The Catan Dice Game comes with small marking pads to keep score, but you can get the pdf of the score sheet off the Catan website and print it out full size.
By laminating the pages with plastic (yes I know) I could mark the pages and then re-use them.
I did not want to use a plastic pen to mark them but I found a pencil to do the job - Staedtler Glasochrom.
The playing pieces I made myself by slicing up a stick and a piece of rail. The board is a piece of cloth cut with pinking shears to stop it fraying. It is a homemade game of Tak.
The rules to Tak are simple as they are in all the best games. But the play is complex.
Tak was once an imaginary game in the fantasy book A Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss [2011, ISBN 987-0-7564-0407-9]. I have read the book many times, it is a great adventure - but I cannot recommend it. It is volume two of a trilogy and the third volume is yet to be published.
The story is told in flashback, each volume is covers the tale as told over one day in a remote inn. It is a the tale of a talented child who witnesses his parents murder and then overcomes extraordinary hardship to become a talented musician and adventurer. So far a common but well told fantasy story. The twist seems to be that he is a broken man - he has failed to avenge his parents' death, he has lost his love, and he has unleashed horrors upon the world. Volume Three is expected to be one more day so how can anything be resolved in the protagonist's favour.
But Tak is fun.
Australian designed, Australian made and no longer available.
I found the game in a Vinnies second-hand shop. The shape of the pieces allows them to interlock - very clever.
Board games are physical. Handling and clicking the pieces into place is a delight.
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