The 6 – 2 – 1 Rule

So what is this rule that I’m talking about? 6 – 2 – 1 must mean something and it does. It’s the number of hours you should try and sleep, meals you should eat, and showers you should take, per day at the convention.

Try and get 6 hours of sleep per day, you’ll have more fun when you do. Eat two actual meals per day, though even I cheat on this one. But I set aside time every day, one real meal either lunch or dinner. For breakfast I do a granola bar. And for the meal that I skip, I don’t skip. I stop and get out jerky, fruit, trail mix, and basically make a meals worth of food out of foods like that, easy to carry and non perishable. And then shower, once per day, don’t care when you do it, if you’re an evening shower, or morning, or you go back to your hotel at noon. Shower once a day.

Why You Don’t Skip

I think this one will be pretty obvious for some of them. And the one that is the least obvious or the most flexible, I think it also makes sense.

Let’s start out with showers. I don’t care who you are, you won’t smell good after a day of walking around a convention in the middle of the summer. I know that I don’t so every morning I take a shower. It’s a curtesy to your other con goers. I don’t go to Gen Con to smell other people’s body odor.

Then food, again, I think this makes sense. Food helps you focus, it’s the energy you burn throughout the day. Even if you think you’re going strong, being hangry is a thing. Or just not focusing like you should while you learn rules to a new game at an event. So get two meals in, and bring snacks.

Now the one where you can fudge it a little bit. The issue is for the people who fudge it a lot. Try and get 6 hours of sleep a night. That’s not that much really. If you go to bed at 1 AM that’s sleeping until 7 AM. And the dealer hall doesn’t even open until 10 AM. But if you fudge it, try and make up time. One night you go out and drink and party with friends and you get 4-5 hours of sleep. Try and get a good amount of sleep on either side of it. Again it’s about not being cranky, not being unfocused, and not ruining others times.

Final Gen Con Thoughts

Let’s face it, those are probably good rules in general for life. If you’re getting less than 6 hours of sleep it catches up to you eventually. And if you’re showering less, people will want to be around you less. But for an event like Gen Con, I do think there are strong reasons to try and live by these rules. I also understand, it’s that one event per year, possibly, where you can go crazy gaming and seeing people.

But it comes down to something a podcast I like says, The RPG Academy.

If you’re having fun you’re doing it right.

The RPG Academy

And when it comes to things like hygiene, what you do or don’t do can affect how much fun someone else is having. And when you pay for ticket, travel, and events and that can cost a lot, don’t step on someone else’s fun. And really, don’t ruin your own fun by pushing yourself too far.

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How To Play Foodies?

In Foodies you are building out a food court of five different nationalities of food. All in order to have your food court gain the most popularity. You start with nothing, but you add more and more carts to your food court as you go. Each of them being activated when their number is rolled and them helping you gain more popularity until someone passes 20 points (in a two player game) and you trigger end game.

Each turn the active player rolls a die to activate one of nine locations in their food court. Players then take their coin or popularity for activating that spot. But the player who rolled the die gets to spend their coins in order to get another cart for their food court. Then the next player repeats the process.

As you place down a cart, you want to consider what is around it. Carts have stars on some or all of the sides. And as you place them onto your three by three grid you want to line up the stars because when you activate one of them, you gain more popularity. So there is an element of strategy where you place the carts that you buy.

And with the carts, you also consider the goals of the guest chefs you can get in. Some of them you can use any time 4 coins for a popularity. The others each player can score once. It might be four carts from one nation or three pairs of two carts from different nations. Each of those giving your three popularity. Until someone passes twenty popularity and then the round finishes so each player has the same number of turns.

What Doesn’t Work?

This is a very light game. Now, that is a negative because it’ll give the game limited shelf life, most likely. You roll and a die, get coins, by the thing that fits into your goal the best, and repeat the process. The biggest decision that you really make is trying to optimize a little bit of scoring. And making sure you line-up as many stars as possible. But those things are very obvious.

