The Dark Imp Blog
Video: An introduction to the metagame
In this video, Ellie Dix introduces the idea of the metagame by sharing an extract of her book The Board Game Family: Reclaim your children from the screen. This is the concept that is often most useful to parents. Playing the game on the table is only part of the...
Placemat games and a weekend in Edinburgh
Dark Imp Placemats The double-sided placemats made their debut at the London Playtest UK designers group this week. There is a different ‘roll & write’ game on each side of the placemat. In Rescue Me? each player is stranded on her own desert island and must make...
Ultimate Noughts and Crosses
Noughts and crosses is boring. But there is a way to pimp up the game to make it much more interesting. Introducing...Ultimate Noughts and Crosses. Draw a big 3 x 3 grid, and within each square of the grid, draw another 3 x 3 grid. You now have 9 noughts and crosses...
Video: How to play Nomination Whist
In this video, Ellie explains how to play her favourite of all the whist variants... Nomination Whist. Don't let the complicated looking score sheet put you off! You can download a scoresheet here, so you don't even have to make your own. https://youtu.be/5koR6dc-GyA
A new Director and book news
A new Director It’s been an exciting week. We have a new Director! Peter Hawtin joins The Dark Imp to head up the customer-facing side of the business so I (Ellie Dix) can concentrate on game design, development and production. I’ve previously worked with Peter at...
Alfie reviews… Hanabi
Alfie Dix, 17, reviews board games that he plays with the family and subsequently with groups of friends. Here's his review of Hanabi. There is often that one game in a gamer's collection that is a bit different to the rest. For me that is Hanabi. Hanabi is a...
Video: 3 stock trading board games
Ellie talks about 3 different stock trading board games - 1920 Wall Street, Acquire and Raccoon Tycoon. These are great if you like to manipulate economies, speculate on investments and capitalise on opportunities. But some sniping and shafting others may take place,...
Rule book writing and Spielwarenmesse
Rule Books Writing a good rule book is very time consuming. With each game I’m refining my skills. I aim to make the first draft really good in an attempt to reduce the number of edits needed - not that it always plays out like that! This week I’ve spent many many...
Dave Dawkins’s Eight Games
In Eight Games different board gamers share the eight games they’d select in eight different situations. The link to each game's listing on Board Game Geek is given for you to find out more. This month Dave Dawkins, board game designer, writer, game consultant,...
Video: Triggers for board game arguments
Ellie unpicks 8 possible triggers for arguments at the board game table. Identifying the triggers for your family is the first step to avoiding these situations. https://youtu.be/-nlhSvUXWLc More help on avoiding arguments when playing board games with family can be...
Update: A toy fair, a book review and Good Housekeeping!
Good Housekeeping Magazine Back in November, I was interviewed for an article in the January/February edition of the US version of Good Housekeeping Magazine. The magazine came out this week and while I'm waiting for a copy to reach me, I have managed to get a photo...
Salvo: A variant of Battleships
This post is about Battleships and Salvo, a variant of Battleships. The MB game Battleships can be found in many households. The two hinged plastic boards and the fleet of grey plastic ships are iconic. But the game has much earlier origins. It dates from the First...