In my last entry I mentioned that Daughter the Younger was starting to really play games. She has come along in leaps and bounds since then. A week later I posted a GeekList Games that Daughter the Younger plays. I mean *really* plays as opposed to *plays with*, destroys or eats. because she was upto four games. This week Melissa came down with the flu so has spent most of the time cooped up in the bedroom. One of the things that has entertained Daughter the Younger has been games. She has been demanding quite a few including ones she should have no idea how to play.
Dominos has been played a lot this week, she doesn't mind that our set is missing two pieces. She has gotten over her dislike of blanks and the majority of our games are proper games. Every now and again we just build farms. One she had spread the dominos over three rooms and in our first hunt we managed to find all but four pieces. I told her that we were not going to play any more games until we found all of the Dominos. About half an hour later she found the last piece and gave it to me and announced "We can play games now". Of course, I then had to sit down and play a few games with her :-)
Piggy-back is still a big favourite. I have tried to convince her that we should only have two piggies each, but she will have none of that, three is the number.
There are a few other games that she has been consistently been asking for all week, I am not entirely sure why these are her picks, but anyway here are the top three requested games from our three year old daughter.
The game with lellow and horsies. Take a guess at what you think that might be and then click on the link and see if you were correct. I couldn't figure it out at first until she pointed at the box. The first time we opened it up she selected a set of pieces and starting putting them on the board. She then helped herself to a bunch of cards and laid them down in front of her as if she was playing a route. I didn't actually bother to check to see if her cards made a valid route :-) We only got this game a week and half ago, I figure she saw Melissa and I playing it a few times, so she wanted to get in on the action. Did you guess Thurn und Taxis?
YINSH. I figured she must have been watching Daughter the Elder and I play this a couple of times over the last week or so. I opened it up and she said "I will be white, you will be black" and took the baggie of white rings and opened it up and started placing the white rings on the board. She also knew that when you moved you placed a counter of your colour face up inside the ring and then "jumped" the ring to another spot. Another thing she had observed was that to win you had to take three of your rings off the playing area and put them in the scoring spots. The only things she hasn't actually picked up are the movement rules of the rings, flipping counters and knowing that once you get five in a row you take them and one of your rings off the board. You really do forget just how observant little children are.
Ingenious aka "the blue game with white writing". I think she might have seen this played face to face once or twice, but she has watched Melissa play it a lot on BSW. When I opened the box and set up the board, she demanded both the scoring tracks and the tile holders. I managed to convince her that we didn't need the scoring tracks. We have played it a couple of times now and I would say 90% of her moves are legitimate in that they would score decent points. Towards the end game, she either gets a little bored or just wants to place pieces in a bit more haphazard fashion. If I let her draw her own replacement tiles from the bag I do have to remind her that she is not meant to look, one time yesterday she announced "I am going to get myself a good one" as she drew herself a double red. She also knew that the tile holders stacked together, which I thought was quite amazing since I am sure she had only seen it out of the box at most twice.
Children definitely are a constant source of amazement.
Hmmm Meeples taste like...
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Friday, July 28, 2006
Current Crises, Future Games
You’ve spent years working toward a final peace accord. On the eve of signing a treaty, a fanatic splinter group from your opponent’s camp attacks one of your outposts with great loss of life. Do you ignore the attack—and violate the never-show-weakness principle that has guided all your military actions? Or do you risk the peace settlement and retaliate?
In the July 23rd edition of the Sunday New York Times there was an article in the Arts & Leisure section by Clive Thompson on computer games that deal with real world problems. One notable game was called Peacemaker, and it lets players step into the shoes of either the leader of Israel or the Palestinian people to try to resolve the Middle East trouble spot. The game was invented more as a teaching tool than as competition for Grand Theft Auto, but it sounded fascinating nevertheless.
It made me wonder: where are the board games dealing with real world topics? Why aren’t designers making games about the issues that will shape the future of world? Is it because they have no interest in designing them? Or do they fear that the market will not support games that lack little plastic trains, tanks, or dragons?
I refuse to believe that game designers aren’t up to the challenge of tackling thorny current issues. And I do believe that a game can be both a compelling simulation and educational (in the broadest sense of the word) at the same time. Hard-core wargamers are turning to Ed Beach’s Here I Stand because they like the multi-player competition and rich historical detail. But as they try to capture Vienna or debate Martin Luther or circumnavigate the globe, they get a lesson in Renaissance and Reformation history. (Of course, it may be that the type of person who plays Here I Stand is the type of person who doesn’t need a lesson in Renaissance and Reformation history, but that’s beside the point.) Later this year, Decision Games will reprint A Mighty Fortress, SPI’s original six-player game of Reformation conflict that inspired Ed Beach to create his masterpiece. Isn’t it odd that there will soon be two games of religious conflict in the 1600s, but no reasonably realistic games about the religious, political, and military conflicts of the 21st century?
Here are three suggested game proposals dealing with topical issues.
Oval Office
There have been a lot of games dealing with presidential elections, but none dealing with the mechanics and challenges of governing America from the Oval Office. In this two-player game, players become either Republican or Democratic presidents trying to implement their political agenda while dealing with the unexpected crises that wind up on the president’s desk. At the beginning of the game, each player looks through a selection of Republican or Democratic policy cards, and secretly chooses cards to be his primary and secondary policy goals.
During the average turn, each player can attempt to woo Congress, improve foreign relations, court the general public (to improve his poll numbers), or please various interest groups. Each turn, each player also draws three crisis cards, and selects one card which he can play on his opponent. Crises may be natural disasters, terrorist attacks, Middle East conflicts, flu pandemics, Supreme Court nominations, political scandals, or economic problems. Players must solve these crises as fast as possible because each unsolved crisis that lingers into the next turn saps the president’s popularity and final victory point total. Some crises can be solved without the cooperation of Congress, but often Congressional action is required. Getting Congress to cooperate can be difficult—because the opposing player also acts as the Congressional opposition. Mid-term Congressional elections are a litmus test of each president’s effectiveness—and an opportunity for each party to try to gain seats in the House and Congress.
