A weakness for tin

I have to admit I have a weakness for tin game boxes. Nothing is more likely to get me to shell out money for a game I already own than putting it in a snazzy tin box.

I'm not sure what the economics are of tin boxes. On the one hand, I do see them used to package some decidedly low-end products. It's not uncommon to see a tin box version of chess or dominoes in a retailer like Wal-Mart or Walgreens that doesn't cost a lot. These do tend to be public domain games where nearly all the cost in in materials and not in any creative design.

But Hasbro has put out some nice tin-box editions for games such as Scrabble, Clue and Monopoly as well that also have really nice game play components as well.

Tin boxes stand up well to the test of time, compared to paper boxes, although they still require proper storage. The weak point in game boxes are the seems, which tend to split with age. For tin boxes the biggest threats are dents and rust. Some tin boxes use hinges, which can break, but most tin boxes simply use a snug fit for the top.

It may very well be that tin containers are not an economic decision for low print-run products such as wargames, but I wouldn't mind seeing them used for some euros. Tin boxes may be too associated with U.S. producers, though, to appeal to the Euro crowd. And there may be less incentive for them to go that route because German-style game boxes are very sturdy.

Right now the latest editions of some Hasbro titles have gone low-cost, presumably to attract new players and keep sales up during tough times. But eventually there will be new "deluxe" editions of Acquire and Diplomacy and I wouldn't mind seeing a tinned version of either one.

Game nght at church

We had a game night at my church, and I'll post photos soon, but it was rather successful.

We had a number of old favorites and classics of course, such as Scrabble, Sorry, Yahtzee and cribbage. But I was also able to introduce some newer stuff to several comments like "I've never seen that before" such as Lost Cities, Hive and Heroscape.

We also had games of dominoes, Oh-Wah-Ree and Abalone hit the table.

Fluxx was also a big hit, I think it's a perfect game for an outing like this, being fun, easy to learna nd very quick to play.

Game of the Week: Dominoes

During a visit to Jamaica last summer I was struck by how much of a game-playing culture it was -- of at least one game, anyway, dominoes. In Kingston, especially, there were thousands of tiny street-side pubs (which usually had a half-dozen stools or so) and almost invariably had a hand-built sturdy dominoes table in front. More often than not there was a game in progress, too.
When Jamaicans play dominoes, it's obligatory to slap the domino down firmly with a loud crack. The sturdy little domino tables are carefully fashioned to help make that sound, with a relatively thin table top well-mounted within the thick frame. The overall effect is similar to a well-built Japanese Go game, albeit with a rustic island feel instead of the painstakingly wood-worked construction used in Japan.
In the U.S. dominoes is usually played with a rule that a player without a play must keep drawing from the graveyard until play is possible. In Jamaica the style is is allow a player without a legal play to merely pass.
This style of play probably keeps the games a little closer than the alternative U.S. rule, which can result in someone getting stuck with a big draw out of the graveyard that kills any chance of winning that round.
Dominoes are like standard playing cards in that the term really describes a set of game-playing fools, rather than a distinct game because many games can be played using the same tools. Still, there seems to be a basic "dominoes" that most people understand as being "the game" whereas card games are more distinctly differentiated in popular use into games like poker, bridge, war or solitaire.