[davidlhsl]

Outdoors: Yep, I tried it. I decided to play solo to make certain I was playing correctly. Hiked a total of 6 miles at South Cumberland round-trip. I took the Grundy Forest trail to the Fiery Gizzard trail head, hiked Fiery Gizzard to the point where the Dog Hole trail leads out of the gorge (the standard way up is to follow Fiery Gizzard which is more strenous, but I'm not in good enough shape for that), then followed the Dog Hole trail along the top to a nice overlook. A brown butterfly found me an interesting presence, as it landed on my finger and then my pants leg and began probing with its antennae. That satisfied my Secret Objective, giving me a net score of 0.3.

I wish I lived closer, because I need a strenous trail like that to get me in the hiking shape I was in back in 2004-2006 when gas was less expensive.

Sigh.

Tile Chess
This is a game that's out of print, but it will be republished by Steve Jackson Games. Neat feature: It's easy to simply play it using chess pieces I already have and my Chessex Battle Mat (with the 1" square grid). That's why I was able to give this game a trial run.

My dad and I played the quick variant where each side only gets one of each standard piece, plus three pawns. You take turns placing a piece on the grid, with the King being placed last. The trick: all pieces have to be connected (diagonals count as adjacent).

Then you take turns. The trick: you may not move a piece in such a way that breaks the connection of all the pieces. Second trick, because you've been good: pawns move in either of four directions orthogonally and capture in either of four directions diagonally. Pawns are also subject to the restriction of not being able to break the continuous connection of all the pieces. Want a third trick? You're really making me work for this, aren't you? Ok, ok, you deserve it: your Queen/Rook/Bishop can move through friendly pieces.

I only played as two players, but the game actually supports up to 6, I believe (the reprint will only support 4 players with the provided components). When a player captures another player's King, all that losing player's remaining pieces on the table are controlled by the conquering player.

You really have to play this yourself to see how wild this variant can be. We found ourselves constantly pinning some of our pieces by putting them where they couldn't move away without breaking the connection.

The game also indicates that you can combine this with Knightmare Chess. This is scheduled to be re-released in October. I have Knightmare Chess: Second Edition, but I don't have the expansion Knightmare Chess 2. The reprint will include both sets together, so I'll definitely get this when it's released.