iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 47m

They couldn't've put this on a Brioche Bun instead?

A menu item: "Beer Braised Bratwurst Pretzel Bun"

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

My kid was rightfully proud of the clues “A2E” for Rat and “Nobody” for Cyclops.

A piece of paper on a table, with various words written it, in front of a white cardboard stance holding four cards with a single word each on them

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

TIL that The Ketchup Song's single cover looks like... this

A green square with clashing red text KETCHUP in Helvetica on top, with an overlapping smaller blue LAS, three different colored tomatoes with legs awkwardly extending from them in the middle, and the white Helvetica text ASEREJE small on the bottom

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

What I played in August! Tons of new-to-me thanks to GenCon. The highlights of the new stuff were Rosetta, Orapa Mine, Jibber Jabble, Wee Folk, and Spell, as someone who likes language, deduction, party games, slightly antagonistic pattern creation, and heavily antagonistic pattern creation.

A grid of board game boxes and titles showing what I've played the most. The top row includes SPELL (8), Jibber Jabble (7), Orapa Mine (7), Rosetta: The Lost Language (6), Stereo Mind (6), and The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - Trick Taking Game (3).

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

I'm sure I'm not the only person to name a worm Wrigley but I'll still be proud of it

A rulebook snippet with a cute cartoon bookworm named Wrigley

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

The upside of using a fantasy drafting platform that looks like it hasn't been updated in 20 years: it probably doesn't include any AI pushes!

The interface of MyFootballLeague, which is filled with tables and grids and just generally looks like your favorite site from 2006

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

I've named my team Brock Purdy's Block Party and used this as my team icon. Waiting for my leaguemates to ask why I didn't use AI to make some gross icon like they did.

The official team portrait of Brock Purdy with a clumsily pasted on party hat

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

My weird work league is drafting in a couple days. It’s weird because it only lasts 9 weeks. Winner gets a free PTO day so I’m drafting exclusively players with a bye week of 10 or later.

A draft screenshot showing players such as Lamar Jackson (bye 13), CeeDee Lamb (bye 14) and Harold Fannin (bye 11)

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

I've been logging my board game plays since mid 2008. Of the 19 calendar years I've covered, there are 5 titles I've played each year, and another 6 more I've only skipped one year. I've got to get back to playing more Metropolys!

19 years covered by Dominion, Neuroshima Hex, Metropolys, Scrabble and Galaxy Trucker. 18 years covered by Bali, Diamant, Agricola, On the Underground, Prophecy, and Bohnanza.

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Thanks @daveexmachina.bsky.social for the Silver Key, making my tiny desk ornament section a bunch cooler!

A wooden box of dice, a Browns helmet, Porygon, and a Blue Prince silver key

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

I really have to stop doing mock drafts a month before the actual thing but I can’t stop, and nobody will or should care about them

A Sleeper draft with the first picks of Gibbs, Henry, Pickens and Irving

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

My word search game Worms Upon A Time has been accepted into the Pax Unplugged Indie Night Market! Very excited to take part in it this year, after enjoying it as a buyer last year.

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

I've designed a sort of @jetlagthegame.bsky.social game for my family to play! My wife and two kids will play as a team together trying to win enough time doing challenges around our town to accomplish a bunch of them. They'll have a hand of 2 at any given moment, full rules in last pic.

A grid of challenges including "Hear your name", "Enter a vehicle you don't own", and "Give me the Ghiblis"

A grid of challenges including "Fight city hall", "Beautify the city", and "Enter the Snack Zone"

A grid of various challenges, including "Know your ABCs", "Font Hunt", and "Do something apt"

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

I always have too much fun putting together my fantasy football team wordmarks

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Rosetta by @dvcgames.bsky.social is still great even in a loss where one of the original inscription’s pieces never comes up. (The intended meaning here was Thunderstorm.)

Cards with invented language pictographs and English notes

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Oh no, our fantasy league commish announced our draft positions and now I can’t stop doing mock drafts

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Spell is a great-looking duel of grid manipulation, and if you’re doing well it really pats you on the back and says you’re so good, well done! And if you make a misstep it places its boot on your head and tells you you’re scum.

A game box labeled SPELL, colored pink, black and white.

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Rosetta is really cool stuff. Thanks for the reprint @dvcgames.bsky.social !

Two children seated at a table with cards showing a mix of English and an invented script

A bunch of cards a table showing an invented script and its English translation

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

They might be fake They might be lies They might be big big fake fake lies @tmbg.bsky.social @allplay.bsky.social

A snippet of the Fiction: Banned Books edition rulebook where lying is illustrated with GIANT guessed for MIGHT

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

My final GenCon haul: Spell, Rosetta, Bubble & Shadow, Orapa Mine, Silver Mine, Fiction: Banned Books, Jibber Jabble, Le Chocolat, and Stereo Mind

A collection of board games laid out on a brown table

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Aetherspire did great for us at GenCon. It was a thrill to demo the game for so many enthusiastic people who got into the game and tried to harness the power of the elements!

Myself and three other people at a GenCon booth. I’m holding a box of Aetherspire.

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Two from Playte: Silver Mine is a lose-the-race race game Stereo Mind is Dixit(ish) with music And finally from Bezier: Zombie Princess is like Spades (the best traditional card game) with special powers

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Cola Wars caught my eyes with its theme, that might get it extra table time Computer Junkyard involves interesting interlocking tile placement Into the Machine was described as a "comboriffic" race Compress from Oink is a binary-based memorization game, and I usually trust Oink

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Lion Dancers looks like a better Deep Sea Adventure Lionwake is a hodgepodge of deck building, resource management, and dice combat, and looks great Dragonarium I'm looking at for the kids, its theme and sense of building looks like it'd really grab them

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Defenders of the Dictionary looks like coop campaign Codenames Brumble Quest looks on the verge of being too simple, but maybe it'll be a perfect quick casual game Soar is an attractive-looking bidding game Spell is a wizard duel with pattern creation

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Then a few @allplay.bsky.social maybes: 3 Witches, a 2v1 trick taker Le Chocolat, I-cut-you-choose A Fiction expansion Jibber Jabble, a spelling-based coop clue giving game

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Tim's GenCon 2026 Check It Out list! At the tippy top: @dvcgames.bsky.social's Rosetta is a new edition of a language creation game I've wanted for years and never expected to get! Strange Slot Simulator by Hobby Japan is a deduction game that I'm only checking out because of HJ's past successes.

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

The twenty-year-old pretty-good route building game Thurn & Taxis is oddly getting two remakes this year? I mean, any presentation is more audience-grabbing than "the 19th century Bavarian postal system, now in ultra-beige", but I'm surprised it kept enough attention after all these years.

Korean Instagram post of "The Birth of the Post"

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Teaser for my upcoming Tim's Game Den video. What could it be about?

A circle divided into five parts. Tiny Towns is labeled with hands receiving different amounts of money. Terraforming Mars is labeled with a hand truck containing boxes. Everdell is marked with a tower silhouetted with a person in front. Zendo is marked with a stick figure pointing at a whiteboard while three stick figures look. Bohnanza is marked with hands giving an apple.

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

As someone who's made a game using dice as a structural component... I hear you

A game prototype with cards being stacked on top of each other using dice as pillars

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

I just heard this song ("Stress" by Jim's Big Ego) for the first time in a long while, and the "stick my thumb in a peach and leave it there" bit just cracked me up for some reason

i love to work i love to run i love to play real hard
i love to steal little things from the grocery store
like a piece of bubble gum or sometimes i just stick
my thumb in a peach and leave it there

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

The thumbnail might be a bit on the clickbaity side but I don't think it's TOO egregious?

Tim's Game Den: How a joke almost broke this CCG

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Excited for my newest Tim's Game Den video - what happens when a niche CCG takes a joke Magic card and makes it a legitimately strong tournament play?

Tim's Game Den presents: Redemption and the Haman's Plot problem

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

No idea what I was trying to cook up with this track

Scoring
Figments score something when they match the Dreamer. (Figments score a little something extra if their concepts get used?) Dreamer scores something too. Maybe some multidimensional track between peaceful wakeup and nightmare wakeup?

0=++XX> nightmare
=++XX*>
++XX**>
+XX**!
XX**!
X**!
**!
*!
v good dream

Could this track also have segments that change things up slightly? Reveal some information, add extra opportunities, etc?

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Apparently a year ago I was brainstorming some kind of Aetherspire sequel and called my file "Aethestspire"

A Google Sheets screenshot labeled "Aethestspire" containing a grid of element combinations, like Air + Earth = Sandstorm

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

Sincerely hoping this nice note from my kid’s teacher isn’t meant in the Timbuk 3 nuclear war sense

A colorful card stating “Your future is so bright you’re gonna need shades!”

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

There’s always something charming reading stories taking place in the far future, which is now just the near future, and will soon be the past.

Table of contents for The Martian Chronicles, with events starting in the year 2030

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

I'm currently leading my LearnedLeague C rundle division, and I don't know how this happened. I had two wins with only 2 correct answers out of 6. my defense is abysmal but I also have lucked into one of the easiest schedules in the division (6th fewest Correct Answers Against).

The standings at the top of a LearnedLeague rundle, with me in first place.

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

This version of The Price Is Right's Giant Price Tag always cracks me up. TPIR is THE FUTURE!!!

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

We had a great time in our tenth game of Gibberers. Our oldest had a laughing fit after Mom described communism using our very limited vocabulary as ”inside, bread eat human”. The work of Yakov Smirnoff is timeless.

Three people laughing at a table filled with colorful slips

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

3. Fealty. Area control mixed with hand management, with super tough choices on how much to block your opponent and how much to expand your own reach. I think it might fit his early catalog in its tension, modularity, and high interactivity.

A bunch of colorful shield-shaped and circular tokens on a square grid

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

2. Fellowships of Fate. Vlaada loves his psychological guess-what-you'll-do games, and I could see this being his take on something like Witch's Brew.

Character cards and resources from Fellowships of Fate

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

1. Ravens of Thri Sahashri. Vlaada loves odd themes, controlled communication, odd themes a bizarre theme (one player is comatose and the other is going through their dreamscape and making a poem of their memories, or something) and the occasional tough-to-teach game.

An array of cards that are mostly monochrome but with one color element each

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

I'm going to turn this into a video at some point, but for now, here's my tier ranking of every* game designed by Vlaada Chvatil. To be clear, even the D tier games are worth playing. *collapsing remakes/rethemes/expansions into the main title

A screenshot of a Tiermaker ranking of Vlaada Chvatil games. S tier has Through the Ages, Galaxy Trucker, and Space Alert.

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Graenaland's player count poll on BGG is really curious at 5P! A pretty even split whether the 5P game is the best, the worst, or just average - a split not seen at any other player counts.

A BGG poll showing that the 5-player Graenaland is rated as "best" by 8 people, "Recommended" by 7, and "Not recommended" by 6.

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

Home improvement project is going real well

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

Just learned about the game so mired in the copyright swamp that they don't even list a designer on BoardGameGeek.

The BoardGameGeek entry for "TseuQuesT", originally sold as Heroquest 25th anniversary edition

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Practical Tim @practicalpeng.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

The crocheters have Rallies in Chains

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