Sunday morning my friends dropped me at the Westin and began their trip back to KC.
Pax
I wandered around the gaming area looking for something short to play and finally joined a game of Pax. Pax is a short card game about contesting Rome. It's a set collection game with one of two objects. If, between all players, at least one player beats the board in at least four of the seven categories, then each player scores the points on their board and the player with the most points wins. Otherwise, players score only the points in one category (intrigue) and the player with the most points wins.
They call it semi-cooperative, but it's not really. I didn't understand all the rules until the end of the short game, so I didn't fare too well. It's not a bad filler, from what I could tell. I need to try it again to see if there's anything to the game.
BGG.con was very enjoyable and, as usual, amazingly well run. I and my friends all had a great time. I end up playing less games than it would seem time would allow, but more than it would seem possible. I meet many other gamers, people who know games and aren't puzzled or confused as to why I play them or how to play them. But mostly, I simply meet nice people, people whose work I admire and/or the occasional fan of my own blog or games.
Flights
I caught the 10:00 am shuttle to DFW. People on the shuttle discussed games they played. At the airport waiting for the flight to Toronto they discussed games they played.
I saw a redhead in line, and asked her if she was Jewish, divorced, around 40, and hoping to live in Israel, just to be sure I didn't miss my last opportunity to find one on my trip, but no such luck. While waiting for the flight, I heard a sustained thunder of applause that continued for ten minutes; it was a group of American soldiers returning on some flight, I assume from Iraq.
I watched Unknown, a thrilled about a man in Germany whose life is suddenly co-opted by someone else (even his wife appears not to know him) and his struggle to figure out what's happening. It was ok, well acted, and January Jones is always a pleasure (though she doesn't have much to do). Similar to The Bourne Identity series, but a little less so; doesn't add anything new, anyway.
Bought some Canadian Club in Toronto, used the free wi-fi, and then flew to Israel. I watched Bad Teacher. No one to root for and not funny enough. She supposedly undergoes a little personal growth by the end of the movie, but it was hard to see when that happened. I watched Hannah. It was quite good, with good attention paid to the cinematography, something they sometimes forget about in American made movies. Well acted, it's at or near the top of the pile for assassin movies.
I also watched some Modern Family and The Big Bang Theory. I didn't sleep much. In all, I was awake from Sunday morning 6:00 am Dallas time until Monday evening 8:00 pm Israeli time, with about an hour of dozing on the plane.
All my kosher food was in place on all my flights, and I experienced no delays.
The Haul
Games I hauled back include Navegador and Inca Empire (secret santa gifts sent to my hotel), Troyes (bought with box damage from Z-Man), Innovation, Amun Re, Detroit Cleveland Grand Prix, El Capitain (these four acquired through the virtual flea market), Highland Clans (aka Mac Robber), Train of Thought (these two from registration), some Magic cards, and one other game which I'm forgetting right now.
I return to massive amounts of cleaning, bill sorting, and all the other mundane tasks of life, jetlagged and still a little sick from my chill in Ireland. The trouble with vacations is that they come to an end.
Nadine blogs
Nadine has blogged the trip as well here.
Showing posts with label board game geek. Show all posts
Showing posts with label board game geek. Show all posts
Monday, November 21, 2011
Friday, November 18, 2011
Day 16: Many New Games
Games Played
Belfort: A worker placement, area control game by Tasty Minstrel Games. with a fantasy city building game. Actually, the only fantasy element is that you have elves, dwarfs, and gnomes as workers, instead of humans with specialties. The artwork is pretty but very busy, making the game appear to be FFG level complex when it's really straightforward worker placement.
Place guys to earn money, resources, more guys, or bonuses, including private worker placement locations. use resources to buy buildings in the five areas. Reward control in the areas after rounds 3, 5, and 7. Works fine, but nothing new.
Nefarious: Another game by Donald Vaccarino, designer of Dominion. Yesterday's other new game by him (Kingdom Builders) was pleasant enough spacial manipulation, but not really special imho. This one is better.