And another thing, while I like that you rotate the different nationalities so that you get different combinations each time you play, what you get from them is very limited. You basically have one resource in the game, coins, and you are trying to get two things, coins and popularity. The game would benefit from more choices around what you can get. There are menus, but your ability to get them is very limited.

What Works?

The speed that this game plays at is great. Turns go by really quickly. And with a few exceptions, I don’t need to think about what you are doing. The two exceptions are US and French foods where you want to have the most to get either money or popularity when you activate them. And that is barely glancing at what someone else is doing. But a two player game, taught and played two last night, took maybe just over and hour. So the game goes very quickly. But I suspect it might slow down a bit with more players.

I also think that while the variety of what the nationalities do work on a few basic things, I like that they give variety or variability. And it isn’t just the nationalities, you can swap out chefs as well. That does give you a lot of replayability before you repeat something. Now, on the flip side, it doesn’t actually feel that different, but for a gateway game, it is accessible and variable.

Who Is It For?

Foodies is for, well, a foodie who is interested in gaming. Or it is a good one for someone who wants to get into board games. If I were to compare this to other games, Machi Koro, Valeria: Card Kingdoms and My Farm Shop, I think it’s the second least interactive. Now, that can be a good thing with gateway games. It means that the player learning only needs to think about what they are doing.

And comparing it to My Farm Shop, also not interactive, I think that Foodies is a little bit simpler. And for some people that will work better. Plus, the theme, which I don’t think is bad on My Farm Shop, the Foodies theme is going to be more appealing. Most people like going out to eat, so it hits an accessible theme.

My Final Thoughts on Foodies?

Foodies is a fun theme for a game. And I think that it is a game a lot of people are going to enjoy. But like a lot of games in the genre, I think for me, I want there to be more. Machi Koro gave me good combinations and building up and engine but the engine was generally similar each time. And that had more cards to it, Foodies is going to do the same thing the more I play it. In fact, I don’t think it’ll be sticking in my collection.

Now, that isn’t to say that Foodies is a bad game, I find it fine. I think I probably prefer Valeria: Card Kingdoms out of all the ones in the genre that I have played. And Dice Forge for a game where I collect stuff on your turn. But in that case you are rolling your own dice. Foodies is going to, however, be a very good gateway game about engine building, and one that anyone can play. That’s what is tempting me to keep it in my collection.

My Grade: C
Gamer Grade: C-
Casual Grade: B+

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I already have done 10 games that I want to play post Covid. And I am sure that there are way more. For that list, it was a lot that were focused more on board game nights. I still stand by that, but there are so many other games that I could think about as well for playing.

But let’s talk about the first game night that I’m going to be planning.

When

This was the first question that I had to ask myself. Now, like I said, Minnesota is getting to about 50%, and my friend group, probably is about at 70-75% vaccinated at this point, at least for the board game night crowd. But I wanted to give people a really good chance to get vaccinated. I really want to have as close to 100% of the group vaccinated as possible. So when thinking about it and just about schedules, I decided that July would be when I had my first one.

What also went into consideration was just people getting comfortable being in groups again. For some people, like myself who is an extrovert, getting together in groups again is going to be amazing. For other people, who are introverts, like my wife, it is going to be more stressful. So it gives people time to start getting out and doing more with family first.

Any Extra Procautions

Honestly, not really, though, I did kind of think about that with the games I have to play. I will ask that if people are planning on attending that they be vaccinated. However, I am only going to do that in July. Why, because I don’t want to be a stickler about it, against by July close if not 100% of the friend group who don’t have a medical reason not to be vaccinated should be. But also because it’s not going to be a big group either. At most one person, or two people from a family wouldn’t be vaccinated. But obviously, we do want to encourage people to get vaccinated.

Otherwise, no masks required, no bring your own food, but the games are going to encourage some distancing. Depending on the temperature, I might throw open some windows so that there is better air flow. But with our furnace setup the fan is running all the time so that should keep air circulating and keep on bringing in new area as well for ventilation purposes.

The Games

So, the games that I picked are more so because you can’t play them not in person. But I do want to think about things that will keep people more comfortable. So the two main games for the night are going to be Pitchcar and Ice Cool.

