Winter Break – Time for a Breather!

Well, our first real holiday season has been quite a wild ride…and a much better ride than we could have imagined.

If someone had said to us in July that we better start preparing now for what was to come…oh, and by the way, stock up on all that inventory of which you only sell a few (because it will go in and out of stock like nobody’s business), I probably would have told them they were crazy.

The good part is that they would not have been crazy! It was us that was crazy!

We had a great tip (thanks Tao at Starlit Citadel) to get involved with the Board Game Geek Secret Santa – and we did. We were the first US store in the list (thanks Tom Vasel of Dice Tower). We had so many sales, it blew our doors off (Thanks Board Game Geek Members).  By the way, if you are a gamer and NOT a part of this program, you are missing out BIG TIME! You all treat each other very well.

Unfortunately, we did not anticipate some of the stock issues we had. Dominion, Pandemic, Stone Age, and Battlestar Galactica were the kings of the holiday and we only just got Stone Age late last week. We have just sold our last copy of Dominion (and are awaiting another print run from Rio Grande). Sadly, Fantasy Flight seems to have missed the boat (figuratively and literally) on Arkham Horror. We were quite surprised to see how popular this game was – we still have two orders waiting on the reprint of this game – hopefully it will come within the next week or so. Sorry guys…

One last item that gave us a little surprise was how many of our Strategy Bundles we sold. There are a lot of people out there that are getting Settlers of Catan, Puerto Rico, and Carcassonne as gifts this year. This is FANTASTIC, but a little unexpected.

As as side note, if you have a bundle you would like to see, let us know. If you have a bundle on our site you think should be our January Bundle of the Month, leave a comment on this post and let us know. We will see what we can do for you.

The good news is that we doubled our sales in October, then again in November. By the middle of December, we had already beat our amazing sales figures in November. I won’t say it because I don’t want to jinx a good thing.

Then, we had a great, unsolicited post on the Geek – about our Best Dang Points program (which is real by the way). Our goal is to provide you all a blog with content written by fellow gamers, so it contains information that is beneficial to you, the gaming community. Trust me…if we tried to keep up this blog with quality reviews and strategies by ourselves and sell games and promote a web site and feed our families at the same time, we would be basket cases, probably divorced, and the entire project would suffer for it. So, we looked at paying writers. Well, again, for the gaming community, we thought this would be a sucky idea. You would still not get what you needed from us. So, we decided that we would pay you all with something you wanted – and we would get what we wanted. You get games…we get content for the blog. Win-Win.

Well, you all responded in spades! We got at least 20 submissions in a weekend. So, over the next few months, watch this blog for your fellow gamers articles. There is some really good stuff coming.

So, needless to say, we are taking a little breather to be with family for the holidays. We hope you can respect that and not get too upset if we take a little extra time to get back to you on questions or orders. We expact to be back in full force by January 2.

We have some good stuff planned for the new year – a new home page, more videos (we hooked a sweet deal from the suppliers to let do something that does not exist out there yet), more strategy guides, more quickstart guides, and more reviews. We expect next year to be really great.

If you have any ideas on how you would like us to mold Best Dang Games to fill unmet needs, let us know. If you like what we are doing, let us know…so we can continue doing what makes us special. That is what will keep us around.

Happy Hannukah! Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! We will see you in January.

Fun Family Activities – Playing Games with your Spouse/Partner

Author: Seth Brown – www.risingpun.com

Why Game with your Partner?

A friend of mine once told me, “Board gaming is like sex:  It’s a lot more fun with someone you really like.”

Presumably, if you have a spouse or partner, you really like that person. And you probably like board games too, whether for the brain health benefits, strategic challenge, or pure fun. It stands to reason, then, that combining those two things you like would be a great idea. Board gaming with a loved one is not only a cost-effective way to get an evening’s entertainment, but is also much more interactive than sitting in front of a movie. By playing a game with your partner, you’re really spending an evening *with* her, not just next to her.

Make the Suggestion

Casually bring up the idea to your partner. Tell him, “Hey, instead of a movie tomorrow night, would you be up for trying a game?” If your partner doesn’t seem receptive at first, be willing to postpone gaming with him for another night, after you’ve brought it up again. You don’t want to push really hard and demand gaming when your partner isn’t in the mood for it, or he’ll be pre-disposed not to enjoy it.

Bring it up again later and be willing to compromise. If your partner will agree to game with you instead of watching another TV show one night, then you may have to agree to try one of his hobbies. But don’t worry; in many cases, once your partner gets a taste for playing good games with someone he loves, he’ll be hooked.

Choose Your Games Carefully

This is probably the most important thing you can do when planning a game night with your partner. If you’re looking to get her to play games with you, then you’ve got to pick the games that she is most likely to enjoy. First of all, consider how much gaming your partner has done in the past. If she’s never played a board game before, then it doesn’t matter how great your favorite complex strategy game is, because it’s probably going to be too complicated for to enjoy it as her first modern board game. You’ll want something with rules that can be learned in five minutes.

Think about what your partner likes, and pick games with themes or mechanics that might appeal to her. If she likes Indiana Jones movies, consider a game with an archaeology theme like Lost Cities. If she likes playing Tetris, consider Blokus.

Make sure the game you have chosen plays well with two players. Some games like Lost Cities are made specifically for two players. And some games like Dominion can handle up to four players, but play wonderfully with two. However, certain multi-player games (especially auction-based games) become less fun with fewer than three players, so if you’re not sure, try it out with another friend first, so your partner doesn’t suffer.

Start Slow

Don’t overwhelm your partner by demanding a 4-hour gaming session on your first night.

Your ideal game for a first night out should have simple rules and a playtime of under a half-hour, so you can play a few games of it without taking the whole evening. Lost Cities and Dominion are both highly recommended.

Treat the first game as a learning experience. Play with your hands open, allow your partner to take back moves, and so forth. The only people playing are you and your partner, so you don’t need to worry about slowing things down for anyone else.

Finally, avoid being hyper-competitive, unless you know that your partner enjoys it. Forcing your partner into a new hobby so you can trounce him and gloat about it is not going to make him want to play games again.

The More The Merrier

If your partner starts enjoying gaming as much as you do, make it a regular occurrence. Set aside one night a week as “game night”, and you’ll know that you can both look forward to quality time with the one you love – whether that one happens to be Lost Cities or Dominion.

Happy Mother’s Day!

To all you board game vixens and mothers out there, you have not been forgotten!

We at www.bestdanggames.com are parents also and we know how cool gaming moms are. We just wanted to wish you all a HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!

Hope you got to spend a little time playing your favorite game this weekend.

Have a great one and keep on gaming – girls make gaming fun.