Author Archives: edpmarriott
Monday Brews 10-20-14
I had meant to post a game design article last week but failed to find the time to write it. I’ll be posting that tomorrow instead. But today is Monday so it’s time to recap the Boards & Barley I’ve enjoyed over the last week.
The Barley:
BARLEY SPOTLIGHT: No spotlight this week.
- New Glarus Staghorn – An excellent local Oktoberfest
- Lift Bridge Hop Dish – A Minnesotan IPA of enjoyable character
- MKE Sasquash – Likely my last Pumpkin brew of the year
- Nobody Plays Brown (Homebrew) – My “Choke it down” Brown ale.
The Boards:
BOARDS SPOTLIGHT: Scoville + Unn
amed Expansion
I recently designed a small expansion module for Scoville. I plan to design two or three more such modules. But I had the privilege to test it the other night. It was a lot of fun to work on Scoville again. The module adds another layer to the spatial element of the game, which is already awesome. There were a few interesting things that came from it and I’m pleased with how well it worked. A little tweaking and I might have to send it to TMG!
Apparently I’ve been playing some games with my kids!
Designer’s Corner:
This coming weekend I will be attending Protospiel-Madison. I will have the Scoville expansion with me and I am rapidly working toward having another prototype with me as well. It’s not Quantum Orcas, so breath your collective sigh about that.
It’s a version of Armada Galactica that I think could have some potential. I still have a ways to go to get the prototype ready, but I think it could be a fun game.
I’m also excited to see numerous game designers at the convention. It’ll be nice to see what people are working on.
That’s it for the Monday Brews. What Boards & Barley have you been enjoying? Stay tuned tomorrow for a fresh game design article!
Monday Brews 10-13-14
Welcome back to Boards & Barley! It’s been a while since I posted and I blame it all on my kids. I’ve got three little rugrats and they often find ways to fill all of my “free” time. But I’m back today with a recap of the Boards & Barley that I’ve enjoyed over the past couple weeks.
Before that, however, I’d like to mention how awesome it’s been with having kegged beer. I put the kegs into my basement refrigerator and I now have cold beer on tap. I need to thank my neighbor once again for loaning me the equipment. I wouldn’t have been able to afford two kegs, regulator, gas lines, taps, and CO2 tank otherwise. If you want a beer on tap without having to pay $5 for it, head on over and I’ll pour you a cold one!
The Barley:
Don’t be sad, little guy. You tasted pretty good!
BARLEY SPOTLIGHT: Nobody Plays Brown – Homebrew
I brewed this “Northern Brewer Caribou Slobber” kit back in May and let it age (unintentionally) in my basement for four months. This was a kit that my older brother gave me as a Christmas present last year. It’s fun to get a beer kit as a Christmas present. So the other night with some friends over I took some glasses down to the basement fridge and filled them up from the tap. It wasn’t the best brown ale I’ve ever had, but I’m not disappointed to have 4 more gallons of it either.
- Boddington’s
- Baraboo Bonfire
- Left Hand 400 Pound Monkey
- Lake Louie Golden Booty
- Ommegang Abbey Ale
- Nobody Plays Brown (Homebrew – Brown Ale)
- You’ve Been Wheated (Homebrew – Hefeweizen)
- New Glarus Staghorn
- New Glarus Totally Naked
- Finch’s Fascist Pig
The Boards:
BOARDS SPOTLIGHT: Unpublished Prototypes
The Wealthy Lazeabouts by Jeremy Van Maanen can best be described as an auction game about bidding on who will win the auction. When I originally heard about that theme I cringed a little. It seemed boring. But we played the prototype the other night and other than a balance tweak and art upgrade I’d buy this game! It was highly enjoyable, provided for interesting choices, included a LARGE amount of player interaction, and was plain fun to play!
Super Ego by Adam Buckingham is all about Super Heroes who are more interested in glory and honor than in actually rescuing innocent victims. In the game you are one of those super heroes. During the game you’ll collect skill cards and use those skills to perform rescues and earn honor. Sometimes you may be able to earn honor that you can post on your timeline on your HeroBookFace account for all the other super heroes to see and envy. This game was full of intriguing choices, options to hose the other super heroes, options for revenge, and fun gameplay.
Both of these games were amazingly successful for their first playtests. If you are interested in playing either of them they’ll both be available to play at Protospiel-Madison in a few weeks.
