All posts tagged 'Misc'

Unplugged: GamerDad Holiday Guide 2023

Happy Holidays! Boardgaming continues to make inroads to wider audiences, and there’s no better time to get (or get your friends and family) into the hobby than an extended holiday break. There are boardgames out there to meet up with almost any taste.Boardgames are timeless, just as good today as they will be years in the future, so a purchase today will still be serving you well after the lockdowns go away. As we at GamerDad have done for the past 20-odd years, it’s time for an annual rundown of recent boardgames well worth your time. Feel free to delve into some past year’s guides for 2022, 2020, or older as they’re still great candidates for your consideration. You might not find all these titles at your local mega-mart but many can be found online or in a friendly local game store. Some may argue $60+ boardgames (or more) are expensive, but compare that to video gaming (and where multiple copies are required for multiplayer play) and the economics of boardgaming shows their true value. For each game, I’ve provided the publisher (to help you find it), an approximate MSRP (you can probably find it lower), the number of players, the expected time for one game, and the manufacturer’s recommended ages. These age listings are often set for legal reasons and I would say most could easily be skewed lower for experienced younger gamers.

On with the show!

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Hallmark 2023 Video Game Christmas Ornaments

Hallmark always has a wide variety of Christmas ornaments every year, and in the past few years they’ve even had lots of video game themed ones!  I got a bunch of them this year as well, as I always do, so let’s take a look at them!

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Pokémon Sleep (Mobile)

There are many Pokémon games out there, but the strangest ones are usually on mobile devices.  We’ve gotten the Pokémon teeth brushing app with Pokémon Smile, and Magikarp Jump!, a game starring the most useless Pokémon of all!  And now you can track your sleeping habits with the Pokémon Sleep app.  I liked how this game featured Snorlax, as that’s my favorite Pokémon.  But you’ll just how to read on to find out how this app works!

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D&D Plushies – The Return of Plush

Last winter, I was sent some Dungeons and Dragons figurines http://www.gamerdad.com/blog/2021/12/04/dd-plushies-cuddly-deadly/ from Wizkids with one key component: they weren’t plastic miniatures, they were stuffed “animals.” A year later and the stuffed line of toys/collectibles (Phunny Plush by Kid Robot) continues, expanding into the Pathfinder and Critical Role brands.

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Mario Oreos

A couple of years ago, Oreo made some cookies with Pokémon characters on them!  And now they’re back but with Mario characters.  So let’s take a look at them!

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900 MAX HX (Headphones)

I was recently offered a RIG 900 MAX HX (yes, all caps) headphone to try out, and so I did. It is a somewhat high-end headset for use with an Xbox or PC. It comes with a boom mic, USB or Bluetooth connections, and a spiffy charging dock. I found the headset extremely comfortable, easy to use, and sounded great but it was a bit frustrating to use switching between sources. On comfort alone, it beats out all the other headsets I’ve had over the past few years.

 

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Unplugged: Number Drop

In the past few years, the boardgame world has seen a huge number of Roll and Write games where dice are rolled (or cards drawn) and then players simultaneously use the results to check off boxes or fill in a paper handout to score points. Number Drop has players filling in a sheet of paper Tetris-style with the pieces made of numbers. Place numbers adjacent to each other in sets or sequences to score points. The game ends and scores are tallied when one player “overflows” their game board.  

 

 

Number Drop

Publisher: AEG
Ages: 10+
Players: 1-6
Time: 20 minutes
(Review copy provided by publisher)

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Pyra and Mythra amiibo

I got the latest batch of Smash amiibo recently.  This time it’s of Pyra and Mythra from the Xenoblade series.  Let’s take a look at them!

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Pizza Pixel Podcast Episode 18: Favorite Transformers

When I was a kid back in the 80s, there were a couple of years when I was really into the Transformers toy line and cartoon.  Many years later when my brother Ben was a kid, he got into Transformers as well.  So I thought it would be fun for us to talk about them in this episode of the Pizza Pixel Podcast!  Please click on the link and give it a listen if you can!

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Unplugged: XCrawl Classics RPG

In the early heydays of role playing games it was all about surviving near impossible odds to acquire loot and fame. Over time, RPGs started getting kinder, more gentle sort of story based game. Enter Dungeon Crawl Classics… around a decade ago Goodman Games put together a mix of rules that greatly streamlined (then current) 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons and mixed it with old school fast and deadly gameplay. One of the lines spawned from that mix became XCrawl, Adventures in the Xtreme Dungeon League – a game based around surviving a lethal maze of monsters and traps in order to cash and fame in the fantasy equivalent of Pay-per-View. Goodman games is in the final Kickstarter hours of a reboot of that classic series, complete with a set of follow-up modules.

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