It's a bare distilled Race For the Galaxy/7 Wonders with a very light invention theme. The game is nothing but cards. Each round, all players select one of four roles to play and reveal. Each player ears money for the roles selected by his neighbors if he has assigned meeples to that role on his board. Then the players do the roles in number order. 1) assign meeples to roles. 2) pay money to play invention cards. These give points and usually a benefit like earn or lose cards or money. 3) take 2 coins and an invention card. 4) take four coins.
Repeat until someone has 20 points. One more thing: each game, two random special rules (out of 30 or so) that modify the game are revealed at the beginning of the game. That's it.
It was quick (20-30 minutes normally), challenging, and essentially perfect. However, in our game we drew the absolute worst two special rule combination possible (I checked afterwards, and I'm not exaggerating). After every invention was played, everyone other than the one who played the invention lost all of his or her money. It made for some frustration, but some humor as well. Plays for up to five, I think. Unfortunately, FunAgain was charging $60 for this card game, which was way too much.
Tanto Cuore: Nearly an exact clone of Dominion, except it's from Japan, so the game is themed about hiring maids with various skimpy outfits (nothing too salacious). It was being demoed by a girl wearing a skimpy outfit, too; she must have been freezing in the hall. The cards were unique to the game, at least, and there were a few minor rule twists, but nothing that changed it from being Dominion.
Meltdown 2020: A "rescue all your guys from the board" game, usually seen in a fire or volcano themed game. This one had hexes with scattered nuclear plants, which melted down. The more they melted, the more damage they did to neighboring citizens. Each citizen could take three cumulative points until dead. You had three vehicles of various sizes and capacity to rescue them. And the entire game ended if the plants hit a certain level.
It's a light filler route planning game, although I expect it's marketed and priced as a full meaty game. It was good. Didn't inspire me to buy it, but I'd happily play it.
7 Wonders: I joined yet another game, and played straight blue again. This time I was entirely straight blue, earning 15 points from my wonders, 37 points from blue, and -5 from military. That was it. I came in third with 47. The two winners each has 53.
Walnut Grove: By Lookout Games. This is a meaty western themed town and farm game. It was late, so I don't feel I gave it my all. There are eight rounds (years) to the game. Each year has four seasons: pick farm tiles and add to your farm, allocate workers to produce goods on the farm (one good for every contiguous tile in an area), move your guy in the large town rondel to buy stuff with your goods or buy more goods (worker placement, pay money every once in a while), pay your farm hands in food and heat.
It's a tough system, and you're (at least I was) constantly struggling for food and heat, making progress very difficult. There are many avenues for victory points, most of which I never had time to explore.
If you enjoy the Alea games, this will fit in nicely; if you don't, you'll probably be tired of games with pastoral themes and pushing cubes about. I'm happy to play again until I can get a handle on the game, at least.
Indian Food
For lunch, my friends and I went to Dallas to the one of three kosher eateries in Dallas, the Madras Pavilion. It's veggie Indian, authentic enough that most of the people eating there were Indian rather than visibly Jewish. It was also pretty spicy but good (better than my constant stream of cold cuts and peanut butter, anyway).
Belfort: A worker placement, area control game by Tasty Minstrel Games. with a fantasy city building game. Actually, the only fantasy element is that you have elves, dwarfs, and gnomes as workers, instead of humans with specialties. The artwork is pretty but very busy, making the game appear to be FFG level complex when it's really straightforward worker placement.
Place guys to earn money, resources, more guys, or bonuses, including private worker placement locations. use resources to buy buildings in the five areas. Reward control in the areas after rounds 3, 5, and 7. Works fine, but nothing new.
Nefarious: Another game by Donald Vaccarino, designer of Dominion. Yesterday's other new game by him (Kingdom Builders) was pleasant enough spacial manipulation, but not really special imho. This one is better.
It's a bare distilled Race For the Galaxy/7 Wonders with a very light invention theme. The game is nothing but cards. Each round, all players select one of four roles to play and reveal. Each player ears money for the roles selected by his neighbors if he has assigned meeples to that role on his board. Then the players do the roles in number order. 1) assign meeples to roles. 2) pay money to play invention cards. These give points and usually a benefit like earn or lose cards or money. 3) take 2 coins and an invention card. 4) take four coins.
