The web is a vast and curious place, and it’s all too easy to wander off and discover something surprising or interesting, if you’re not too careful. Or you can just hit-up Google for some game design goodness. Either way, I’ll periodically post a collection of game-related links that I’ve tripped over during my travels.

• Five centuries of board games / BibliOdyssey
  A fantastic collection of old-school game boards, culled from the (clearly rather useful) print database maintained by the British Museum.
• Beautiful board game designs / Creative Closeup
  Great post that does a good job of showing off some of the current trends in board game design. I’m a sucker for exactly this kind of lavishly dense and saturated board game visual, and the post displays examples of the work of some the top illustrators currently being commissioned by game publishers.
• Blogs of the Round Table
  I’ve not had a chance to go through the mass of content and comment on offer here, but even though it is focused on computer games (and mostly written by computer gamers) I’m sure there’s plenty of cross-over with board game design, or at least enough to get the intellectual juices flowing!
• Planning Poker
  Slightly off-topic, since this is not actually a game but a productivity tool. If you’ve never heard of Scrum/Agile then (a) lucky you, and (b) it would probably sound bonkers if anyone ever explained it to you (more detail about how such cards are used can be found here). However, I worked on major development projects at my erstwhile employers using the technique (although not sadly these cards) and became something of a convert. Anyway, I just thought that a deck that contains four coloured suits with values ?, 0, ½, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40 and 100 (plus in some incarnations, an infinity card too!) would be an interesting starting point for an actual game.

P.S. What is a ‘gallimaufry’? I’m glad you asked! It’s ‘a confused jumble or medley of things’ although more specifically it is a sort of stew made with diced meat and other, possibly unspecified, ingredients… from the old French for ‘unappetising dish’!