Scott King's Blog, page 23
March 2, 2015
Harbour Preview!
Harbour from Tasty Minstrel Games and designed by Scott Almes is a nice light worker placement game. We’ve played it a bunch as a two player game and have used it several times for noobie gamers since it’s easy to understand and plays fast.
Harbour is currently on sale at Amazon and through other online stores.
Check out the photoshoot I did for it below:
The post Harbour Preview! appeared first on Scott King.
February 24, 2015
Hummus!
Ever since college, when my best friend Sarah introduced me to hummus, I’ve loved it. I’ve never successfully made it myself, but I’ve always managed to find good restaurants that make the real deal. So I was super stoked to discover that there are a few realllyyyy good Mediterranean restaurants in Houston. Even Central Market’s in-house hummus is pretty good, especially when you compare it to the normal bland grocery store kind.
The post Hummus! appeared first on .
February 19, 2015
Creators Cast: Dawn Griffin!
In the newest episodes of Creators Cast, I speak with Dawn Griffin. Dawn is a cartoonist best known for her comic Zorphbert and Fred. If you ever wanted to know anything about what its like running a webcomic or self publishing a comic then these are the episodes to listen to!
iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/creators-cast/id907534102?mt=2
If you don’t use iTunes or prefer to manually download an episode you can do so by going to the libsyn feed.
Libsyn http://creatorscast.libsyn.com/ (for listening online or downloading)
RSS Feed: http://creatorscast.libsyn.com/rss (for subscribing via a podcast app)
The post Creators Cast: Dawn Griffin! appeared first on .
February 14, 2015
Strawberry Picking!
Back in Maryland the strawberry season really happens in May. In Texas it happens from February to May!
So on February 1st, when Lisa ended up with only having to work half a day we went strawberry picking. We snagged two gallons worth (so a bucket each) and have been putting them on salads, ice cream, in smoothies, in crepes and eating them plain for the past two weeks. It almost makes living in Texas worth it.
The post Strawberry Picking! appeared first on .
February 9, 2015
Antipasto!
Lisa is a big fan of antipasto. In fact until we started dating I had no idea what antipasto was. So whenever we have any kind of get together or often when we are invited somewhere and we have to bring food she loves incorporating antipasto. I don’t think there are any real rules to creating antipasto but she does seem to always make sure there are multiple kinds of nice olives, nice cheeses, and nice meats.
The post Antipasto! appeared first on .
February 4, 2015
Creators Cast: Garrett Weinzierl!
In the newest episodes of Creators Cast, I speak with Garrett Weinzierl. Garrett is a graphic designer and a veteran podcaster, best known for The Angry Chicken, a podcast about Hearthstone. If you ever wanted to know anything about becoming a graphic designer or the current state of esports then these are the episodes to listen to!
iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/creators-cast/id907534102?mt=2
If you don’t use iTunes or prefer to manually download an episode you can do so by going to the libsyn feed.
Libsyn http://creatorscast.libsyn.com/ (for listening online or downloading)
RSS Feed: http://creatorscast.libsyn.com/rss (for subscribing via a podcast app)
The post Creators Cast: Garrett Weinzierl! appeared first on .
January 27, 2015
Hot Chocolate Cookies!
These bad boys were a weird creation that Lisa cooked up. She said she was trying to make hot chocolate but in cookie form. They were a tad dry but otherwise weren’t bad.
And for those curious… the cookie bases were more a fudgey than cookie. Then somehow she got the marshmallows to melt but still be soft and then the whole thing was topped with a chocolate glaze.
The post Hot Chocolate Cookies! appeared first on .
January 21, 2015
Scoville Preview!
Scoville, designed by Ed Marriott and published by Tasty Minstrel Games, is a hot pepper breeding game that’s all kind of thinkyness and fun.
Scoville is a mid level euro game where players have several different ways to score and the winner at the end of the game is the one with the most points.
