Board / Card Games

Today is the final day to make nominations for the 2012 About.com Readers' Choice Awards -- where you get to pick the best games, the best game stores, and more.

This year's Board/Card Game Readers' Choice Awards feature 11 categories to recognize the best of the best from 2011, including the the best strategy game, the best children's game, and the best iOS or Android game, in addition to the best online game store, the best Twitter account, and the best Kickstarter game or campaign.

Today's the deadline, so don't hesitate: Make your nominations now!

Image © About.com

I traveled to New York City yesterday for the 2012 American International Toy Fair, and although I'm no longer there I will be posting updates throughout the coming days. For now, you can check out the many photos I posted to Twitter for some of the most interesting games I saw on display, including:

• Army vs. Aliens from Wiggles 3D
• Coin Blaster Arcade from Klutz
• Don't Rock the Boat from Patch Products
• Pass-Ack Words from R&R Games
• Star Wars Scene It? from Screenlife

I'll be at the 2012 American International Toy Fair today, walking the aisles of the massive Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan to see the latest offerings from game publishers of all sizes. Follow me on Twitter for on-scene reporting, and check back here in the coming days for even more.

Game publisher and toy manufacturer Hasbro and social game developer Zynga have announced a deal giving Hasbro the rights to develop games and toys based on Zynga's brands, including FarmVille, CityVille, Words With Friends, The Pioneer Trail, Mafia Wars, and more. Zynga, the world's largest social game developer, claims more than 227 million monthly active users. According to a press release from the companies, the deal "creates an array of opportunities for co-branded merchandise featuring a combination of both Hasbro and Zynga brands."

Brian Goldner, Hasbro's president and CEO, said in the release, "Zynga is bringing more games to mainstream culture and is redefining how people play. ... This strategic alliance plays off of both Hasbro's and Zynga's proven strengths and is emblematic of the new innovations and new platforms we are creating across our entire gaming portfolio."

The two companies expect the first products to be available beginning in the fall of this year.

Image courtesy of Zynga.

Yesterday, my wife and I hosted TSBSBSGD8. (What? The acronym? Ah... The Saturday Before Super Bowl Sunday Game Day 8.) The highlight -- as it is every year -- was an annual BattleBall tournament. A record 17 people took part in the tournament this year, with Mike Holmquist taking home the top honors by defeating his daughter Heather Spangenberg in the finals. (He defeated his other daughter in the second round. And, yes, the seedings are completely random.)

Sadly, I was once again eliminated in the first round -- this year, by the eventual champion. Something about an ill-advised long pass attempt to a wide receiver when my heavy tackle had the ball and could probably have marched in for the game-winning touchdown. (I won the tournament once, back in 2007, but I've fallen on hard times ever since.)

Of course, that early elimination gave me plenty of time to play other games, including Fauna, 7 Wonders, The Resistance (3x), Witch's Brew, Black Friday, Kung Fu Fighting, and Ice Flow. Fauna (designed by Friedemann Friese, published by FoxMind) was a standout. It's for 2 to 6 players, ages 8 and up, and it's a trivia game (sort of) about animals. In each round, an animal is randomly revealed and players bet (sort of) on where the animal lives, how much it weighs, and how long or tall it is.

I'll post a complete review of Fauna soon. For now, I'll just say that it's a remarkably fun game that I highly recommend for anyone fascinated by wildlife around the world.

Image courtesy of Hasbro

A painting of two men playing cards was purchased by the nation of Qatar for $250 million -- which, according to an article in Vanity Fair, is "the highest price ever paid for a work of art" and "more than doubles the current auction record for a work of art."

The painting, by post-impressionist Paul Cézanne, is known as The Card Players, and it is one of five Card Players known to exist. (Here's another, with three men playing cards.) I was not able to find any source indicating what card game is being played in the paintings. But for $250 million, Qatar could have bought 6,946,374 copies of Dominion from Funagain Games.

Nominations for the 2012 About.com Readers' Choice Awards -- where you get to pick the best games, the best game stores, and more -- have been pouring in. Thank you to everyone who has made nominations already!

The 2012 Board/Card Game Readers' Choice Awards feature 11 categories to recognize the best of the best from 2011. You can help choose the best strategy game, the best party game, and the best iOS or Android game, in addition to the best local game store, the best Twitter account, and the best Facebook page.

If you haven't already, go ahead and make your nominations now!

Image © About.com

The Wiggles, a wildly popular Australian children's music group, sued a small game distributor last year to prevent the board game Yikerz! from being sold in their home country. Do the Wiggles hate all board games, or just Yikerz!, a magnetic game in which players try to place their pieces on the board without attracting other pieces?

Neither, as it turns out. What got the Wiggles' attention was the pouch inside the box which held the magnetic pieces. On that pouch, the word "Wiggles" appears as part of a logo -- because the game's publisher is Wiggles 3D. According to an article in The Telegraph, the lawsuit was recently settled with the game distributor agreeing to repackage the game pieces.

Apparently, Yikerz! was sold in Australia without incident for three years -- about 7,500 copies per year -- before the Wiggles got worked up about it.

Image courtesy of Wiggles 3D

Mark Zuckerberg, co-creator and CEO of the social network Facebook, is a big fan of the board game Risk, according to an article at SFGate.com. Writer Boonsri Dickinson says this isn't at all surprising: "Clearly, Facebook has done a good job at world domination, beating out the other social media websites."

Facebook recently filed for an initial public stock offering.

Image courtesy of Hasbro

Two new games in the popular Ticket to Ride series are now available from publisher Days of Wonder. Ticket to Ride: Asia and Ticket to Ride: India are both expansions which require a copy of the original game (or Ticket to Ride: Europe) to play.

TTR: Asia includes two maps, one for Team Asia and the other for Legendary Asia. Team Asia (designed by Alan R. Moon) is for 4 to 6 players in teams of two each. Teammates share some -- but not all -- destination cards, so working together is a key part of success in this game. Legendary Asia (designed by François Valentyne) adds mountain routes, which cause wear and tear to the trains that travel on them, to the game.

TTR: India (designed by Ian Vincent) is for 2 to 4 players. It features a Grand Tour bonus at the end of the game for players who connect destination cities with at least two distinct paths. TTR: India also includes a copy of Moon's Switzerland map, which is for 2 to 3 players and is one of my favorite versions of the game.

Days of Wonder has also announced the upcoming release of Zug um Zug Deutschland (Ticket to Ride: Germany), which will debut at the Nuremberg Toy Fair this week. It uses the same map and routes first introduced in Ticket to Ride: Märklin and is scheduled for release in the second half of 2012, only in Germany and Austria.

Images courtesy of Days of Wonder