December 20, 2012 at 15:49Board games played in IT offices - 3
Hello!
I do board games. On that beautiful day, three years ago, when it became clear that all Yandex was being purchased from us using one discount card, it suddenly came to the realization that IT specialists are some of the best customers of desktop shops. I think - because these are mostly positive people who love games, communication (which is often not enough at work) and clearly understand how fun it is to play complex things.
Below is a traditional annual review of what IT offices play, a little about what happened during the year at the intersection of this business and IT, stories about a funny story of commentary on a previous post, feedback from startup game players and, of course, tips by choosing a pair of pieces that you might want to receive or give to someone for the holidays.
Plus traditionally -a small gift to the harazhitami .
Last year, there was the same post about dashboards, in the comments of which they added “drunken Monopoly” (though, a UFO drank a user along with a comment for a year, so I won’t put a picture on everyone). The essence of the game - you need to walk across the field with troll faces in cubes and drink. A few months later, we already had two samples in our office, here they are:
The larger box is from the Moscow publisher (it included piles), the smaller and cheaper box is from St. Petersburg. They did not know about each other. We did not take any of these boxes to the network.
Starcraft ceased to be supplied to Russia, it is difficult to find Warcraft, Twilight of the Empire (according to Master of Orion), Roboralli.
Three interesting games were reissued - Sid Meyer Civilization and Game of Thrones (according to the Martin cycle): they have new boxes, and in the case of the Game of Thrones, they also have a new price tag (though both games are still hard to find before the holidays). Reprinted in a new gift box and “ Overboard! "- a game based on Hitchcock’s old film about survival on a lifeboat, which the hawkers fell in love with for black humor and training the team leader’s communication skills.
Overboard!
The coolest start of the year was the Imaginarium- Domestic crowdsourcing game collected by a number of comrades from one nonexistent collective blog. One of the authors of the project, having counted the money after the new year, promised to roll out 10 add-ons in a year, but so far only 3 rolled out. At the same time, his company released an amazing Zen player device (an ordinary stone from the beach with a hole for headphones for 1000 rubles) in which listen to the silence - and a couple more just as stiff things. Crowdsourcing drives.
Maps Imadzhinariuma
In Rummikub (puzzle game created when Romania banned card) was a great tournament, who won the man of the Moscow State University, and went to play for us in the world championship in Sicily (there, though did not win). It is noteworthy that he learned to play almost a couple of hours before the tournament.
Hive
The Beehive came out with additions - this is a very cool European logic game, which very often was chosen precisely from the “ Gifts for IT ” section. By the way, the second most popular logical game in this segment is the favorite game of many Go (in which people still beat computers).
Guo
A very interesting story about the wooden tower of Jenguwhere it is necessary to take out the bars until it falls with a roar. At first it was a megahit in two versions - the usual one was about 750 rubles and the gift one was about 1300 (they differed only in the box). The manufacturer pulled out the regular version from the line - and “pirated” versions just rushed onto the market, more precisely, it seems legal, but in some cases with surprisingly similar logos, names and design. The price at the same time, of course, is lower - from 340 rubles (rough bars) to about 1000. On the other hand, this greatly affected the popularity of the game: from a "best gift for a girl" it became a must when playing away. For some reason, it seems to me that it costs the main manufacturer to return the version for 750 rubles to the market - and they will receive a very big profit.
Jenga
Last year, almost all classic games migrated to tablets. And if this was clear with the Monopoly or the Train Ticket, the fact that it was possible to successfully transfer Jenga - the game for fine motor skills - is a surprise. The trend continued this year - we are constantly being knocked on for licenses for games for porting to iOS and Android, plus we ourselves tried to make a couple of free pieces, sat for a week in Appstore's top and were generally satisfied. In addition, the reverse process was outlined - a lot of licenses for films and major games became available for the development of board games (except that Mass Effect was not yet a serious one).
Last year, Mosigra, in partnership with Habr, released the startup “Habraig” about IT projects, negotiations and the economy in general, in which you play as a young businessman (here's a post about the game , but about the development ).
Over the year, we gathered a bunch of comments and suggestions, held several tournaments and generally played enough. After the third tournament, we sat down, sorted through all the comments received and made a bunch of changes. A new box is on sale, it can be identified by the inscription "v1.2" near the name.
The main gift of the year was Resistance- A completely crazy game that uses the mafia engine, but does it very unusual. The trick is that the classic mafia is great for negotiating training and generally developing communication skills, but it has a couple of drawbacks: firstly, players fly out and get bored, secondly, 10 people are needed for a balanced game, and thirdly, often the winner is the one who screams louder and more often, and not the one who thinks better. The resistance after that is just a fairy tale: only deduction and cold logic steers, no one flies to the end, you can play from 5 people, plus on top of all this there is an atmosphere of something like "1984" or "Equilibrium". On the side of the box is a guy who resembles a Neo-Seoul resident of Cloud Atlas, but the game came out a couple of years before the movie: apparently, it’s just a popular image.
