The PLAN

So i have a new current obsesion.

Because of the game of risk from the weekend, i have decided to go big.

Near the end of the game my girlfriends brother had the 2 smallest countries, iceland and great britain. he also had like 40+ armies on those two places. obviously there was not enough room.

So as we were sitting there, playing risk on my pool table i got to thinking. wouldnt it be great to have a pool table sized risk board?...and the wheels began to turn.

in the last 4 days that idea has evolved a couple of times. The original idea involved a large piece of paper, a overhead projector and transparency paper, and lots of time drawing the map on the wall.

It was decided that, that would take FAR to long and way to much work. it would be much easier to get it profesionally printed. it would also be able to be put on a more durable material, and there-for prevent it from getting wrecked.

the idea has also evolved to include; large dice and little push sticks to move the armies around, like the old world war II era military campaigne rooms....like this one from Uxbridge.

(my first blog, picture, it acctually worked, wholly crap)

picture it, 6 people gathered around a 7x3 foot map of the world, pushing thier armies around in a massive game of risk. perosnally i think it is a wonderfull idea, and most that i have told about it agree.

now the biggest problem comes down to cost.

aside from the time involed in making it on my own the overhead projector version would cost about 30 bucks (for the transperancy sheets and the paper) i think...and thats before trying to get it laminated to protect it, and not even counting all the differant colours of markers or paints i would need....and thats just for the map.

I have no idea how much the professionaly printed version will cost (but i have sent away for an estimate) but it would be faster and MUCH easier and higher quality. so i broke it down a little bit to make comparisons to see how much would be worth spending on it.

50-100 dollars for a concerts =2.5 hours of entertainment

$10.50 plus snacks for 1.5 hours of movie

average new board game costs 30-60 dollars (scene it, dvd trivial pursuit, etc)

tim hortons coffee once a day for a month = about 50 bucks a month.

so really, if i were to play 5 games, each averageing 4 hours, thats 20 hours., if it was a 100 dollar map, that would be like 5 dollars an hour. and the more games i play (which i would plan on) the more cost effective it would become.

the dice, and the sticks could be added to the game over time. the most important part is the map.

I also thought about turning the game into a semi-regular gathering, have it like a poker tournament. say a $10 entry fee. half goes to food and prizes, the other half goes into the pot, which the winner gets to keep. we could even have a trophy that gets passed around. i think that would be very cool.

So i will look into it/work on it over the next little while, i'll let you know if it happens,

in the mean time....UNICORNS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5im0Ssyyus