GIZA The Great Pyramid

In this new 2-4 player game by Mayfair, you play as the leader of an Egyptian city. Pharaoh is concerned that his Great Pyramid will not be finished in time for his journey to the Underworld, and needs the help of his best cities in supplying additional labor. To win the Pharaoh's favor, you must send more laborers to complete the Great Pyramid than the other players!

When you first open the box, you will see the rulebook and the game board. The rulebook is 12 pages long, and is extremely detailed, perfect for those who have never played a board game. It includes information on Game Setup, Components, How To Play, Executing Turns, Scoring and Game End. It even has a very helpful scoring table for use during the game.

The board itself is a work of art. Not only is it beautifully done in neo-Egyptian artwork, but it is a  hard 1 piece fold-out.  In my experience, this eliminates people losing the separate board pieces or bumping into 1 half of it.

Underneath those are the Player Aid Screens (left side) and the tiles and tokens (right side). Each player gets 1 color-coded reversible screen, 3 Art Tokens for decorating the Pyramid (red), 8 Food Tokens to prevent Worker starvation(green) and either 8 or 10 Worker blocks, depending on whether your game is 2 or 4 player. There are also Sled Tiles (large yellow) and 50pt. Victory Markers (yellow/green/brown). Each of these are very important during game play, so I recommend getting a Ziploc to keep them in.

Lastly, there are the worker pieces and the plastic pyramid itself.  The small wooden blocks represent your Workers, and are color coded for up to 4 players, and coincide with the reversible Player Aid screens. There are 16 of each color, for a total of 64 Workers. However, there is also what is possibly the coolest part of this game: The Great Pyramid! Once your Workers have slid all the Pyramid pieces of 1 Tier into place, you use your Art Tokens to decorate that Tier. While everyone who bids Art Tokens toward the Pyramid win Victory Points, the player who bids the most will get more VPs. Once the Great Pyramid is completed, players will add up all VPs, and of course, the player with the most wins the game!

And there you have it, another awesome resource game from Mayfair. While this game is a bit more complicated than either Settlers of Catan or Steam, I like the fact that they are creating more challenges for their loyal players. Sean, Dave and I will be at Toyfair 2012 in NYC this Sunday and Monday, and I can hardly wait to see what new boardgames Mayfair has cooked up. Be sure to look for our Toyfair update on Tuesday when we return!

Stasi "Dengirl" King

Unpacking the Dragon's Den

So many people who do not live local have asked us what the store looks like and what type of product we carry. So not wanting to keep everyone in the dark, here is an unpacking of the Dragon's Den!

As you walk down the hall of the Poughkeepsie Plaza, we are located at the end of the hallway at the North end of the plaza. 

When you look into the store, you will find many great items located on our island.  You are also presented with a choice, left or right...

If you walk straight in and look in the front two cases you will find some interesting items, including bumper stickers and ...

and CANDY! Notice that most of the candy is branded!

So I decided to turn to the right and make my way along the comic book wall.  We have a nice lite display for the comic books, all sorted alphabetically from left to right with tabs behind all the new books.At the end of the rows of comic books, there is a lite display with all the comic glasses, banks, and pop fun figures.  We carry Marvel, DC, Image, Dark Horse, and more.  If you are looking for comic books, then you might want to browse our wall.

Opposite the comic wall, and inside the island you find all the collectible card games (CCG) and sports cards.  This is where all the boosters, starters, and singles for the different CCGs.  This is also where you will find the card sleeves, deck boxes, and play mats.  With games like Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh, and World of Warcraft we have plenty of CCGs for the players to enjoy.

Rounding the corner by the BCW spinning rack which houses top loaders, penny sleeves, and binders, you see the gaming area. We can set the area up in multiple configurations for card games, miniature games, or role playing games.  Across the back wall of the gaming area is a wall of board games and card games as well as Yoda above one of our demo video game systems.

Right in the corner of the gaming area is our role playing games (RPG) section, which usually has a table set up for RPG games. We keep our boosters of miniatures, RPG books (New and Used), and maps.  We carry many different RPG titles like D&D, Pathfinder, Legend of the Five Rings, Eclipse Phase, and so much more!

At the back of the island, facing into the gaming area you find our miniature paints, dice, CCG binders, some play mats, and darts.  Oh, yes DARTS!  So many people play in leagues in the area, but there are so few places to find flights, shafts, tips, and other dart accessories.

The wall opposite the comics and around the other side of the island you find miniatures and video games.  Starting at the back of the store, you run into the miniature section of the wall.  We carry game companies such as Games Workshop (Warhammer and Warhammer 40K), Privateer Press (Warmachine and Hordes), Spartan Miniatures (Uncharted Seas, Dystopian Wars, and Firestorm Armada), and some other titles like Battletech, Malifaux, and Infinity.

