The Boardgame Remix Kit

It’s a book. It’s an eBook. It’s a set of instructional cards. It’s an app for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod. It’s called The Boardgame Remix Kit, and it just might make your games closet explode with newfound fun.

Here’s the idea: start with any of four of your old standbys: Monopoly, Scrabble, Clue, Trivial Pursuit. Change the rules. How? Well, there are tweaks, and then there are whole new games. Let’s say you want to play Monopoly. I mean, you really want to get into it – you know, play long and hard and get serious about the fun of it all. So, you try the “A to Z” tweak, as follows:

Each player gets a suit of cards from Ace to King and lays them out so that they – and everyone else – can see them. The youngest player goes first, and then in age order. Instead of rolling two dice you move by choosing a card, placing it in the middle of the Monopoly board, and moving the number on the card. An Ace is worth 1, Jack is worth 11, Queen 12, and King 13. You don’t get your card back.

Ah, the strategic depth of it all – being able to move, at your discretion, from 1 to 13 spaces, with, don’t you know, ever-dwindling choices as you use up your cards. As if you were playing an entirely different, vastly more mature Monopoly. Or how about a completely different way to play, for example, Scrabble?  How about a mellow, probably silly, party-like game, like the one they call “Pow!”?

Each turn, everyone plays at the same time. You all have 30 seconds to secretly make a word using the tiles on your rack. At the end of thirty seconds, the words are revealed, and players argue about which would win. For example, if the words were TWIG, ROBOT and WASP, then the robot would probably win. There’s usually a clear winner, but if people disagree, either take a vote on it or appoint a non-player hudge – you can even phone a friend to make the decision!

Of course, these are samples of two of the least complex Remixes. Many even more intricate invitations to game remixing await you in the 60, well-illustrated, clearly written, cleverly designed pages of the Boardgame Remix Kit. But even if you only page through this little book, just enjoying the creativity, the humor, the possibilities, you’ll still walk away inspired. Suddenly, you have the permission to change the games you own, to make them more challenging or more party-worthy, to combine the pieces of one game with the board of another, just to see what you might come up with. This, for me, is the key contribution of the Boardgame Remix Kit – this exemplary granting of permission. Sure, their games are very clever, and carefully play-tested, and well-described and documented, but your games, whatever you happen to come up with, are yours. Your very own. And that, my friends, is the ticket to lasting fun. Still need more? Sample this

A personal note: I’m a sucker for this kind of book – even though it’s the only one I’ve so far encountered. After all, this is the kind of stuff I’ve been writing about ever since the 70s, when I wrote A Million Ways to Play Marbles (at least) to just a couple months ago, in my much less ambitious article on Rummikub.

One more thing for readers in the U.S.: The games are described in UK English, and refer to the UK versions. Clue, for example, in UKish, is Cluedo. Park Place is Park Lane, Boardwalk, Mayfair. On the other hand, if you don’t really understand what they are referring to, it doesn’t matter. The Boardgame Remix Kit gives you all the guidance and permission you need to make up your own interpretation of the rules.

The Boardgame Remix Kit is written by Kevan Davis, Alex Fleetwood, Holly Gramazio, and James Wallis; with illustrations and design by Telegramme Studio. It’s one of many innovative projects of Hide & Seek, an organization devoted to “expanding the boundaries of play.”