Hasta La Gadget!

Characters don’t just drink, do it and die in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels. They also play games, particularly a board game called Cyvasse. Now you can play it too, thanks to Thingiverse member A. Marston Croft and his friend Nate Stephens.

I have not read the books yet – don’t behead me! – but from what I gather, Martin has not yet laid out the rules of Cyvasse and the appearance of its pieces completely. So Croft took a few liberties here and there.

I’m sure you can forgive him if his work doesn’t live up to what you thought Cyvasse would be like, especially since Croft did all the work for you. Head to Thingiverse to download the 3D templates and the rules (pdf) for free.

[via The UberReview]

When it’s your wife’s birthday, you don’t just give her a present you buy from the store. You make her a present that she can’t get anywhere else, because it’s her birthday and you want to make her happy and wow her with your creativity and thoughtfulness.

That’s not a generally-applied rule, of course, but it’s one that Reddit contributor XsimonbelmontX aka Brandon apparently lives by. Brandon knew that his wife’s favorite video game was Fallout. So he set out to create a customized and one-of-a-kind Fallout version of Monopoly.

He painted over a regular Monopoly board and added Fallout-inspired locations, replacing the coveted Boardwalk property with Tenpenny Tower. Instead of paper money, the official currency is a range of bottle caps, from a $1 Nuka-Cola Quartz up to a $500 Sunset Sarsaparilla Star piece.

The game pieces received a makeover, too. Brandon melted a bunch of superhero and Army men action figures to create Liberty Prime. The Pip-Boy figure, meanwhile, required over 20 different plastics to put together.

Even the ‘Chance’ and ‘Community’ cards weren’t left untouched, as Brandon created new Vault-Tec cards to add a number of twists and turns that a typical game of Monopoly wouldn’t normally have.But then again, there’s nothing typical about this game.

Obviously, Brandon’s wife loved it. She posted a comment on Reddit, saying: “This is the best present I have ever (and probably will ever) receive.”

Guys, the bar has been raised yet again.

[via C|NET]

There are hundreds of tabletop games, board games and card games, and with them come even more tokens and other game pieces, some of which you’ll almost surely lose over the years. This neat little invention by Rodney Benesh lets you replace your lost game tokens and personalize your gaming experience as well.

There’s nothing fancy about the Doppelganger. It’s just two one inch LCD screens positioned back to back and resting on a one sq.in. base. Connect the Doppelganger to a computer via USB to transfer up to 30 images; a button on the Doppelganger’s base lets you flip through the pictures. The current prototype’s battery lasts up to 4 hours, but Rodney hope to increase that to 8 hours in later models.

Pledge at least $20 (USD) on Kickstarter to reserve your own Doppelganger. The Doppelganger may be a simple device, but as the video above shows, its functionality is limited only by your imagination. I’m guessing people who love playing role-playing games won’t have a problem with that.

Growing up I played plenty of Monopoly with my friends. Typically, a game started out the same way no matter who I played with, which is to say a fight over who got to be the racecar. No one wanted to be the hat, the shoe, or the incredibly lame iron.

The people at Hasbro recently held a vote to determine which of the existing Monopoly pieces would be booted from the game. While the voting was close – with the shoe and wheelbarrow in the running to be ejected from the game, the useless iron was the piece ultimately voted off the island Atlantic City.

The piece that will replace the iron in the set is a small cat.

The cat will be a good complement to the Scottie dog that is currently used as one of the pieces in the game. It was voted most popular during the online competition, and won out against a helicopter, diamond ring, guitar and a robot (which would have been cool.)

The iron isn’t the first Monopoly piece to be removed from the game. In the 50s a lantern, a purse, and a rocking horse were removed. New versions of Monopoly with the cat will be available later this year.

[via BBC]

Perhaps it was because it gave me the chance to pretend I was a surgeon at age 10, or maybe it was just the risk of tiny shocks that made Operation one of my favorite childhood games. Of course, as I grew up, video games took over, and Mega Man was certainly in heavy rotation on my NES console. So when I saw this game which combines Operation and Mega Man, I though it would have been perfect for me when I was a kid.

This customized Operation game features the mighty and powerful Guts Man from the Mega Man games in place of Cavity Sam – yes, that guy had a name. It was made by toy hacker Kody Koala, who previously gave us the grotesque Gutsman anatomy doll. This mod got its start as an Iron Man Operation game and a Guts Man vinyl toy, bogth transformed by Mr. Koala into an awesome version of the classic electronic board game. As expected, all of his innards hanging out for you to perform various -ectomies on.

In place of classic guts like the Funny Bone and Spare Ribs, Guts Man has a Frozen Heat Pump and a Rusted Underbelly. The game is fully-functional, and even includes custom Gutsman inspired money to play with.  Of course, his chest light illuminates if you make any surgical gaffes – though I’m not sure what sounds he makes when you goof up. I’m guessing the ones from Iron Man Operation, since he has the exact same part names.

Of course, all of this awesomeness doesn’t come cheap. You’ll need to save up $225(USD) to get your hands on this thing. But if you’ve got the dough kicking around (and not Monopoly money), then head on over to Etsy and grab it up, before another budding surgeon does.