Resistance
A game about robots was released - Robotrok . I highly recommend a good thing on the road or play with a child. The game is generally amazing in its own way: it has a very accurate balance and simple rules. Children drag themselves from robots and their assembly, adults - from very thoughtful and deep tactics. Half of the game you need to collect spare parts in a landfill (according to the environmental legislation of robots you can only make them) - this is the solution to the traveling salesman (Dijkstra) task, taking into account the anticipation of the actions of other players. The second part - pure bluffing, the third, very simple - the assembly according to the optimal scheme.
Robotrok
Another completely insane thing that just makes a brain - a small game " 7 on 9», Where you need to put cards in a pile in the middle of the table. Each card has a number and a modifier: for example, you can put either 5 or 9 on the card “7 plus or minus 2”, there are no moves, so everything is done fun, noisy and very, very fast. The game literally reboots the brain in 5 minutes - it disconnected from work, played a couple of games, again with the new forces to play, at the same time the eyes moved.
There is another story connected with this game: the fact is that it is very difficult to explain to the humanities why, with numbers from 1 to 10 in the game, 9 + 2 = 1, and 1 - 3 = 8. People associated with IT understand this by the phrase “ circular buffer ”, which some animator girls have already learned for a quick explanation.
The Manhattan Project comes out - a hardcore game about the US nuclear program. You play as a project manager and develop, assemble and test new products. The game perfectly combines the entourage of a nuclear race and the good mechanics of project management.
Here is such a cool setting. Localization has already been completed.
There is good news for fans of Manchkin: the Team is already being printed - a toy that was created by a Russian author (then it was a clone of Manchkin about specific boys), and which had to be reassembled almost from scratch, that is, in fact, re-designed. The result is a thing where, among other things, you need to quickly and quickly agree: after each successful hike in the area, you need to divide the loot, which is not divided equally: for example, a mobile and a trunk for three. The highlight of the game is just that: 30 seconds to negotiate - or no one gets the booty. So gradually a fair player appears who knows how to divide so that everyone in the long run gets equally. At the same time, this communicative training is wrapped in the surroundings of domestic criminal areas. In general, the scheme of the "bad and desirable" game with mechanics,
Here is a brief assembly of board games that were in the lead as a gift for an IT specialist:
- Munchkin. There are no comments, everyone knows him.
- Table hockey. It happens the good old Soviet , which is still being made in Omsk, and it happens - a fashionable foreign one with a race behind the gate. It is sold in two scenarios: either the game is taken to the office, or the fragile woman drags a large box as a gift to her boyfriend. In recent years, by the way, hockey has also become popular among girls - for example, at Next Castle Party (this is such a game festival with old Amigas and consoles), where we organized a small tournament, one girl reached the semifinals.
- bet- here on the right of advice, because it is popular in the West, and not in Russia. Betting quiz: not the most erudite winner, but the one who understands who is better to bet on. Very interesting desktop engine.
- For children - Cephalopods , a very cool memory development game, was the best children's game of 2010.
- Domestic Evolution (an addition came out to it this year).
- Kuhandel ( Backstage bargaining ). Quite a rare thing with amazing auction mechanics, one of the favorite games about the economy. Extremely simple, fun - and at the same time requiring non-childish bluffing and calculation. I advise you to take the usual hand-drawn version - art is better.
Hockey
PS Yes, the secret word " Habrahabr»When ordering in Mosigre immediately gives a small pleasant discount. Valid until January 10 inclusive in the online store (with delivery in the Russian Federation), Moscow, St. Petersburg, Ufa, Nizhny Novgorod, Kiev, Orenburg, Omsk, Ulan-Ude, Kazan, Stavropol, Yaroslavl, Tula, Krasnodar, Vladivostok, Chita, Astrakhan , Kaliningrad, Minsk, Chelyabinsk, Togliatti, Perm, Saratov, Donetsk, Lipetsk, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg and even snowy Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.
Please tell us what you play in your company.
I do board games. On that beautiful day, three years ago, when it became clear that all Yandex was being purchased from us using one discount card, it suddenly came to the realization that IT specialists are some of the best customers of desktop shops. I think - because these are mostly positive people who love games, communication (which is often not enough at work) and clearly understand how fun it is to play complex things.
