I is for I Bought a Beautiful Thing . . .

. . . for a pound! And by the time I've loaded this I may have bought another for £1.75!

Clearly the 'time from purchase to discard' for board games is approximately ten years! I bought this set in a charity shop in Farnborough the other day for a pound; it was absolutely mint with everything present bar one purple counter.

I took all the photo's and sorted the images for a blog post, added the last image as an afterthought, announced it here on the Blog in passing the other day, and then yesterday (Wednesday 28th - about a week later), saw another one for one-seventy-five in a local charity shop! I passed on it as it was a bit tatty, but will see if it's still there tomorrow and if it is I'll get it, for the missing counter!

I feel I can't get across fully, how beautiful this is, issued in 2007 as a joint venture between Identity Design of the Netherlands, New Line Cinema (presumably the licensor) and the UK's Re:creation and designed by a Lucia Haakman it is a joyous thing to handle.

The tin with its dimensional pressed lid and with lenticulars is a harbinger of the contents which don't disappoint.

The quick start fold-out and rule booklet, DVD and case and some of the board components; all beautifully illustrated and in keeping with the 'Steampunk' look of the original movie's setting in a slightly-alternate or parallel, fantasy, future-past, which I've seen and enjoyed in its own right.

The board is a large disc unfolding from four-quarters around which are arranged the arcs of the clock/compass - seen in the previous shot - with three double-sided play-areas set into the middle; where your players are situated.

And then there are the players! Aren't they gorgeous? The best has to be the female villain of the piece - Mrs. Coulter (65mm); agent of the Magisterium - and the model even looks like the actress who played her in the movie; Nichole Kidman.

The other two are Lyra Belacqua (Dakota Blue Richards; the 11-year old heroine) and Lord [007!] Asriel (Daniel Craig taking time-off from MI6) who helps save the day (with the aid of an armour-plated bear, a bunch of good witches, the Gyptians and assorted other fantastical elements including the eponymous Golden Compass - actually an Alethiometer . . . of course; who didn't know that!

All three figures come with their familiar or Daemon, with Mrs Coulter's (an nameless, evil little-shit Golden Tamarind) and Lyra's - Pantalaimon ('Pan', some kind of polecat or martin) being moulded as part of the base, having the human figurine glued-on afterward, while Lord Asriel and his 'snow-panther' (Himalayan snow-leopard) Daemon - Stelmaria - are both added to a slightly thinner base.

I can't remember who's Daemon is the cat . . . Mrs Coulter's lackey, the Headmaster, the politician-type from the Magisterium or the 'Klondike Pete' chap Lyra finds? Anyway, there are counters for up to four players, although any number can join in as everyone is working to help Lyra.

The three figures are indicators of game play - Mrs Coulter is commanded by the DVD and Lord Asriel is controlled by play-outcome rather than player-turn; indeed one of his jobs is to indicate player turns! While the Lyra figurine shows how she is progressing, independently of the players.

The tin also has the three Daemon lenticulars stuck-on the lid; it's all about small touches adding to the richness of the game as a whole.

However, I fear this may be a case of the style being greater than the substance; I remember toward the end of the era of cassette tapes having interactive board-games with a cassette you had to keep fast-spooling forward and back to find spoken instructions on the next piece of game-play, then in the VHS era, similar games were tried, now we have a DVD version.

I tried it and it's slow . . . and complicated. It says you must have a remote and DVD-player, well . . . a laptop to hand does the same job; faster, but it still slows play and requires a level of concentration you don't get with most popular board games.

It's as if the rules are being created as you play, yet the fact that the game-play is contained on a DVD as a series of .flv files and some old-school hierarchical coded instructions ("If X, then Y, if Y then return to A" type stuff) means that ultimately it's going to be a foregone conclusion with a simplistic outlook, likely to favour the 'heros' (you; the players helping Lyra) more often than not?

Except that one player can win - by having more credits at the end (a list-minute cop-out to competitiveness in a cooperative game!) and I haven't bored you with cards or dust chips!

A game of chance where the odds are fixed and variables limited is not one you are going to return to regularly, is it? I really hope the companies involved got their money-back, just for effort because it is a beautiful, beautiful thing, to handle and look at!

I'm sure it was tested by gamers before issue for playability, equally I guess the increasing army of board-game fans will have a fine 'session' with it, but for your average, Joe-public, family - looking for a Boxing Day time-killer - I suspect this was a game too far, hence two turning-up within a fortnight, less than five miles apart?

If anyone has played it perhaps they can tell me different? I know there's boardgamegeek.com for this sort of stuff, but covering the odd game or three each year will not make Small Scale World any threat to that site! And - to be honest - the new layout at Boardgamegeek is worse than the old one!

However, if it's starting to appear in charity shops, look out for it, the three figures are quite literally lush! BBG lists about six Golden Compass-related games and one other has five figures, so that's on the target list!

Equally, I know there are or have been various plans to make sequels to the movie, which have so far not materialised, but I'd recommend it as a stand-alone anyway;  if you haven't seen it - but do like a bit of fantasy, although if you are a fan of the books (Philip Pullman's 'His Dark Materials' trilogy) you may want to give it a miss!

Footnote - Got the other one - spare figures and combined minty-set!