- The Grand Illusion
- Ultimate Outburst
- Soon to be published Prototype: Fuse
- Camel Up
- 7 Wonders
- Madeira
- Spyrium
- Glass Road
Designer’s Corner:
After playing The Grand Illusion 4 times in the past two weeks I’ve decided that the game needs to be redesigned. With a theme of magic and illusion it really needs to have awesome magical elements in the game. With the players representing illusionists I want the gameplay to feel like you are being sneaky and pulling things over our heads. I want there to be magical elements, common tricks, and other things that are generally associated with magic and illusions. So I’m turning it into less of a card based game and more of a classic Euro game. Imagine being the magician and having a few assistants to help you gather the equipment you need, market the show you’ll put on, and help you practice. Also imagine the assistants utilizing magic to help you out. Your objective is to begin as a street performer and work your way up to performing a Grand Illusion in a theater. I’m excited about upgrading this design significantly. Since the mechanics of the old design worked I think I may utilize them with a different theme.
Also on the design front I designed an expansion for Scoville. It took about three hours to scheme up the design, create the art, and make 36 new cards. I’m super excited to try it out. Also, I have three other expansion ideas for the game that I’ll try to mock up before Protospiel-Madison. It was fun to work on Scoville again, but now I’m desperately wishing the real copies would arrive!
Brewology 101: Kegging
You’ll never want to bottle again!
I have an awesome neighbor who used to brew. One of the ways he is awesome is that he is letting me borrow (indefinitely, I believe) his 6 gallon carboy, wort chiller, and double keg system!
A friend came over the other night to help me with kegging. I had never done it before and I was a little nervous.
But before we get to the kegging I wanted to mention my process for bottling:
- Save bottles from friends. You typically need 45-50 bottles per 5 gallon batch. (Time requirement: months)
- Soak bottles and peel labels off. (1 hour)
- Wash bottles in dishwasher. (1 hour)
- Transfer beer from carboy to plastic fermenter. (15 minutes)
- Sanitize a group of 10 bottles. (3 minutes)
- Fill and cap ten bottles. (10 minutes)
- Repeat Steps 5 & 6 four more times. (~45 minutes)
- Clean counter, plastic fermenter, carboy, tubes, etc. (30 minutes)
All told the bottling process usually takes about 3 hours on any given evening, which doesn’t include the bottle soaking/label peeling portion. It’s not enjoyable work. Thus, I was very happy when my neighbor loaned me his kegging gear.
What is a Keg?
Cornelius (“Corny”) Keg
A keg is basically just a metal tank in which to put beer. The keg allows for the introduction of high pressure (~10-25 psi) Carbon Dioxide to the beer.
Soda producers and beer producers often use these types of kegs to store their product. These will be distributed to restaurants and bars where they will be connected to the taps.
You can buy these types of kegs online or at a local brewing store for roughly $50.
But you’ll also need some other equipment. The American Homebrewers Association has a nice run-down of the equipment you’ll need here.
These include connectors for the keg, plastic tubing, a CO2 tank, and a pressure regulator. I’m not providing an exhaustive list of the items you need. You can find that elsewhere. Rather, today’s kegging article if focused on the kegging process.
Racking Your Beer
Usually a homebrewer till use a carboy for secondary fermenting. If this is the case for you, you’ll want to rack your beer before transferring it to the keg. This is a simple process.
First, make sure everything that will touch the beer is sanitized. I use One Step for my sanitization. This means you’ll need to sanitize your plastic fermenter, the transfer tubing, the keg, etc.
Then I prefer utilizing an auto-siphon to draw the beer out of the carboy and into the plastic fermenter. By doing this step you help eliminate much of the sediment from the beer getting into the keg.
Fill the Keg!
This is the portion of the brewing process that replaces bottling. Instead of doing all those steps I listed above, simply use your auto-siphon to transfer your beer from the plastic fermenter into the keg. So. Much. Easier!
Do You Have Gas?
I hope you’ve got gas. Once the beer is in the keg, seal the keg and hook up your CO2 tank. Here’s where you’ll need a little information. You’ll need to know the temperature of the beer so that you can apply the right pressure. Here is a handy (?) chart to help you set your pressure correctly (Click for full size):
Image courtesy of KegOutlet.com
Some people force carbonate their kegged beer. This can be seen in the video below. Basically this utilizes a higher pressure of CO2 for a few days. Once those few days have passed, hook up your dispensing line, lower the pressure to dispensing levels (10-20 psi) and try your brew!