Both of these games are dexterity games. So how do these help with any extra precautions. Well, you are not just sitting at a table with the same group of people for hours. You are getting up and moving around the table. Sure, you’ll be close to people a fair amount, but it won’t be sitting across from someone breathing at them.

But really, the main reason for both of these games, I couldn’t play them otherwise. Sure, Kristen and I could play them, or the one person who has been coming over to game with me could play them, but it’s not the same. Ice Cool is best at four or more if you have the expansion. I haven’t played Pitchcar yet, so I might do that before hand just to set it up and try, but again, seems better with more. You want to have that group around so everyone is getting excited when they make a great shot or when someone else does as well. That’s what really drives those gaming experiences to the next level.

What About Food And Drink?

So that is the only thing that I haven’t mentioned. And again, since everyone is going to be vaccinated, I’m going to feel very comfortable doing the normal potluck/sharing style that we do. Now, if we have chips, maybe I’ll throw a tongs into that so people aren’t touching everything as much. I can put out some hand sanitizer for people who want it. But most of the things, you are touching one items to put it onto your plate.

What Should You Do?

I think that is the question that everyone is asking themselves. I know a lot of people who are excited to get game nights going again and what does that mean for everyone it is going to be different. For us, I know the people I game with well, we do it in a home, so I can limit and control a lot of variables. If you play at an FLGS, it is going to look different than in a house. If you have people who can’t get vaccinated for a medical reason, that is going to look different as well. So I guess the advice that I can give is start small. No need to play games with twenty people, start playing with three or four and as things improve, go from there.

When do you want plan on your first big game night?

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Theming a board game night can be a lot of fun. It gives people a good idea of what games might be played. It helps focus in a collection which games come off of the shelf. I know that I have enough board games where it is tricky sometimes to get them to the table, but if I theme the night, then I play games I might not get to otherwise. What I want to talk about is how to pick a theme, but before that, I think we should talk about how to pick games.

Picking the Games for Board Game Night

Now, you might just want to pick games that go with the theme ,and keeping things on brand for the theme is important. But it is easy to end up with a lot of the same types of games, if you pick something like fantasy, you could end up with four big games ready to go. A game night should provide some more diversity in what is played and that’s less because some people don’t like big games, but more because people will come in late. I am working on coming up with a methodology of what works well.

I think that starting out with a party or lighter/faster game is good to do. People will show up throughout that game, they can either sit down and chat with you while you play or hop into the game if it’s a party game as the points don’t matter. Then have some medium or heavier games to go after people have arrived. This can often have you splitting into a couple of groups, get a heavier game and a medium weight game going. Then as the games wrap up, you go back to lighter games again and pick ones that can end whenever or can be played multiple times pretty quickly as people will slowly drop out for the night. I’ve found that this strategy works well and the games played generally will give everyone something that they like, for those party game players or those heavier gamers.

Picking a Theme

Keep The Theme General

So, with that in mind, it makes a collection clearer for what themes might work. You’ll be able to see what games you have that fit a given theme. And when I say pick a theme, I mean give yourself a broad category. For examples, instead of 18XX go with games with trains. Instead of Lord of the Rings go with fantasy, instead of chickens go with animals. Give yourself enough to work with and a wider breath of games to pick from. It will also make the game night more inviting, because you might have three games about chickens, but if I hate chickens, I might not come, but add in animals of any sort, I would come for games about cats. That’s a silly example but helps make the point. A broader theme is more interesting because someone who doesn’t like fantasy except Lord of the Rings can still come to game night. I always try and say what games I’m looking at as well when inviting people.

Vary The Themes

And vary the theme as well. If you flip back and forth from sci-fi to fantasy and back with maybe a horror thrown in there, it’ll limit what games you can do. It’s fine to stretch a little bit to fit some of your favorite games into categories, but by theming you can also encourage other people to bring games as well.

