SquarkBlog

Sunday morning, and I'm taking it easy. After a busy, but interesting week of delivering our new games to our retailers and introducing their staff to our new games, and also a day of introducing the friendly Bandar Utama residents to our new games at their multicultural Lantern Festival gathering yesterday, I slept in this morning. When I woke up, I prepared fresh Colombian coffee and had breakfast of chee cheong fun, a Baker's Dozen of donuts and Bananagrams.

 As I sipped the coffee and slurped the slippery chee cheong fun, I marveled at the cards of Baker's Dozen which do look like deliciously edible donuts. Baker's Dozen is one of our new food-themed games where each player has to fill up rows of donuts, but don't let the total value go over 13! If you do, you'll have to take all of the donut cards from the pile -- even the moldy, yucky ones! These are the donuts you will have to avoid because, apart from not being very tasty, these will give you double the points. Not good is the object of this quick game is to score the lowest points! This is a fascinating family card game designed by Reiner Knizia, game designer extraordinaire! I had good memories of Baker's Dozen as I played it with my regular gaming friends last week. A particular game was chaotic when there were three moldy donuts waiting for a player who would be forced to take them as part of their collection. Thankfully, it wasn't me!

 

At Squark Games, believe that playing non-electronic games are an essential part of development in children. The experiences of playing games with their friends encourage social interaction and promote the understanding of each others' actions. Playing these games also teaches children to follow rules, distills lateral and original thinking and respect for other players. In Europe, the playing of non-electronic games are important family activities. This promote family bonding, awareness and improves family ties. These parents don't just buy a computer game for their children and hope the children stay in front of the computer the whole day (very unhealthy) and not bother them while the parents watch TV. Instead, they gather the family together and play non-electronic games. This is evident in the the attendees of the biggest non-electronic games convention in the world: Essen Spiele. This convention is held annually in the month of October in the German city of Essen. The attendees are games enthusiasts and games enthusiasts and their families. They are mostly from Europe as well as from US and a few from the rest of the world (including Malaysians). The important point is that for gamers with families, this is the show they would want family members to participate in.

 

There are new Designer Eurogames waiting in the warehouse at the port. These are fun gateway games which may also involve the little grey cells (of the brain) in a positive way as opposed to neuro games which colleagues often play on each other at some work places.

 

I just received word today that the ship bearing our precious cargo of games has reached Port Klang! Looks like its party time! Break out the party games!

Party games? Yeah-amongst the new games that have arrived (but currently still at the warehouse) are party games. You know, those laugh-out-loud games where everyone makes a lot of noise and a fool of themselves? Yeah - party games. The old usual party games which have been available in Malaysia for years, if not decades, are now pretty stale. How many times has one honked the irritating hooter after someone in the opposing team said that word that he should not have mentioned in trying to describe an obscure human activity? And how many times has one drawn that picture of that word on the card representing an exotic fruit that looks like a human appendage? (Bananas, anyone?) Suffer no more! Our party games are new and fresh and has never been made available in Malaysia before! Some of these are spanking new 2009 releases.

 

 

As mentioned in my previous SquarkBlog, we have a boatload of games coming our way. These are new games that we are stocking for the first time in Malaysia. One of the games that I am excited about is Killer Bunnies and the Quest for the Magic Carrot. This is a hilariously fun quick-playing card game (I like these types of card games) where each player tries to kill other players' bunnies with zany weapons like the Whimsical Whisk, the Butcher's Cleaver and the Nuclear Warhead, while protecting one's own bunnies! This game is guaranteed to provide lots of laughter ‘cos of the crazy bunnies and weapons. Fans of Munchkins would love Killer Bunnies! The illustrations on the cards are fun as they are functional. This game is also expandable with different expansion sets for more bunny mayhem!

Nice friendly bunny with a tendency for a flying drop kick is seen here on the Killer Bunnies Blue Box. BTW, each optional expansion comes in different colours and adds more chaos to the game. Fora peek of the zany cards, take a lookee here: