Haven’t found your passion in life? How about have a go at building your empire at Travian, a web based MMOG (Massively Multiplayer Online Game), where you build your village, and then through upgrading your resources output and attacking other villages, you get to upgrade your village into a City and slowly into an empire that controls the Travian world. Unlike many MMOG, the web based Travian is a relatively slow game, where upgrading resources, or researches could take up to hours to complete. The same goes to attacking villages that are far away too.

This makes the game perfect for busy people or for those who do not want to spend too much time on games. One could option to be active, and stay with the online PC all day long, waiting for the resources to be completed or play on other worlds within Travian, or just log in at interval times, and do all the necessary upgrades or attacks, and leave it till you get the chance to log in again.

The objective is to built the biggest empire and alliance, and this wins you bragging rights. There is no cash nor any kind of award, just the satisfaction of winning the game. The game is free to play, however, if you want additional features, such as faster resources production or attacking advantage, one could option to purchase gold’s coins called Travian Plus that can be used for those purposes.

The game have a total of 6 servers and each have it’s own uniqueness. For example, Server 3 is a speed server, and so everything in Server 3 works faster, so if you are the person who spend all day online, you might want to have a go on the game at server 3. The game comes in 17 languages, and some of the languages have only one server.

Me and May Lin spent a couple of weekends playing the game. It is like playing our life away. Building, attacking, got raided, buid more, etc.. This occupies the whole of our weekend. Of course we were at the server 3, where everything just works at superb speed. The game is very much like life, we build up to a level, and before you go to the next level, suddenly you lost all your army to another stronger player, and start to build the army from scratch again. We practically wasted some good times on Travian, and I do advice not to start on this game. Once you start, you can’t stop.

About a month back, I came across this Blog from Penang, the title caught my attention, “3rd Dimension Board Game Café“. A board game café?, after checking out the blog in detail, the title actually explains it all, there is now a board game café in Penang. It is a café, that not only serves light food, and lets you hang out for long hours, but also serves you board games. They have over 50+ selections of board games and card games, ranging from ordinary to exotic. The regular charge is RM3 per head per hour on weekdays and there are various kinds of promotions that goes by month. The café also host board game weekend where you only pay RM5 for a good 5 hours of game play, and it comes with a free drink too. Board Game weekend time and date are posted at BoardGames Meetup Site.

I remember, my first board game was a Monopoly, it was my birthday, and my dad took me to The Store supermarket (Malaysian Wallmart), and let me have a go at the toys section. My first board game did not survive the test of time, after thousand of hours of game play, pieces got misplaced, eventually I had only half the game left. Board games in Malaysia are expensive. Mainly because all the games are imported, and sold at MRSP, and also due to the currency conversion. Even during sales, there are only the usual 20-30% discount, and even then, it is expensive. So my young days I grew up with the more affordable Malaysian games, like the Gasing (spin top), guli (marbes), etc.. Not exactly board games, the Gasing and Guli still promote skill building and strategy, a good exercise for the body and mind, not to mention social skills.

In the US, board games are part of family fun and pass times. It is the best companion for the rainy day or snowy days in the cold climate. Board games there are truly affordable, one could buy one and get another free during Sales at the toys r us, or get any of the popular games by parker brothers at $9.99 (during sales). When I was there, I build up my own collection of board games, but its no match to 3rd dimension where they have over 50+ selections. They even have Settler of Catan, a popular designers game that is slowly creeping in the ranks in world of board games. The board game helps to keep your mind fresh and constantly challenging the mind of different scenarios at every minute of game play. It is not a lonely game, and enables you to socialize and build good relationships with friends and family alike. There is now a platform for this in Penang, and its at 3rd Dimension Board Game Café.

The café is located at Bayan Lepas area, and the map is posted on the blog. The blog provide updates on events, customers who visited the café, and also promotions. It’s a good place to test out games, so that you know which ones you likes before go spending your money on the ever expensive imported games. It’s a good place to bring your family, to instill good values for your children and family through games, and it is also a good place for the love birds to get to know each other better. If one is single, it is a good place to meet up with people of your same interest.

What do you do, when you ran out of houses for the Monopoly Game? Well, theoretically, if you follow the game rules closely, you will not run out of houses. But if you play it in my twisted rules, within the hour, the houses are all gone. So, what do one do to compensate for the lack of housing? We build squatter houses of course. Our favorite squatter house is the paper clip.