Will you place cronies and lobbyists in positions of power and reap vast campaign contributions while risking the effectiveness of the government? Will you try to get a modest health insurance benefit through Congress, or will you go for the big victory points by trying to get a controversial universal plan approved even as the HMOs bankroll ads attacking your plan? Will you take unilateral action against that saber-rattling dictator, or will you try to get United Nation sanctions passed by a Security Council that is filled with nations jealous of American power? All these painful tradeoffs can be yours when you occupy the Oval Office.
NGO.
In this medium complexity Eurogame, players control non-governmental organizations trying to eliminate poverty and eradicate disease around the world. Players must balance their efforts to lobby governments, raise funds, and recruit volunteers with the necessity of sending aid workers to areas of the world that may be dangerous. Players choose weather to develop long-term projects that may have lasting results or to respond to the crisis of the moment. It’s all here: Irish rock stars, altruistic software billionaires, donor fatigue, famines, tsunamis, civil wars, and kleptomaniac third-world governments. Can you persuade western governments to increase their aid? Can you orchestrate a cease fire in a war-torn country? Can you provide malaria-preventing mosquito nets to Africa’s children? A consciousness-raising game that pays tribute to some of the most altruistic and courageous people on earth.
The Shape of Things to Come
A game of political, ideological, religious, and military conflict in the first half of the 21st century (in the same big-picture vein as Twilight Struggle). Players take control of the USA, Russia, China, the Islamic world, and (in a five player game) Europe. Each player gains victory points for increasing the prosperity of their region, but each player also has his own unique agenda. The USA gains points for increasing democracy around the world. Russia and China gain points for increasing their prestige and influence relative to the USA. The Islamic player gains points for religious expansion, acquiring nuclear weapons, creating a nation of Palestine, or removing outside influence from the Middle East.
Each player faces dilemmas that mirror real-world problems. The USA can strengthen international institutions that lessen the costs of dealing with regional or global crises, but this may put limits on American unilateral action. The Islamic player can unleash terrorism that reduces American or Russian victory points and hurts their economies. But terrorism also limits the prospects for Islamic democracy and prosperity (and can become a genie that refuses to return to its bottle). All the non-USA players can increase their democratic/human rights infrastructure as a way improving their economies, but democratic populations demand that more resources be spent on increasing standards of living. The USA player can degrade the American democratic/human rights index to improve its ability to fight terrorism, but this also weakens American prestige.
Event cards depict crises that are both threats and opportunities. These include: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the struggle for Kashmir, Taiwanese independence, Chechen rebellions, North Korean saber rattling, AIDS in Africa, leadership struggles in Saudi Arabia, nuclear and bio terrorism, and the on-going energy crisis. Meanwhile, global warming is a ticking bomb that threatens to destroy all players unless they unite to take action. A moderate complexity game about the struggles that will shape our lives in the coming decades.
In the July 23rd edition of the Sunday New York Times there was an article in the Arts & Leisure section by Clive Thompson on computer games that deal with real world problems. One notable game was called Peacemaker, and it lets players step into the shoes of either the leader of Israel or the Palestinian people to try to resolve the Middle East trouble spot. The game was invented more as a teaching tool than as competition for Grand Theft Auto, but it sounded fascinating nevertheless.
It made me wonder: where are the board games dealing with real world topics? Why aren’t designers making games about the issues that will shape the future of world? Is it because they have no interest in designing them? Or do they fear that the market will not support games that lack little plastic trains, tanks, or dragons?
I refuse to believe that game designers aren’t up to the challenge of tackling thorny current issues. And I do believe that a game can be both a compelling simulation and educational (in the broadest sense of the word) at the same time. Hard-core wargamers are turning to Ed Beach’s Here I Stand because they like the multi-player competition and rich historical detail. But as they try to capture Vienna or debate Martin Luther or circumnavigate the globe, they get a lesson in Renaissance and Reformation history. (Of course, it may be that the type of person who plays Here I Stand is the type of person who doesn’t need a lesson in Renaissance and Reformation history, but that’s beside the point.) Later this year, Decision Games will reprint A Mighty Fortress, SPI’s original six-player game of Reformation conflict that inspired Ed Beach to create his masterpiece. Isn’t it odd that there will soon be two games of religious conflict in the 1600s, but no reasonably realistic games about the religious, political, and military conflicts of the 21st century?
Here are three suggested game proposals dealing with topical issues.
Oval Office
There have been a lot of games dealing with presidential elections, but none dealing with the mechanics and challenges of governing America from the Oval Office. In this two-player game, players become either Republican or Democratic presidents trying to implement their political agenda while dealing with the unexpected crises that wind up on the president’s desk. At the beginning of the game, each player looks through a selection of Republican or Democratic policy cards, and secretly chooses cards to be his primary and secondary policy goals.
During the average turn, each player can attempt to woo Congress, improve foreign relations, court the general public (to improve his poll numbers), or please various interest groups. Each turn, each player also draws three crisis cards, and selects one card which he can play on his opponent. Crises may be natural disasters, terrorist attacks, Middle East conflicts, flu pandemics, Supreme Court nominations, political scandals, or economic problems. Players must solve these crises as fast as possible because each unsolved crisis that lingers into the next turn saps the president’s popularity and final victory point total. Some crises can be solved without the cooperation of Congress, but often Congressional action is required. Getting Congress to cooperate can be difficult—because the opposing player also acts as the Congressional opposition. Mid-term Congressional elections are a litmus test of each president’s effectiveness—and an opportunity for each party to try to gain seats in the House and Congress.
Will you place cronies and lobbyists in positions of power and reap vast campaign contributions while risking the effectiveness of the government? Will you try to get a modest health insurance benefit through Congress, or will you go for the big victory points by trying to get a controversial universal plan approved even as the HMOs bankroll ads attacking your plan? Will you take unilateral action against that saber-rattling dictator, or will you try to get United Nation sanctions passed by a Security Council that is filled with nations jealous of American power? All these painful tradeoffs can be yours when you occupy the Oval Office.
