Almes’s A Nice Cuppa, from @buttonshy.bsky.social. Unfortunately, it was too interesting for me to retire it and claim I’m too good at it to play again. I might not hit these heights again, so I thought I’d declare it here. #boardgames #sologames

The entirety of #Crownfell 's existence was triggered by a throwaway joke... With just 8 hours left in the crowd sale, here's the story of how it got started, and where it went from there. 🎲✂️

Three-player game of Fromage today, my second play. A close win for the 14yo on debut. We now understand it well enough to fully enjoy it, I think. And it's very enjoyable. I also checked out what's in the Formaggio box, but we haven't tried adding anything in yet. #boardgames

@weheart.games very kindly resized the beautiful #Crownfell cards to fit the PVC credit-card-like cards that the Emerson Print Shop have. They came out great! The black and white with flashes of red/blue really suits this, I think. Now I have to play it! #boardgames

Going to play Fromage later this afternoon for the first time. We also have Formaggio (completely unplayed). For a first game is it best to stick with the Fromage board pieces, or are any of the Formaggio ones good to sub in on a first play? #boardgames

Halfway between daydreaming and serious planning #2: what are some cool events or things to do that are: * related to #maps, * taking place between mid-May and mid-June 2026, * accessible from Birmingham, UK? Bonus points if they have an academic slant.

Halfway between daydreaming and serious planning: what are some events or things to do that are: * related to #boardgames, * taking place between mid-May and mid-June 2026, * accessible from Birmingham, UK? (And are not UK Games Expo---got that one!) Bonus points if they have an academic slant.

New #boardgames! All arrived this week from Kickstarter. On the one hand, it's exciting to get new games and the delay that comes with kickstarter means that they feel like more of a surprise/present than a purchase (even though I know that's not how it works). 1/n

All set to spend some time in the fishing villages on the Norweigian coast of Vermont. #Saltfjord #boardgame.

Today's new #boardgame: Tacta, a candidate for using in my Math of Games class next semester. I played all hands of a three player version. Quick, intuitive and fun. And luckily my table was just the right size for this player count. Next: find, or make, a genuine #sologame version.

Enjoyable work task for today: learn Sagrada. I played the solo mode and I think I got the rules right, but took a while to understand even very basic tactics. Haven't scored it yet, but I don't have high hopes for victory, even though I played on an easy level. I will try again soon.

One of the many advantages of teaching a game studies course: when Canvas is down, you can declare a games day while staying on topic.

A good weekend for some quick #boardgames: Tussie Mussie while waiting for food in a restaurant, new-to-us Kluster, Nekojima with the new Torii expansion, and physically-new-but-BGA'd Kingdomino. All fun!

Good time with #Everdell today. We picked it up because it looked so good it jumped the queue on other #boardgames. We don't have many worker placement options. It's more cutesy than I like ("critters", ick) but fun. Looking forward to playing it again without the first-play acclimation.

Does the "show less like this" option work on the Discovery feed? I've been hitting it constantly for pictures of pets (boo, hiss, I know) and American sports, but they're still a good fraction of what I see. Maybe everyone else is getting almost entirely cats and baseball, rather than 10-20%?

Hey #boardgamesky! I'm looking for examples of /weird/ board games. Games that do something you don't expect games to do, whether theme, mechanic, player experience/emotion, or other surprises. Bonus points for being cheap, recent and/or quick to play, but none of these are essential.

Is there a subgenre of SF for books that look at future/high-tech democratic systems? I just noticed that two of my favourite series---The Centennial Cycle by Malka Older and the Prefect Drefyus books by Alastair Reynolds---fit this description. I'd like to read more! #SpecFic #BookSky #SFF

Today's lesson plan: play Pandemic: Hot Zone.

Another request for help on my math of games and puzzles gen ed college course pitch. What should I call it? "<Stupid Pun>: The Math of Puzzles and Games" is the obvious format---what should the pun be? Other format suggestions welcome too. #mathsky #boardgamesky #puzzles

After decades of claiming that math is an art, and idly threatening to defect from the Natural Sciences dept to the Arts at my last college, an organisational shake-up at Emerson means that I'm now in the School of the Arts. There might be a name change soon, but I'll enjoy it while it lasts.