Stretch The Themes

Now, I am a strong proponent of stretching the theme as well. You do want to play your favorite games, so make themes that they can get into, maybe just barely. It’s a food themed game night, what games have food in them even if they aren’t about food. If you love Agricola, you can make that work. Ice Cool is about flicking penguins who want fish. Or if you’re doing a theme about a school or learning, Ice Cool works for that, or about animals, Ice Cool again works. You can get games into a theme to give yourself more options to play, if you really try.

Theme To The Season

Finally, pick themes that go with the season. At the holidays, make it about party games, if you do it on a weekend evening like I do, that means around Christmas and New Years that people might have other parties as well. Make your game night something easy to drop into. Or in October go with horror games. In July, go with games about food or fireworks or about the United States of America. That’ll help you get variety in your themes as well.

Themed Game Set Examples

Food

• Sushi Go/Sushi Go party – This is a nice starting game, it plays fast and offers time to chat. It’s also enough that groups can continue playing if they want.
• Homebrewer, Foodies, and Heaven and Ale – This is the second wave of games that I’d use in my collection. They are bigger games with more going on, but Homebrewer and Foodies are pretty light weight and easy for someone who might not know the game quite as well to teach. The people who want to play a heavier game, Heaven and Ale covers that crowd.
• Point Salad and Ice Cool – Point Salad is a great wrap up the night game. It plays a decently large group, it plays fast. So a good one for the Homebrewers or Foodies players to play while Heaven and Ale players finish up their game. And Ice Cool plays a big number and is silly fun.

Horror/Halloween

• Zombie Dice – It’s a very simply push your luck dice game about zombies. Sure it’s not actually scary, but it has a horror related theme which is really what you’re going for more than something too scary.
• Dead of Winter, Betrayal at House on the Hill, Marrying Mr Darcy (with Zombie expansion) and Deranged – There are some lighter and some longer games in here, but it gives you a variety of options. And three of them handle a larger group of players.
• Deception: Murder in Hong Kong – Sure it’s not really a horror game but it’s about a murder which has a Halloween feel to it. And it’s a nice bigger group game where the games don’t last too long, people can leave between them and it can wrap down the game night.

Sci-Fi

• King of Tokyo – So this could fall into the next category of games, but the games of King of Tokyo are fast and the Cyber Bunny is definitely sci-fi. Plus since the game is simple, chatting with people who arrive while you’re playing is easy.
• Xenoshyft: Onslaught, Alien Artifacts, Clank! In! Space!, Cry Havoc – All of these are bigger games, though some of them are more complex and drier to play. They give a good variety from area control, a 4x-ish card game, two deck builders, but one cooperative and one not.
• Not Alone or Lazer Ryderz – Now, Not Alone is for if you still have a larger group. But you could do Lazer Ryderz in teams as well which is just becasically the bike game from Tron. A some good goofy fun with that game. Not Alone gives you more of a game but still plays a big play count.

Those are just three examples of what you could do. And that is how I’d build it from my collection. I also like it when people bring games that gives even more variety as to what to play.

Have you themed a game night? What’s your favorite theme?

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1 – Not Being Ready to Game

Now this one might seem obvious, but I don’t think that some people get it or are ready to game. While there are certainly social elements to game nights, that is meant to be done in the context of while you are playing a game. So come ready to sit down and play again, not ready to talk for 30 minutes to an hour and then play a game at some point in time and then talk more after a filler game. I fairly often theme in filler game nights for those more social times, but sometimes you need to be prepared to play a bigger game and it’s a game night, so that should be the mindset.

2 – Quashing Fun

This really is #1 through #7, but I want to call this out specifically. It’s something that was talked about in the thread a fair amount. Don’t quash other people’s fun because something in the game offends you and the flip side of this as well, don’t pull out a game that you know will offend someone. If you aren’t sure, leave it on the shelf, if you are uncomfortable, sit out the game. You can always bring it up after the fact and do so respectfully. And if you don’t know, ask before pulling out a game if the person is fine with it. This also is true for conversation on a board game night. We’re trying to create an inclusive place. If you can’t shut up about the debate last night, don’t come, if you are wearing hateful or polarizing material on your shirt, or whatever it might be, don’t assume everyone is like you, and don’t assume everyone wants to talk about politics or whatever polarizing thing like you do.