NGO.
In this medium complexity Eurogame, players control non-governmental organizations trying to eliminate poverty and eradicate disease around the world. Players must balance their efforts to lobby governments, raise funds, and recruit volunteers with the necessity of sending aid workers to areas of the world that may be dangerous. Players choose weather to develop long-term projects that may have lasting results or to respond to the crisis of the moment. It’s all here: Irish rock stars, altruistic software billionaires, donor fatigue, famines, tsunamis, civil wars, and kleptomaniac third-world governments. Can you persuade western governments to increase their aid? Can you orchestrate a cease fire in a war-torn country? Can you provide malaria-preventing mosquito nets to Africa’s children? A consciousness-raising game that pays tribute to some of the most altruistic and courageous people on earth.
The Shape of Things to Come
A game of political, ideological, religious, and military conflict in the first half of the 21st century (in the same big-picture vein as Twilight Struggle). Players take control of the USA, Russia, China, the Islamic world, and (in a five player game) Europe. Each player gains victory points for increasing the prosperity of their region, but each player also has his own unique agenda. The USA gains points for increasing democracy around the world. Russia and China gain points for increasing their prestige and influence relative to the USA. The Islamic player gains points for religious expansion, acquiring nuclear weapons, creating a nation of Palestine, or removing outside influence from the Middle East.
Each player faces dilemmas that mirror real-world problems. The USA can strengthen international institutions that lessen the costs of dealing with regional or global crises, but this may put limits on American unilateral action. The Islamic player can unleash terrorism that reduces American or Russian victory points and hurts their economies. But terrorism also limits the prospects for Islamic democracy and prosperity (and can become a genie that refuses to return to its bottle). All the non-USA players can increase their democratic/human rights infrastructure as a way improving their economies, but democratic populations demand that more resources be spent on increasing standards of living. The USA player can degrade the American democratic/human rights index to improve its ability to fight terrorism, but this also weakens American prestige.
Event cards depict crises that are both threats and opportunities. These include: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the struggle for Kashmir, Taiwanese independence, Chechen rebellions, North Korean saber rattling, AIDS in Africa, leadership struggles in Saudi Arabia, nuclear and bio terrorism, and the on-going energy crisis. Meanwhile, global warming is a ticking bomb that threatens to destroy all players unless they unite to take action. A moderate complexity game about the struggles that will shape our lives in the coming decades.
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Adventure Games, Part Two: In the Cards
Last month I posted an article about Fantasy Flight Games and their recent emphasis on adventure games. However, the adventure gaming genre is a lot bigger than just Fantasy Flight. As I mentioned in that article, the genre has been around for a while, with classics like Milton Bradley's HeroQuest and GW's Talisman. I missed out on Candamir, but it's clearly a German entrant to the genre.And, the adventure gaming genre is a lot bigger than just board games too. There have been a ton of card games that meet some or all of the criteria of the adventure game genre. This week I'm going to concentrate on a lot of also-rans, or not-quite-adventure card games, that nonetheless meet a lot of the criteria of the genre. Then in a couple of weeks I'm going to return with a third article in this series, covering a card game that's just as much an adventure game as Runebound or Arkham Horror, and that's Atlas Games' Dungeoneer.
Before I get going, I'll offer a reminder of my basic definition of adventure games: they're board and card games built on the same model as roleplaying games. They center on characters, and tend to have two core mechanics: a model for character description and a task resolution system. Inevitably, one of the basic tasks tends to be combat (though that's not a requirement). Most adventure games also have you controlling a single adventurer and completing quests, but that can vary, and some of these near-miss adventure card games clearly show alternatives.
The Near Misses
Following are a set of four card games that almost meet the definition of adventure card games. Though they don't entirely meet my definition, they nonetheless have some interesting characteristics that true adventure games might learn from.
Illuminati (1983). In the last couple of years we've seen products like Candamir and Return of the Heroes, but for the most part, adventure games have been an Anglo-American phenomenon. That's not too much of a surprise, given that they've generally been published by roleplaying publishers, a genre of publishing that blossomed in the US.
Illuminati offers is a fine early example of a near-adventure game by a U.S. RPG publisher (Steve Jackson Games). It shares some a few characteristics with full-fledged adventure games, but deviates pretty widely in the details. Instead of characters you have organizations, but like adventure-game characters, they're entirely unique. Each organization is defined by a few basic characteristics--power and income--and each has a special power too, which is another common element in adventure characters.
There isn't a full-fledged task system, but the game system does include a few different tasks (taking controls of groups and destroying them) which use the same basic mechanisms, and which include various modifiers to a die roll, typically based on characteristics, just like an adventure game does.
So, this is pretty far from an adventure game, but it also is an interesting early ancestor. And, it's been built on itself, with variants including Hacker (1992) and Illuminati: New World Order (1995).
You could find a lot of other early games which include some of these same characteristics, but from here I'm going to jump straight on to some more recent cards games which are much closer to the genre.
Portable Adventures (2002). There's a distinct subset of adventure games where, instead of controlling a singular adventurer, you instead control a whole party of adventurers. This is one of them (along with cousin game, Battle of the Bands). I think controlling a party puts you further from the adventuring ideal, because you don't get the same feeling of personal connection with someone that you're playing, but they still have similar mechanisms.
Conversely, Portable Adventures use an entirely common adventure-game mechanic for victory: you complete quests, and those quests give you victory points, and those victory points eventually give you the game.
However, the Portable Adventures are weak in my core definition of adventure games. The characters aren't well modeled: each just has a value and a special power, nothing complex. Likewise, the task resolution system is very weak. It's only used for completing adventure, and you just add up character values, with a single chance to roll a die and take out some opposing characters.
