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My girlfriend and I have just returned to university after a long summer and have decided to try a new hobby, board gaming. The idea sprung from our desire for an activity which would allow us to relax together after a long day without looking at a screen. It can be too easy to fall into negative patterns as a couple. Churning through a West Wing box set can be enjoyable but it doesn't really do much for the relationship. Our experience of board gaming up to this point is limited to Cluedo, Monopoly and Guess Who. Abi, my partner, has never even played a game of chess. Going to Boardgamegeek.com was a bewildering and unhelpful experience. Abandoning our research we decided to take a trip to the book shop and ended up with a copy of Carcassonne. Why did we choose it? Well, it was £20, I had heard of it Abi has been there in real life and the box said "ideal for two players". Unboxing our new game was remarkably exciting. I had never considered that element of the hobby before. Full colour instructions, little wooden people, thick printed cardboard, it was really a joy to dig through our little treasure chest. As Abi napped I read the instructions and internalised the simple rules in about half an hour. So it would fall to me explain the game, a daunting prospect. My fear was unfounded, after three turns the rules were shared. We could start playing for real. Building our little world was fantastically rewarding and the rules are simple enough for us to drink our G and Ts with impunity. So our first tentative steps into board gaming have been a success (more so for me as I won our first game handily). I may talk a little more about Carcassonne once we've had more time to explore the depth of the strategy. We will continue to play it for the the next month or so, but we really need advice as to what our next game should be. We are open to any theme or style, war game or strategy game, the only condition is it must be suited to two players.

Updated: renamed to Lines of Fire, added an Aztec theme, rewrote the rules. See a later post. I dreamt about a board game a couple of nights ago, but of course couldn't remember the details when I woke up. All I could conjure up was an image of a sort of maze, and it somewhy reminded me of Bomberman. And then I thought, why not try to turn Bomberman into a board game. I have some free time (vacation) and could use a project like this. Could be fun -- a bit chaotic like Robo Rally, but less random and quicker. I sketched up some rules and drew a board, and did some test games with 4 players (all controlled by me), tweaking the rules a bit after each play. Seems ok so far, but I can't really test on myself, so I'll try to get some people to playtest during the next few days. I was wondering though -- Bomberman as a board game somewhy seems a rather obvious idea to try -- do any of you know about any similar attempts, or actual published board games that could be considered similar to Bomberman? I did a google search, and that came up with a couple of descriptions of similar attempts, one even included the rules text. A brief description of my version follows: Components: board, wall tokens, power-up tokens, player tokens, d6 The board is 9x9, layed out like bomberman usually is, with indestructible walls forming a regular pattern. The destructible walls are placed as tokens. Start & Goal: Players start with 1 bomb, and with firepower of 1. Power-ups (+1 to bombs, firepower or movement) can be picked up from destroyed walls. The goal is to bomb the other players to death and be the last man-of-bombs standing. Choose a starting player, although it doesn't matter much in the beginning. Rounds: Phase 1: The Bombening Players move (5 + power-ups), starting with the first player and then clock-wise. - drop bombs to a square you are on while moving - you can't voluntarily move so that you would be under fire when you stop moving (to prevent too early elimination) Phase 2: The Narrow Escape (Optional) - if any player is "under fire", they must "sprint" 1-3 moves (unless they are completely blocked) - the sprinting player's own placed bombs explode after the first step (of the max 3). if the player lives, they continue moving. - additional bombs cannot be placed, but power-ups can be picked up while sprinting - players who were not "under fire" do not move. Phase 3: Explode Mode or Ka-boom! - Bombs explode, using the player's current firepower (e.g. firepower squares in each direction) - For each wall the explosion hit, roll a die and place a power-up. Some walls guarantee power-ups, some have a 50/50 chance. The power-ups are: +1 bomb +1 firepower +1 movement - When all bombs have exploded, move the first player token clock-wise and start a new round if there is no winner There are some more details, but this is the gist of it. If the wall in the center of the board is destroyed, it will go into end-game mode, where players automatically receive additional power-ups at the start of each round. This seems to guarantee that there won't be a very long cat-and-mouse game, as one player should eventually be able to surround the other with bombs. I'm a bit concerned that the beginning is a bit boring -- every player starts in their corner and a few rounds are spent just exploding walls and picking up power-ups.