Below is a traditional annual review of what IT offices play, a little about what happened during the year at the intersection of this business and IT, stories about a funny story of commentary on a previous post, feedback from startup game players and, of course, tips by choosing a pair of pieces that you might want to receive or give to someone for the holidays.
Plus traditionally -a small gift to the harazhitami .
Post of 2011
Last year, there was the same post about dashboards, in the comments of which they added “drunken Monopoly” (though, a UFO drank a user along with a comment for a year, so I won’t put a picture on everyone). The essence of the game - you need to walk across the field with troll faces in cubes and drink. A few months later, we already had two samples in our office, here they are:
The larger box is from the Moscow publisher (it included piles), the smaller and cheaper box is from St. Petersburg. They did not know about each other. We did not take any of these boxes to the network.
Familiar game development
Starcraft ceased to be supplied to Russia, it is difficult to find Warcraft, Twilight of the Empire (according to Master of Orion), Roboralli.
Three interesting games were reissued - Sid Meyer Civilization and Game of Thrones (according to the Martin cycle): they have new boxes, and in the case of the Game of Thrones, they also have a new price tag (though both games are still hard to find before the holidays). Reprinted in a new gift box and “ Overboard! "- a game based on Hitchcock’s old film about survival on a lifeboat, which the hawkers fell in love with for black humor and training the team leader’s communication skills.
Overboard!
The coolest start of the year was the Imaginarium- Domestic crowdsourcing game collected by a number of comrades from one nonexistent collective blog. One of the authors of the project, having counted the money after the new year, promised to roll out 10 add-ons in a year, but so far only 3 rolled out. At the same time, his company released an amazing Zen player device (an ordinary stone from the beach with a hole for headphones for 1000 rubles) in which listen to the silence - and a couple more just as stiff things. Crowdsourcing drives.
Maps Imadzhinariuma
In Rummikub (puzzle game created when Romania banned card) was a great tournament, who won the man of the Moscow State University, and went to play for us in the world championship in Sicily (there, though did not win). It is noteworthy that he learned to play almost a couple of hours before the tournament.
Hive
The Beehive came out with additions - this is a very cool European logic game, which very often was chosen precisely from the “ Gifts for IT ” section. By the way, the second most popular logical game in this segment is the favorite game of many Go (in which people still beat computers).
Guo
A very interesting story about the wooden tower of Jenguwhere it is necessary to take out the bars until it falls with a roar. At first it was a megahit in two versions - the usual one was about 750 rubles and the gift one was about 1300 (they differed only in the box). The manufacturer pulled out the regular version from the line - and “pirated” versions just rushed onto the market, more precisely, it seems legal, but in some cases with surprisingly similar logos, names and design. The price at the same time, of course, is lower - from 340 rubles (rough bars) to about 1000. On the other hand, this greatly affected the popularity of the game: from a "best gift for a girl" it became a must when playing away. For some reason, it seems to me that it costs the main manufacturer to return the version for 750 rubles to the market - and they will receive a very big profit.
Jenga
Intersections with the software market
Last year, almost all classic games migrated to tablets. And if this was clear with the Monopoly or the Train Ticket, the fact that it was possible to successfully transfer Jenga - the game for fine motor skills - is a surprise. The trend continued this year - we are constantly being knocked on for licenses for games for porting to iOS and Android, plus we ourselves tried to make a couple of free pieces, sat for a week in Appstore's top and were generally satisfied. In addition, the reverse process was outlined - a lot of licenses for films and major games became available for the development of board games (except that Mass Effect was not yet a serious one).Startup
Last year, Mosigra, in partnership with Habr, released the startup “Habraig” about IT projects, negotiations and the economy in general, in which you play as a young businessman (here's a post about the game , but about the development ).
Over the year, we gathered a bunch of comments and suggestions, held several tournaments and generally played enough. After the third tournament, we sat down, sorted through all the comments received and made a bunch of changes. A new box is on sale, it can be identified by the inscription "v1.2" near the name.
List of changes in v1.2
- Significantly simplified the rules. In mechanics, the most important thing is to reduce the amount of routine and leave only a high point, that is, the actions that create the game. It turned out that you can safely throw out almost a third of the basic actions of the move, and this has little effect on playability. At the same time - made the game more dynamic.
- The phakaps and projects were balanced: many did not like the fact that a long, long project could become a forest because of one mistake. This is reality, but in the game we slightly reduced the factor of chance.
- We changed the physical components: there used to be pencils and erasers for cards, now there are special erasable markers, because for some reason the supplier of pencils sometimes made hard ones right in a regular batch.
- They also brought in a bunch of small details: 6 players added a card, remade coins from plastic, and so on. By the way, Habr asked to put a map of the project Freelansim - put.