One of the neat aspects of Portable Adventures is that they're multigenre. There are two of them, Lair of the Rat-King and 8th Grade and they're totally compatible. This points to one of the advantages that adventure card games offer over adventure board games: they're much easier to expand; the Portable Adventures show a really wacky and expansive way to do so.
Camelot Legends (2004). Camelot Legends is another game in the precise same mold as Portable Adventures. You have a group of characters and you send them around trying to complete quests and gain victory points.
The difference is that Camelot Legends has much more thorough modeling. Each character has a full six different attributes, plus a special ability. Now the attributes are functionally identical, they just affect different quests (and potentially different characters). However having those differentiations gives that much more individuality to the characters. (If anything the characters are actually too diffentiated. With each player having a small party of characters it's pretty hard to keep track of who can do what, a danger of the multi-character adventure game.)
The task system is entirely one-dimensional and simple, much like that in Portable Adventures. Each quest has a target number and you have to add up the values of the appropriate attributes for your character to meet it.
One of the other game elements found in Camelot Legends is that it has locations, sort of. There are initially three different places in the game, marked by cardstock sheets, and more can appear. Each character is at one of these locations at any time, and can (abstractly) move between them on his turn.
I'm not certain that locations are entirely necessary for a true adventure game, but they certain add a lot to the experience.
Im Auftrag des Konigs (2004). In recent years there have been some European adventure games, including Candamir and Return of the Heroes, they're just rarer than their Anglo-American brehtren. This German Arthurian card game came out the same year as the American Camelot Legends and is striking for how different it is.
Really, Im Auftrag des Konigs is a role/action system that's somewhat like more recent games such as Antike and Siena where the action roles are located on a roundel that you have to move around. Here, much as in Siena, the roundel represents locations, here 8 total. There's a Camelot location where you can do Camelot actions and a number of wilderness locations where you can take on certain quests.
Each player plays a "knight", but there's actually no difference between them. That's an attribute shared by another German adventure game I mentioned, Candamir. The European adventure games haven't really caught on to the idea of widely differentiated characters. You can train your characters in Auftrag, but it provides cards rather than any actual intrinsic gainm, another difference from more Anglo-American games.
It's mainly the theming that makes me thing of Auftrag as an almost adventure game, but the quest system helps. One of the ways you get victory points is through quests. You satisfy them by going to a certain location and having certain values, but here it's the values of cards rather than the values of characters. And that gives you victory points.
I suppose you could see Auftrag as a hybrid Euro/adventure game.
My Reviews: Camelot Legends (B-), Im Auftrag des Konigs (B), Portable Adventures (B)
Charting It Out
With all that said, what characteristics do these various pseudo-adventure games have, what characteristics do they lack, and what interesting elements do they offer to the genre? I have, of course, created a chart to detail this:
| Illuminati | Portable Adventures | Camelot Legends | Auftrag | |
| Stats | Power (attack). Resistance (defense). Income. | Character Points. | Combat. Diplomacy. Adventure. Cunning. Chivalry. Psyche. | Strength. Skill. Courage. Wisdom. |
| Equipment | No. | Cards. | No. | No. |
| Board | Abstract network. | No. | Abstract Cards. | Circle of Cards. |
| Movement | No. | No. | Abstract. | Move around circle based on horse card selected. |
| Victory | Create a network. | 7 Adventure points from "quests". | Most victory points from quests. | Most points from quests, court, and tournaments. |
| Unique Systems | Characters are actually organizations. Core tasks aren't simple combat, but have more nuances. | Multiple genres that can be combined. Many cards have two values for rightside up and upside down, an easy method for character fatigue. | Characteristics differentiated only by tasks they affect, not what they do. Characters differentiated by notable, "take-that" type powers. | Very German. Characters take communal "roles" for actions. Skills modeled as expendable cards rather than permanent gains. |
Conclusion
One of the most interesting reasons to look at not-quite adventure games like this is that they aren't stuck in the standard molds, and thus they show how the adventure game could grow and expand themselves. I'd love to see more full adventure games with German mechanics like those in Im Auftrag des Konigs, for example, or to put more thought into different sorts of tasks, like Illuminati offers.
And that's it for card-based adventure games this week. In two or three weeks I'll be back with Atlas and Dungeoneer. Next week, however, I'm going on vacation (all I ever wanted). I'll see you then.
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Just let me have my game couch and I will be happy.
What do these games have in common?
Antike, Tempus, Kreta, Die Macher (English edition), A Storm of Swords, Age of Empires, Byzantium, War of the Ring Expansion, Nexus Ops, Ticket to Ride: Marklin, HamsterRolle, Canal Mania, Thurn and Taxis, and Blokus Trigon.
Answer: I don't own them.
And that is a situation that needs to be rectified.
Problem: I don't have room for the games I do own. The overflow games have found a spot on a mostly unused love seat which the kids and I have come to call "The Game Couch".
My wife calls it unacceptable. I offered to get a bigger couch (you know, one with enough room to stack games and sit) but that idea got vetoed.
The wife suggested selling some games. I vetoed that. My collection is barely at a respectable size.
A long time ago my dog claimed the space under our bed as his own. He is now getting too fat to crawl under the bed, so I thought about storing games under there. My wife pointed out that I am fatter than the dog. Of course I won't need to actually crawl under the bed, I have kids for that. I'm pretty sure her two cents were a veto simply masquerading as a smart-alek comment.
Looks like I'll be installing some shelving in my free time. Frankly I don't see a lot of difference between shelving and a game couch. The main difference is that shelving will never serve a purpose other than game storage. A game couch has many uses. Off the top of my head; a game couch can be used to store games, to set a chainsaw, or for a fat dog to sleep on.
The second difference is one of aesthetics, and that is the important difference for my wife. Functionality, you see, is rarely a concern for women. Aesthetics are much more important to the fairer sex. Don't believe me? I have two words for you: High Heels.
