Omaha Gives!

Omaha Gives! is a 24-hour online giving event organized by the Omaha Community Foundation to grow philanthropy in Douglas, Sarpy, and Pottawattamie counti Ies. The goal is to inspire the community to come together for 24 hours to give as much as possible to support the work of public 501c3 nonprofits in the metro area. Today only, every dollar donated to Spielbound as part of Omaha Gives! will be matched by another dollar up to $3,500!

Spielbound strives to educate, engage, and create community through board games. We are a thriving community center for people of all ages, featuring a library of over 1,800 donated board games. Funds received support:

1. Education - providing teachers games and lessons for their classrooms.
2. Stay Sharp Seniors - providing games for seniors to prevent dementia.
3. Spielmasons - game creation and play-testing group.
4. Everyone plays - teaching games almost every day of the year!

SUMMER DAY CAMPS

This summer we will be hosting two camps for middle school-aged students interested in board games (June 1-3) and board game design (July 18-22).

Summer Kick-Off Day Camp

From June 1st to June 3rd, Spielbound will be hosting a three-day board game camp for middle school students. Board games can be an instrumental tool to grow and encourage skills in spatial reasoning, math, critical thinking, group work and cooperation. Throughout the days, students will have an opportunity to learn games from multiple genres with the help of Spielbound staff and volunteers. The games selected for the camp will give students a comprehensive understanding of the skills and fun to be gained through collaboration and play. Lunch will be provided each day, send any dietary restrictions or ability limitations to [email protected] and we will work to accommodate them in advance.

Summer Board Game Design Camp

From July 18th to July 22nd, Spielbound will be hosting a five-day board game camp for middle school students. Board games can be an instrumental tool to grow and encourage skills in spatial reasoning, math, critical thinking, group work and cooperation. Throughout this camp, students will have an opportunity to learn games from multiple genres with the help of Spielbound staff and volunteers, to identify the structures of board game design, and to then design a working prototype of their own board games. The games selected for the camp will give students a comprehensive understanding of the skills and fun to be gained through collaboration and play. Lunch will be provided each day, send any dietary restrictions or ability limitations to [email protected] and we will work to accommodate them in advance.

In my last blog post, I set the groundwork for Periodic Table Rummy, a simple card game to help students understand the periodicity of the periodic table of the elements. I decided to use Theo Gray’s The Photographic Card Deck of the Elements as my “standard” deck of cards for the game. The game plays like rummy, with some additions of my own to keep the focus on categorization.

Helium as seen in Theo Gray’s The Photographic Card Deck of the Elements. The top picture is top of the card, and the bottom picture is the "face" side of the card.

Here are the basic rules:

1. Shuffle the deck (picture side up) of 118 elements and deal 10 cards to each player.
2. Place the deck picture side up in the center of the playing field. Turn the first card over to form a discard pile.
3. Play begins to the left of the dealer. On a player’s turn, they have two choices: pick up a card from the discard pile or pick up a card from the top of the deck. A player always draws a card to start their turn. They will then discard a card from their hand. If they draw from the discard pile, they must discard a different card.
4. After their normal draw and discard, a player may lay down 5–9 cards in front of them that meet one of two criteria:
   a) Cards in the same group of the periodic table that all have matching card background colors.
   b) Cards with consecutive atomic numbers.
   Cards show the location of the element on the periodic table.
5. After laying down a set of cards, a player must:
   a) Read the entry for the “fact sheet” of the group of the elements being laid down, or the periodicity “fact sheet” if laying down consecutive numbers and
   b) A fun or interesting fact of one element laid down.
   If a player fails to read the information and the other players catch them, they must shuffle all their cards back into the deck and draw ten new cards!
6. After playing 5-9 cards and successfully reading them, a player redraws from the deck to make a hand of 10.

A traditional Battleship game.

Whilst perusing social media a few months ago, I came across a person who had taken the game Battleship and grafted a periodic table of the elements across it. The rationale behind this move was that by calling out elements on the periodic table as you play the game, students would learn the periodic table. The person who designed this game was well meaning, but clearly not a science educator.

I am. I teach my students about the history, meaning, and uses of the periodic table. The periodic table is not just a collection of chemical symbols and numbers. There is a reason why it isn’t just one long list. The periodic table of the elements is arranged so as to show off the periodicity or trends within groups of elements. Different elements, based upon their electronegativity, electron orbitals, and ionization energy, behave similarly when they have these things in common.

We're going to have new hours!

Has it ever been a Monday and you think, "Curses! Spielbound isn't open! Where will I play a rousing game of 7 Wonders?! Where will I get the finest selection of beverages in town?!" We know your pain. So get ready, because starting February 1st, Spielbound will be open on Mondays! Don't contain yourself, we expect you to be there!