3 – Alpha Gaming/Analysis Paralysis Gaming

Now, I’m lumping these two together, and really, like I said, this falls into quashing people’s fun. But while that is more specifically about your tastes and views on things, this is more about the game itself. Don’t tell people what to do on their turns, sure they might not be doing an optimal play, but that’s okay. It might mean you’re less likely to win a cooperative game, and that’s okay. By the same token, don’t take too long on your turn, that is how people checkout of games, and I’ll talk about that later. But slowing a game down makes it less fun for everyone. For AP players, they feel the pressure to go fast and not let everyone else get bored, for the other players, they don’t want to get bored. Here’s going to be an odd statement, but alpha gamers and AP gamers tend to have the same issue, they need to win. The issue is how they do it, one thinks they know what everyone should do, and one locks up to make the optimal play. Winning the game isn’t everything.

4 – Sore Losing/Winning

As I just said, winning the game isn’t everything, and losing the game isn’t nothing. But don’t be sore at either of them. Don’t huff and puff and say that the game isn’t fair, that people ganged up on you (even if they did), lose graciously. Again, this steps on people’s fun if you lose poorly. At the same time, if you win, don’t gloat about it. Also don’t deflect and say it was all luck and that you just happened to get lucky to win, because someone might have been playing their hardest and gotten crushed and feel now like they are a terrible player. Instead be gracious in both winning and losing and that’ll make the game more fun for everyone.

5 – Cheating

Simply put, don’t do this. No game matters that much that it’s worth cheating at, at a board game night. I don’t care if you’re playing poker for the last piece of Rhubarb Cream Pie, don’t cheat. Cheating if you get caught ruins the game for everyone. If you don’t get caught, it makes the whole experience more hollow. I’ve found that the people who cheat usually don’t cheat to win, or if they do, they’ll also cheat to win by more, which makes it less fun.

6 – Readily Getting Distracted/Checkout of the Game

This can happen for several reasons, but try not to. Firstly, again, it’s a game night, you’re hear to play a game, not to look at your phone, not to have a conversation with someone who is playing another game, or someone who just showed up at the expense of missing it’s you’re turn. It’s fine to chat, but don’t get so distracted you lose track of the game, hold it up by missing your turn, and then spend a while figuring out your turn because you weren’t paying attention to what everyone else did. Also, don’t checkout of a game because you think you can’t win. First, you might not be able to actually tell that. But also if you start playing worse than you were, you can king make or otherwise mess up the fun other people are having. See your strategy and plan through to the end.

7 – Mistreating the Game

Now, as I’ve said, we have food at the table, so I’m not as strict about this as most people. In fact we’ve had Doritos and red wine (not the worlds tastiest combo) at the table before. But I’m talking about doing stuff intentionally to a game, or subconsciously. Don’t bend cards and throw pieces. Wipe off your fingers if you have Cheetos or Doritos’ dust on them before picking up pieces and cards. Just generally be respectful of other people’s property, it’s a common courtesy but be conscious of that, and resprect the rules the owner of the game has for their game.

So obviously some people in the thread were more clever than I was and created ones related to the actual seven deadly sins, but I thought it was an interesting topic for a gaming group and board gaming in general, so I wanted to write something up about it. Generally, I think that The RPG Academy gets it right with their motto, “If you’re having fun, you’re doing it right”. So make sure that you’re having fun, and make sure that everyone at the table is as well and playing board games will be fun for everyone.

What are your rules for gaming?

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What is Kickstarter?
Starting out with the basics here, but Kickstarter is a crowdfunding website. What’s a crowdfunding website, it’s a site where someone asks for money to help fund a project, that could be something like Go Fund Me with helping someone with medical expenses or whatever need they might have, but on Kickstarter, you’re almost always Kickstarting a project that is going to create some sort of end product. It might be a play, it might be a comic, a chair, a video game, or, as I’m going to be talking about board game or an RPG. Normally, when you help fund something, the company or creator gives you something in return for helping them.