As you move down the wall, you will see all the video games, and video game systems.  We carry new games as well as retro.  Looking for Nintendo (Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Gamecube, and Wii), X-box, X-Box 360, PlayStation (1, 2, and 3), Sega (Master System, Genesis, CD, Saturn, and Dreamcast), or even Atari... we've got it!  We also have a tech in the store who can fix most problems with current and older systems.  In the island across from the wall we keep the hand held games.  These range from the original Nintendo Gameboy to the 3DS.  We also have PSPs, Sega Game Gears, and even a Nomad!

Right next to the register we have some more snacks.  Here we keep some of the really cool imports from Japan and Ireland!  Drinks, candies, chips, and cookies! We also have energy drinks in this case, as well as in the mini fridge right behind the counter if you want one cold.

So now you have had the grand tour.  I did not have space to put in all the pictures of the store or all the cases, but I wanted to leave some mystery or intrigue so that you are enticed into stopping by and checking us out.  And if you are curious, we run events on those tables every night of the week, and you should check out our calendar for more information.

Sean "Striderlotr" Banks

Battletech Introductory Box Set

Did you ever play Battletech when you were growing up?  Do you remember FASA? Have you ever desired piloting a giant 'Mech into combat for the glory of your House or Clan? Then you need to check out the Battletech Introductory Box Set!  This new introductory box set is now being produced by Catalyst Game Lab, who also makes some other great games! We at the Dragon's Den felt that it was time to break this open and play a round or two.

We got the box set out for the store, now that it is available at one of our distributors.  As several of us remembered the game from our youth, we were excited to give the new intro box a try.  We went very basic with a light mech each... well, they had 50 tonnage mechs and I had a 40.  We went with the very basic/core rules and did not worry about heat or ammo.  Steve, Tom and I had a blast and after immobilizing me they turned on each other, with Tom winning the event!

The pieces are all made out of plastic, and are single cast... except for the 2 premium pieces Thor and Loki.  The board is more like a board game board, but is printed on both sides to give you 2 double sided maps for more play options.

While we were playing, Stan got into painting the pieces and gave each one a quick prime coat of either Red, Grey, or Silver.  The pieces we were using ended up blue as did the Thor.  The Loki got a separate color and we went with green.  We may have gone with some Marvel Comic colors with that...Thor blue and Loki green!

So as we have several copies in the store, with the pieces all base coated, then you should come in and give this great game a try.  We now have several copies of the game as of when this blog was posted.

 



Sean "Striderlotr" Banks

Nintendo LaserScope

Have you ever wanted to play Duck Hunt on the NES and not have to use the gun?  How about firing at those ducks by saying "Bang," "Shoot," "Die Duck, Die," or "Kablow!"?  Then you need to give this a try!

The Nintendo LaserScope by Konami is a voice activate firing system.  It was designed to work with the different shooting games that Nintendo produced to work with the Zapper.  It made it's debut in 1990, so it is now 22 years old, and looks great still. If you noticed, the headset also has speakers built in, and YES it is in stereo. 

Now there were some down sides to really cool device.  The mic would sometimes pick up background noise and fire with what ever it heard.  It also has a limited range as you need to plug the headset into the Nintendo in the controller port, and on the side for the sound.

Oh, and in case you are wondering... YES we have one in the store as of when we posted this blog entry!

Sean "Striderlotr" Banks

MtG Dark Ascension Pre-release Weekend

This weekend was the Pre-release of the latest set of Magic the Gathering from Wizards of the Coast called Dark Ascension.  We had so many players for the last Pre-release that we set ourselves up for the players and even got the empty store next to us for our Saturday events.  We had 4 events on Saturday starting at Midnight.  We always get a good crowd for the Midnight events and having an empty location to use made it feel open and spacious for the players.  Here is a list of our times on Saturday and Sunday with how many players we had for each.

As is our normal Midnight fun, we got pizzas and sodas for all the players to enjoy before the event began.  We ended up about 16 pizzas and not a single slice was left when it was game time! The drinks normally last a little longer, but even they were gone before the end of the event. 

 

Saturday
1. Midnight: 88 players
2. 11:00am: 32 players
3. 3:00pm: 15 players
4. 5:00pm: 16 players
Saturday total: 151 Players

Sunday
1. 11:00am: 8 players
2. 3:00pm: 15 players
Sunday Total: 26

Total players for the weekend: 177

This was a great weekend with lots of players having a great time and playing tons of Magic.  We did a few extra things this pre-release that we have not done in the past.  We had our resident Magic card painter, Marc, altering cards for players as they played.  He also did a few for us to use as random door prizes for each round of the Midnight.  He also did a full art of Sorin for a player... and it might have been the first to be altered.  We also rented several table and chairs so we would have extra and everyone would have more room to play.

Next pre-release I'm hoping to see if one of the local Magic artists would be willing to come in during one of the time slots and do some signings or custom alters for players.  I know that there is one guy very local and several closer to the city, so it would be great for the players to meet some these great artists.

Don't forget about the Launch Party for Dark Ascension this Friday night at 6:00pm.  It will be a Draft for $15 and the first players on the list will be guaranteed a promo card.  What to check out the rest of our calendar of events?  Check out our calendar! We run many Friday Night Magic events, Monday Night Magic, and now Star City IQs!

Sean "Striderlotr" Banks