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| Oxford Games
& Past Times |
Past Times is a chain of shops selling repro items and books and stuff from periods in English history; Celtic, Roman, Tudor, Victorian, 30's, Wartime etc. A lot of the stuff is not cheap, and some is a bit bogus, but a lot is made just for them and is nice. If you see a store, pop in, it is good to browse round and you are sure to find something to taste. The whole shop is stylish and when items are reduced in priced to clear, they put a label on saying "Extra Value"! |
| Oxford Games knocks out high quality
products on historical/literary themes, many just for Past Times. The nice
thing is, many go on half-price sale, so keep looking in and you get some
original games pretty cheap. Unfortunately, a lot of the game ideas are
quite simple or simply remodeling of familiar ideas. But the components
are good and the design and graphics are nicely styled, good for UK games, so you won't waste
your money. You will not get a game of the standard of German makers, but
they are still pretty good. The boxes are generally not over-sized either,
usually big enough for the game and not empty packaging.
If you write to Oxford Games, they'll mail you a pack of postcards showing their games. The mail order includes postage, but the prices are not cheaper than the shop prices though. Oxford Games, Lea Lane, Thame Road, Long Crendon, Aylesbury, Bucks., HP18 9RN, United KingdomSo here are some I've bought. Unfortunately I'm not likely to play many now, but I will
amend my verdict as and when I do so. |
| Playing Shakespeare ©
1990 Finch & Scott. This game was produced in collaboration with Royal
Insurance! They were sponsors to the Royal Shakespeare Company and the
rules include a letter from the insurance co. chairman and a plug for the
company that arranged the sponsorship deal! Beat that. The box includes
a quarterboard, 3 decks of cards with quotes from Shakespeare's 37 plays,
Comedies, Histories and Tragedies. You have lots of coloured pawns and
a sand timer a a six-die marked with 1s and 2s. The board has a wheel with
a segment and spotlight for each play. To win, you must get a pawn in
the spotlight of a comedy, tragedy and history. Occupying several spotlights
delays your opponents. The game is a team game, with one player in each
team reading from the relevant card. The card has an easy quote (1) and
a hard quote (2). Your team-mates must guess the missing word from the
quote, or you can mime it (using the timer). Get it right and you put a
pawn in the spotlight. Other teams can compete for the same play. The rules
are brief and the book includes a summary of all 37 plays! A literary party
game. Verdict - Unplayed - I need more friends who have read Shakespeare. Blimey. |
| Royal Comette - A Courtly
Game Of Risk & Speculation. A quarterboard, a deck of cards and a bag
of little plastic sticks to gamble with. The rules fit one small page and
are in also in French, German and Japanese. They say this a game played
in Court in the 17th Century. It involves playing out cards in a certain
order and picking up tokens if you match cards placed on sections on the
board. The cards are the standard 52 deck, so you could play this with
your own deck and tokens. Verdict - Confusing. |
| The Game Of Maze (Now being
sold as The Game Of Garden Maze) A quarterboard of a maze in a formal garden,
four pairs of coloured cones as pieces and two six-dice. The rules are
© 1990 to Finch & Scott and are only a few paragraphs, the rest
being a history of mazes and a list of mazes open to the public (dozens!).
You start with your 2 pieces in different places in the maze and to win,
they must meet! There are garden implements to delay your passage and also
you can banish opponents to the far corners if you land on them. Verdict - Unplayed. |
| Hazard A game based on Chaucer's
tales of the pilgrim's journey to Canterbury cathedral. A quarterboard
showing a wheel with the characters in each of 23 segments; The Knighte,
The Miller, The Seconde Nonne and so on. The design is drawn in medieval
fashion, nicely done. A bag of various tokens, 2 six-dice and 2 decks of
special cards and a book of rules make up the game. The rules cover only
2 pages, the rest being a digest of the character's tales. Hazard was a
game played by pilgrim's apparently, rolling dice and gambling. In this
game, you must move your pawn from Southwark to Canterbury, discarding
4 character cards as you land on the segment. To move, you must gamble
tokens on the dice rolls, and your move depends on the result. Either you
get to move backwards or forwards, or everyone else does! The winning or
losing number depends on a deck of Hazard cards. The whole game looks very
nice. Verdict - We found it a little confusing, working out what to do next. They bidding didn't seem to work either. Underdeveloped. |
| The Hieroglyphs Game ©
1989 to The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford University. An odd rectangular box
contains a n odd board with 2 vertical folds (like a leaflet), a scroll
of rules tied by a ribbon, a set of sheets showing translations of hieroglyphics
and a bag of little tokens, a six-die and a little blue scarab token. The
sheets have numbered squares with a word in hieroglyphs. The same box has
different words on different sheets. The starting player chooses a box
number and all the players use the word in that box on their sheet. The
playing board has all the hieroglyphs and players roll the die and move
the scarab around. If it stops on one the pictures you need, you put a marker
on your sheet. If it lands there again though, you must remove the token!
Complete a word to win the game. A sort of Egyptian bingo! Verdict - Unplayed. |
| Tabula - The Roman Game
A small box holds a quarterboard, 30 glass tokens (15 green, 15 blue),
2 six-dice. The game is a fore-runner of backgammon, you simply bear on,
run forward in the same direction, bear off. The dice are marked with Roman
numerals, which is nice but a little awkward to read correctly. The little
rule sheet includes a history of the game. Verdict - Nice and simple. The strategy is different from backgammon, since you have more opportunity to block and hit your opponent. |
| Runestone A small box contains
a small jigsaw-board, various tokens and 5 dice with coloured runes instead
of numbers. Based on Anglo-Saxon runes, you first roll the 5 dice to select
your 5 runes, mark them with your tokens. Your opponent does the same.
Next you roll one die, move your token and try to collect your 5 pieces
to win. If you land on an opponent's marker, you can move it. Verdict - Unplayed. |
| The Celtic Game © 1997
Oxford Games. Based on a 9th Century Welsh game called Howel Dha, this
game is a version of Hneftafl, now commonly called the Viking game, in
which a central king tries to escape to the edge of the board. The box
is small with a simple jigsaw board and plastic discs as pawns for each
army. Verdict Unplayed and there are other versions of this game on the market. |
| Ludus Romanus © 1996
Oxford Games. A small box holds a jigsaw board with a mosaic design and
plastic pieces like little tiles. You place your pieces down then move
them to capture opponent's pieces and dux (leader). Verdict Unplayed. |
| The Dickens Game ©
1997 Past Times. This appears to be solely made by Past Times, the game
being invented by Dickens' great-great-granddaughter Mary Danby. Past Times
have a bit to learn, they don't put the number of players or ages on the
box at all! A nice quarter board has you moving around without dice to
collect quotations to match with characters from 4 of Dickens' novels.
Verdict Unplayed.. |
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