According to the World Wildlife Foundation website (http://www.worldwildlife.org/species/finder/tigers/), 3 tiger species have gone extinct in the last 70 years, and the remiaining 6 species are all endangered or critically endangered, with perhaps fewer than 3,200 total left in the wild. 

In Nature Dome, though, the tiger is still going strong. The beautiful artwork on the Tiger Power Card was the first original artwork created for the deck and is also featured prominently on the Nature Dome Mammals box.

Perhaps more importantly, the Tiger Power Card also offers players a strong attack that can make the difference in even the toughest battle.

Put the tiger's power at your command with your own Nature Dome Mammals deck. Get yours today at www.NatureDomeGame.com.

There have been a great many card game spin-offs of popular board games recently, including a couple inspired by Monopoly and this one spawned from Scrabble.

What initially caught my eye about this one was that it is virtually identical to a game that I prototyped out and was play-testing when I saw this one on the shelf. It's always disappointing and a little frustrating to see someone else making good on an idea you came up with on your own, but it's also a bit of a confirmation for a small-time game designer looking to break in: I'm obviously coming up with good ideas . . . now I have to get the word out and beat the big boys to the punch.

At any rate, I tried Scrabble Slam out with the kids and found that it doesn't work well with players of vastly different vocabulary levels and reflexes.

I tried it with some of my grown up game-loving friends and we had a blast, as I'm sure it would be with kids of the same ages and grade levels.

Basically, there is a deck of Scrabble-tile-looking cards with letters on each side. The game begins with a 4-letter word being spelled out on the table in front of the players. The rest of the deck is dealt evenly between the players. Then it's a mad rush to change a single letter of the word in play to make a new word, calling out the word you are making while laying a letter card on top of one of the four letters of the existing word.

So DUCK becomes DUCE which becomes DUDE which becomes RUDE, etc. etc.

The action gets fast and furious as the competitors start trying to out-speed and -spell each other, which makes for fast fun--and, for me, a tension tightness in my chest as me and the woman who kept beating me kept getting down to our last cards and trying to out-Slam each other.

Keep the competition friendly and light, though, and this is a great party game, especially for word nerds and those that love them.

Looking into making my return to the Tampa Comic Con on May 2.

Check out the site for info and a look at all the great artists that will be there: http://www.tampacomicconvention.com/

I'll keep everyone posted on the final decision, but we've gotta get Nature Dome Mammals moving out the door to clear the way for the the next release . . . which may or may not even be a Nature Dome deck (though there's a whole world of Nature Dome expansion waiting in the wings) . . . only time (and sales) will tell.

So check out the site, get your Nature Dome deck and come out to see us at the show.

More on that to come . . .

Found a pretty cool board game at a neighborhood yard sale (the second best place to find great old games no one knows about anymore--thrift stores are still the best): Lionheart from Parker Brothers.

I had a friend back in my teaching days that was into historical tabletop gaming in a big way. That's where people spend thousands of dollars and countless hours over many years buying and hand-painting small, historically accurate lead replicas of soldiers, archers, artillery and the like from whatever their favorite historical wars are--then they line them up on giant tables decorated with scale-sized trees, grass, hills, rivers, bridges, buildings and more and reenact historical battles, or make up their own new conflicts.

I could never justify the time or expense of getting so involved in this hobby, but I did play a few engagements with my friend and had a surpringly good time getting pummelled.

Lionheart is a much-simplified version of these sprawling, unweildy, multi-hour games. The battlefield is the size of a normal board game. The units are composed of 1 to 4 plastic soldiers, no meticulous hand-painting required. Players put on the indicated number of soldiers for each type of unit: 1 king, 2 knights, 4 archers or 4 foot soldiers per square base. These units are arranged in a face-off, and the battle begins. First to kill the king or his oppoenents entire army wins.

It plays pretty fast and the hits and loses are simply calculated with the included dice, making for a fun game that I still get pummelled at when playing my son.

There are even mercenaries and heavy soldiers I have yet to experiment with to add extra elements of battlefield realism to the game. I'm looking forward to discovering how they change the game.

I'm sure it's out of print (so many of the good games are), but you can no doubt find it out on the internet somewhere if you want it. I recommend you do so if you like war games from chess to Risk. It's lighter and quicker than those, but a good time and playable for even younger kids.

I can't seem to get to the blog nearly as much as I'd like, but there's new stuff on the way.

I've found some cool games at thrift stores and yard sales (the best place to find good stuff by far) that I'll review, and some Nature Dome facts and tips, among other things.

So please, stay tuned. In the meantime, I'd love help building up a fan base for the Nature Dome Facebook page. The more people taht are listening, the more I'll be inspired to keep content worth checking out coming your way.

So be a buddy, be a pal . . . be a fan!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Saint-Petersburg-FL/Grand-Gamers-of-St-Petersburg/357050806438?ref=ts&v=wall#!/pages/Nature-Dome/181241580000

Thanks!