Repeat until someone has 20 points. One more thing: each game, two random special rules (out of 30 or so) that modify the game are revealed at the beginning of the game. That's it.
It was quick (20-30 minutes normally), challenging, and essentially perfect. However, in our game we drew the absolute worst two special rule combination possible (I checked afterwards, and I'm not exaggerating). After every invention was played, everyone other than the one who played the invention lost all of his or her money. It made for some frustration, but some humor as well. Plays for up to five, I think. Unfortunately, FunAgain was charging $60 for this card game, which was way too much.
Tanto Cuore: Nearly an exact clone of Dominion, except it's from Japan, so the game is themed about hiring maids with various skimpy outfits (nothing too salacious). It was being demoed by a girl wearing a skimpy outfit, too; she must have been freezing in the hall. The cards were unique to the game, at least, and there were a few minor rule twists, but nothing that changed it from being Dominion.
Meltdown 2020: A "rescue all your guys from the board" game, usually seen in a fire or volcano themed game. This one had hexes with scattered nuclear plants, which melted down. The more they melted, the more damage they did to neighboring citizens. Each citizen could take three cumulative points until dead. You had three vehicles of various sizes and capacity to rescue them. And the entire game ended if the plants hit a certain level.
It's a light filler route planning game, although I expect it's marketed and priced as a full meaty game. It was good. Didn't inspire me to buy it, but I'd happily play it.
7 Wonders: I joined yet another game, and played straight blue again. This time I was entirely straight blue, earning 15 points from my wonders, 37 points from blue, and -5 from military. That was it. I came in third with 47. The two winners each has 53.
Walnut Grove: By Lookout Games. This is a meaty western themed town and farm game. It was late, so I don't feel I gave it my all. There are eight rounds (years) to the game. Each year has four seasons: pick farm tiles and add to your farm, allocate workers to produce goods on the farm (one good for every contiguous tile in an area), move your guy in the large town rondel to buy stuff with your goods or buy more goods (worker placement, pay money every once in a while), pay your farm hands in food and heat.
It's a tough system, and you're (at least I was) constantly struggling for food and heat, making progress very difficult. There are many avenues for victory points, most of which I never had time to explore.
If you enjoy the Alea games, this will fit in nicely; if you don't, you'll probably be tired of games with pastoral themes and pushing cubes about. I'm happy to play again until I can get a handle on the game, at least.
Indian Food
For lunch, my friends and I went to Dallas to the one of three kosher eateries in Dallas, the Madras Pavilion. It's veggie Indian, authentic enough that most of the people eating there were Indian rather than visibly Jewish. It was also pretty spicy but good (better than my constant stream of cold cuts and peanut butter, anyway).
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Day 15: Games and People
I woke up early and slipped out to BGG.con at 7:00. The lines were just starting for registration that officially opened at . I parked my games and lunch on line and promptly left the line to go volunteer. For the next two hours I unpacked boxes, shelved games, and broke down boxes.
A number of others also volunteered, and all of us received our registration and goodies early. I left my stuff on the registration line anyway, so that Bill and Shirley could take it when they arrived (which they did at around 9:50). I didn't have a place held for Nadine, so she took a longer time to get through registration.
Nicer than all the games was seeing so many people again and having so many people come up to me to say that they know me from wherever.
What I Played
Agricola: I started with a game I already knew. The other three also knew the game already. Everyone was convinced that my RHO was going to trounce the rest of us, and he definitely had a huge improvements advantage. However, he also had no fields and 7 empty farm spaces. He came in third with 43 points. I won 47 to 46 over second place, also with a hefty improvement bonus.
Kingdom Builder: A new game from Queen by the designer of Dominion, this is a simple settlement/route creation abstract on a multi-terrained map. Think Through the Desert meets Taluva, perhaps. You place three guys on the selected terrain every round, but you always have to place your guys near your already existing guys if you can. You can earn special actions that let you split your settlement areas into multiple areas.