How Does a Project Work?
I’m going to be tackling this from the consumer side, I’ve never run my own kickstarter, and I doubt I ever would or will. But, the creator makes their project, so they create a video (ideally), and write up information on the game, showing images of prototypes or of what they are planning on the components looking like. They explain how the game works, what sort of game it is, and why you should help them fund it. They also talk about what shipping costs might be and what they could see as risks for their campaign so the people who fund them know what they are getting into.

The final big thing they create though is the reward levels and funding level. These are how much they are asking people and how much money they need for it to actually happen. For example, if they think they can make the game that the whole cost of production is $20 but they need to 2,000 people to back them to get that production cost, they can make their funding goal $40,000. And there would be a reward level of $20 where people can back them and get a copy of the game as a reward. But what is more likely to happen is that production costs $20, so they offer a reward level of $30 for the game, because they need to pay themselves and kickstarter takes some of it, and they set their funding goal at $30,000. The reason for that is that while they want to hit 2,000 people, they can go over their funding goal, and if they do, more people are apt to back it, because they know the project is happening, and that’ll help them get to 2,000 people.

Then, with the Kickstarter up and running at kickstarter.com, they wait through their campaign, however many days it is, and that’s where we step in as the consumer. I look at the page, decide if it’s a game that I find interesting, and then if I do, I can back it. Now, maybe I just like the idea, but I don’t want the game myself or I know the creator of the game or like their company, whatever it might be. I can back it for however much I want without a reward, or I can select the option to back for $30, in our example, and get the game. So I back it, but I don’t get the game right away, this isn’t a store, they don’t have the games yet (most of the time, future Kickstarter lesson), they are getting the funding to then make the games. So they’ll send out updates to everyone who has backed them thanking them for backing and letting us know what their plans are and most often, letting us know about stretch goals. Stretch goals are extra things added to the game if it reaches a certain funding level. So in our cast, they really need the level to hit $40,000, but let’s say it’s doing well, and the game hits $50,000 or $60,000, they might add in some extra cards, a cool first player maker, an extra scenario, an extra character class (for an RPG), whatever it might be at certain points in the campaign based on how much they’ve made, because now they can afford to do that. This helps encourage people to back it because some of these things might be exclusive to Kickstarter (future lesson).

So, they’ve funded their campaign, now they get the money, but not all the money, Kickstarter is going to take some as well, because Kickstarter is a business and they need to make money as well. So even though they Kickstarter made, let’s say $80,000, the creator maybe sees around $72, 000 to $76,000. Now that it’s funded, they’ll send you the game, right? Not quite yet, they need to still get it made, so they get the money from Kickstarter, now they need to schedule with factories to get the game made, and most of the time, they also will be sending out a backer survey, this might be done through Kickstarter, but most often through another company, because $30 pledge for the game didn’t cover shipping. So you’ll have to pay a bit more to cover shipping, but the good thing is that this should basically just be the shipping cost because Kickstarter isn’t taking money from them for it. Though, the other site might be. Now you’ve paid shipping, let’s say $10, and for the game $30, it’ll get shipped soon. Almost, first, it gets into a production queue for some factory somewhere that is probably making a lot more and different board games throughout the year as well. So it might be 6-12 months before production begins, if not more. So production has happened, now it gets shipped, literally shipped on a boat, around the world, this can take a few weeks and up to a couple of months if there are delays at customs. From the ships it goes to a fulfillment company or to the creator to fulfill. They’ll be the ones sending you the actual game. So probably around a year after you Kickstarted it, you’ll get the game.

And that’s the general life cycle of a Kickstarer, it can take longer than a year, and it can be shorter than a year. But the cool part is that you can help small companies (or buy more of a sure thing from a big company) get their games out to the market.

I’m going to be talking about various things, such as what happens when a Kickstarter fails, what happens if it doesn’t deliver, what makes a good Kickstarter, what to watch out for, what stretch goals are, and how to avoid Kickstarter FOMO (if it’s even possible).

