Read Geek Dad: Awesomely Geeky Projects and Activities for Dads and Kids to Share Online
Authors: Ken Denmead,Chris Anderson
Tags: #General, #Family & Relationships, #Games, #Science, #Activities, #Boys, #Experiments & Projects, #Fathers and Sons, #Parenting, #Handicraft for Boys, #Fatherhood, #Crafts & Hobbies, #Amusements
Geek Dad: Awesomely Geeky Projects and Activities for Dads and Kids to Share (6 page)
BOOK: Geek Dad: Awesomely Geeky Projects and Activities for Dads and Kids to Share
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In Photoshop Elements, the process is nearly as easy. Open the image, and use “Filter-Stylize-Find Edges.” Then use “Enhance-Convert to Black-and-White” to drop out the colors, and you have much the same effect.
In GIMP, you can try “Colors-Desaturate,” then “Filters-Edge Detect-Neon” and “Colors-Invert” to get a similar effect. You may need to play with some settings to get an optimal result (and you can save those settings for future uses). GIMP is just as powerful as the other programs in many ways, but it is not quite as user-friendly, so there’s a bit more of a learning curve.
Once you have the technique down, you can whip these out en masse and build your kids (or get your kids to build) their own coloring books, using images they find online (Google Image Search is excellent for this, though make sure you keep an eye out for inappropriate content; or try the Web sites for the cartoon shows they like—Disney or Nickelodeon) or scans from other books or sources.
One other way to do this—with slightly less creativity (and therefore less geek factor) but without the need for special software—is the Coloring Page Maker at the Crayola Crayons Web site:
http://play-zone.crayola.com/play-zone/index.htm
.
http://play-zone.crayola.com/play-zone/index.htm
.
Create the Ultimate Board Game
I
n an age when the video game seems to be king, it’s interesting to notice that when you walk into any mega-mart toy section, you still find whole walls devoted to the board game in all its varieties. Everyone still loves the low-tech joy of Life, or Risk, Chutes and Ladders, or other classic board games.
n an age when the video game seems to be king, it’s interesting to notice that when you walk into any mega-mart toy section, you still find whole walls devoted to the board game in all its varieties. Everyone still loves the low-tech joy of Life, or Risk, Chutes and Ladders, or other classic board games.
For many (including me), one of the best board games was Mouse Trap (not to be confused with the Broadway play), where you got to build a homemade Rube Goldberg device to catch a plastic mouse. If you didn’t play it on a perfectly flat, level table, it was often a challenge to make it work just right, but when it did—magic!
But when you look at any board game, when you strip it down to its core, there are elements that are common to them all: playing pieces that move a number of spaces based upon random number generation; special spaces that do interesting things; special cards that grant a boon, or curse the players; a final space to be reached representing the end of a harrowing journey. In short: adventure. Dress up the structure of the game in whatever outfit you like—the struggle to reach the top of a path (Chutes and Ladders), the simulation of a modern life (Life), the quest for world domination (Risk)—most of the basics are still there.
So, given the hacking, maker spirit of the geek, what’s to stop us from making our own board games? Nothing, I say!
Buildrz (my name for the generic game) is an open-source, build-it-yourself board game for GeekDads to build and play with their kids. The point is, rather than running to the store and buying a game based on someone else’s ideas, you can take the idea of a board game and add your own themes and imagination to make it your own.
The idea of a board game is very simple: It is a journey from one place to another, based upon some randomness (dice roll or spinner), with challenges (tasks to overcome, strategies applied against or by your opponents), all dressed up in a motif or idiom to evoke the imagination. The Buildrz game deconstructs the board game to those bare bones and lets you create your own theme and rules.
NOTE: Full instructions with printable boards and cards in various file formats are available on the Web site for this book,
www.geekdadbook.com
. There are also forums where players can suggest their own modifications to the game.
www.geekdadbook.com
. There are also forums where players can suggest their own modifications to the game.
What’s most important about the Buildrz game is what you do with it. At its basic level, it’s a fun little game you can throw together with parts you already have, and spend a few enjoyable hours playing. But it can also be a project for the whole family to build together and come up with new themes, new cards, new tweaks to the game play that make it all your own. Maybe it will even become a family tradition of yours: You’ll take it along on trips to the family cabin or bring it out for entertainment when the power goes out. Then it’s no longer my game, it’s yours.
BUILDING THE GAMEFirst you need to make the game board and playing cards. To make a small board, you could draw the board out on an 11-by-17-inch piece of paper, though that might be tight. It would be better to tape a number of sheets of paper together, or use butcher paper, to make a larger board. Alternately, you could print the board out from the file available at
www.geekdadbook.com
to a very large size, broken out onto multiple sheets of paper, and tape them together.
www.geekdadbook.com
to a very large size, broken out onto multiple sheets of paper, and tape them together.