For example, the basket thingee hanging from the shower head is only for shampoo or conditioner. Never mind the fact that one bottle of ketchup and two cans of Nalley's Beef Stew fit perfectly. In fact they fit much better than either shampoo or conditioner. Do you think she will let me store beef stew and ketchup in the basket perfectly suited for such storage? Of course not. If it were up to me I would install a couple more of those baskets in the shower in order to store even more beef stew and ketchup.
For some reason women would be incredibly embarrassed if a guest saw a can of beef stew in the shower. Go figure. Personally, I would be embarrassed to have guests over and not have beef stew to serve, especially if that can in the back of the cupboard, the one that I thought was beef stew, turned out to be lima beans. I would die of shame.
Back to the situation at hand. Storing games in the shower basket is out of the question. Fortunately Dame Coldfoot and I are of one mind on that point. Storing games in the sewing room is also out of the question. Dame Coldfoot is of one mind on that point.
If I'm losing the game couch and the sewing room is off limits, I'll simply need more shelving. The wife is pulling for shelving fastened directly to the wall, I want to expand the current system:
Right now, I figure I am at that point where no matter what I do it will be wrong. I put up shelving here, she will want it there. I fasten shelving to that wall, she will want it in the other room.
Hmmmmmm. Maybe I'll just fasten the game couch to the wall. Aesthetics be damned, we're talking functionality here.
Yeeeeeeeeeeah. Ya' know what? That's not a bad compromise. Can't believe I didn't think of that sooner.
---------------------------------------------
If you missed it here is a link to a very useful geeklist: Availability status of the top 150 games. Thank you for the effort, mateybob.
Antike, Tempus, Kreta, Die Macher (English edition), A Storm of Swords, Age of Empires, Byzantium, War of the Ring Expansion, Nexus Ops, Ticket to Ride: Marklin, HamsterRolle, Canal Mania, Thurn and Taxis, and Blokus Trigon.
Answer: I don't own them.
And that is a situation that needs to be rectified.
Problem: I don't have room for the games I do own. The overflow games have found a spot on a mostly unused love seat which the kids and I have come to call "The Game Couch".
My wife calls it unacceptable. I offered to get a bigger couch (you know, one with enough room to stack games and sit) but that idea got vetoed.
The wife suggested selling some games. I vetoed that. My collection is barely at a respectable size.
A long time ago my dog claimed the space under our bed as his own. He is now getting too fat to crawl under the bed, so I thought about storing games under there. My wife pointed out that I am fatter than the dog. Of course I won't need to actually crawl under the bed, I have kids for that. I'm pretty sure her two cents were a veto simply masquerading as a smart-alek comment.
Looks like I'll be installing some shelving in my free time. Frankly I don't see a lot of difference between shelving and a game couch. The main difference is that shelving will never serve a purpose other than game storage. A game couch has many uses. Off the top of my head; a game couch can be used to store games, to set a chainsaw, or for a fat dog to sleep on.
The second difference is one of aesthetics, and that is the important difference for my wife. Functionality, you see, is rarely a concern for women. Aesthetics are much more important to the fairer sex. Don't believe me? I have two words for you: High Heels.
For example, the basket thingee hanging from the shower head is only for shampoo or conditioner. Never mind the fact that one bottle of ketchup and two cans of Nalley's Beef Stew fit perfectly. In fact they fit much better than either shampoo or conditioner. Do you think she will let me store beef stew and ketchup in the basket perfectly suited for such storage? Of course not. If it were up to me I would install a couple more of those baskets in the shower in order to store even more beef stew and ketchup.
For some reason women would be incredibly embarrassed if a guest saw a can of beef stew in the shower. Go figure. Personally, I would be embarrassed to have guests over and not have beef stew to serve, especially if that can in the back of the cupboard, the one that I thought was beef stew, turned out to be lima beans. I would die of shame.
Back to the situation at hand. Storing games in the shower basket is out of the question. Fortunately Dame Coldfoot and I are of one mind on that point. Storing games in the sewing room is also out of the question. Dame Coldfoot is of one mind on that point.
If I'm losing the game couch and the sewing room is off limits, I'll simply need more shelving. The wife is pulling for shelving fastened directly to the wall, I want to expand the current system:
Right now, I figure I am at that point where no matter what I do it will be wrong. I put up shelving here, she will want it there. I fasten shelving to that wall, she will want it in the other room.
Hmmmmmm. Maybe I'll just fasten the game couch to the wall. Aesthetics be damned, we're talking functionality here.
Yeeeeeeeeeeah. Ya' know what? That's not a bad compromise. Can't believe I didn't think of that sooner.
---------------------------------------------
If you missed it here is a link to a very useful geeklist: Availability status of the top 150 games. Thank you for the effort, mateybob.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Encounter 5/9
Encounter
By Yehuda Berlinger. Copyright 2006, Yehuda Berlinger. All rights reserved.
(Chapters: 1, 2, 3, and 4)
WARNING: Contains sexual situations, and may not be suitable for children 12 years old or under.
Chapter 5: Empath
At 10:30 pm NY time, 5:50 am Jerusalem, Sarah was already fuzzed, which was unusual. She watched Mitchell cross the threshold into his apartment in Soho, his long black coat rippling behind him like Doppler waves.
She dozed peacefully in her Jerusalem bed, and restlessly in Long Island. She rode the subway back to Queens with her keys in her curled-up fist, ready to ward off any potential rapists, as her friend Avi had instructed her. She stepped under the irregular spurts of hot water in her uptown apartment shower.
Sarah followed him into his apartment as he minded on the single halogen spotlight. The apartment was an almost empty studio. His boots echoed loudly as he walked to the kitchen. As he walked, he waved her in the general direction of the room's only furniture, which included a battered chrome and black cloth Seaman's fold-out.
He messaged: "Have a seat. I'll make coffee."
She messaged back: "Thank you."
She could see a bathroom painted in some dull pinkish color, partially visible through a half-open door. She heard the cat before it shot out of the bathroom and into the kitchen, white fur on edge. Mitchell opened a bag, poured into a bowl, and placed the bowl on the floor. He murmured something; she couldn't hear what. Another cat, this one grayish blue, appeared at a narrow window through which Sarah could see regular luminescent slits on the exteriors of other buildings. This one scrambled to the floor, and then streaked into the kitchen.
