A Board Gamer Reviews The Roach
Scott Nicholson of On Board Games reviews The Shab-al-Hiri Roach and gives it the green light (.mp3 link). It’s interesting to hear a board-game-centric take on it.
Fair Play
Sumerian Resources
For the Sumerian-lover in you!
The Electronic Corpus of Sumerian Literature and a handy English-Cuneiform translator.
Roach Actual Play Podcast
Those ne’er-do-wells over at the House of the Harping Monkey have been playing The Shab-al-Hiri Roach, and following their actual play is really interesting. I just listened to episode 32 and they are finally getting up to speed. Regina Sutton is dead, anyway!
The Cashington Roach
Hey, check out The Cashington Roach! An alternate setting based on eighties night-time soap operas like Dallas is a natural!
What’s a Hyphen Between Friends?
I was worried that I’d completely botched the title to our first game, which refers to a place I learned about in the context of the first Gulf War and located on a military aviation chart, but my friend (and former Arabic student) Eric J. Boyd puts pay to that worry! Eric writes:
“Generally speaking, “al” simply serves as a definite article like “the” in English. In written Arabic, it is directly connected to a word (like “alHiri” or “alTikriti), which is why the hyphen gets used in transliterating to English to show that connection. So I’d usually transliterate the name as Shab al-Hiri. But using an “al” construction ties the two words together in a meaning like Saddam al-Tikriti or “Saddam, the one from Tikrit” so I can totally see the value in using two hyphens to tie everything together. Transliteration is always inexact and opinions differ, so your source using Shab-al-Hiri is just as legitimate. I really wouldn’t sweat it.”