Mike Trotzke

37signals: How GitHub used Getting Real to pick a fight, scratch their own itch, and stay lean

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 10:48:33 -0400

37signals: How GitHub used Getting Real to pick a fight, scratch their own itch, and stay lean

I’ve been noticing this for a while. Good summary of how...

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 12:57:00 -0400

I’ve been noticing this for a while. Good summary of how facebook is microsofting twitter. Zuckerberg Takes The Gates Approach To Twitter

Brainstorming Inside ‘The Box’ (via kylehaskins)

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:21:27 -0400

Brainstorming Inside ‘The Box’ (via kylehaskins)

This is going to get over-shared— mostly for good reason....

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:17:25 -0400

This is going to get over-shared— mostly for good reason. Web Site Story

Hey iPhone, meet Board Game

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 18:08:35 -0400

I love board games. I love my iPhone. Put them together and you get me spending way too much money at the friendly neighborhood app store. It’s taken a while, but there is at least a full iPhone page worth of sweet board/card games for nerds like me.

They come in essentially 4 varieties:

The Real Deal
The Knock Offs
Original Titles of Note
Walmart Games (and their clones)

The Real Deal

These are true designer games with sanctioned licenses. I really wish there more in this category.

Zooloretto: One of the best in the app store. Pass and play with up to 5 and a great interface. A ‘Must Buy’ if you own an iPhone and know what Board Game Geek is. (Zooloretto on BGG)

Knights of Charlemagne: A classic Reiner Knizia game. Simple card game with a quick play time and 2 player pass and play. This is the one of the most played games on my phone. I do wish it supported up to 3 like my non-digital version does. (Knights of Charlemagne on BGG)

Poison: Another great Reiner Knizia game. He is one of my favorite designers and this game works well on the iPhone if you are cool with 1 player vs AI only. (Poison on BGG)

Werewolf: Classic many player game. This is more like a game aid than the game itself. You can only play it using pass and play with at least 3 (really 7+). Nice to have handy. (Werewolf on BGG)

Croke: A sweet implementation of the fantastic dexterity game Crokinole. Not exactly a designer game since it’s in the public domain, but it’s a great game.

Set: Has gone missing from the iTunes store. Surprised since it was the official version. There are a few knock offs if you are jonsin’ for some Set.

The Knock Offs

Not sure how I feel about these. On one hand it is pretty crappy to steal some ones game deign and sell it on iTunes. On the other hand the IP holders for these games obviously don’t get it and have been sitting on their hands forever. I justify buying them by telling myself that a knock offs’ success will get game publishers to create a licensed version— but mostly I just want to play Settlers of Catan(ish) while peeing.

Kolonists: A total rip off of Settlers of Catan with no dice and a Roman theme. I can’t put it down.

Mining Bots: (Update: now missing from the app store) A clone of Hey! That’s My Fish! with a robot theme.

Hanto: A slightly re-themed version of the 2 player abstract strategy game Hive.

Kibosh: Blokus in disguise.

Other titles of note

The app store also includes some digital only games that might be of interest to board gamers. There are some good strategy card like games like: Orions, Karma Star, and Strongholds. There is also A Robo Rally-esque game called Robo Logic and a few HeroScape like turn based strategy games (UniWar and Reign of Swords).

But my favorite in this category is Strategery. It is by far the most played game on my iPhone. It’s a risk like game, but very configurable and quick to play. If you’ve manage to keeg reading this far you should own it.

There are also some handy tools. The BoardGameGeek app is great for keeping track of of games in your collection, recording plays and checking out reviews on the go. Score is a well done score tracker for a ton of designer games. You’ll also find a bunch of dice rollers (The Dicenomicon, SettlerStats, Risk dice).

Walmart Games

The most popular board games in the app store are mainstream or family oriented games. Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit, Monopoly and Yahtzee Adventure from EA have incredible production quality. Be warned that Clue on the iPhone is more of an adventure game than a board game, but can still be fun. Lux Deluxe is like risk only better— with enough configurable maps and options to keep you entertained for hours. Versions of pretty much any classic are just a search away (Stratego, BattleShip, Uno, Phase 10, Connect 4, Othello, etc.)

I also am a big fan of Word Party. It’s got two modes. One that is like Catchphrase and one that is like Taboo. It sure beats lugging the electronic catch phrase around when camping or on a road trip.

Happy Gaming!

P.S. Will somebody who has more free time than me please write Carcassonne, Lost Cities, Ticket to Ride and Pandemic for iPhone? kthanxbye

“I wouldn’t know a Twitter from a tweeter, but...

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 10:32:42 -0400

“I wouldn’t know a Twitter from a tweeter, but apparently it is very important” -Hillary Clinton (via fred-wilson)

Business Valuation Guide at Inc.com

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:44:15 -0400

Business Valuation Guide at Inc.com

I haven’t played Magic in a very long time. I may have to...

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 23:20:25 -0400

I haven’t played Magic in a very long time. I may have to find time to relive the Nineties. MTG Duels of the Planeswalkers Hits XBox Live

Married to the Sea (via inky)

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 23:15:41 -0400

Married to the Sea (via inky)

Just realized I never posted this last week. “Confidence:...

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:25:00 -0400

Just realized I never posted this last week. “Confidence: I Will not let my absence of direct experience reduce the intensity of my opinion” Too good.

I’ve seen this Far Side a hundred times and it makes me...

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 10:46:25 -0400

I’ve seen this Far Side a hundred times and it makes me happy every time.

I stole your images, put them back or I will call a lawyer?

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 10:38:29 -0400

I stole your images, put them back or I will call a lawyer?

The NBC late night television embrace of twitter is complete:...

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 11:32:00 -0400

The NBC late night television embrace of twitter is complete: Conan’s Twitter Tracker

Blanket! (Snuggie parody) from DustFilms

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 00:46:06 -0400

Blanket! (Snuggie parody) from DustFilms

No Smoking

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 00:27:56 -0400

No Smoking

Video tour of SproutBox’s new workspace. More info...

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 18:24:16 -0400

Video tour of SproutBox’s new workspace. More info at http://blog.sproutbox.com/2009/06/02/box-grand-opening/.

Facebook - doing it wrong

Sat, 30 May 2009 18:23:06 -0400

Facebook - doing it wrong

somewhatfrank: Create Rich Presentations Online With Empressr -...

Fri, 22 May 2009 00:39:48 -0400

somewhatfrank:

Create Rich Presentations Online With Empressr - CenterNetworks

Empressr has created a rich online presentation creator which founder Bryan Thatcher explained was built from the ground up versus many of the other presentation applications which were built from desktop applications. CenterNetworks published a video (shown above) of Empressr presenting at the Web2NewYork Meetup on May 19, 2009.

Fluffing up the SproutBags (via kylehaskins)

Fri, 22 May 2009 00:38:33 -0400

Fluffing up the SproutBags (via kylehaskins)

Ohh.. Onion. How I love thee.

Wed, 20 May 2009 10:37:00 -0400

Ohh.. Onion. How I love thee.