The trick is to find ways to split your territories and leave yourself with the flexibility of where to put your pieces each round to score best. Scoring is similar to TtD, but three special scoring optiona are available each round.
I thought it was good, but nothing special. The people I played with liked it more than I did. We had misinterpreted one of the special scoring cards, and so some of us were going for one type of area control while others were going for a different type; as a result, we weren't really playing the same game. I definitely won using one interpretation, but probably would have one with the other type as well.
The Manhattan Project: A new game from Minion Games (we played on a game that was half actual and half prototype components. It's a worker placement game of building atomic and plutonium bomb. The story was the same as it was for Kingdom Builder: I thought it was ok, the other players liked it more. There was an odd mechanic of getting your workers back and then spending them all in one turn on your buildings.
And once again it ended partially unresolved. I saved up and won the game with two bombs, only to discover that I only had 48 points, not the 50 needed. I easily had those other two points by taking an action on my previous turn, bit I didn't bother to take the action because I thought I had counted to 51. The others decided to give me the game, even though I was willing to continue, without rewarding my stupidity.
7 Wonders: Joined a game with 2 other experienced players and 2 newbies. I produced almost no goods and came second: Scores 55, 50 (me), 48, 43, 40.
Tichu: I wanted something short, so Rick Thornquist agreed to partner with me and we found two other players (Aaron and Sean). This was the shortest and most insane Tichu game I ever player. In half an hour - five hand - we lost 1000+ to less than zero. Our opponents bid and made three grand tichus. On on hand, opp opened a ten card straight that included a five card straight bomb. I bombed it with four jacks, opener bombed with four aces, and my partner bombed the aces with a straight flush. And they still succeeded with the grand tichu.
Crokinole: Jim Ginn and I played a game. We traded scores back and forth for a while, and then it took me four or five rounds, 5 points at a time, to finally win.
It's Alive: I taught this to some people. I lost; LHO won with the five point bonus.
Tobago: I stopped to teach this to three others, including the rep from Mayfair. I won, entirely due to my experience with amulets. We played with the curses, but said never again (with the original curse rules, anyway.
Nadine's Plays
Nadine played K2, Power Grid Sparks, Coney Island, Flashpoint, and Niagara. Bill and Shirley spent the entire day playing a single war game with each other.
A number of others also volunteered, and all of us received our registration and goodies early. I left my stuff on the registration line anyway, so that Bill and Shirley could take it when they arrived (which they did at around 9:50). I didn't have a place held for Nadine, so she took a longer time to get through registration.
Nicer than all the games was seeing so many people again and having so many people come up to me to say that they know me from wherever.
What I Played
Agricola: I started with a game I already knew. The other three also knew the game already. Everyone was convinced that my RHO was going to trounce the rest of us, and he definitely had a huge improvements advantage. However, he also had no fields and 7 empty farm spaces. He came in third with 43 points. I won 47 to 46 over second place, also with a hefty improvement bonus.
Kingdom Builder: A new game from Queen by the designer of Dominion, this is a simple settlement/route creation abstract on a multi-terrained map. Think Through the Desert meets Taluva, perhaps. You place three guys on the selected terrain every round, but you always have to place your guys near your already existing guys if you can. You can earn special actions that let you split your settlement areas into multiple areas.
The trick is to find ways to split your territories and leave yourself with the flexibility of where to put your pieces each round to score best. Scoring is similar to TtD, but three special scoring optiona are available each round.
I thought it was good, but nothing special. The people I played with liked it more than I did. We had misinterpreted one of the special scoring cards, and so some of us were going for one type of area control while others were going for a different type; as a result, we weren't really playing the same game. I definitely won using one interpretation, but probably would have one with the other type as well.
The Manhattan Project: A new game from Minion Games (we played on a game that was half actual and half prototype components. It's a worker placement game of building atomic and plutonium bomb. The story was the same as it was for Kingdom Builder: I thought it was ok, the other players liked it more. There was an odd mechanic of getting your workers back and then spending them all in one turn on your buildings.