HELPFUL IDEAS: A
pool table, Ping-Pong table, card table, or other large working space is a good place to set up a large-scale version of the game. One excellent resource for large sheets of paper is construction projects. Old construction drawings have the plans printed on one side, and blank white spaces on the other, which make for great drawing. Using a yardstick or other long straight-edge is handy for segmenting the board.
pool table, Ping-Pong table, card table, or other large working space is a good place to set up a large-scale version of the game. One excellent resource for large sheets of paper is construction projects. Old construction drawings have the plans printed on one side, and blank white spaces on the other, which make for great drawing. Using a yardstick or other long straight-edge is handy for segmenting the board.
Then you draw the following on the board:
A Home circle in the center of the board
Around that is the Inner River. This is a metaphorical river, and depending upon the theme you choose for your game, it could be a force field, a gorge to be spanned, or the mystic space between worlds to be bridged.
A ring around the Inner River
On the ring is the Inner Path, with twenty-four spaces, four brown bridge Abutments to the Home circle, and four brown bridge Abutments from the Outer Path. Four of the spaces on the Inner Path are Toll Spaces (shown in yellow), and four are Card Spaces (red or green), which are explained in the rules.
Around this is the Outer River.
Around the Outer River is the Outer Path, comprised of thirty-six spaces, including a yellow Toll Space adjacent to each of the outer bridge Abutments, and eight (red or green) Card Spaces.
From the midpoint of each quadrant of the Outer Path are the Trails that lead to each player’s starting space. There are thirty spaces along each player’s Trail to the Outer Path around the Outer River, including ten (red or green) Card Spaces. This is a guideline number, based upon the idea that the roughly average roll of a six-sided die will be a three (actually 3.5), making for about ten turns to get from the Start to the Outer Path. If you want to use a different die, or make a quicker or longer game, you can play with these numbers as you like. Also note, if you have more or less than four players, you could build a board with more or less than four Trails. Just keep in mind the symmetry that helps create the balanced game play.
Every third space along each Trail is a Card Space, where, if you land, you pick up a card from one of the two decks. The spaces alternate green for Defense Cards and red for Offense Cards.
There are also numbered Number Spaces along each player’s Trail that will play a part in special moves during the game. Counting from the first space on the Trail just off the Outer Path, and working back toward the Start of each Trail, put “1” next to the first space, “2” next to the fourth space, “3” next to the ninth space, “4” next to the sixteenth space, “5” next to the twenty-fifth space (notice a pattern?), and “6” next to Start. Do this for each Trail. Make a Deck Space on either side of the board for the Offense and Defense cards.
A Home circle in the center of the boardAround that is the Inner River. This is a metaphorical river, and depending upon the theme you choose for your game, it could be a force field, a gorge to be spanned, or the mystic space between worlds to be bridged.A ring around the Inner RiverOn the ring is the Inner Path, with twenty-four spaces, four brown bridge Abutments to the Home circle, and four brown bridge Abutments from the Outer Path. Four of the spaces on the Inner Path are Toll Spaces (shown in yellow), and four are Card Spaces (red or green), which are explained in the rules.Around this is the Outer River.Around the Outer River is the Outer Path, comprised of thirty-six spaces, including a yellow Toll Space adjacent to each of the outer bridge Abutments, and eight (red or green) Card Spaces.From the midpoint of each quadrant of the Outer Path are the Trails that lead to each player’s starting space. There are thirty spaces along each player’s Trail to the Outer Path around the Outer River, including ten (red or green) Card Spaces. This is a guideline number, based upon the idea that the roughly average roll of a six-sided die will be a three (actually 3.5), making for about ten turns to get from the Start to the Outer Path. If you want to use a different die, or make a quicker or longer game, you can play with these numbers as you like. Also note, if you have more or less than four players, you could build a board with more or less than four Trails. Just keep in mind the symmetry that helps create the balanced game play.Every third space along each Trail is a Card Space, where, if you land, you pick up a card from one of the two decks. The spaces alternate green for Defense Cards and red for Offense Cards.There are also numbered Number Spaces along each player’s Trail that will play a part in special moves during the game. Counting from the first space on the Trail just off the Outer Path, and working back toward the Start of each Trail, put “1” next to the first space, “2” next to the fourth space, “3” next to the ninth space, “4” next to the sixteenth space, “5” next to the twenty-fifth space (notice a pattern?), and “6” next to Start. Do this for each Trail. Make a Deck Space on either side of the board for the Offense and Defense cards.
BOOK: Geek Dad: Awesomely Geeky Projects and Activities for Dads and Kids to Share
3.24Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
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