Sarah looked around at the bare walls.
It was an old-style studio, with uneven wooden floors of some generic species of wood and a high ceiling. Aside from the fold-out, there was a low black metal trunk and a black glass coffee table supporting two fat law textbooks, a silver scanning pen, and a scribbled up notepad. Part of the table could be flipped up to a wi-net monitor. The room was otherwise empty, if you didn't count the full-length digital wall opposite the window. The fold-out was lightly laced with white and gray cat hair.
After a moment, the sounds and smells of coffee floated into the living room along with whistles of Bach. Bach whistles delicately slipped into real and ambient from some hidden speaker system. A green diode in the upper left corner of the digital wall winked rapidly.
Sarah removed her jacket, laid it neatly on the side arm of the fold-out. She wore a sleeveless black T and dark suit pants. She stepped out of her pumps, ran a toe over the wood grain on the floor, rubbed her palms together and sat down. Legs crossed and uncrossed. Placed her right arm on the back of the couch and lay her head in her hand.
Message: "How do you like it?"
"Black."
Mitchell returned with two blue ceramic cups which he placed on the coffee table. His coffee appeared to be mostly milk. It was off-white.
"It's been unusually cool, hasn't it?" he asked. "Whose soul are you, tonight?"
The halogen dimmed as the digital wall began to glow in a swirl of purples and blues. The table changed to waves of seawater green. Sarah's eyes reflected the diffuse light from the table.
"Quite cool, yes. It may get hotter again soon," she answered. "My mind and body may be subject to a diverse consciousness, but my soul is always my own. I'm fuzzed, if that's what you're asking."
Sarah, moved a little closer to Mitchell on the couch. Mitchell didn't move at all, damn him, other than to grin. The wall became the first flying scene from Dumbo. Bach continued to play.
"Soon, yes. A warm front coming in from the West, I heard." "How can a soul be owned, even by itself?"
"I heard that, too. But it may snow in the south," she added, eyes in a mock warning. "Come here and find out. And add me to your damn system's access list."
Dumbo changed to rain on evergreens. Thunder could be faintly heard under the music.
"Snow. That's not what I heard. I heard rain. Wet ... and rainy." He leaned towards her, his mouth brushing hers, softly. "Here you go. Don't do anything I wouldn't do." Sent her the access key.
In West Hempstead, Sarah broke into a drenching sweat.
"I guess we'll just have to wait ... and see ..." her voice trailed off. He was kissing her now, or she was him. Or both. "Don't worry, I'll try not to break anything." She changed the rain to a pulsing red circle, the music to violins sounding out a heartbeat.
Waves of red pulsed across the wall, speeding up until they were faster than human vision could follow. The violins played a single poignant melody, like echoes of a human soul.
In her bed in Jerusalem, Sarah's right hand crept down her belly while her left hand gripped her breast.
In less than ten seconds she was gasping, "Now. Now. I need you now." She rasped, or messaged, or some combination of both.
On the subway, Sarah's face was flushed and burning. What the hell? Her crotch was damp. She was worried it was going to be noticeable; she imagined that it already must be. A group of young black men across from her were laughing and cursing, evidently trying to impress an amiable black girl who may have been one of their girlfriends. She very badly wanted to hide. She curled up on the seat, tears beginning to stream down her hot cheeks.
Then she was twisting, arching, gripping, and raking his back with short unpainted nails.
In the shower, Sarah moaned, gripped the soap and sank to the shower floor, fingers dancing furiously.
Mitchell was barely inside of her when she had already finished her first and was starting on the second.
In some small corner of her mind, she thought, That was fast, but it got no further than that.
By Yehuda Berlinger. Copyright 2006, Yehuda Berlinger. All rights reserved.
(Chapters: 1, 2, 3, and 4)
WARNING: Contains sexual situations, and may not be suitable for children 12 years old or under.
Chapter 5: Empath
At 10:30 pm NY time, 5:50 am Jerusalem, Sarah was already fuzzed, which was unusual. She watched Mitchell cross the threshold into his apartment in Soho, his long black coat rippling behind him like Doppler waves.
She dozed peacefully in her Jerusalem bed, and restlessly in Long Island. She rode the subway back to Queens with her keys in her curled-up fist, ready to ward off any potential rapists, as her friend Avi had instructed her. She stepped under the irregular spurts of hot water in her uptown apartment shower.
Sarah followed him into his apartment as he minded on the single halogen spotlight. The apartment was an almost empty studio. His boots echoed loudly as he walked to the kitchen. As he walked, he waved her in the general direction of the room's only furniture, which included a battered chrome and black cloth Seaman's fold-out.
He messaged: "Have a seat. I'll make coffee."
She messaged back: "Thank you."
She could see a bathroom painted in some dull pinkish color, partially visible through a half-open door. She heard the cat before it shot out of the bathroom and into the kitchen, white fur on edge. Mitchell opened a bag, poured into a bowl, and placed the bowl on the floor. He murmured something; she couldn't hear what. Another cat, this one grayish blue, appeared at a narrow window through which Sarah could see regular luminescent slits on the exteriors of other buildings. This one scrambled to the floor, and then streaked into the kitchen.
Sarah looked around at the bare walls.
It was an old-style studio, with uneven wooden floors of some generic species of wood and a high ceiling. Aside from the fold-out, there was a low black metal trunk and a black glass coffee table supporting two fat law textbooks, a silver scanning pen, and a scribbled up notepad. Part of the table could be flipped up to a wi-net monitor. The room was otherwise empty, if you didn't count the full-length digital wall opposite the window. The fold-out was lightly laced with white and gray cat hair.
After a moment, the sounds and smells of coffee floated into the living room along with whistles of Bach. Bach whistles delicately slipped into real and ambient from some hidden speaker system. A green diode in the upper left corner of the digital wall winked rapidly.