What are some of your best experiences with Kickstarter? Have you had any that have failed or not ever come? Are there any other topics I should cover around Kickstarter? Let me know in the comments below.

(All the images are of games that were brought to life on Kickstarter)

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For those of you who might not know what Eureka is, it’s a show about a small town that is full of geniuses and the normal sheriff who has to deal with all of the crazy problems that they cause. There’s never a normal day in Eureka. There’s also a restaurant called Cafe Diem that does crazy foods.

Drinks:

Coffee
Cocktails
Beer

The coffee and the cocktails need to be fancy. Cafe Diem wouldn’t serve just any sort of drink, you would have to use lavender infused simple syrup and with a cardamom whipped cream for the coffee. Cocktails would ideally use some dry ice in them somehow so that you get that smoking scientific effect, and if you want to go all out, you serve it from a beaker. Then you have beer as well for the Sheriff Carter’s of the group who just want a nice and normal drink. This is going to be a theme that you come across probably in most of these, there are going to be a fancy options and more standard options.

Appetizers:

Pigs in a Blanket

Okay, so I just went from saying that there would be multiple options to having a single one, but I realized that this is an example of how you can spice up something that seems pretty normal. First, you start by rolling the dough that’s around the hotdog section or better yet Little Smokies (they’re fancier) and adding everything bagel seasoning to them. You can either put together the seasoning yourself or Trader Joes sells that mixed. Then you create a bunch of fun dipping sauces. I’d recommend a blackberry ketchup mix, stone ground mustard, and a balsamic onion jam. Now you’ve taken something that is normal and brought it to the next level.

Main Course:

Spicy Glazed Carrots
Meatloaf
Corn Bread

So another pretty straightforward meal. The spicy glazed carrots I would go with a chipotle and ginger glaze on them. We’ve done something like that at home before, and it turns out very tasty. There are recipes out there that explain the whole process, but thankfully it’s not that hard to do. Then with the meatloaf, it’s pretty plain, but I needed something that would match with the appetizer, otherwise I would have gone a bit crazier with it. However, meatloaf is good because it’s a pretty blank canvas. Think about what would work well with the carrots and corn bread, and then go crazy with the meatloaf. You could lean more into a BBQ and cheese feel or if you wanted to go a bit further afield than a normal meatloaf, you could go with something like a Cajun style meatloaf or Caribbean. The corn bread is going to give you a chance as well to do something that’s more creative by creating a compound butter for it. I’d lean into just doing a simple whipped honey butter and not going too crazy with this as you want it to cleanse your palate between bites, but you could give a few different options here as well, like you did for the Pigs in a Blanket.

Dessert:

Ice Cream Sundae Bar

Again pretty normal, but you can have a ton of a fun with a lot of crazy toppings for it. Everyone can make their own experiment with various toppings. I’d stick primarily with normal toppings, sprinkles, hot fudge, nuts, etc, but I’d try and find some unique toppings as well that people might not think about. A balsamic reduction/glaze would probably drizzle nicely over the top and paired with raspberries and a little mint would make a very tasty combination and dessert. Have some fun with this and let you creativity run wild as you come up with ideas. Hopefully none of them will cause the world to almost end, and if they do, you’re on your own.

What would you do with a Eureka themed party and meal? Is there something obvious that I missed? I was trying to keep it simple enough that it could actually be done, but weird enough that it would do Cafe Diem proud.

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Drinks:

Punch/Koolaid

Booze for mixing

Jello Shots

For something like Ghostbusters, I’d recommend creating the brightest green drink that you can. The slime (and Slimer himself) are the inspiration for the drink part of the meal. The brightest green that you can get, the closer you are to actually getting slimed, like in the movie for the game. And with Jello shots, you are taking it to a whole new level for better or worse. Now it is actually closer to the slime.

Appetizers:

Deviled Eggs

This is a callback to early on in the first film. Now you’re trying to remember the scene with deviled eggs in it (or you’re hungry), but there isn’t one. It’s a callback to when Dana first encounters the ghosts and the supernatural and the eggs on her counter start exploding and frying. It’s also just an excuse to make deviled eggs, a food item that requires too much work to be made often, but is oh so tasty (in the humble opinion of the author).

