Minecraft mastermind Markus "Notch" Persson has officially announced his company's next project: a hybrid online board game/trading card system called Scrolls. Spearheaded by Mojang co-founder Jakob Porser (interview) and with backstory penned by Penny Arcade wordsmith Jerry "Tycho" Holkins, the game will consist of turn-based battles between collectible "scrolls," illustrated character cards strategically deployed on an abstract gaming grid. In an interesting inversion of the Minecraft model, the game itself will be free, while updates in the form of additional scroll packs will cost a nominal fee -- a business model gaming analyst Sean Maelstrom decries as "snake oil." Mojang, for their part, is unafraid and even eager to target an untested slice of the gaming market, and is angling to get their playable prototype of Scrolls ready for a possible Alpha release this summer.
posted by Rhaomi on Mar 2, 2011 - 128 comments

If you live in Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky or Pennsylvania (“the Euchre belt”) Euchre might be a familiar pastime or at least well, familiar. The game is not exclusive to those areas but is most concentrated in the Midwest. It used to be one of the most popular card games the U.S. but lost out to bridge. Today the game has somewhat of a cult following in Midwest towns and especially on college campuses. It is a fast paced thinking game that combines strategy and skill with luck that can eat away hours of a person’s life. If you have never played the game I encourage you to read an introduction and try yahoo games. (I hope this is not too common to bring up, but I rarely see anyone playing online not from the states listed above.) Warning popups.
posted by Recockulous on Nov 6, 2002 - 43 comments