November 2015

The “Stay Home and Play on Black Friday Sale”

By / Leave a Comment / Misc
Enough...Thanksgiving is for being with people, not shopping....
Enough…Thanksgiving is for being with people, not shopping….

Ok folks…I’ve had it.  I’m taking a small (and probably spectacularly pointless) stand against the whole idea of getting all all of our families/friends together and actually off work, and then ripping them out of bed (or from going to bed in some cases) to go wait in lines for the chance to get smushed, stressed and utterly exhausted all for a chance to save some money on presents for the very people who we just missed a chance to lounge around with in a comfy robe and furry slippers.

During this week Nov. 21 to 29th

  • Take off an extra 5% from what you are buying (with the exception of sale items) (Always)
  • Get to buy a Modern Masters pack for 1/2 price ($6) for every purchase over $40 (OR)
  • Get a Free Modern Masters 2015 pack for every purchase over $75 (OR)
  • Get a Free Pokemon Pack for every purchase over $40 (OR)
  • Get to pull a Free Mini board game (value between $7-15) for every purchase over $60)

Updated Sale item list:

Item Regular Price Sale Price
BOG Fat packs $39.99 25% off
Khan’s Event decks 25% off
Pokemon Collections

 25% off
Magic Gift Boxes
  • Battle for Zendikar—$24.99 PLUS Bonus Free pack
    • Khans-19.99 Plus Bonus free Pack.
    		 $25.99-21.99 Bonus Free Booster Pack ($3.99 value)
    From the Vault Angels $89.99 $59.99 (first 10 sold)

     

    Obviously, I a big believer in playing some table top games together as a way of having fun where we even get to look up from screens and actually LOL.  (LOL–yes I’m aware of the irony.)  So here is our solution.  We’re going to have our holiday sale the weekend before Thanksgiving.  We are a local shop, and we do want/need your business so we can afford to keep providing a nice place for people to come and play together so we appreciate when you buy stuff from us very much.  Our idea is to let you pick up gifts for the holidays and while you are here, hopefully pick up something really fun to play over Thanksgiving as well, since having fun with people you love is about the best gift there is.  And I want to keep the game playing to the games and do our best to make it pleasant to shop with us.

    We’ve hand picked a number of great games, and as usual have a great selection of goodies for Magic and Pokemon players.  We’ll be posting our yearly staff gift recommendation list in the next week.  And we’ll be doing a bunch of game reviews to help out.

    Recommendations for great Holiday games (this will be updated regularly)

    • Codenames; Sort of a multi-match team password where the “spymaster” tries to give a clue that will get their team to match the words from a big spread of cards that belong to their team without picking words that belong to the other team.  Very hot game.
    • New York 1901: Think Blockus meets Ticket to Ride.  Pick cards that let you build your collection of skyscrapers on the still flat map of NYC while you still have the space.
    • Coup Rebellion CS4:  This follow on to the very popular ultimate bluffing game Coup can be played in about 20 minutes per round and works for 3-6 players…super, super fun.
    • Dead of Winter: We finally have this impossible to get in zombie tour to force in stock…Everyone who has bought it loves it, so if you are into the living the zombie (or zombie free) life, get a few folks together for this one.
    • Cover Your Assets:  Great game that works equally well for kids and grandparents,and can get ’em to actually play together.
    • High speed fun with no brain required, Loonacy.

      Loonacy:  Perfect for post Turkey brains…not a lot of high level thinking, but a fast paced game with a bunch of goofy laughing.  Now with a cool Mad Men style retro version.

    • Roll For It: A fast paced dice rolling game with simple rules that is fun for all ages…
    • Qwirkle:  Think scrabble meets Bejeweled (shapes and colors instead of words). Grat Family Game
    • Evolution:  This brand new games ia perfect in the spirit of getting stuffed. This 2-6 person game has each player creating their own customized species to vie to see who prospers and who gets eaten.  Big thumbs up on this one for 10 (smart 8) and up.
    • King of Tokyo Fans!!!:  The classic king of the hill monster game hops over the pond with the new King of New York version of the game.  This 2-6 player game is all about light hearted battling of giant monsters to see who can take the biggest bite out of the Big Apple
    • And for those who like their fun Dark and Delicious…two Strong recommendations:
      • Gloom: the Edward Gory/Lemony Snicket game where you lead your dark family to the worst possible life before knocking them off in some poetically tragic way,while your opponents try and give them (gasp) a good day. 😉
      • Betrayal at the House on the Hill, 3-6 players fingernail biting exploration of the wonderfully creepy house. flips in the middle of the game by turning one of the players into the Betrayer who gets secret instructions setting him/her against the rest of the players who have their own secret instructions how they try and survive the night.  This game is easy to get into and virtually impossible not to hvae fun with.