Main Course:

Hot Dogs with all the fixings

Chips

Fruit or Veggies and Dip

Again, I’m focusing in on Slimer. He pops out of the hot dog cart and that’s the inspiration for this one. If you do hot dogs right, you can make it into a fun main course, but you do need to have all the fixings. I’m talking about sauerkraut, mustard, onions, relish, pickled jalapeno, and if it still existed green ketchup. But since green ketchup doesn’t exist anymore, you’ll just have to go with plain old ketchup. To get that correct green feel to the meal and the true green Slimer feel, there is relish that is about the greenest/weirdest thing that you’ll see. Go with that stuff. We’re talking about Ghostbusters here, so keeping it paranormal (and possibly radioactive) when it comes to the relish makes it right. Chips and fruit or veggies are basically there to make it so you aren’t eating only hot dogs because according most people, hot dogs by themselves aren’t a complete meal.

Dessert

Whoopie Pie

Was there really a question as to where the meal was going to end? There shouldn’t have been, a giant marshmallow, Stay Puffed, to end the first movie that explodes everywhere into marshmallow fluff means you have to have a marshmallow dessert. Instead of doing something easier like S’mores (which would have fit along with the theme of the meal which is kind of camping now that I see it), a whoopie pie gives you something different. Two chocolate cookies with healthy marshmallow fluff sandwiched in between might not be how the movie ends up, but you know all of them were thinking it.

How would you make a Ghostbusters themed meal? Are there some of your favorite scenes that you would draw upon, or would everything have an unnatural green hue to it thanks to Slimer?

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So, as an exercise in insanity, I’m going to come up with menus/ideas for three different events that nerds get together around, and how to create an appetizer, main course, dessert, and drink(s) for them. I’m going to intentionally shoot for things that are a little bit out of the norm, as people can probably come up with an old fashioned meal for Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings, or do a sweet “fish finger” (finger cookie) and custard for Doctor Who, but what do you do when you want to show a lesser known film or show? I’m picking on idea to start, but I would love suggestions over on the Facebook page (search for Nerdologists) for the next two.

Arkham Horror

This is going to be a very challenging one to start off with, a couple of things jumped out at me right away.

Drinks:

Old Fashioned & Martini

Root Beer

These are a couple of classic drinks that can take you back to the turn of the century when Lovecraft was writing his works. If you’re a skeezy private eye who is tracking down some weird goings on, you drink an Old Fashioned at the bar in the evening after a long day on your feet. The Martini works well for that time period and gives you a bit of that dangerous feel thanks to James Bond. I don’t think it makes much of a difference if you use Gin or Vodka for your Martini as both will give the desired visual affect which is what you are going for.

Root Beer is for the part of your group that might not drink or may not be old enough to drink yet. It’s one of those old time drinks that makes a lot of sense, and you can even turn it into you dessert and do root beer floats if you want.

Appetizer:

Peanuts in the shell

To me this kind of keeps that old time feel going. There is something about shelling peanuts, while it is messy, that brings in a classic stake out, something to do with your hands while you are watching for something strange to happen.

Main Course:

Corn Chowder and biscuits

You could also go with a seafood chowder here, but a creamy corn and potato chowder seems to go well with the theme. Arkham being based off of Danvers, MA would have had different types of chowder and the biscuits would give it a nice rounded feel to the meal, more so just than the soup. If you think that the people who are showing up would all like clams, I would recommend doing a clam chowder instead of corn, but corn chowder is probably safer for most peoples taste buds.

Dessert:

Cranberry Apple Crisp

This keeps with your New England area theme, any desert with cranberries would be pretty typical. The reason for doing a crisp is that you can make it gluten free if you desire, so it’s safer to serve everyone. Also, New England has plenty of apples of their own, and crisps, to me, have that more classic dessert that would have been more common from that time.

So there you have it, an idea for more fun foods to eat to keep the mindset of 1900’s Massachusetts in a Lovecraft world, what would you do?

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