No matter which route you use when scoring it’s all done by taking various kinds of hot peppers and breeding them to make new kinds. This means there are two main parts of the game, planting peppers and then moving your famers around the board so that they can harvest the peppers.
Each round of the game is dived into four parts: Auction, Planting, Harvesting & Fulfillment.
During the auction, players bid on resource cards and on the turn order. In planting, players place a single pepper onto the field. When harvesting, players movie their farmers two spaces and pick peppers and finally during fulfillment, players fill orders and complete recipes.
What’s really interesting about turn order is that it flips during the different stages of the game. For example in the photo above the red player would plant their pepper first and do their fulfillment first, however when harvesting the yellow player would get first dibs. Varying turn order is a neat mechanism that offers both a lot of strategy and adds to the player interaction.
Planting peppers is really easy. You take a pepper meeple that is already in your possession and place it on the board adjacent to another pepper.
Although planting is a simple act, the decision is not an easy one. Since peppers are used to fill orders and recipes, it’s in a player’s best interest to hold onto the rare ones so that they can score more points. However, the rarest peppers can only be created by crossbreeding other rare peppers so it’s a push and pull decision on trying to decide which peppers should you hold onto and which should you use for breeding.
The flipside of planting is harvesting. Players move their farmers between two peppers and then consult a chart and take the corresponding pepper. For example, if a player were harvesting between a Green pepper and a purple pepper then they would take a white pepper. Or if a player was standing between two purple peppers then they would take a black pepper.
The breeding chart, which you can see above, looks intimidating at first but it’s really simple to use. The cubes in the center are what’s created from crossbreeding while the outer Y & X axis are the mommy and daddy peppers that are used for breeding.
In the very early rounds, Scoville is a smooth and breezy, but as the game ages, it grows and becomes more and more thinky. Because players are building a common engine to create different kinds of peppers. As a result, no two games play alike. It always feels fresh and different.
Scoville definately has a Euro-vibe but there is still a lot of interaction from both the turn order and how each player plants and harvests peppers. I’ve never played a game of Scoville where someone didn’t groan and say, “Uhhh I was totally going to go there,” in a very Ticket To Ride kind of way.
A nice added touch to the game is that there is a lot of secret information. Each player has their own blind so you never know what order or recipe an opponent is trying to get. Also you never know how much money they have or just how many and what different kinds of peppers they’ve managed to horde.
One of the nicer twists to the game are the bonus tokens. Each can only be used once and if you don’t use them, each is worth four points at the end of the game, however using them during the game can be super powerful. The first lets you plant two peppers when planting instead of one. The second lets you harvest one extra pepper when harvesting and the final lets you move backwards when harvesting so you can harvest the same pepper twice.
Scoville is a great game and currently on sale from Tasty Minstrel Games.
The post Scoville Preview! appeared first on .
January 19, 2015
Creators Cast: Rodney Smith!
In the newest episodes of Creators Cast, I speak with Rodney Smith. Rodney is a board game educator and youtuber who specializes in teaching hobby games. If you ever wanted to know how much goes into running a youtube channel and having to create and edit content then these are the episodes to listen to!
iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/creators-cast/id907534102?mt=2
If you don’t use iTunes or prefer to manually download an episode you can do so by going to the libsyn feed.
Libsyn http://creatorscast.libsyn.com/ (for listening online or downloading)
RSS Feed: http://creatorscast.libsyn.com/rss (for subscribing via a podcast app)
The post Creators Cast: Rodney Smith! appeared first on .
January 14, 2015
Pinwheel Candy!
For the holidays, my mom mailed us pinwheel candy. It’s basically sugar and butter, rolled up with peanut butter. It’s VERY VERY sweet but good in little bits.
It was also quite a surprise and a nice one. Pinwheel candy is a holiday tradition for her and after not being home for the holidays two years in a row it was nice to have a little reminder of home.
The post Pinwheel Candy! appeared first on .
