Wednesday, July 11, 2012

When You Play The Game of Dice, You Crit or You Die



"Geek Chic" is everywhere these days.  From t-shirts to movies, "geeky" stuff has taken the world by storm.  From zombies to comics to swords and sorcery, it's what people are talking about...and most, if not all, of it has either a direct root in gaming or has been turned into a popular game of its own.

Take a look at "Game of Thrones".  Here's a wildly popular TV show, based on some award-winning books written by George R.R. Martin.  One of his early books in 1977 contained the inspiration for the classic D&D monster known as the githyanki. Now, Game of Thrones has a Living Card Game, a board game (now in its second edition), two different roleplaying games, and a video game of its very own.


As he relates in this podcast interview, Martin got his start in the 50's playing chess and monopoly. After he got out of college, he made his living as a chess tournament director.  In the 80's, he started playing Call of Cthulhu, Paranoia, the Morrow Project, and other RPGs...and then he ran Superworld, a superhero RPG.  He'd play with them 'til 4AM, getting hugely addicted to the game--and then, with the people he played with, he went on to write the Wild Cards superhero series of novels based on the characters and stories in his game.

So, the next time you run into someone who looks down on gamers, let them know that without them, we wouldn't have a Game of Thrones.  Do you know any other famous folks who are gamers?  Let us know!

Monday, July 9, 2012

Dragon's Den Player of the Year for Magic Update

Now that we have made it half way through the year, I thought we should post a quick summary of the top 8 players in each of the four different categories, as well as some statistics about the number of players we have seen for the different events we have run.  Also, this Friday I'll be giving small gift to the Top player for each category. 

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Just as a side note, I've been asked about why we run so many different events so I thought I would throw a quick answer here.  I like to run a Free and a Paid event at the same time on Friday nights so that the competitive players can play the tougher decks and the casual players don't feel like they are getting crushed all the time.  It is a work in progress as we still get many players in the Free event that could play in the Paid, but the hope is that the new players and more casual players can build up to playing more competitive over time.

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Free Standard has seen 235 unique players.

FREE Standard 7/4/2012
Rank Name Points Matches
1 Evan Odden 267 167
2 Dave Oppenheimer 221 100
3 Carl Naumann 204 109
4 John Franczak 199 105
5 Mike Cox 198 111
6 Scott Fish 183 105
7 Will Shost 163 67
8 Niko Peone 152 73


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Legacy has seen 58 unique players.

Legacy 7/4/2012
Rank Name Points Matches
1 Paul Lake 123 52
2 Rich Cali 105 56
3 James Rynkiewicz 98 42
4 Casey Madrick 89 50
5 Steve Carpenter 88 40
6 Frank Kick 88 57
7 Janene Andersen 76 53
8 Darryl Moss 64 49

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Competitive Standard has seen 82 unique players.

Competitive Standard 7/4/2012
Rank Name Points Matches
1 Doug Kimball 70 34
2 Chris Brellochs 58 31
3 Kevin Jones 51 25
4 Steve Carpenter 51 25
5 Alex Sherman 51 31
6 Lyon Kressner 44 25
7 Alex Kobes 40 19
8 Mica Buchanan 36 30

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Limited has seen 227 unique players.


Limited 7/4/2012
Rank Name Points Matches
1 Paul Lake 85 34
2 Will Shost 61 32
3 Mike Cox 53 28
4 Alex Sherman 51 23
5 Doug Kimball 49 20
6 James Rynkiewicz 48 23
7 Jonah Acosta 39 19
8 Mica Buchanan 36 22

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We are excited to see how the rest of the year plays out as many of the Top 8 players have changed in the past several months.  We will be posting some more information about what the players are getting for winning as well as changes to the Top 8 as the year goes on.  If you have not played yet, don't despair We have had several player climb the ranks by playing every week in the different events.  If you want to see what we have to offer each week check out our calendar of events!

Sean "Striderlotr" Banks

Friday, June 29, 2012

Opening Gambit: Gamer Nation


We live in a nation of gamers.  From Angry Birds to Call of Duty to World of Warcraft, it's highly unlikely that you'll find anyone under the age of 40 who doesn't play at least one game that, 20 years ago, would have placed them squarely in the realm of the 'nerd' or 'geek'.  We're not even talking about 'geek' in the carefree "geek credibility" sense those words are used in nowadays. We're talking about the 'living in mom's basement, beaten up for your lunch money' sense of the word.


But we're out of the basement now.  There are hundreds of blogs and thousands of pages on the Internet dedicated to gaming.  We've even got our own TV channels now, not to mention 'geek chic' dominating the culture of internet memes and popular culture. Economically, in 1996, the video game industry had $2.6 billion in sales revenue. In 2011, that number is $24.75 billion.

It's pretty much certain that the people making those video games got their start with tabletop games of one sort or another. Even those who didn't built on such concepts as 'hit points', 'mana', 'resource management', 'min-maxing', and all those other terms that tabletop gamers are intimately familiar with.

