Author: cosmo

As I was thinking about designing a new board game, I decided it would be interesting to create a game for kids. Specifically my grandson Ollie. He’s four now, so he’s not going to be thrilled about whatever resource-management game I devise, but he’ll probably like a fun card game.

I did a bit of design work, sent the files to my favorite card-printing company, and today my new deck arrived.

This is Ofrendas, based on the Mexican traditions of Dia de Los Muertos, the Day of the Dead. It’s actually a beautiful celebration of family, remembering those who have passed on. I created cards with cartoon grandparents, aunts, and uncles.

The game is basically Go Fish, but the objective is to collect matching ancestors to complete your ofrenda, the display where family photos are placed along with candles, candy skulls, and favorite foods. I threw in a few primo locos (crazy cousins) to spice up the game a bit.

I haven’t actually playtested it– I mean, it’s Go Fish— but I’m hoping Ollie enjoys it when we visit him in a few weeks…

It’s been a few months since we shopped for a new hot tub, and today was the delivery. A team of four guys manhandled the old tub off our pad and brought in the new one. They made short work of positioning it, connecting all the wiring, and testing the various buttons. Now it’s ready to go!

Of course it’ll take a solid day to bring it up to temperature, and it’s still pretty warm outside, so we might not actually use our latest addition for a while yet…

Every summer we zip across the lake on our jet skis to visit Wild Horse Island, the largest island on Flathead Lake and the home of four wild horses and a network of hiking trails. Today we decided to go to the highest point on the island, and set out on the trail. It wound through the trees and climbed up a long hill before going up a steep rocky incline to the summit. Pepper and Kyra decided they’d gained enough altitude, and stopped at a small outcropping.

Undeterred, I continued on. It was hard going because the grade was very steep, and there were a lot of loose rocks that slid underfoot. But I finally made it to the top and snapped a celebratory selfie.

The view from the peak is spectacular, encompassing much of the lake.

I made my way (carefully) back down to the ladies and we hiked back to our jet skis. It was a beautiful day to be out, and definitely a spot I plan to return to in the future.

My new toy arrived today.

This is an nVidia graphics card that takes up about half of my desktop computer case.

Now that I’m easing back into board game design, and considering a foray into large language model computing, I thought it made sense to get a better graphics card. This particular one is the largest one that still fit inside my computer case (barely!) and it packs a wallop. I’m excited to see how it does as I generate artwork for my games. It should be almost two orders of magnitude faster than my old card. Off to the races!

I missed last year’s annual board game soiree with the Magnificent Seven, so I was excited for this year’s get-together. Dirk was hosting in Carthage, so in the spirit of these sorts of things it became known as Carthage-Con. It’s a long drive from Montana to Missouri, but I enjoy a good road trip so I loaded a stack of games into Nebula and headed east.

Aron couldn’t join us this year because his wife Deb is continuing her fight with cancer, but Omaha is right on my route so I dropped in for an evening. It was good to see them and chat for hours about her struggles, their family, and the perspective they’ve gained through this experience. Deb is in constant pain but always has a brilliant smile.

To my surprise and delight, Aron’s mom Nancy happened to be visiting on the very night I was there. I haven’t seen her since my late teens, and it was awesome to catch up a bit. The Magnificent Seven spent a lot of weekends at her house.

Once everyone arrived at Dirk’s house, we went to work. The games came out and we plowed through one after another. We delved into caverns and fed our dragons in a game of Wyrmspan:

We planned an overthrow of the Cuban government in the 1960s in Cuba Libre:

We collapsed quantum wavefunctions in the brilliant trick-taking game Cat in the Box:

We took submarines into the ocean depths in Endeavor Deep Sea:

We even explored the South Pacific as Polynesian tribes in Utu:

There were plenty more– these are just some of my photos. Between all of the planning and strategy, we joked and laughed, told stories and remembered good times. It’s always a treat to spend a long weekend with my best of friends.

What better way to end a nice summer day by lighting a fire in the courtyard and making s’mores?

It’s also the last day the kids will be visiting, so Ollie was allowed to stay up extra extra late. It was after 10pm when this picture was taken, and the sky still has a hint of sunset in it. What a great finish to an awesome week with the fam.

Apparently it’s a tradition when Kyra and Ollie get together that Ollie has his fingernails painted. Sure enough, he asked Auntie Kyra if she’d paint them, and after selecting a nice purple color, she went to work.

For a boy who’s normally full of energy and running or jumping everywhere, he’s surprisingly quiet and calm for this. After the first coat, I guess you have to put your hands in the magic box to cure the polish (or something).

He’s very happy with the finished result!

Everyone who visits in the summer wants to head out on the lake, and since that’s one of the reasons we moved here in the first place, we love the opportunity for time on the water. Ollie is older now and enjoys riding the jet skis. Here he is zipping across the water with Grandma:

We also pulled out the tube and he rode for a while with Alex (he wasn’t interested in riding alone). I’m not sure he’s having as much fun here.

Late July is probably the perfect time on the lake. Long hot sunny days, nice refreshingly cool water… what’s not to like?

With all the kids here for a week, I’m looking forward to a lot of good times. Today we didn’t have anything big planned, so we were sitting around chatting about what to do. Suddenly Zack said “let’s design a board game.” It’s been about a year and a half since I last worked on designing a new board game, so I was excited to come up with something new.

Alex joined in, and the three of us talked about what the game might be. It was fun to riff on themes and ideas. Would it be a card game? Would it have resource management? Would it be serious or light-hearted, modern or historic, cooperative or competitive?

Eventually we landed on the idea of a game set in the 1700s where everyone controls a port and a fleet of trading ships. With little more than an outline, we set to work on creating player mats and pieces, decks of cards, and figuring out the resources and economy. I brought out index cards, colored pens, and my trusty game development kit.

It ended up taking a good portion of the day as we played a few turns, talked about what worked and what didn’t, updated the cards and pieces, and played more turns. Almost all of my game development has been a solo effort (with the help of friends and family after the initial game has been designed), so it was a nice change to have Alex and Zack help with the initial ideas.

We agreed to call the game Harbormaster, and after they head home I’l spend some time putting together a more formal printed design. Off we go!

We continue to have problems with gophers tunnelling through our yard and digging up plants. Although I hate to do it, we have to kill them or at least drive them off. A couple weeks ago Trent showed us that a BB gun is an effective deterrent, and today Alex decided to try his hand at it. Here he is on the prowl.

He bagged a trophy (is that correct hunting terminology?) and now we have one fewer gopher to worry about.