Hunter and Hunted

So, here is a little game a thought up the other day. It's for two players, it's called Hunter and Hunted,and the theme is "Inuit vs. Polar Bear."

The catch is, the polar bear is invisible to the Inuit unless he is facing him directly. Otherwise, the Inuit player only can guess the polar bears location. The polar bear player moves his bear using the coordinates on the sides of the grid (they correspond to the red and black cards in a standard deck from A-6). He shows the Inuit one of the coordinates, but not the other. The inuit must use his eyesight and his dog's sense of smell to do the rest.

Anyway, we played it, and it wasn't very much fun... oh, well. I may try to fix it later.

Hat Poem

One of my roomates has taken up knitting. A few weeks ago, I found a tiny hat, just big enough for an orange beside the sink, and so:

A fitten mitten for a fist,
but little else is it.
It looks so warm and comfy though,
I wish at I could knit.

Demeter

Greetings again, Rhino watchers.

So, my previous post regarded a boardgame I invented called "Food of the Gods." Well, I play-tested the game last night, and as it turns out, it isn't fun. While not being fun is OK for upper level college courses and dental procedures, it is somewhat unforgivable in a boardgame. So, I'll probably have to go back to the drawing board and totally revamp the whole thing. C'est la vie.

However, I will show you another little something from the game. I was planning on giving it a Greek mythology theme, and the god in charge of the harvest therefore would be Demeter. So, I drew a picture of Demeter when I thought the game might be good, and I like the picture still.

New Board Game!

So, if you read this blog, you may remember a simple auction game I invented called "Meals for the Gods." Well, I have been marinating with that idea for a while, and I recently expanded the concept and a simple mechanic from that game into a full-on board game called "Food of the Gods."

The idea here is to grow crops and then sacrifice those crops to the gods to achieve certain advantages. The catch is that you will probably have to neglect other gods in order to do this, and since each god is responsible for certain elements of the game, you sometimes have to do without some favors in order to secure others.

The gods are: Time (responsible with actions per turn), Life (responsible for number of villagers), Harvest (responsible for crop yield) and finally a god of trade (responsible for price of temples/seeds/etc.)

Laura and I played through it once, and it was basically fun. Some changes were necessary, though, so I was glad I made the game on my handy dry-erase board! Here is a picture of the current, improved game board.

Giftmas Ornaments

Every year at the O'Keefe household we whip up our own homemade ornaments for Giftmas. Subjects vary, with this years crop including robots, pancakes, and of course the obligatory Christmas Narwhal.

Here are about half of this year's products, hanging to dry.

And here are three of my own recent creations. My main theme this year was "Flat."

Another Cardboard Rhino

I made this rhino a few years ago - around the time of the first cardboard rhino story. I like the exposed ridges above the legs and on the tail.

On the Meat Trail

So, here's a little preview of a new board game I'm working on. It's called On the Meat Trail, and it's largely inspired by Jack London's novel White Fang.

2 players control wolves, trying to survive a cold northern winter. They must forage in the forest for ptarmigans, sneak up on deer, take cover in forests or caves, and avoid the wrath of other predators like bears and lynxes. It should be fun.

There is more work to be done, but here's a peek at the game board.

My Rhino

So, here's a picture of my rendition of the fabled Cardboard Rhino. The cardboard it is made out of was not harvested from rhinos, but from the somewhat less elusive Cardboard Box.

You can catch a glimpse of our family art bulletin board. It's sort of the IRL version of this blog...

Uncle Barry's Sidewalk

So, every year at Thanksgiving, we travel to Uncle Barry's(not to be confused with my brother, Little Barry who comes on here every so often) house in Maryland. When we leave, we are certain to leave an echo of our brain-stimulating presence by drawing in chalk all over the walkway. Typically, there is a winter theme. I photographed our work this year for the Rhino.

Dad's

Conor's

Mine (Tom's)

Barry's

Donald's

There you have it.

This is my world premiere Blog entry. Party up. Let us always remember the laffy taffy joke, it always laughs me; When was the meat so high? When the cow jumped over the moon.

Another Cardboard Rhino

I was wandering around on the web when I encountered an expertly crafted cardboard rhino and a t-shirt based on it. You can find the site here and the t-shirt here. They are made by the artist known as Kritch. Look around on the website and you won't be disappointed. The hand-made robots are magnificent works of simple, clever craftsmanship. 

To: Santa

A little something for the X mas season. "Many gifts."

Nectar Collector

I invented a new board game about bees collecting different colored nectar. The object of the game is to collect one drop of each color of nectar first. Hazards along the way include thorny brambles, sticky dew drops, and spiders.

