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January 23, 2011
Oneupmanship — The Money Game.
By Timothy Cataldo
It's easy to talk, innit? Doesn't cost anything either. And the amount of work you don't have to do is a beautiful thing! Seriously, have you wasted your life?
This year we've decided to challenge ourselves to stop squawking about how deadening and intrinsically unredemptive and dumb video games (for just one example) are, and actually do something about it. Our idea is to create a completely original board game that is the perfect antidote to the mostly mindless p.c. mush that passes for entertainment these days — smart, hard, wicked and cheeky, full of big numbers, big egos, heart and charm, winners and losers!
And we're going to document the process, warts and thrill (thwarts and will?) and all, starting today.
This is the innocent-enough text that began the begin.
February 10, 2011
The Money Game, continued.
We finally got the game board somewhat mocked-up and have started play-testing with friends. I never thought it would be so much mental effort to design and prototype a simple board game—I think it's been a casebook study in The Peter Principle. Seriously, let's roll the dice now and see how/if it works!
February 13, 2011
First Prototype Test
JP brought his buddy Ken over this morning and we had a first-go at the game. It was interesting to see how they played it— shrewd, aggressive, and in it to win it! Meanwhile, I felt like a dissolute stoner wannabe buying the Trophy Wife and attempting to build the tallest building before I went bankrupt.
Seriously, lotsa fun, and a qualified initial success. There's a lot of work ahead— some elements worked well and others didn't work at all— but at least we've set ourselves up for an interesting adventure.
February 18, 2011
Are you game?
We just got an email from Graham Houghton, an archaeologist and writer (and Uppity fan) from Australia, and we thought we'd share it with you:
"I know how much work goes into this sort of thing. Back in the late 80s and early 90s we developed a game called 'Country Landowner'. It was inspired by all the nouveau riche in the UK, also known variously as yahoos, yuppies and several other appelations, who were spending their sudden fortunes buying up country estates and making out they were the next best thing to some sort of royalty."
"The idea was that you had to run the estate, avoid the taxman, make money, screw everybody else and try to stay out of the bankruptcy court. You bought Title Deeds, shares etc, but the trough (as in 'snouts in') was where you made or lost fortunes. We mocked it up and trialled it for months and it seemed to work well. But then we tried to sell it. I would never have believed how hard that would be. None of the major manufacturers were interested; out of some 45+ enquiries we only had one response telling us, bluntly, to go away because they only developed inhouse ideas. We never did sell."
Here's a photo of the board and some of the play pieces. Good luck with your project."
1st Day of Spring, 2012
Master of the Universe
Been play-testing with my son Neuman, and I've always wanted to say this: he's literally beating me at my own game. Even when I change the rules slightly every time to try to offset my incompetence, he still manages to come out on top...
With good luck charm Domo.
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