technabob » board game

super mario chess set: peach to goomba 4 – checkmate!

technabob — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 01:54:36 +0000

Mario and all his friends are ready to take on King Bowser and his Queen Koopa in this Super Mario collector’s edition chess set from USAopoly.

The chess set includes 32 hand-painted figurines from the classic Nintendo video game series including Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Yoshi, Toad, 1-up mushroom, Bowser, Bowser Jr., Birdo, Goomba, Hammer Bros., and Magikoopa.

I don’t know about you guys, but I think I’d rather have Toad playing the role of the pawns instead of some lousy gold coins – but beggars can’t be choosers, I suppose. And what’s with Luigi being the Queen to Mario’s King? That’s just a little too weird for me. I know Peach is just a Princess, but still – I think that might have been a better choice. At least Magikoopa looks the part of the bishop.

The entire set should be available this Fall, and can be pre-ordered now over at First4Figures for $44.99 (USD). At least they didn’t put a crown on Luigi’s head.

[via GoNintendo]

meeple keychain is made of (wooden) people

alisha k. — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 12:07:12 +0000

Okay, before we get down to the cutest little wooden keychains you will see on a blog today, I know some of you are sitting there thinking, “meeple? what?”, so it might first be best to explain. Meeple is the word for simplified humanoid boardgame pieces, and some cat has gone and turned ‘em into adorable keychains.

Meeple turn up in German board games, like the tile-based Carcasonne, wherein the little wooden figures with the stiff limbs serve as farmers staking claim to to hills and landscapes on your behalf. The signature meeple even made the jump to the XBLA version of Carcasonne, in non-wooden form, of course.

$20 nets you a set of six meeple keychains, so you can pick your favorite color(s) and hand the rest out to your boardgaming friends!

[via

This awesome papercraft Mushroom Kingdom board game was created by designer Ashley Buerkett. I’m not sure this was what Nintendo was thinking when they released Paper Mario.

[via Wonderland]

low-tech tetris

technabob — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 16:05:39 +0000

We don’t need no stinking video game consoles to get our Tetris on around here. No-siree, we like to play it using real 3-dimensional blocks instead.

Tetris Tower 3D is the classic puzzle-piece video game brought to life. Little lights indicate which block you’re supposed to drop in next. You drop the appropriate colored plastic block through the chute, then flick switches on the side of the game to push the piece into the appropriate place. The two-sided tower lets two players duke it out against each other at the same time.

Made a couple of years back by Radica Games, the Tetris Tower 3D has become something of a collectible these days, since it looks like it been discontinued (shocking!) But just a few minutes of digging around a little over on eBay should net you one of these for under 20 bucks.

[via The Gadgets Weblog]

forget microsoft and sony, nintendo is a monopoly

technabob — Mon, 14 May 2007 12:10:50 +0000

All of your favorite classic Nintendo characters have now been memorialized in the Monopoly: Nintendo Collector’s Edition board game from Parker Brothers.

The game features special pewter Nintendo tokens including Mario’s cap, Link’s iron boots, Donkey Kong’s barrel, a Hylian shield, a Koopa shell and an NES controller. The game board is loaded with references to everything from Mario to Kirby to Zelda to Samus and more.

Even the Community Chest and Chance cards have been cleverly “Nintendized” with phrases like “Hit top of flagpole. Collect $20.” and “Turn off your system before saving your game. Go back 3 spaces.”

It’s definitely worth a look for that Nintendo fanboy (or girl) in your life.