New items
The main gift of the year was Resistance- A completely crazy game that uses the mafia engine, but does it very unusual. The trick is that the classic mafia is great for negotiating training and generally developing communication skills, but it has a couple of drawbacks: firstly, players fly out and get bored, secondly, 10 people are needed for a balanced game, and thirdly, often the winner is the one who screams louder and more often, and not the one who thinks better. The resistance after that is just a fairy tale: only deduction and cold logic steers, no one flies to the end, you can play from 5 people, plus on top of all this there is an atmosphere of something like "1984" or "Equilibrium". On the side of the box is a guy who resembles a Neo-Seoul resident of Cloud Atlas, but the game came out a couple of years before the movie: apparently, it’s just a popular image.
Resistance
A game about robots was released - Robotrok . I highly recommend a good thing on the road or play with a child. The game is generally amazing in its own way: it has a very accurate balance and simple rules. Children drag themselves from robots and their assembly, adults - from very thoughtful and deep tactics. Half of the game you need to collect spare parts in a landfill (according to the environmental legislation of robots you can only make them) - this is the solution to the traveling salesman (Dijkstra) task, taking into account the anticipation of the actions of other players. The second part - pure bluffing, the third, very simple - the assembly according to the optimal scheme.
Robotrok
Another completely insane thing that just makes a brain - a small game " 7 on 9», Where you need to put cards in a pile in the middle of the table. Each card has a number and a modifier: for example, you can put either 5 or 9 on the card “7 plus or minus 2”, there are no moves, so everything is done fun, noisy and very, very fast. The game literally reboots the brain in 5 minutes - it disconnected from work, played a couple of games, again with the new forces to play, at the same time the eyes moved.
There is another story connected with this game: the fact is that it is very difficult to explain to the humanities why, with numbers from 1 to 10 in the game, 9 + 2 = 1, and 1 - 3 = 8. People associated with IT understand this by the phrase “ circular buffer ”, which some animator girls have already learned for a quick explanation.
Expected
The Manhattan Project comes out - a hardcore game about the US nuclear program. You play as a project manager and develop, assemble and test new products. The game perfectly combines the entourage of a nuclear race and the good mechanics of project management.
Here is such a cool setting. Localization has already been completed.
There is good news for fans of Manchkin: the Team is already being printed - a toy that was created by a Russian author (then it was a clone of Manchkin about specific boys), and which had to be reassembled almost from scratch, that is, in fact, re-designed. The result is a thing where, among other things, you need to quickly and quickly agree: after each successful hike in the area, you need to divide the loot, which is not divided equally: for example, a mobile and a trunk for three. The highlight of the game is just that: 30 seconds to negotiate - or no one gets the booty. So gradually a fair player appears who knows how to divide so that everyone in the long run gets equally. At the same time, this communicative training is wrapped in the surroundings of domestic criminal areas. In general, the scheme of the "bad and desirable" game with mechanics,
Games popular in past years
Here is a brief assembly of board games that were in the lead as a gift for an IT specialist:
- Munchkin. There are no comments, everyone knows him.
- Table hockey. It happens the good old Soviet , which is still being made in Omsk, and it happens - a fashionable foreign one with a race behind the gate. It is sold in two scenarios: either the game is taken to the office, or the fragile woman drags a large box as a gift to her boyfriend. In recent years, by the way, hockey has also become popular among girls - for example, at Next Castle Party (this is such a game festival with old Amigas and consoles), where we organized a small tournament, one girl reached the semifinals.
- bet- here on the right of advice, because it is popular in the West, and not in Russia. Betting quiz: not the most erudite winner, but the one who understands who is better to bet on. Very interesting desktop engine.
- For children - Cephalopods , a very cool memory development game, was the best children's game of 2010.
- Domestic Evolution (an addition came out to it this year).
- Kuhandel ( Backstage bargaining ). Quite a rare thing with amazing auction mechanics, one of the favorite games about the economy. Extremely simple, fun - and at the same time requiring non-childish bluffing and calculation. I advise you to take the usual hand-drawn version - art is better.
Hockey
PS Yes, the secret word " Habrahabr»When ordering in Mosigre immediately gives a small pleasant discount. Valid until January 10 inclusive in the online store (with delivery in the Russian Federation), Moscow, St. Petersburg, Ufa, Nizhny Novgorod, Kiev, Orenburg, Omsk, Ulan-Ude, Kazan, Stavropol, Yaroslavl, Tula, Krasnodar, Vladivostok, Chita, Astrakhan , Kaliningrad, Minsk, Chelyabinsk, Togliatti, Perm, Saratov, Donetsk, Lipetsk, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg and even snowy Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.
What are you playing?
Please tell us what you play in your company.