A series of notes to myself... https://blog.ervik.fr/ It’s the beginning of April and now the dust has settled enough to look back at my game-discoveries from 2023, and do a write up of my favourites… But first some key figures – courtesy of BG Stats and the BGG API:... Sat, 06 Apr 2024 07:42:07 +0200 https://blog.ervik.fr/2024-04-06-the-9-greatest-boardgames-discovered-in-2023/ https://blog.ervik.fr/2024-04-06-the-9-greatest-boardgames-discovered-in-2023/ It’s the end of March and now the dust has settled enough to look back at my game-discoveries from 2022, and do a write up of my favourites… But first some key figures – courtesy of BG Stats and the BGG API:... Sat, 25 Mar 2023 06:42:07 +0100 https://blog.ervik.fr/2023-03-25-the-9-greatest-boardgames-discovered-in-2022/ https://blog.ervik.fr/2023-03-25-the-9-greatest-boardgames-discovered-in-2022/ as of December 2022 - And now the moment everyone has been waiting for, the end of this series! (For methodology and introduction, please see the first post in the series.) The bestest game in the whole world is… 1. Great Western Trail (2016) Great Western Trail!... Sat, 24 Dec 2022 01:42:00 +0100 https://blog.ervik.fr/2022-12-24-top50-part6/ https://blog.ervik.fr/2022-12-24-top50-part6/ as of December 2022 - Two more days has passed, so it is time to present two more games in the countdown… (For methodology and introduction, please see the first post in the series.) 3. Ark Nova (2022) Ark Nova shot into number 3 after it was... Fri, 23 Dec 2022 06:42:00 +0100 https://blog.ervik.fr/2022-12-23-top50-part5/ https://blog.ervik.fr/2022-12-23-top50-part5/ as of December 2022 - Three more days has passed since the scheduled publication time for the previous entry in this series, so it is time to present the three next games in the countdown… (For methodology and introduction, please see the first post in the series.)... Wed, 21 Dec 2022 06:42:00 +0100 https://blog.ervik.fr/2022-12-21-top50-part4/ https://blog.ervik.fr/2022-12-21-top50-part4/ as of December 2022 - Day 18 of December came and went already! Time passes so quickly! So, so quickly… Or, in the words of ChatGPT: Time, you are a thief of hours, Stealing away each day, Leaving us with endless chores, And not enough time to... Mon, 19 Dec 2022 06:42:00 +0100 https://blog.ervik.fr/2022-12-19-top50-part3/ https://blog.ervik.fr/2022-12-19-top50-part3/ as of December 2022 - Day 9 of December is almost over, so it is time to present the nine next games in the countdown… (For methodology and introduction, please see the previous post.) 24. The Gallerist (2015) My third-favourite Lacerda is still such an amazing game,... Fri, 09 Dec 2022 01:42:00 +0100 https://blog.ervik.fr/2022-12-09-top50-part2/ https://blog.ervik.fr/2022-12-09-top50-part2/ as of December 2022 - Back in 2020 I decided to do a top 25 games as a countdown to Jul over on Instagram. That was a fun experiment. This year I’ve decided to revisit it in a more… scientific manner. Methodology I copied the names of... Thu, 01 Dec 2022 19:42:00 +0100 https://blog.ervik.fr/2022-12-01-top50-part1/ https://blog.ervik.fr/2022-12-01-top50-part1/ Game State, Monte Carlo, and more - Now that the scoring function was in place (see part 1) I could start working on a good old AI, but first some helper functions. Helper functions Some more functions are needed… One to update the grid – or a copy of... Sun, 29 May 2022 18:42:00 +0200 https://blog.ervik.fr/2022-05-29-criss-cross-ai-2/ https://blog.ervik.fr/2022-05-29-criss-cross-ai-2/ Scoring - Some weeks ago, to end an evening of board gaming, I was introduced to the Knizia roll and write called Criss Cross (or Détrak here in France). A fascinating two dimensional dice placement game with very simple rules. As we left my... Sun, 22 May 2022 21:42:00 +0200 https://blog.ervik.fr/2022-05-22-criss-cross-ai-1/ https://blog.ervik.fr/2022-05-22-criss-cross-ai-1/ 2021 was an… interesting… year boardgamewise. I played 57… things… for the first time according to BG Stats. 