    Extra Life — 24 hour Charity Event at D20 Games

    By / Leave a Comment / Events, News

    Update…the event was great.  They raised over $1500 for Children’s Miracle Network.  The Nerdy Knights were very, very cool guys and we were impressed both by what they were doing, and their spirit in doing it.  Great job guys…you are welcome to come back next year.  (Oh…and a shout out to my trivia team partner who helped prove that the combo of age and beauty turned out to be unstoppable…woo hoo!!!  And good job to the second place team who ended up being a couple of our regular kid players who snuck up from behind and womped on the mostly adult crowd!)


    Watch live video from RiddickulousRants on www.twitch.tv

    So here’s the scoop.  This group of players, who call themselves the Nerdy Knights contacted me to ask if we’d be willing to stay open for 24 hours to play games in the store.  After the echos of the initial laughter faded, it turned out that they do this every year as part of a nationwide event for an organization called Extra Life, that has groups like them all across the country do these game marathons to raise money for the Children’s Miracle Network to give money to a bunch of Children’s hospitals.  After making sure they were legit, I dusted off my cot and gave them the thumbs up.  Taking care of each other is a big part of what the store is about, and building in some taking care of others has been a goal of the

    How this works.   From 6 am Saturday to the same time on Sunday, the Nerdy Knights will be here, playing games, streaming on the net and gathering donations.  Side by side with that we will be having tables dedicated to everything from Table-top board game Speed Dating, to Special Magic tournaments.  D20 will donate the space and games for use in the events.  Events with packs (ie Magic) the store do at a hugely discounted rate so any profit (and most of the $) will go to the charity.

    Also, there ARE volunteer opportunities to help out.  These include Speed Gaming Game Masters (people who know some of the board games well and can help people get a taste of the game super fast), Twitch Chat Moderators, Sound Mixer Tech, Set-Up and Clean-Up, Promoters to help spread the word and bring in people. If we have the people, we’d love to set up table for folks to learn or improve at Pokemon and Magic on Sat am and afternoon who would then donate to the charity.  (And yes for some of kids/teens, this  does count as community service for those kids who need to do that for school. –Quick note…don’t just do this to check off a school requirement…do it because it is a good thing to do, and come prepared to really work.  We won’t sign off any forms for those who don’t come with their a-game attitude and do great work. )

    The events (big time subject to change)  Check here for the latest updates and schedule.  NOTE…being here either before or during the after hours (after 9pm) is only for the volunteers or the participants in events. (Ok…you can donate a cover charge just to watch….whatever brings in more donations for the kidlets.)

    Events for the public to Participate in so far:  (We will add more as we get more volunteers to run them.)
    On Demand…
    • Zombie Conspiracy: Bring any number of friends in for this two hour Magic Draft/beat on your buddies fest.
      • Cost-$8 to D20 and  $10-15 donation to the charity.

    2:00pm- 7:00pm

    • d20 Games – Speed Dating with Board Games
      • We’ll Set up 4 tables with some of the best new games and some of our all time favorites.  Play for 1/2 hour and we will then play musical chairs (literally) to see where you end up next.  $5 donation per game tix ($10 for 3, and $25 donation for 10–enough to play the whole time.)  If you love a game and want to stay at the table, you can use two tix to stick around for another 1/2 hour.  Have fun, meet people, and win goodies at the table, including promo’s, snacks, and discounts.  (Volunteers can earn one ticket per hour they volunteer for the event.)
      • Cover-1 ticket per game session. $5-1 ticket, $10-2 tickets, $25-10 tickets

    7:00pm – 9:00pm

    • West Coast Team – Nerd Trivia.
      • 5 rounds of 10 questions each. Each round will be a different category and will have prizes at the end of the round. At the end of the final round the team with the most points will go into a lightning round to win the Trivia grand prize provided by NKRN
      • Categories will include Star Wars, Nintendo, Pokemon, Comic books, and others
      • Teams of a max 4 people – Cover- $20/team

    9:00pm- 11:30

    • D20 After Dark-Adult only games
      • Tables set up with Games of a more adult nature (ahem…)–see above for details
      • Cover Donation $15
    • D20 Adults only Magic Draft….Modern Masters 2015!!!
      • Cover-$15 to D20 (we will subsidize the rest of the cost of the packs) plus $15 Donation to the store
    Community Service Jobs
     
    • Speed Gaming -Game Masters – for the speed dating-sequel version of board games we will need one person with each board game to teach the players how to play.
    • Twitch Chat Moderators – people watching the twitch chat during the event to bring in the participation of the online community. Tasks will include helping running the online raffles and monitoring the online portions of live events (I.e. Trivia, Cards Against Humanity, etc)
    • Sound Mixer Tech – preferably someone with experience or can easily be taught how to run a small 12-channel mixer to make sure audio and music is played throughout the stream appropriately. Typically students in the drama department in schools will be ideal for this
    • Set-Up and Clean-Up – for the evening before and morning after we can use 2-3 extra hands for setting up and taking everything down once the event is taken care of
    • Promoters – Someone standing outside and encouraging community engagement by handing out the fliers and trying to draw people in
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