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New Mission Hill bar will feature board games with sound effects
By adamg on Tue, 11/26/2019 - 9:39am
The BU News Service sounds a klaxon for Tavern of Tales, 1478 Tremont St., which will have rooms dedicated to specific board games, but with sound effects to make them more like video games:
When you play Monopoly, you pass go and collect $200. In our experience you would pass go, collect $200 and you’ll hear the sound of money rolling into your bank account.
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Comments
Waste of money
Drink and play games with friends at a place that does not charge.
Take turns making sound effects.
And then cry about it when it
And then cry about it when it shuts down and turns into a bank branch
I dunno. I could host a dinner party at my place, but
it's a lot of work to get the apartment in shape for company and shop and cook and mix drinks and entertain. Restaurant dinners with friends outsource those problems; it's a premium we are happy to routinely pay.
I don't host a lot of game nights anymore, not like in the old days, when I'd have the boys over to play poker and D&D on alternate weeks, with the hosting duties rotating among us. (Most improbable moment: my ranger character Zoner taking point on an expedition, getting killed instantly by a catoblepas, then my rolling two 20s in a row on a 20-sided die to achieve resurrection. Nerdy good times!)
My favorite locale was at the home of my buddies who were arcade-game software developers sharing a loft in Chinatown above Moon Villa. They had the use of the freight elevator, parked their motorcycles inside their giant floor-through loft. There was a kung-fu school on the floor below: we could hear their "Hai! Hai!" shouts all evening long. (They were badass dorks, invented a sham company purportedly doing gas-cooled laser research so they could order giant tanks of nitrous oxide for their parties.)
Similar issue for game night: doing it at a local bar carries some costs but yields convenience. If I were still hanging with that cool old crew of geek outlaws, I imagine we might pay that upcharge today. Nowadays, time is the greater luxury.
An Internet first
I'm going to use "cool story, bro" with sincerity.
Long time ago, but I still remember
the limerick / epitaph I composed in the five minutes between the moment my character got killed and our dungeon master offered me the 400:1 odds at a chance for a second life:
“Here lie the remains of old Zoner
Who led not a bad life, for a stoner
‘Til a vile catoblepas
With a look froze his po’ ass
So instead of a Zone, he’s a goner.”
Admittedly, the rhyme is not perfect: you have to say go-ner. I’d give a lot to play another round as Zoner with that long-bygone crew. I like to think they’re all retired to private islands somewhere, still lean and sporting bad facial hair, but now covered with well-chosen tattoos.
Still bummed I lost track of those brilliant, crazy mofos after I moved away from Boston for a few years. Thems were good peeps. Fucking life, amiright?
Meanwhile...
In a possibly related story... police report wedgies in the immediate area are up a whopping 700 percent. One mother feared for her 31 year old son's safety so much, she has resorted to picking him up instead of letting him use her Uber account. "They took my Gandorf wizard and Harry Potter miniatures and said they would cast a kicking spell on my ass" said another game tavern customer.
A third board hearing on these matters was cancelled due to uncontrollable snickering.
1998 called
they want their unfunny dated memes back.
the top grossing movies the past five years are all science fiction superhero shit and comic cons have literally millions of attendees. barcades are a hopping business and malden center is trying to brand itself as a "gaming destination". NFL fans watch game of thrones.
there's plenty of jokes to be had but "hrp drp nerds" is stale. what's actually funny is the idea that anybody would go to a boardgame bar and play MONOPOLY.
This is a tad defensive,
This is a tad defensive, considering your point is that this stuff is extremely mainstream.
You seem nice
Also fun, and a real addition to any gathering.
(actually, no, you don't, you seem like a stale tired old crusty cranky has-been whose blood pressure hasn't been below 160 since he figured out that the nerds you used to feel superior to in 10th grade are having much better lives than you are)
Think before you type
Much better lives?
Jock : "Hey McDorfus. How is life treating you?"
McDorfus : "Exponentially better than yours is, actually. *I* play Monopoly at a place that incorporates relevant sound effects!"