12 of them were expansions, so 45 new games, then. Other key figures: 7 of my top 10 most played games of 2021 were... Tue, 05 Apr 2022 18:07:00 +0200 https://blog.ervik.fr/2022-04-05-the-9-greatest-boardgames-discovered-in/ https://blog.ervik.fr/2022-04-05-the-9-greatest-boardgames-discovered-in/ In this post I’ll explore and benchmark some simple dynamic programming concepts in Python. The example I’ll use is a classic recursive implementation of the fibonacci series. (And for simplicity I’ll skip the first element in the series (fib(0)=0).) Naive approach This... Sun, 09 Jan 2022 21:55:00 +0100 https://blog.ervik.fr/2022-01-09-benchmarking-dynamic-programming-with/ https://blog.ervik.fr/2022-01-09-benchmarking-dynamic-programming-with/ The new visual identity of my work place (and the re-ignition of an old lava lamp) made me think of the good old metaballs from the Amiga demo-scene of yonder and how it has been a while since I have implemented them... Sun, 07 Nov 2021 21:58:00 +0100 https://blog.ervik.fr/2021-11-07-metaballs-revisited/ https://blog.ervik.fr/2021-11-07-metaballs-revisited/ Fjordar is an epic, tactical strategy game for 1 to 4 players, set during the Norwegian Civil War. The game begins in the year 1130, when the old king Sigurd Jorsalfar dies. Each player begins the game as one of Sigurd's heirs... Tue, 04 May 2021 22:42:00 +0200 https://blog.ervik.fr/2021-05-04-crafting-artificial-opponent-for-fjordar/ https://blog.ervik.fr/2021-05-04-crafting-artificial-opponent-for-fjordar/ 2020 was an… interesting… year boardgamewise, and in this post I’ll summarize some of my key findings, but first, some stats: I played 42… things… for the first time according to BG Stats. 8 of them were expansions, so 34 new games,... Sun, 31 Jan 2021 22:10:00 +0100 https://blog.ervik.fr/2021-01-31-the-9-greatest-boardgames-discovered-in/ https://blog.ervik.fr/2021-01-31-the-9-greatest-boardgames-discovered-in/ UPDATE 2021/06/30: This whole procedure is now super simple if you go the EmuELEC way following this guide: https://retrogamecorps.com/2020/11/12/guide-pico-8-on-retro-handhelds/#EmuELEC It’s basically just to put the pico-8 in a specific folder, and any roms (unless you just use splore) in another. Last weekend I built... Fri, 26 Jun 2020 20:54:00 +0200 https://blog.ervik.fr/2020-06-26-pico-8-on-odroid-go-advance-black/ https://blog.ervik.fr/2020-06-26-pico-8-on-odroid-go-advance-black/ We can’t stop playing games together even if we are confined, now, can we? But, what are our options? (Apart from spawning players within your confinement, but that tends to take 7-10 years…) This is a living post – constantly updated. (Last... Sat, 21 Mar 2020 13:23:00 +0100 https://blog.ervik.fr/2020-03-21-games-in-time-of-corona/ https://blog.ervik.fr/2020-03-21-games-in-time-of-corona/ There's lots to learn! - This is a demo post to show you how to write blog posts with markdown. I strongly encourage you to take 5 minutes to learn how to write in markdown - it’ll teach you how to transform regular text into bold/italics/tables/etc.I also... Fri, 28 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0100 https://blog.ervik.fr/2020-02-28-sample-markdown/ https://blog.ervik.fr/2020-02-28-sample-markdown/ 2019 was a good year boardgamewise. I played 97… things… for the first time according to BG Stats (some of them are not (even) on BoardGameGeek(!)). 9 of them are expansions, so 88 new games, then. It was difficult to cull this... Sat, 08 Feb 2020 19:24:00 +0100 https://blog.ervik.fr/2020-02-08-the-9-bestish-games-discovered-in-2019/ https://blog.ervik.fr/2020-02-08-the-9-bestish-games-discovered-in-2019/ April! And here’s finally my post of favourite games discovered in 2018 – a post that I had almost finished in early January… Here goes. Filler games Fittingly, since 2018 saw a revival of roll-and-write games, first out on this list is Qwinto.... Mon, 22 Apr 2019 14:59:00 +0200 https://blog.ervik.fr/2019-04-22-the-9-ish-best-board-games-of-2018/ https://blog.ervik.fr/2019-04-22-the-9-ish-best-board-games-of-2018/