How to save the Ngee Ann Polytechnic Board Games Club? (Part 2.5) + Game Spotlight: Las Vegas

My loyal readers will recall the post I wrote in January about the imminent plight of the Ngee Ann Polytechnic Board Games Club (NPBGC), who have been put on probation until April 2015. At that time, the powers that be will decide if the NPBGC will cease to exist. My loyal readers will also be annoyed at me for not posting anything for over two months, but that's beside the point.

I wrote another post in April talking about using the CCA Fiesta for increasing membership at the club, which did manage to boost the club membership to an acceptable level. In the meantime, the NPBGC members have been busy trying to implement my other ideas, including introducing games to students at the library Board Games Zone (BGZ) and learning multiple games well enough to teach them properly. Nonetheless, the club is still in trouble.

Another thing the club can do is to help the library promote the games in the BGZ. Currently, the library periodically posts articles promoting a game on their Facebook page. The plan is for the library to post such an article before each of the Monday evening NPBGC game sessions. A staff member from the library will then attend the session to take pictures of students playing the game and to get some quotes about how cool and fun the game is, which will then be updated on the Facebook post.

Here is a previous post on the game Las Vegas that the library put up a few months back:

Post by Lien Ying Chow Library.

The administrator who wrote this post tried her best, but she's not a gamer. Consequently, the post is less informative than it could be. The description doesn't explain how the game works or why it is fun, the pictures don't show gameplay (why are they fanning their money like that?), and the link to the library catalogue entry isn't very informative. Let's just say that the post does not make me want to play the game.

So I assigned some homework to the club members. I got them all to pick a game from the library's collection, and they have to write the Facebook post for the game (everything but the pictures and quotes). As a general formula, there should be one paragraph explaining the game, one paragraph explaining why the game is fun, and a number of relevant links to stuff like Youtube video reviews and articles.

Here is my attempt to rewrite the Las Vegas entry:

Fight for control of casinos in this push-your-luck dice-rolling game! In Las Vegas, there are six casinos numbered 1 to 6 with different values each round. On your turn, you roll the dice of your colour, allocate all dice of one value to the matching casino, then retrieve your remaining dice. This continues until all players have run out of dice. The player with the most dice in each casino gets the biggest payout, but here's the twist: if you have the same number of dice in a casino as someone else, they cancel each other out. After 4 rounds, the one with the most money wins the game. 

Feel free to "advise" your friends to go after someone else's casino. Threaten vengeance if someone tries to take your casino away from you. Form alliances, negotiate deals, and then stab your friends in the back when the time is right. With a little luck, that's how you become the richest casino mogul in Las Vegas! 

Nominated for the 2012 Spiel Des Jahres (Game of the Year) award. 

To find out more about the game, check out: 

• A video review by the Dice Tower
• A more detailed written review
• The Las Vegas BoardGameGeek entry
• The library OPAC entry 

by Oon Wee Chong, Ngee Ann Polytechnic Board Games Club

See that last line in the Facebook entry where I signed off with my name? I want the students to do the same so that readers know it's the opinion of someone who has played and enjoyed the game, not a library administrator who just wants to promote the use of the library facilities.

Has reading the above has piqued your interest in the game of Las Vegas? No? I don't blame you, because it's really difficult to explain why a game is fun by using only words. I'd have liked to record a short video explaining the rules and showing people playing the game, but that's logistically troublesome. Besides, nothing beats actually playing the game.

On the other hand, maybe you'll trust your poly cher that it's a fun game and try it out just based on my recommendation. Similarly, friends of the NPBGC members may do the same when they sign off their posts and share it on their Facebook pages. It's a start, anyway.

At the same time, I also asked the club members to help the library rewrite their library catalogue entry for the game, which will be placed in a file in the BGZ for visitors to peruse. Here's my version of the library catalogue entry for Las Vegas:

Now we just have to do the same with the 100+ other games in the library...