The Colonies of Catan

The island of Catan evolved over hundreds of years. Weary settlers founded cities that would one day have their populations explode. Fields of wheat and pastures for sheep were eventually paved with concrete and decorated with skyscrapers and parking meters. The lovely forests, once thriving and healthy, were chopped to oblivion. The ore mines had all been expended.

A smoggy and grey metropolis, the island of Catan was booming with factories and shops, and was very dependent upon modern technology. Blissfully ignorant, citizens went about their daily lives, unaware that tragedy lurked just beyond the setting sun.

An asteroid was headed straight for the island. Scientists were baffled by its speed and didn’t see it coming until it was too late. There was little time to warn others to evacuate. Much of the island perished.

Now survivors must rebuild by using only what's left of the island to help them. A new world order has begun where it’s a race for resources and a fight to keep what’s rightfully yours. In this post-apocalyptic version of Settlers of Catan, players must recolonize the island, avoid being raided by marauders, and do their best to live off the grid.

Come play The Colonies of Catan.


Except you can't because of intellectual copy-write laws.

After spending a solid week of creating and designing my Settlers of Catan spin-off, I was told by the company The Game Crafter (a site that helps you create custom games and cards) that it was illegal for them to print a single copy of my game and I had to make changes or else provide express written consent from someone at Mayfair Games and their contact information for verification.

So I changed the name of my game to Colonies of Kazzah and that seemed to do the trick because my game has been shipped and I'm expected to get it by the end of the week. The game costs $65.31 to print one copy. It costs $30.60 to ship it to Canada. Not very cost effective, but I look forward to playing my prototype with friends. And if it's any good, maybe I will try to sell it at some point in the future.

So come play The Colonies of Kazzah!

Standing Invitations

The problem with standing invitations is that for the most part, they don't work the way people intend them to. It's a really lazy way to try to keep in touch with someone. When some says I can come over for dinner any time I want, to me it feels like they are saying, I want to see you again, but I don't want to call you and invite you over and set it all up. I also don't want to leave my house. By giving someone a standing invitation, you are putting the onus on them, forcing them to do all the work.

I think it would be weird to call someone up and say, "Hey can I come over for dinner tonight? You said I could whenever I wanted." People don't usually invite themselves over like that because it's rude.

People always give standing invitations to those who are sick or grieving. Call me if you need anything. If you ever need help, let me know. It's all so vague and the gesture is nice, but how many actually cash in on it and pick up the phone? Not many. They're all too busy being sick or sad and don't want to be a burden on anyone else.

I was reading an article about how to help a grieving friend. It said that instead of asking your friend to call if they want help around the house, you should just show up and do it. Just show up and mow the lawn or mop the floors or whatever needs to get done because a person in morning is not going to ask you to do it for them no matter how much they may want to.

Sometimes standing invitations are appropriate though. For example:

"Call me if you're ever in town and need a place to stay."

That makes sense. How would I know when you're in town unless you told me?

"Call me if you ever need a babysitter, a designated driver, or a handyman."

I'm not going to call you every week asking if you need my services, so these standing invitations are appropriate.

"If you ever need to borrow my tools, my car, my cottage, my tennis racket, whatever, just call."

Again, I'm not going to offer these things to you every day and keep checking in if want to borrow them or not. One invitation is enough.

But when it comes to social things like visiting, dinners, coffee, and hanging out, a standing invitation is really passive. What ends up happening is nobody calls anybody and too much time elapses between visits.

Then you've got one party who's upset because their standing invitation is backfiring and they haven't heard from their friend, but they don't want to call because they've already "invited" them over once. Meanwhile, the friend has forgotten about the standing invitation because it wasn't a real invitation and has gotten caught up with life and other things.

Finally the friend decides to call, but doesn't invite himself over for dinner. Due to the standing invitation, the other party doesn't offer another invite thinking their friend doesn't want to have dinner, otherwise they would have asked.

More time elapses. Finally the friend calls again mentioning they should all get together because it's been a while. Come on over! We thought you'd never ask!. A lovely time is had by all and at the end of the evening those dreaded words are uttered again, "Call us the next time you want to have dinner. Come over anytime!"

Nobody every learns. I would much rather someone call me and ask me if I was free to come over for dinner on Sunday. I don't want to call someone to see if they're free for me to come over there for dinner one Sunday. If I'm going to call someone about dinner, it will be to invite them over to my place for dinner because that's more polite.

That's my rant. Don't give people standing invitations to have dinner at your house.