Wonderland

Nerd Culture 3D-printed rings

Found on Shapeways. Requires a bit of home-painting if you get the white nylon version, but a stainless steel version would cost a pretty reasonable 25eu. I'm quite tempted by that.

Game of Dracula

All this board game research made me remember Waddington's Game of Dracula, which I loved for a while back when I was a nipper. Found a copy on eBay!

Maybe this is why I came over all gothy in my teens and had a massive crush on Dave Vanian from the Damned.

Boardgames for kids: roundup

T'other day, I asked me Twitter which boardgames they'd recommend for kids, as Poe's nearly four and ready to PLAY! I wasn't specific about age tho, just said "littlies"...

I got a ton of responses. As per a few requests too, here's the roundup.

Gulo Gulo (thx @mattthr): apparently now discontinued, but available in the US.

Princess & The Pea (thx @mattthr)

Slug in a Jug (thx @mattthr)

Animal Upon Animal (thx @JamesWallis)

Dino-Opoly (thx @jen_bolton)

Gobblet (thx @PJDubyaM)

Dixit (thx @marmaladegirl & @tobybarnes), plus a vote for Looney Labs' card games.

Hungry Hungry Hippos (thx @Sorrell, seconded by @harryharrold)

JungleSpeed (thx @marmaladegirl)

Qwirkle (thx @marmaladegirl)

Mousetrap (thx @rebeccasbrain)

Chicken Cha Cha Cha (thx @moggy) (also not avail on Amazon UK and it's a whopping $70 on Amazon US - possibly discontinued?)

Some perennials: Monopoly, Junior Monopoly and Game of Life (thx @epredator), and Nintendo Monopoly (er, thx @stuffbowsersays!), plus Draughts/Checkers (thx @jameswallis)

Enchanted Forest (thx @infovore and @kellan)

"Ravensburger are generally good", says @minkette, seconded by @infovore.

Labyrinth (@infovore, @minkette)

Star Wars Pictureka (@minkette) - couldn't find the SW version tho, not even on the Hasbro site.

Frustration, and another vote for Looney Labs' card games (thx @ewan and @flackboy).

"Anything from Orchard Toys", says @harryharrold.

TSURO: the Game of the Path (thx @jennatar)

Sorry Sliders (thx @mattthr)

Carcassone, Kids of Carcassone...

... and Bus Stop, Tummy Ache, Spotty Dog (thx @tobybarnes)

Finally, @thisisguan sent in a link to the "The Definitive Childrens Game Geek List -- Preschool list", from BoardGameGeek.

As Poe's not reading this blog, I can safely say that I got her Enchanted Forest, Mousetrap and Animal Upon Animal, with a sneaky chuck-in of related product Three Little Pigs.

Roll on xmas!

Wappy Dog

Wappy Dog is a game-extended toy dreamed up by someone in Nintendo who was probably poached over from the Sony Aibo department.

Sadly, it's quite horrible when translated into American marketing-speak:

What it really needs is the marketing done by the Giga Pudding people. That would work!

Mario Kart KNex

Here I am, shopping for xmas presents already... haven't seen these before, KNex's ridiculously expandable Mario Kart sets.

That's the stone Bowser one, but there's something like 18 different sets in total.

Found via Thinkgeek.

Olly the smelly bot

Feeds/tweets/posts go in - smell comes out! The Olly Factory:

(Olfactory!)

Better than ANY of those toilet spritzers, or stupid Glade plugins. First time in my life that I've lusted after an air freshener. Mine would be: patchouli, grapefruit and cedar. Mmmm.

They're blogging the progress and designing Olly to be openable and hackable. Win.

Spoonflower

Completely in love with it at the moment: look at this gorgeous Vet's Day stuff over at Craft:zine:

And yep, there's a video games category and plenty of geek fabric...

Legend of Zelda is 25; Orchestra recording the theme track

It's a bit magnificent. Seeing someone doing the epic bells... all the backing singers!... and it makes me wonder whether the conductor ever played the game(s), she's so young, but she looks like she will have.

Heroic.

Fijit Friends: How-To videos

Fijit Friends are a bizarre, GlaDOS-soundalike, purple rubbery doodad that talks electrorubbish at you. And because it really is mostly rubbish, they come with amazingly long instructables on how on earth to play with your new $79.99 Furby3000.

Lack of fur and charm in the toy is disturbing, although I like the Mombot-with-screwdriver, she's cool.

Settlers of Catan 3Dprinted parts

Aren't these pretty?

There's a whole set, and each piece works out about $16.