Summer Slow Down
Now comes the time of the year that the days are longer and outdoor chores call, which means there is less time for gaming which in turn means a bit of a seasonal slow-down in this blog too. That said, in the coming weeks look for:
- A new Wargame Library series
- Some American Independence Day wargaming
- A return of my 2022 #TTRPG Character Generation (CharGen) Challenge
- A return of family boardgame/wargame weekends
- A new long-piece on a next Korean War for The Armchair Dragoons
- New arrivals (more on that below)
Coco-NUTS
Mrs. RockyMountainNavy’s favorite student had her birthday this last month. We gifted her with Coconuts (Korea Boardgames Co., 2013). Coconuts is ranked #8 on the BoardGameGeek Children’s category and deservedly so. This is a fun dexterity game with an awesome toy factor. Miss A loved the game and we all had fun playing it with her.
We also gifted Miss A Smart Farmer (Smart Games) which is a one-player puzzle game. Now I get it; one-player puzzle games are considered “Outside the Scope of BGG”. Doesn’t mean these are not “games” and more importantly aren’t fun. Mrs. RMN has long favored Rush Hour (Think Fun) as the go-to puzzle game for youngsters, but admittedly getting girls to play with cars is sometimes “challenging.” In Smart Farmer you have to use the fences to separate the animals. What makes this game so appealing (yet again) is the toy factor; the animals are cute to look at and have some heft and a slightly rubberized texture when handled. So not only does the game look great, it feels great. Little Miss A is already working though the 60 challenges. Truth be told, we also learned that Miss A’s mother is working to keep up with her daughter as they are “racing” each other to see who can solve more puzzles in a day.
For what it’s worth, Youngest RMN played Police Escape Blockade (now available as SmartGames RoadBlock…but apparently only in Europe) when he came home after school in his early elementary years. While his older siblings worked on their homework, he would work on the next one or two puzzle challenges. When he finished all of them he just went back to the beginning and started all over again. This game was instrumental in helping him learn life-long skills like concentration, logical thinking, spatial awareness, and problem-solving. Yeah, we played many other boardgames but puzzle games like Police Escape Blockade were very useful as after school fillers for the young ones.
Fire Mission; Grid 20….
After a long (postal) drought, it looks like some wargames and boardgame pre-orders are finally nearing delivery!
To date in 2022, I have taken delivery of just a mere two pre-order/Kickstarter fulfillments; that being AuZtralia: Revenge of the Old Ones and AuZtralia: TaZmania from Schimil Games in mid-March. and (just this week) 2 Minutes to Midnight by Stuart Tonge from Plague Island Games. Now a few more games are getting closer to gracing the shelves of Casa de Rocky:
- Root: The Marauder Expansion / Root: The Clockwork Expansion 2 (Leder Games) – Fulfillment in progress; to be complete by end of June
- Reality Shift (Academy Games) – Ship due in New York June 5, to fulfillment center OOA June 14
- Red Storm: Baltic Approaches (Douglas Bush, GMT Games) – Shipped/Enroute to Hacienda de Rocky
- CDG Solo System (Stuka Joe, GMT Games) – Shipped/Enroute to Hacienda de Rocky
This week I also ordered another Ben Madison product from his White Dog Games studio. The Mission: Early Christianity from the Crucifixion to the Crusades will be arriving soon.
Feature image Virginia Beach in the morning, taken by self
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