Sarah removed her jacket, laid it neatly on the side arm of the fold-out. She wore a sleeveless black T and dark suit pants. She stepped out of her pumps, ran a toe over the wood grain on the floor, rubbed her palms together and sat down. Legs crossed and uncrossed. Placed her right arm on the back of the couch and lay her head in her hand.
Message: "How do you like it?"
"Black."
Mitchell returned with two blue ceramic cups which he placed on the coffee table. His coffee appeared to be mostly milk. It was off-white.
"It's been unusually cool, hasn't it?" he asked. "Whose soul are you, tonight?"
The halogen dimmed as the digital wall began to glow in a swirl of purples and blues. The table changed to waves of seawater green. Sarah's eyes reflected the diffuse light from the table.
"Quite cool, yes. It may get hotter again soon," she answered. "My mind and body may be subject to a diverse consciousness, but my soul is always my own. I'm fuzzed, if that's what you're asking."
Sarah, moved a little closer to Mitchell on the couch. Mitchell didn't move at all, damn him, other than to grin. The wall became the first flying scene from Dumbo. Bach continued to play.
"Soon, yes. A warm front coming in from the West, I heard." "How can a soul be owned, even by itself?"
"I heard that, too. But it may snow in the south," she added, eyes in a mock warning. "Come here and find out. And add me to your damn system's access list."
Dumbo changed to rain on evergreens. Thunder could be faintly heard under the music.
"Snow. That's not what I heard. I heard rain. Wet ... and rainy." He leaned towards her, his mouth brushing hers, softly. "Here you go. Don't do anything I wouldn't do." Sent her the access key.
In West Hempstead, Sarah broke into a drenching sweat.
"I guess we'll just have to wait ... and see ..." her voice trailed off. He was kissing her now, or she was him. Or both. "Don't worry, I'll try not to break anything." She changed the rain to a pulsing red circle, the music to violins sounding out a heartbeat.
Waves of red pulsed across the wall, speeding up until they were faster than human vision could follow. The violins played a single poignant melody, like echoes of a human soul.
In her bed in Jerusalem, Sarah's right hand crept down her belly while her left hand gripped her breast.
In less than ten seconds she was gasping, "Now. Now. I need you now." She rasped, or messaged, or some combination of both.
On the subway, Sarah's face was flushed and burning. What the hell? Her crotch was damp. She was worried it was going to be noticeable; she imagined that it already must be. A group of young black men across from her were laughing and cursing, evidently trying to impress an amiable black girl who may have been one of their girlfriends. She very badly wanted to hide. She curled up on the seat, tears beginning to stream down her hot cheeks.
Then she was twisting, arching, gripping, and raking his back with short unpainted nails.
In the shower, Sarah moaned, gripped the soap and sank to the shower floor, fingers dancing furiously.
Mitchell was barely inside of her when she had already finished her first and was starting on the second.
In some small corner of her mind, she thought, That was fast, but it got no further than that.
Saturday, July 22, 2006
A household revolution
I think I may be on to something.
Last night was our semi-regular game night. Fraser got home from work and announced that he had a surprise for me, but only if I cleared off the dining table for game night. (usually we have a bit of an argument about who has to do that)
Some tidying and cleaning later, the surprise emerged - our very own copy of Thurn und Taxis (technically, of Thurn and Taxis) - newly arrived in Australia and collected that very morning.
Despite never having played it face to face before yesterday, Thurn und Taxis is easily one of my favourite games. I rate it a 9.5 at BoardGameGeek - Always want to play it, don't see that changing for at least the foreseeable future. I've played it nearly 70 times at BSW, often a couple of times in an evening. I like the route building aspects, the hand management and the scoring options, as well as the possibility of winning or triggering game end in different ways. It's a very simple game to learn - I think it could almost work as a gateway - but it's definitely deeper than it appears on first play. And it looks so beautiful - I have to admit, I am a sucker for a pretty game.
Apparently I am not the only one, either. This evening, as Fraser and Otto packed away Colour Clowns, Otto announced that she wanted to play another game - "The game with the horsies and yellow". Fraser was perplexed, but I knew immediately what she'd meant - we had enough trouble keeping her away from it last night when we were playing. I think Biggie could probably learn (for the nights when Fraser won't indulge me), but it's still a long way beyond Otto.
Anyway, back to my grand plan.
We need a games / household chores index - an exchange rate.
This is timely, because our cleaner is going away for five weeks, so we will need to pay a bit more attention to housework than I usually try to.
A new game for cleaning the table (which had, admittedly, accumulated a lot of junk) seems a little extravagant to me. I think Fraser may have pegged the prices at the generous end. That suits me when I am being bribed, anyway, although it might make it harder to buy favours myself.
I'm thinking if a new game appears just for cleaning the dining room table, all this housework may run us into bankruptcy - the cost of paying someone to mop the floors, dust and clean the bath once a fortnight pales into insignificance.
So let's just look at playing games.
Cooking dinner is probably worth a game of Thurn und Taxis. Let's get that in there up front. Especially as I usually do the cooking at chez nous (Fraser does the dishes - should there be a reward for that?)
Sweeping and mopping the floors is a pretty sizable job. I think I might be willing to pay Fraser a game of Formula De if he does that.
Princes of Florence is a toughie. I need to find something Fraser really wants to get that one onto the table, especially as it involves getting other people over. Maybe if I do my tax he might succumb.
Making the beds and doing the laundry? I don't mind that so much. But I want to encourage Biggie to help out more with chores like that, especially if she'll start putting her own clothes away. San Juan is popular with her at the moment, and probably an appropriate reward.
Which leaves me straight into games as behavioural modification.
If Biggie does all her chores for a week, I could teach her to play Ingenious. Or play Yinsh with her, despite being the world's worst Yinsh player ever.
I just need to think this idea through some more. See, if I start offering games as treats, will my family somehow get the idea that I should only be allowed to play games after I have done some housework, or scored a new work contract?
That would never do.