And once again it ended partially unresolved. I saved up and won the game with two bombs, only to discover that I only had 48 points, not the 50 needed. I easily had those other two points by taking an action on my previous turn, bit I didn't bother to take the action because I thought I had counted to 51. The others decided to give me the game, even though I was willing to continue, without rewarding my stupidity.
7 Wonders: Joined a game with 2 other experienced players and 2 newbies. I produced almost no goods and came second: Scores 55, 50 (me), 48, 43, 40.
Tichu: I wanted something short, so Rick Thornquist agreed to partner with me and we found two other players (Aaron and Sean). This was the shortest and most insane Tichu game I ever player. In half an hour - five hand - we lost 1000+ to less than zero. Our opponents bid and made three grand tichus. On on hand, opp opened a ten card straight that included a five card straight bomb. I bombed it with four jacks, opener bombed with four aces, and my partner bombed the aces with a straight flush. And they still succeeded with the grand tichu.
Crokinole: Jim Ginn and I played a game. We traded scores back and forth for a while, and then it took me four or five rounds, 5 points at a time, to finally win.
It's Alive: I taught this to some people. I lost; LHO won with the five point bonus.
Tobago: I stopped to teach this to three others, including the rep from Mayfair. I won, entirely due to my experience with amulets. We played with the curses, but said never again (with the original curse rules, anyway.
Nadine's Plays
Nadine played K2, Power Grid Sparks, Coney Island, Flashpoint, and Niagara. Bill and Shirley spent the entire day playing a single war game with each other.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Making Progress
I've cut down to 50 RSS feeds from my previous over 500. I used to see 50 new headlines every 15 minutes. Now I see about 20 an hour. Still too many really.
Here is what has survived the cut:
What's missing is striking: nearly any game blog, for one. It turns out that, if you're not interested in reviews, thoughts about upcoming games, rehashed game design notes, or session reports, there's not much out there. I would continue to read Purple Pawn, Eric Martin's BGN (now BGG News), and one or two others, but I'm forcing myself not to.
Other than The Dice Tower, game podcasts are generally poor, unprofessional, and uninteresting. A few might have made the cut, such as Have Games Will Travel and Garret's Games and Geekiness, but the other mainstream podcasts are just so much better, and I haven't got enough listening time as it is. TDT is also still an order of magnitude less professional than the mainstream podcasts, but it's also an order of magnitude better than any other game podcast.
I cut out fire-hose feeds like Techdirt, Slashdot, Mashable, and so on, since the real tech news will end up on CNN or NYT, and the rest of it was opinion. I'm a little surprised that the mainstream media won out in favor of blogs, but apparently they still know what they're doing.
Naturally, I've also resigned from over 50 mailing lists (I'm still getting some list mailings; I can't seem to get them all) and removed most of the sites from my bookmarks and quick toolbars.
Since I discovered the feed for my Facebook wall, I no longer feel like I have to remove friends from Facebook, though I still removed 50 friends; I'm down at 350. Many more will definitely be cut: gamers who know me from my writings but whom I don't really know. I'm waiting to see if I friend any of them in real life at BGG.con.
The Point
When I have a spare moment to kill now, I still reach for my distractions: my RSS reader, some additional bookmarks. But there's a lot less there to distract me, now.
As a result, I got back to work on a game design I want to complete by and for BGG.con, and it looks like it will be ready to print and ship on time. I'm just working out the money and sponsorship.
