How to make a board game

1) Have an idea. If this idea is a rowing related monopoly rip-off, then this is the guide for you. If it's not, then ignore the rest of the instructions and do your own thing.

2) Design the outline of the board electronically. Work out how many squares there ought to be and the correct proportions.

3) Spend a few days thinking up ideas for chance cards and properties. Write them down.

4) Print off a prototype board

5) Look at the prototype. Think about how it could be better. Make those changes. 

6) Print off the chance, community chest and property cards. I created a property card template and then filled in the other details by hand, but you could also type up the individual properties and print them out.

7) Design the money. Decide you don't like it. Redisgn the money. Realise you need coloured paper.

8) Buy a pack of children's activity coloured paper for the money. Print off the money and have a moment of horror as you realise that you have set yourself the monumental task of cutting out somewhere in the region of 250 monopoly notes. Allow a sense of stubborn pride to kick in. Prepare yourself for a night of watching panorama on iplayer. End the evening fully up to date on current affairs and with a set of cut out monopoly money.

So much money

9) Print out the board on A3 sheets. Spend a considerable amount of time working out how best to position the overlaps.

10) Using a powerful combination of Prittstick and Sellotape, create a 45cmx45cm base out of card. Carefully line up the board, and stick down. Trim around the edges if required.

11) Get out all those sharpies you spontaneously purchased earlier that week and start colouring in, writing in place names and property prices. 

12) Print out some counters onto card. Consider drawing them before remembering a lack of artistic talent. 

13) 'Borrow' some dice from a lesser board game. 

14) Print out blades instead of houses and keep self entertained by colouring them in the colours of all the different cambridge colleges.

15) Find a group of willing test subjects (boatie friends) and entice them with the prospect of tea and cake. Play for a tortuous 3 hours by the end of which you never want to see a monopoly board again.

15) Decorate an amazon box as storage and perform the terrifying task of cutting and folding the board so it fits. Watch with dismay as the paper crinkles slightly and then decide that it doesn't matter all that much. 

The reason I dropped art in year 9 has never been more apparent 

16) Consider the possibility of CUWluedo. 

17) Consider your degree. 

18) Be satisfied with monoply.

Don't worry, be HAPpy

Today, I want to talk about the silliest paper in the history tripos.

This blog post started off with me actually doing work (gasp), but quickly descended into a search for the weirdest question the history faculty has devised in the past five years.

For the uninitiated, HAP stands for Historical Argument and Practice. It's an exam taken in the third year of the Cambridge history degree that consists of one essay in three hours. There's a choice of about 30 questions, which, considering how ridiculous some of the questions are, is probably a good thing...

I have a sneaking suspicion that I don't understand many of the questions because I've been rowing rather than studying, but either way, these are my ten favourite:

This is the point where I start to wonder if I've paid enough attention over the last year, but maybe historical explanation is, um, historical?

And I am paranoid about the lack of 'discuss' or other useful instruction at the end of this question. What does it mean? What do you want of me?

This is a totally reasonable question, maybe for a 300 page book.

Again, there is no 'discuss' at the end of this question. I suspect it's just a statement to reassure failed novelists who happen to be sitting the exam.

In great depth? With reference to the numerous historiographical waves? I'm not actually sure, I'm just fishing around for answers here. 

Is this 'Big Question' a question?

Best answers get submitted to the government, and the fellows who wrote the exam paper get their funding back.

I'm not sure if I want to laugh, cry, or stare blankly into the distance. I just... I think I'm missing some vital piece of knowledge about the historiography of objectivity. Or possibly the examiners were drunk.

This is just the historian's version of 'I'd rather be at Oxford than St Johns'

This type of question is designed to confuse and upset.

STOP IT NOW PLEASE


I'm going to go cry, reconsider my work schedule, and make an effort to go to lectures this year.


PS If you looked at any one of these and understood/started to construct an answer in your mind:

• I hate you
• No I don't please enlighten me as to how you gained this knowledge oh wise one

And we're off...

Trialling again...
After a summer full of flying (went solo twice, didn't crash, success), running around a training base firing blanks (didn't get too injured or sent home ill this time, also success), walking 100 miles (one small blister on the little toe of my left foot, huge success), and a couple of weeks relaxing at home and cooking for my family (haven't given anyone food poisoning yet, must try harder), I'm back in Cambridge for my third and final year.  

The 2015 Boat Race season is a particularly exciting and historic one for CUWBC. For the first time, the heavyweight women's blue boat will be racing on the same day, down the same course as the men. The lightweights and Blondie are still racing in Henley, but the chance to be part of the first squad to send a women's boat down the boat race on the same day is amazing. I was having doubts this summer as to whether I really wanted to drag myself through another year of sleep deprivation and pain, but less than 24 hours after arriving back in Cambridge, I was certain.

We were thrown back into training with a 2K test and an afternoon on an assault course, activities that epitomise the bizarre combination of 'fun' and hard work that comes with trialling. I'm now bruised, sore, and aching, but nevertheless feeling positive about this season.

New season resolutions:
-Stop eating granola
-Keep a better training diary
-Stretch at every opportunity (maybe not literally, might start to get a few weird looks)
-Enjoy the training. Even when it's 6am and cold and dark, my whole body is aching, my hands are raw and there are a million places I think I'd rather be, remember how special this opportunity is.

New methods of procrastination:
-Experimenting with different flavours of fruit and herbal teas (This will be worthy of a whole post in a couple of weeks)

The current tea collection

-Designing rowing themed board games (CUWBC-opoly is definitely happening)

It's a work in progress...

-Buying unnecessary stationery (there was a pack of 26 sharpies on offer. I don't need 26 sharpies. If anyone ever wants a permanent marker, I am your woman)


Watch this space for updates in how I try not to let my degree get in the way of rowing and flying, lightweighting endeavors, and more board games...