First play of Deadly Dowagers. Lots of fun with social climbing via murdering husbands. 14yo won. I bought it on the basis of designer Sarah Shipp's academic book about thematic game design. Probably not an efficient promotion strategy, but at least 1 in the sales column from it. #boardgamesky

I'm pitching a math of games/puzzles course. Intro level, primary goal is to meet a QR requirement. I have a good idea of what I want to do---indeed, my main problem is going to be narrowing it down---but new ideas always welcome. What would you do with such a course? #mathsky #boardgames

Recommendations request: I'm looking for non-premium solo games on BGA. I'd like a list of 3-5 that are relatively easy and quick to learn/play and cover range of game mechanics. Ideally, the final list will give a newcomer to games a sense of modern board-gaming. #boardgamesky

Does anyone know of an article on Mamdani's Scavenger Hunt from the perspective of using games to engage people politically (or something similar)? It would be for use early on in an interdisciplinary #gamestudies first-year seminar (for non-game majors). #boardgamesky #politicalscience

Scavenger Hunt: Game where you have a list of tasks (possibly clue-based) to solve in any order. Most solved/collected wins. Treasure Hunt: Game where you have a series of clues, one leading to the next, with a fixed final winning point. A US/UK distinction? Or 30yrs out of date? Or just wrong?

I might have an hour or so to kill in Manchester NH during the day soon. Recommendations for stuff to do? Places that sell board games or scifi books most likely to get me to accidentally part with some money. Bass guitars also fun to browse, but I probably have enough discipline not to buy one.

Request for #BoardGameSky and/or #MathSky. I'm looking for examples of latin squares in games (definition in next post, but if you've played Azul or done a Sudoku, you know what one is). As many and as varied as possible. It's for a thing. I don't know what thing yet, but definitely a thing.

First plays of Daybreak. One disastrous loss, an expected step on the way to understanding, then a surprisingly smooth win. The crises and dice were gentle, far more by luck than prep. I played the 4 player version to appreciate/learn the full game. Worth checking out the solo version? #sologaming

Stopped into Greenfield Games to browse and /possibly/ buy /at most/ one game. The result: #boardgamesky

I'm officially a game studies professor. My first year seminar "Game On: Theory, Culture and Design of Board Games" is on the books at Emerson College. I've been teaching this stuff in various forms for 15+yrs and in almost exactly this form for the last 3, but this is a nice offical stamp.

Cosmos Empires! A print-n-play from Bigger Worlds Games. And another great job by the Emerson College print shop. #BoardGameSky

Dexterity games! Men at Work has been a favourite for a while, Tinderblox was a big hit with visiting family recently (and the sequel Barbecubes is already in our future) and we played and loved Nekojima yesterday. What else should we check out? #BoardGameSky

Completely non-breaking news: Harmonies is very good. Played it for the first time this afternoon. We're still feeling out how it all works, but we can already tell it's going to be a regular. Each turn is satisfying, both in thinking about what to do and the physical pieces. #boardgamesky

It's bring-your-hobby-to-work week, I've decided. Music module in my Intro to Quantitative Reasoning course. Possibly the first ever college math class to feature Skunk Anansie, Half Man Half Biscuit and some ropy bass playing. I'm having fun and the students are probably learning /something/.

Pentaquest! A print-n-play designed by Lucio Gozzi for Nerdura Games. Fun as a little solo Yahtzee-like challenge. Roll your dice, defeat the monsters to turn them to your team, where you can use them once to change a roll (at the expense of not scoring for defeating them).

Where do people who work with board games academically chat in person? Are there conferences relevant to this? Are there game cons that suit such a crowd? Recommendations welcome, anywhere in the world. I have a sabbatical on the horizon and I'm starting to daydream. #boardgamesky

I love it when reading for work and reading for fun overlap. Thanks for putting this into the world, @timclare.bsky.social I'm only six pages in, and my big concern at the moment is that the book could completely replace me when I'm teaching my game studies course.