Yehuda
Here is what has survived the cut:
- BGG:
- BGG.con: Because I'm going to the con
- Hot Deals
- It's Alive: Because it's my game
- News: Official site announcements, not the former BGN
- Official terms of service: rarely updates
- New publishers x 2 (board games and RPG): Because I still maintain a large db of this kind of information
- Pure distractions
- Buttercup Festival
- Dilbert
- Girls With Slingshots
- Miss Manners (from The Buffalo News)
- New Yorker Fiction Podcast
- New Yorker Outloud Podcast
- NPR's On The Media Podcast
- Order of the Stick
- PostSecret
- PRI Design for the Real World Podcast
- PRI Science and Creativity Podacst
- PRI Selected Shorts Podcast
- PRI Studio 360 Podcast
- PRI To the Best of Our Knowledge Podcast
- Questionable Content
- Roger Ebert Movie Reviews
- Something Positive
- The Devil's Panties
- This American Life Podcast
- WNYC's Radio Lab Podcast
- XKCD
- Games:
- Applied Game Design
- The Dice Tower Podcast: See above
- Jerusalem Strategy Gaming Club (my own feed)
- Loot
- Mind Your Decisions
- Raanana Gamer: Local gamer
- Yehuda (my own feed)
- Tapuz board games, a Hebrew Israeli board game forum
- News
- Official IDF feed
- Israelli: Official government feed
- Jerusalem Post Front Page
- CNN Main
- CNN Entertainment: I'm a bit embarrassed about this one
- New York Times International
- Tech
- A List Apart
- CNN Technology
- Discover: Technology
- Giveaway of the Day
- New York Times internet
- TEDTalks Videos
- A friend's personal feed
- Updates to my Facebook wall: I waste less time on Facebook this way
What's missing is striking: nearly any game blog, for one. It turns out that, if you're not interested in reviews, thoughts about upcoming games, rehashed game design notes, or session reports, there's not much out there. I would continue to read Purple Pawn, Eric Martin's BGN (now BGG News), and one or two others, but I'm forcing myself not to.
Other than The Dice Tower, game podcasts are generally poor, unprofessional, and uninteresting. A few might have made the cut, such as Have Games Will Travel and Garret's Games and Geekiness, but the other mainstream podcasts are just so much better, and I haven't got enough listening time as it is. TDT is also still an order of magnitude less professional than the mainstream podcasts, but it's also an order of magnitude better than any other game podcast.
I cut out fire-hose feeds like Techdirt, Slashdot, Mashable, and so on, since the real tech news will end up on CNN or NYT, and the rest of it was opinion. I'm a little surprised that the mainstream media won out in favor of blogs, but apparently they still know what they're doing.
Naturally, I've also resigned from over 50 mailing lists (I'm still getting some list mailings; I can't seem to get them all) and removed most of the sites from my bookmarks and quick toolbars.
Since I discovered the feed for my Facebook wall, I no longer feel like I have to remove friends from Facebook, though I still removed 50 friends; I'm down at 350. Many more will definitely be cut: gamers who know me from my writings but whom I don't really know. I'm waiting to see if I friend any of them in real life at BGG.con.
The Point
When I have a spare moment to kill now, I still reach for my distractions: my RSS reader, some additional bookmarks. But there's a lot less there to distract me, now.
As a result, I got back to work on a game design I want to complete by and for BGG.con, and it looks like it will be ready to print and ship on time. I'm just working out the money and sponsorship.
Yehuda
Sunday, November 22, 2009
BGG.con: One Night in Dallas
My taxi ride from the Westin to Dallas proper ... or, I should say, one of my taxi rides.
I forgot to mention the several times that I played Tichu, one of which was pretty epic. We decided to play to 500, after our opponents got 300 on the first hand. In the next hand, my partner (playing for the second day of his life) called Tichu, and was having a difficult time making it. My hand was filled with high cards and various low pairs. Every time I led, LHO overtook my card and partner couldn't overtake that. I overtook LHO and had to lead again. I broke up every single pair in my hand and was working on all the low singles before partner finally got in and was able to play out his Tichu.
And my last hand I made Grand Tichu. I recall it was also some tricky playing, but I no longer remember what. We won by 20 points, 560 to 540.
I stayed to help organize, pack up and clean up (everyone else got a Geekgold award card for helping, but when they got to me, all they had left was a rock.)
The trip to Dallas by taxi was as expected. We didn't take George Bush highway, which is a good thing because although the highway says that it goes to Dallas, it actually ends about a third of the way there at a sign that says "Mission Accomplished". And then goes over a cliff.
I got to spend about ten minutes in a smaller Half Priced books (picked up my third trilogy from Julie Czerneda), and finally got to blog.
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