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My friends and I spent years, YEARS playing this game, it was held in a pouch with about 50 someodd pennies and 20 someodd nickles, to make for the 15 health/cents you start out with. It was beaten, worn, and well loved. Many, MANY a game was played, with ample swearing, backstabbing, treachery, and absolutely no trust whatsoever. It's a game of vicious attack. My signature... poke in the eye. You can use it when it's not your turn, and if it lands, the person misses their next turn. And when that happens... everyone smells blood and dives in. Roundhouse, spinning backfist, you have to learn to hold back some of your defense cards. Take that other hit if you suspect someone has one of these. And you're humiliating the humiliation counter, and kicking and punching and stabbing. It's glorious.
And it went missing. It went missing somewhere in my move to England, and it was heartbreaking. I'm somewhat positive that it was in the same box as my wire puzzle collection (I kept my favourite elsewhere, thankfully). And it hurt. I searched every still-packed box multiple times for that coin and card filled pouch. It was released in 1996, and I had got it somewhere in the early noughts. And then... in 2026, I decided to look online for it again, maybe find it used, or for whatever extortionate price for new sealed. But... wha-what? Atlas's page (atlas-games.com) is coming up? I mean, is this just like a... reference photo not available ty-NOPE! IT IS FOR SALE! IT IS RE-PRINTED! IT IS RE-RELEASED. $20, you goddamn well know that was added to the cart within seconds! And it arrived. And It. Is. Glorious. The artwork has not changed -at all-. Only my coins have.
SPEAKING OF! Speaking of. We have just today finished collecting our requisite 5pence. I was bringing up this game with friends at work, and one of them offered to trade me like a hundred pennies for a pound (they ended up just giving them to me and wouldn't even accept my pound coin THANK YOU SUE!) And then today, October 15 2026, I was at a greasy spoon restaurant called Fat Phill's, and asked if I could get my change in 5pence. They were confused at first, but gave me the p. And then when I asked for another 50 pence worth, he came through again and opened the till for me THANK YOU FAT PHILL'S! And then the pouch, almost immediately after the card game arrived, I searched for and ordered mottled grey fabric (my original was like... plain canvas colour with some logo on the front? Let's upgrade that a bit to something suitable). And it arrived, and a pouch was made. And just to bring it up quick, originally I did have the Sticks & Stones expansion, but found that it detracted from the game. Definitely best (for us) with just the original set. And with this pouch, the original set is once again complete. Now... to start poking people in the eye XD
The rest? There is very little of "the rest" actually. As a child I played games like Sorry and Monopoly, and my siblings and I played HeroQuest (and of course there's now D&D), but I never really had tabletop games. Except wire puzzles. For some weird reason, I REALLY took to wire puzzles as a kid. Get the ring off, get the handle off, tangle of wire. And it's not like I bought them (our family was gifted one or two), what I did was look at them in the package in store, hold it in my memory for the entire trip home, and then make it from memory with coathanger wire and pliers (making these came shortly after the chainmaille glove). Sadly, I don't think I took any photos of my collection, I must have had like 20-30 of them, all except like... 3 gifted ones out of coathanger. But sadly... the vast majority of them were lost in the move to England, I imagine because under xray it looked like a massive tangle of wire maybe. But I did keep this one, my favourite, and the cleanest made one, called Rattler commercially, except this one is like... twice as many pieces, which I've taken to calling Ladder. Still awesome.
And lastly for now, just a good ol' deck of cards. Cribbage? Oh girl I love a game of cribbage. Solitaire? Easier on computer, but this is analog yo, and it is fun to play it with the physical deck. And yah I have regular un-written-on decks, but really only to make more selling decks of many things. Though on that note, if you want to draw a card from the Harrow Many, mweeeeeeehehehehehehehehehehehe!!!!!
Do Rubik's cubes count here? Here's a link to them just in case.
What could be next, what could be next, who knows, who knows. I've heard interesting things about a board game called Wingspan, but don't have that yet. So we'll see, could be anything.