The key mechanic of the game is the wind. At the beginning of each turn, the wind blows each bee one square. On the next turn, the direction changes (moving around the compass rose clockwise). For this reason, you need to not only move your bee towards the nectar you want, but also keep in mind where the wind will blow your bee. For instance, if you see that the wind is going to blow east next, you don't want to move your bee so that there is a spider just east of it.

There are a couple of other rules, but those are the basics. Here's a picture of the board.



I playtested the game tonight. It went OK... it definitey needs some work... but I think there's some good stuff in it.

Boyds #1 and 2

In the summer of 2K6 I took the bus up to Alexandria to visit Tim. We were talking about funny tag names.
"Ok, ok, how about one with a b, an o and a y?"
"Boydz"

So I had some paper there and I drew a little grumpy bird with a cigar and some scraggly feathers. Wouldn't it be funny, I thought, if he had a bunch of little baby birds following him around? Wouldn't it be funny if he was a tough single father bird, learning up his little chicks in the ways of city life? Now you can decide for yourself!:
(To Tom: The 'one panel' format is necessary because of Boydz' graffiti roots.)

Bonus: Can you spot Conor's favorite joke?

Comic: The Origin of Electro Man

A new comic by me (Tom O'Keefe) for you (?).

The Official Halloween Post

Boo!

The Jack o' Lantern is one simple and fun creative act that almost everyone has participated in at some point. Unfortunately, it seems like these days everbody and their sister is using stencils, instead of their natural brain energy. I think stencils are for the birds, personally.



The left, cyclopean pumpkin is mine. On the right is Laura's, inspired by Jack Pumpkinhead from Frank L. Baum's "Oz" books.

Spankin' New Comic

Here, hot off the proverbial presses, is a comic for you. It is extremely deep and thought provoking, so be sure to read it 20 or 30 times in order to be certain you understand it fully.

Unexplained Circumstances Comics, Episode 1

So, here's a little comic I made.

Surprisingly, it is partially based on true events from my life. Case in point, I did receive 10 dollars and did not get hit by lightning shortly afterwards. They say art imitates life, after all.

Fresh, Homemade Boardgame

Well everyone, somehow it feels like the right time for posting on Carboard Rhino. This time, I'll be displaying my latest most favorite venue for personal expression: the board game. The continuing success of strongly themed, elegant, and thoughtful German Style boardgames (or "eurogames") has fueled the argument that games are an art form. For more information in this arena, see this blog.

My latest foray into the world of game design is Meals for the Gods. It is a simple game of bidding. Here is a piture of it:

Basically, each player is serving a god. Each turn, your god desires a food from the "Menu of the Gods," determined by rolling a die. You then bid on that food. If two players both roll the same, a bidding war begins! Satisfy your god's desires 10 times and you win! Displease them 3 times in a row and you are eaten! There are other rules, too, so if you want those feel free to ask. Best of all, a few dinosaurs and jungle animals from the dollar store for gods, some six-sided dice and a 50-60 tokens of some kind (I have used plastic jewels) and you are ready to play... MEALS FOR THE GODS!

The Tribe of the Tomahawk Toot-Toot

Tribe
of the
Tomahawk Toot-Toot
(from a scroll found in a bottle on Cape Fear, North Carolina)

Along the shores of the barrier islands of North Carolina, in the scrub and swamps of the backwaters of Cape Fear, there dwelled a small band of aboriginals known as

The Tribe of the Tomahawk Toot-Toot

The tribe was named after a set of magical power sticks, passed down through the generations, invoked in battles, used to bestow blessings, and honored in ceremonies.

Only Seven Are Known to Have Survived

The seven remaining sticks are treasured relics and bear the ceremonial names the Toot-Toots have given them.

The Four Sons

• The North
• The South
• The East
• The West

The North and South are tied with Red.
The East and West are blond.
A marking near the toot action airsplitter
indicates the direction of the magic stick.

The Ancestors

• The Mother
• The Father

These magic sticks retain the wider Axe Blade of the Toot-Toot Tomahawk. Tied in golden thread, they represent the male & female faces of energy flows -- the ying & yang, salt'n'peppa, you know.

You can tell the Father apart because his finger holes point away from the Axe Blade.

There is one more Tomahawk Toot-Toot, prized above all others and long missing:

• The Sorcerer's Stick

It is said the Blade is tied with fire. It makes a sound so beautiful the Pelicans fly mandalas when they hear it.

In the old days, the remaining members of The Tribe of the Tomahawk Toot-Toot would gather on the shores of Tomahawk Island and celebrate their ancestors by reenacting the feared nightly parade of the Toot-Toots, hoot-tootin' it and hot-footin' it down the shores of the Atlantic Ocean and resonatin' down Cape Fear with their doo-woppin' scattinany hijinx, taking the stars out of the sky, kicking them all over the beach, telling stories, walking backwards, and conjurin' up mermaids and other mayhem from them

Majik Tomahawk Toot-Toots