A new GROW! game has been released, and a very topical one, too. Much easier to solve than the previous ones, but still immensely satisfying once you get it right. (Don’t close the window immediately when you’ve solved the game, or you’ll miss the Christmas greeting.)

Recent sighting: one of the Uppsala cafés (Landings by Forumtorget, for locals) sell, among their other hand-made confectionary, Congac Truffles. I expect to see them dancing past any time now.

Looming fear: 10-credit exam in 3 hours’ time. Ten credits is supposed to be, roughly, equivalent to ten weeks’ work. The subject is Middle English, and I am feeling exceedingly muddled.

Upcoming relief: Am about to be replaced as chair of the department’s graduate student society, at the annual meeting in 45 minutes. Not that it is a lot of work, but it’s one thiing less to keep track of.

Frustrating fun: The three GROW games: GROW which I’ve linked to before but that’s more than a year ago and I’ve forgotten the solution, GROW RPG which is easier to solve but has lots of extra effects, and GROW CUBE which was released only the other day, is rather difficult but fun. And I had to get help to solve it.

Drakborgen is a board game that was first published in 1985. It is a family-type board game (as opposed to a gamer-type game) but has fairly complicated rules in comparison with other games on that market. The object is to play a hero who enters an old castle looking for treasure; the place is ridddled with traps and monsters and if you don’t get out before sundown, you lose. A bit like role playing without the actual role playing - no subtilities of character or moral dilemmas, just good old monster hacking and trasure hunting. It was exported as Dungeon Quest, and as far as I know the rules are just the same.

Johan and I played it a couple of times last weekend. Neither of us ever survived to get out of the castle - it is a difficult game! We had lots of fun playing it, though. I’ve seen some reviews of it claiming that it’s all luck, and maybe it seems so to a die-hard strategy gamer… but I am pretty sure that there are useful strategies to employ to get through the castle alive. Here are some pictures of the various event cards.

There is a new edition as well, Drakborgen: The Legend from 2002, but I don’t know anything about that. The 1985 version I’d recommend without hesitation, though.

Have spent the day at home, due to stupid cold. Had thought I’d get some stuff done this afternoon, when I was actually feeling pretty much ok; then Paul went and posted a link to the Hyperlinks game and suddenly the afternoon was over. “Pretty much ok” has changed to “like death warmed over”, though, so I’ll be at home tomorrow, too, I suppose. I just need to be all right on Thursday, or at least my throat has to get better—I’ll be talking book history to a roomful of people. . .