As mainstream video games have grown, so have tabletop games and the gamers who play them.  This continuing series of posts will take a look at both areas: how games have evolved, and perhaps more importantly, how the people who play them have evolved.  We hope you find this as fascinating as we do!

Monday, May 21, 2012

Kittens In A Blender Review

Ever wondered what would happen if numerous colorful kitties were allowed to freely roam around a kitchen stocked with nothing but boxes and killer blenders? 

Yeah, I never did either. But apparently SOMEONE did...namely the designers over at Closet Nerd. Why else would they create the amazingly fun, quick and easy-to-learn card game of Kittens in a Blender for us to play? (Other than the fact that some of the proceeds goes towards helping out various No-Kill Cat Shelters.)


While Kittens in a Blender takes about 30 minutes for a full game, the rules are easy enough to learn in about 5 minutes. It's good for 2-4 players, though if you want to do a Team Game, you can fit up to 8 cat saving/blending players. The game requires only about a 2nd grade reading level, so young gamers can get in on the kitten craziness too!

So what exactly is this game about? All about saving YOUR kittens, while strategically...not caring...about your opponent's feline fates. You start the game by pulling out the rules and the 2 oversized cards; "The Blender" and "The Box". These each go into one of the sides of the box, and the blank table space in-between them is "The Counter".

There are four different colors of Kitten cards; Yellow, Green, Red and Blue. Each color has 16 different Kittens, and each player pick which color they want to save. These cards will all be randomly shuffled into the deck. Every kitten of your color that you manage to save is a positive Kitten Point, whereas all the kittens of your color that get blended count as negative Kitten Points.


Of course, players need to have a way to move their adorable kittens around...or move the kittens of other players. The "Dog In The Kitchen" makes every player pass their current hand to the right. The other 3 cards shown are "Kittens On The Move", which lets you move any kitten/kittens as many times as shown on the card.
So, if you use the "Kittens On The Move 3" card, you can move 1 of your kittens from the Blender to the Box (2 moves) and another of your kittens from the Blender to the Counter (1 move). Or, if you prefer being evil, you could move 3 opponents kittens from the Counter to the Blender (3 moves).


Want to move massive quantities of kittens? Use "Kittens In The Box", "Kittens In The Blender" or "Kittens On The Counter" to move all kittens from your chosen location to the one on the card. Want to be evil again? Play the "These Kittens In The Blender" card to move all kittens of one color from the safety of the Counter and Box to the Blender.


Now, you're probably wondering when you will actually be able to blend all these kittens...or, if you're a good person, save them. That's where these two cards come in! When an orange Blend card is played, every kitten currently in the Blender is blended and put under the Blend card. Likewise, all kittens on the Counter are moved into the now-empty Blender, and all kittens in the Box are saved by placing them under the Box card.
But what if you don't want all those kittens to meet a horribly-blended doom? Well, then hopefully you have the blue Blend/Pulse card! This can work the same as a normal Blend, or can be used to stop a Blend when played immediately. Both of these cards are kept face up in front of you after playing them. In case there is a tie in regards to the Kitten Points, the person with the most Blend or Blend/Pulse cards is the winner.

All in all, this is an excellent game for beginners, or those who only need a quick bit of entertainment. With a $10 price tag, a quick learning curve, and wonderfully bright cards...this game is destined to find a place in the hearts of gamers everywhere alongside Fluxx and Chrononauts.

As always, we stock this game here at Dragon's Den. Be sure to come in for a demo!

-Stasi "Dengirl" King



Friday, May 11, 2012

New Candies At Dragon's Den

Anybody who is familiar with our store knows we specialize in carrying hard-to-find items like toys, graphic novels or novelties. But did you know we've done the same with our candy section?

That's right. Since last week we have found a distributor who is able to get us numerous candies and snacks that are nostalgic, to say the least. We started small to see what everyone thought of our "new" additions, and so far they are a huge hit! Just in case you haven't been able to make it in recently, here are our newest selections...


Rainbow Twizzlers $1.99  Hershey's licorice twists with 6 different fruit flavors.

Tropical/Sour Razzles $1.29  First it's a candy, then it's a gum.

Pop Rocks $0.99  The easiest way to find and consume 600 PSI of CO2.




Sugar Daddy Pops $1.49  If you like caramel, this giant chewy pop is for you.

Candy Buttons $1.49  Twelve inches of sugary-papery goodness.

Valomilk $2.49  Two chocolate cups filled with super-gooey (vegetarian friendly!) marshmallow.

Skybar $1.49  Sections of vanilla, peanut, fudge and caramel covered in milk chocolate.

Salt Water Taffy $0.25  If you need a description for this, you haven't lived yet.

Jujyfruits $1.49  Juicy, chewy fruit shaped gumdrops.

Bit-O-Honey $1.49  Six strips of honey-flavored taffy with pieces of embedded almond.





Kookaburra Licorice (Liquorice) $5.99  Soft, chewy Australian licorice made with real treacle.

Any (or all) of these are great snacks for those who like candies from days gone by, or just want to satisfy their sweet-tooth with things you can't buy at your local grocery. Come on by and treat yourself and your friends to something delicious!

Stasi "Dengirl" King