Splat Attack!
Splat Attack! Is a new miniatures combat board game put out by IDW Games. It features characters from four different Nickelodeon cartoons (SpongeBob Squarepants, Rugrats, Hey Arnold!, and Invader Zim) in the base game. It may serve as an easy introduction to the genre of grid-based miniatures combat gaming. As such it is entering the arena of Shadespire and Aristeia, for older players, as well as Krosmaster Arena, HeroClix, and Super Dungeon Explore PVP Arena, for younger players. So how does it compare to the other members of this growing segment of board gaming? What do my own children think of it? Is it suitable for school clubs? Read on to find out!
Interview with Sophie Williams, designer of the new Hellboy boardgame
Here's a great interview with Sophie Williams, the designer of the new boardgame Hellboy coming from Mantic Games. In the interview she talks about what led her to becoming a game designer and gives advice for people looking to find a career based on the things they love.
Interview: Beasts of War link
Critical Core: A New RPG designed to help children on the Autisitism Spectrum with social skills
This looks like a wonderful project that is now on kickstarter. It's a stripped down version of Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition combined with adventures specifically meant to help children on the autism specturm learn and practice social skills. Very cool!
Link: Kickstarter Page
Gamification on the Rise in 2019
Here's an interesting article about the continuing rise of gamification in the business sector. The author says it would work in education as well.
Link: Forbes Article
The Myth About Teacher Attrition
Well this was interesting. I ran across this article from a few years ago showing that teacher attrition in the first five years of teaching is only 17%. For years people have been saying it's around 50%. Fascinating.
Link: Washington Post Article
KiwiCo's Crate Subscriptions
KiwiCo is a company that ships out monthly crates to children which feature STEM or Arts and Crafts activities. They have different crates for different age groups starting at newborn and going up to later teens. My own children are 10 and 12. So they are trying out the Doodle Crate and Tinker Crate subscriptions. My daughter loves art. So the Doodle Crate, which features arts and crafts activities goes to her. Then the Tinker Crate, which has STEM activities, goes to my son. The crate subscriptions currently cost $19.95 a month, although we started for a lower cost due to a Christmas sale. So what do we think? Read On!
Blitz Bowl Review
Blitz Bowl is one of Games Workshop’s three new family oriented games that are being sold exclusively for the time being in Barnes and Nobles. These games are part of GW’s push to expand their customer base into the family market. The other two games are Space Marine Adventures: Labyrinth of the Necrons and The Lord of the Rings: Quest for Mount Doom. Each of these games can be seen as a gateway game for younger players to be exposed to the worlds of GW’s standard line of games for older customers. In each case, the miniatures are the same style and size of the miniatures used in their main games and are completely interchangeable with those games. These new games for families are accompanied by a line of fiction books, written for pre-teen children, set in the 40K and Age of Sigmar universes of GW’s two most popular games. As a parent of pre-teen children and a teacher who runs a school gaming club, I’m very happy to see GW pushing in this direction. So how do they do with their new family friendly initiative and Blitz Bowl? Do I recommend it to other teachers running school gaming clubs and parents looking for beginning miniatures games to play with their children? How do my own children like it? Let’s take a look!
Central Florida Comic Con 2019
The kids and I got to attend Central Florida Comic Con in Lakeland this weekend. This is the con’s first year. It was a very small con compared to the others we have gone to. It was probably only about 200 to 300 attendees. It was centered around geek culture. It had a small exhibit hall with local artists and comic venders.
Bob Layton, who was a cocreator of Iron Man and a founder of Valiant Comics, was there. Marina Sirtis, the actor who played Deanna Troy on Star Trek: The Next Generation, was there as well. There was also one of the Power Ranger Actors and a pro wrestler. Not much in the way of guests all told.
A woman, who has the largest Pikachu collection in the world (including a Pikachu car) was there, and we attended her Pokemon trivia panel. The children answered a few of her trivia questions. My son later got one of her hand made stuffed animal pokemon characters for his con souvenir.
Charis and I both found local artists we liked that we got prints from. I got a pair of prints by James Hance for my classroom and she got a print by Bianca Roman-Stumpff for her room.
We also got to play a game of Dungeons and Dragons at the con. We converted our characters that we are going to use in the Pathfinder Version 2 playtest into D & D characters and brought our miniatures we had just started painting and dice to the con on the second day. Our DM was very good, and we had a great time. We ended up playing with a gentleman at our table that we had played Starfinder with at MegaCon, which was a nice surprise.
All in all, it was a very relaxed con that was a fun experience. We’ll be back next year more than likely if they continue it. It will be interesting to see if it grows in the following years.
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