Design your own game!

Hello teachers! With a New Year come new opportunities. Do you make New Year’s Resolutions? Even if you don’t, the turn of the calendar is a great time for professional educators to think about tools that they could use to enhance their student’s classroom experiences. Let’s start second semester off with a positive and engaging tone!

A critical focus of Spielbound for 2016 is to continue to support teachers in finding ways to use play, games, and strategic thinking in their classrooms. As a teacher myself, I’ll be the first to admit that it can be a challenge. But it is a surmountable challenge when you have Spielbound and other great teachers backing us up.

I often find myself considering enhancements to my classroom and hesitating. When that happens, I challenge myself to identify the barriers to my thinking that are stopping me from accomplishing what I originally had in mind. If you are considering “gamifying” parts of your student’s classroom experiences, but you are a little hesitant as to how to go about doing that, the first question may be to ask where you see the roadblocks. This is a healthy exercise. Teachers usually hesitate because they have high expectations for themselves and want to do the absolute best to bring their students great experiences.

Bananagrams Tournament!

What do the words Quixotry, Za, Syzygy, and Xi have in common? They will help you win at Bananagrams! This fast-paced word spelling game is a favorite here at Spielbound and we're sharing our love with a Bananagrams tournament on Sunday, January 17th from 1 to 4pm.

In the game, players race to be the first to complete a "tableau", a configuration of connected words looking much like a crossword puzzle. Players are encouraged to change letters around between words and create new configurations on the fly, while also incorporating more and more letters. Be the first to finish your tableau when the letter pile is empty and you'll be the Top Banana. However, if it discovered your tableau is incomplete or contains illegal words, you are a Rotten Banana and the win is nullified.

We have some intriguing prizes, including the newer games Zip-It® and Bananagrams WildTiles®. The tournament will have 5 rounds, with seating changing each round. During a round players will play games until one person at the table is the first to secure three wins. Most wins throughout the tournament and you'll become Top Banana and have you image immortalized in the Spielbound Hall of Fame. And, of course, have your pick of the prizes, too!

A membership or day pass costing only five dollars is required to participate in the tournament and our exemplary cafe staff will be on hand to provide refreshments, as usual. Don't know how to play Bananagrams? It's basically "Speed-Scrabble" and very easy to pick up. Stop by Spielbound on Thursday, Jan. 14th at 6:30 for a demo and to get some practice in before the big event. This tournament is intended for players of all skill levels and the primary goal is to have fun, so we hope to see you there!

Splendor, Camel Up, and Ticket to Ride were some of our favorite games this year!

Unscientific end of year game recognition list! We didn't list games in multiple categories (even if they would have won), but lots of you commented about and played these games in particular!

• Best party games: Funemployed & Codenames
• Best 2-player games: Patchwork & 7 Wonders Duel (Twilight Imperium won 2014)
• Best small games: Arboretum & The Game
• Best complex games: Alchemists & Tigris and Euphrates
• Best family games: Camel Up & Splendor
• Best kid-friendly games: Super Tooth & Magic Labyrinth
• Best horror-themed games: One Night Ultimate Werewolf & Dead of Winter
• Best fantasy-themed games: Broom Service & Dragon's Gold
• Best economic games: Saint Petersburg & Elysium
• Best economic games with castles: Castles of Mad King Ludwig & Castles of Burgundy
• Best deduction games: Mysterium & Code 777
• Best games for 7 players: Between Two Cities & Caverna
• Best games for liars: Sheriff of Nottingham & The Resistance
• Most-popular games: Pandemic & Catan
• Most-popular tournament: Ticket to Ride
• Most-requested game that will probably not be added to our library: Pandemic Legacy

After only being open for 16 months, we now have over 1700 board games in our library, and it continues to grow from donations from our great supporters like you! Thank you all for a wonderful 2015! We'll have more to share with you from our year, and we're very excited about what 2016 has in store!

Christmas themed mini Meeple Jam! Artwork by Daniel Kokesh.

Join Spielmasons for this special Christmas design event:

Spielmasons will be meeting from 7:00 PM until 11:00 PM on December 16th for a Christmas themed mini Meeple Jam! We will be designing games in small groups from 7:00 until 9:00. At 9:00 we will be testing all designs and selecting a winner. Feel free to bring game-related white elephant gifts for the winners as well as snacks and cookies for all to share.

As always, anyone and everyone is invited to join in the design and testing for this event. Contact spielmasons (at) spielbound.org with any questions.