Today was a very brief article on kegging. Here are some picture of my kegs and equipment:
Helpful Video:
Monday Brews 9-29-14
10 gallons of beer that I didn’t have to bottle!
I totally missed out on National Drink Beer Day yesterday. I’ll redeem myself by enjoying one of my two kegged beers shown in the picture. I’ll write about my first kegging experience tomorrow. (Spoiler: I never want to bottle again!)
But today is Monday, so it’s time to cover the Boards & Barley that I’ve enjoyed over the last week. With a Board Game Night and a date night with my wife where we played games I was able to get a nice assortment to the table. But let’s start with the Barley.
The Barley:
BARLEY SPOTLIGHT: New Glarus Staghorn
My friend Jeremy describes this as the best domestic Oktoberfest. I agree with him. This is a very excellent beer and I’ll often choose it over the German Oktoberfests. Is that beer heresy? Doesn’t matter to me. New Glarus has produced a truly fine Oktoberfest. Next time you’re in Wisconsin in September or October, make sure you try it!
- New Belgium Pumpkick
- Tyranena Painted Ladies
- Lake Louie 10-81
- Boddington’s (My British colleague gave this to me as a gift)
The Boards:
Don’t worry. He wasn’t lonely for long!
BOARDS SPOTLIGHT:
Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small
This game is my Spotlight game this week because I was able to get my wife to play it. She graciously learned a new game and when it was done said she’d play it again! That’s a big win for me. I’ve wanted her to learn Agricola for a while so introducing her to ACBAS seemed like a good intro. The gameplay feels roughly the same and the pasture/animal elements emulate those in the full game. So I think she got a feel for how Agricola would go. I’m excited about that.
Designer’s Corner:
This past week was a good one. I finished up prototype art (haven’t done that in a long time) and I got The Grand Illusion to the table for it’s first two playtests (It had been a long time since I put a new game design on the table).
It’ll be magic if I can find time to read these.
Since the playtests were successful (I should write an article on what makes a playtest successful because I think that can mean a lot of different things) I thought I’d do a little more research into magic and the late 1800s-early 1900s magicians. I picked up a few books. I have no idea when/if I’ll have time to read them.
I think the playtests were successful for two main reasons:
- Both played to completion.
- It was fun (Or at least I had fun playing).
Playing to completion is a big metric for me. If you can design a game on paper or in your head and bring it to the table such that it can be played in full, that is a big accomplishment. Of course, that doesn’t matter as much if the game stinks.
So I had the two successful playtests and I’m ready to implement some good initial changes to things that were obviously not perfect. I think there are good things ahead for this game.
Monday Brews 9-22-14
Today is the last official day of summer. Bummer. Before we know it snow will be on the ground, the days will be short, and we’ll be freezing. Aye. What a horrible way to start a blog post. Sorry for that.
Let’s cheer you up by covering the Boards & Barley I’ve enjoyed over the past couple weeks!
The Barley:
Perfect amount of pumpkin and raven!
BARLEY SPOTLIGHT: New Belgium Pumpkick
So Autumnal. So delicious. It has a very nice level of pumpkin flavoring. Much more manageable than the Southern Tier Pumking and Warlock brews. This beer makes me think of Fall, and I like Fall quite a bit, so this is an enjoyable beer for me.
- Southern Tier Warlock
- Spaten Oktoberfest
- Milwaukee Brewing Sasquash
- Deschutes Black Butte
- Brau Brothers Moo Joos Oatmeal Milk Stout
- Ayinger Oktoberfest
The Boards:
BOARDS SPOTLIGHT: Istanbul
This game has such a nice and simple mechanism of movement. It allows for great replayability. It adds interesting and tough decisions. And can allow you to mess with other players without it seeming like a “take-that” kind of game. I’m looking forward to playing this again.
Designer’s Corner:
I have made a lot of progress with the prototype for The Grand Illusion. I’m on pace to have it playable for our group’s Board Game Night this week.
I’ve laid out the gameplay foundation, which is quite simple mechanically. I’ve tried to include a system that will provide for some good interaction. And I’m just ready to play it. It will probably be horrible, but at least the logo looks okay! Hopefully I’ll have a report on Playtest #1 later this week.
Boards and Barley 