Jock : (Pulls underwear waistband over McDorfuses head) "I bet you wokepost on local chat boards too"
If someone posts a photo of a hot chick.... or even a passable chick playing games at this place, I will concede that I am a big old cranky nerd-bashing misogynist handsome dinosaur.
Like Twitch doesn't exist...
The great thing about geeks is they don't have to dance for you to feel good about themselves.
Bars seem to have officially
run out of ideas.
BUT...I have one. How about cheap food and cheap beer and some TVs for watching the big local games. An "Artisianal-free" zone if you will? Maybe some various Harpoon or other local brewery on tap, but where the $2 Buds flow like wine....where haggard townies instinctively flock like the salmon of Capistrano!
Boston is literally empty of such places now. Maybe some brain-genius Bentley grad could try it out.
I live in Mission Hill. In
I live in Mission Hill. In the area where Tavern of Tales is opening I can count 3 bars where you can get a cheap beer, relatively cheap food, and watch a game (Flann's, Puddingstone, Penguin Pizza).
I did a test run with Tavern of Tales a couple of months ago and it was really fun! I'm excited to have something unique in the neighborhood.
Mixed similes
"Where something-or-other flows like wine" is always good for evoking liberality and good cheer, but beer flowing like wine doesn't quite have the desired effect. I mean, if the beer flows like wine, does the wine flow like beer? It's all so confusing.
I won't even get into the flocking fish.
Listen
It's not like this is rocket surgery.
I wish them well
They should bring in a few cats too.
Need more dog bars
Not dog friendly bars, just places to drop your dog off at night while you and your friends go out and drink at a real human bar.
Seems like a good business
Seems like a good business opportunity. A nice night in the summer, I wouldn't mind taking someone's dog out for a nice long walk while their owner gets wasted.
Dog Bar
The dog bar should of course have a card table, and the clientele should be provided with whiskey and cigars.
The problem with Monopoly is not that it lacks sound
effects, but that most people don't play by the rules properly. Any time a player lands on a property and declines to buy it, it is supposed to be sold immediately via auction bidding.
The game is a lot brisker and more fun that way; it's endless and dull otherwise.
Either way
It doesn't matter whether that rule is followed or not, the game is deterministic after the first color group is made.
Slow news day?
I can't understand why this matters?
fun much?
You must be a blast at a party
He's not fun. But maybe if he
He's not fun. But maybe if he had sound effects...
Lot more salt in here than I
Lot more salt in here than I expected to find, even for uhub!
Read the article
So, I read the article and it's not clear that Monopoly is one of the 6 games that he's engineering the six rooms for. Based on the other games listed for the rooms, I'm guessing not. I think he just used it as an example that most people might recognize.
But then I realized that it sounds like he's engineering 6 rooms for 6 games and it's not clear that all six rooms will play all six games as opposed to a single room per game setup with the right audio clips. So if correct, that means if two groups of players want to play the same game at the same time, the second group is out of luck...possibly for hours. If he's chosen poorly on which 6 games, then one or more of the games may never have anyone that wants to play it with sound effects and a huge portion of his square footage goes to waste. Any time a newer game comes out, he's gotta figure out which one to replace (which means potentially losing repeat customers of that game if there are any). And if a particular game has a huge number of repeat guests...then it'll never get replaced....which won't invite new customers to come and get hooked. That may be less of a problem but it makes word-of-mouth unlikely if new players are constantly finding the place to tell their friends about it.
I just see lots of problems keeping butts in chairs without keeping them too long and without costing a ton of business to keep things fresh (or stale...however the case may be depending on the popularity of the games). Whereas, a regular board game cafe can play any number of games at any number of tables and constantly refresh their stock and so on...but just won't have added sound effects.
Board Game Bar Soon Boarded Up
High rent and small capacity mean little revenue. I honestly can't see how this concept will make money to sustain a run after the three month novelty crowd tries it. This seems like a been there, tried that, one time visit. You have to have repeat clients to pay the bills. I wish them well but will not be surprised that they don't survive.