ALFRED'S BEST OF THE BLOGOSPHERE

A few weeks ago, I floated a trial balloon for starting a Carnival of Boardgamers, which didn't draw much attention, except from a guy I linked to who supports Blog Carnivals, and asked anyone who liked Monopoly and Risk to drop me a line. (Nobody did.) Tom Vasel, in the latest Dice Tower, mentioned the need to bring together the best blog posts, but couldn't get around to it.

So I decided--What the heck, why not just do it?

I'll try to do this every Thursday night/Friday, for the very good reason that Friday is the one weekday where I have neither class nor work. Next semester, that day may be Tuesday or something, and the update day may be moved around accordingly.

Some ground rules I'm setting (and enforcing, so we'll see how well they go):

• I get to decide what is and is not a "blog." It'll probably be a fairly broad definition. So far, I've decided that BGG and Consimworld are officially Not Blogs for my purposes, and then there's a big ol' gray area. We'll see.
• I also get to decide what is and is not "the best of the blogosphere." In other words, you may not like it, you may think there's a better candidate...if so, post a comment or send me an email or start your own compilation. There are 2,491 separate Best Game awards out there, after all, so we obviously have an addiction to such lists.
• If a post you're particularly proud of having written doesn't make it, that doesn't mean I hate you, or your post. I either just missed it, or...think of it this way: Your blog posts are so good that it's hard to pick out the brightest light from them. Drop a link in the comments.
• There's no rhyme or reason to the order I list these in.
• If you wrote a darn good post about something other than games, I'll probably include it.
• I'll probably not list my own stuff. I mean...eww.
• I reserve the right to think up and impose other rules as time goes by without warning.

That about sums it up. Executive summary: "It's my list, I'll do as I wish."

Now, about that list...

You know you're a Real Gamer when you're playing games with your wife in the hospital after she gave birth to your daughter. Well done Iain! (Mostly on the "new dad" front.) I like several Adlung games, myself, but under such conditions I'd have probably gone with Roads and Boats or something. (Apparently it was her idea. Be around a gamer long enough, I guess...)

I both do and don't want to go paragliding, but if I ever do, I'll be glad to have a beautiful prayer for the occasion. (Hie thee to Nimrods if you haven't, please.) For what it's worth, it's right after I read one of Peter's paragliding posts that I want to do it right now.

I often like to think of myself as a game expert, and Minoan buff, but some how this game escaped my notice, until Trabsact Sagme Diaries pointed it out. There are a lot of mentions of games from antiquity, and a fair number of boards, but we usually don't have the top of the box--i.e., the rules--and reconstructing them is a path laid heavy with thorns. Still neat stuff, though. (There's a "game" on the 'Geek that uses the Phaistos Disk as a board; it's a purely modern game.)

I liked sodaklady's piece on what makes gamers gamers. It's a question I've asked myself, and of myself. I've always been interested in math and history in nearly-equal measure, only leaning heavier towards history as I determined that I could do more in history than math in my life. Wargames appeal to the history part of the brain, and Euros to the math part. In a strange way, games grow out of whatever it is that makes me wired to study what I study...which, of course, just begs the question, but it's the only answer I have. 'Course, I also have low blood sugar, so maybe Mary's last suggestion holds water...

Gathering of Engineers looks like a promising blog project. I'm not sure how I feel about the "Every day a different guy" notion, the one that seems to be the most popular--Gamefest, Gone Gaming, and GoE all do it this way. I kinda like the "Conspiracy" model, where everybody talks at once, and a more organic conversation can open up. On the other hand, this way we get these nice essays...so there are tradeoffs. Keep an eye on this one...

Ekted discusses math and Carcassonne. As one might expect from my comment just above, I like these kinds of posts. (Brian Bankler's game theory posts are always welcome.) The time is coming when the mathematics behind some of These Games of Ours start getting taken seriously--it's already begun, slightly, with Connection Games, which seeks to get a handle on all the different kinds of ways games use connection mechanics. I think there's some interesting math here...

The International Gamers Awards nominees were released for the non-wargame categories, and (as is ever thus for game awards) attracted some controversy. Chris Farrell weighed in, with some criticism of the process and stated goals of the awards, and thinks they could be better defined (as well as picking better games, of course). Chris Brooks also comments. Rick Thornquist, one of the voters, defends the system and slightly pulls back the veil, and there's some interesting discussion in the comments. Personally, as long as Ticket to Ride: Europe and Oceania don't win, I'm OK with it.

Aaaaaaand that's what I got this week. Check back next week for more of Alfred's Best of the Blogosphere! [cue end music]