What do you think? Got some trades to suggest?
See you in LupusLanding,
Melissa
Last night was our semi-regular game night. Fraser got home from work and announced that he had a surprise for me, but only if I cleared off the dining table for game night. (usually we have a bit of an argument about who has to do that)
Some tidying and cleaning later, the surprise emerged - our very own copy of Thurn und Taxis (technically, of Thurn and Taxis) - newly arrived in Australia and collected that very morning.
Despite never having played it face to face before yesterday, Thurn und Taxis is easily one of my favourite games. I rate it a 9.5 at BoardGameGeek - Always want to play it, don't see that changing for at least the foreseeable future. I've played it nearly 70 times at BSW, often a couple of times in an evening. I like the route building aspects, the hand management and the scoring options, as well as the possibility of winning or triggering game end in different ways. It's a very simple game to learn - I think it could almost work as a gateway - but it's definitely deeper than it appears on first play. And it looks so beautiful - I have to admit, I am a sucker for a pretty game.
Apparently I am not the only one, either. This evening, as Fraser and Otto packed away Colour Clowns, Otto announced that she wanted to play another game - "The game with the horsies and yellow". Fraser was perplexed, but I knew immediately what she'd meant - we had enough trouble keeping her away from it last night when we were playing. I think Biggie could probably learn (for the nights when Fraser won't indulge me), but it's still a long way beyond Otto.
Anyway, back to my grand plan.
We need a games / household chores index - an exchange rate.
This is timely, because our cleaner is going away for five weeks, so we will need to pay a bit more attention to housework than I usually try to.
A new game for cleaning the table (which had, admittedly, accumulated a lot of junk) seems a little extravagant to me. I think Fraser may have pegged the prices at the generous end. That suits me when I am being bribed, anyway, although it might make it harder to buy favours myself.
I'm thinking if a new game appears just for cleaning the dining room table, all this housework may run us into bankruptcy - the cost of paying someone to mop the floors, dust and clean the bath once a fortnight pales into insignificance.
So let's just look at playing games.
Cooking dinner is probably worth a game of Thurn und Taxis. Let's get that in there up front. Especially as I usually do the cooking at chez nous (Fraser does the dishes - should there be a reward for that?)
Sweeping and mopping the floors is a pretty sizable job. I think I might be willing to pay Fraser a game of Formula De if he does that.
Princes of Florence is a toughie. I need to find something Fraser really wants to get that one onto the table, especially as it involves getting other people over. Maybe if I do my tax he might succumb.
Making the beds and doing the laundry? I don't mind that so much. But I want to encourage Biggie to help out more with chores like that, especially if she'll start putting her own clothes away. San Juan is popular with her at the moment, and probably an appropriate reward.
Which leaves me straight into games as behavioural modification.
If Biggie does all her chores for a week, I could teach her to play Ingenious. Or play Yinsh with her, despite being the world's worst Yinsh player ever.
I just need to think this idea through some more. See, if I start offering games as treats, will my family somehow get the idea that I should only be allowed to play games after I have done some housework, or scored a new work contract?
That would never do.
What do you think? Got some trades to suggest?
See you in LupusLanding,
Melissa
Friday, July 21, 2006
Build Your Own Game Convention
Coldfoot has invited me to become a contributor to this site, and you will probably be seeing my musings on Fridays. But sometimes it is better to listen than pontificate, especially when dealing with corners of the gaming world I know little about.
As a member of the Appalachian Gamers club, I occasionally rub elbows with members of the larger local wargamers club, the Kanawha Riflemen Wargming group (which specializes in miniature gaming). This spring, I started hearing people daydreaming about creating a local gaming convention. And then one night, I showed up at Ted Cheatham’s house for the weekly game session and learned that the daydream had become a reality. There will be a new game convention in Charleston, West Virginia in October.
I was delighted to learn that two members of the Kanawha club who occasionally show up at Ted’s house are also two of the main movers and shakers behind this convention: Nick Gillispie and Travis Reynolds. (Anyone who went into the miniatures room at Origins this year will remember Nick’s fantastic Lord of the Rings Helm’s Deep and Minas Tirith dioramas). I decided to do an e-mail interview with them to learn more about how to go about forming a new game con. Travis was the one who had time to respond in detail.
KRIS: What is CharCon? When and where will it occur?
TRAVIS: CharCon is a convention focused on gaming that will take place in Charleston, West Virginia at the Charleston Civic Center on October 6th & 7th.
KRIS: How did CharCon begin? How much money did you guys have to come up with?
TRAVIS: Well, for several years a few of our close knit group have talked about different ways that we could become more involved in the gaming community. Give a little something back. At one time, we were discussing the idea of opening a game store, the kind that caters to the gamers. Life being what it is and always interfering, that never got off the ground. So, we started talking about doing a convention. We casually discussed it for awhile and then Nick and I just decided to get on it, and we are making it happen. I would guess that when it is all said and done, the pre-show costs will be between $2000 and $2500. Hopefully we will generate that much with some left over to get started on next year!
(Note: Nick says that expenses have run about $1500 so far, but he suspects they will rise).
KRIS: When will gamers be able to register? How much will it cost?
TRAVIS: Gamers will be able to pre-register sometime prior to August 1st. We will have pre-registration on our web page (www.charcon.org) and at several of our sponsor locations (Treasures, All About Games, etc.). The super affordable price is only $15 for both days and $8 for Friday, $12 for Saturday. Children under 12 get in for $5 a day. Members of HMGS or gamemasters who run a minimal amount of games will receive a $5 discount. Anyone interested in checking things out can pick up a visitors pass for $3.
KRIS: What kind of gamers will the con appeal to? What events will occur?
TRAVIS: Hopefully all of them! We have a large variety of events planned. Miniatures of all sorts. Historical, Fantasy and Sci-Fi. We will have a ton of collectible games like Heroclix, Yu-Gi-Oh, Magic the Gathering and more. There will be plenty of board games for everyone to play. Role Playing Games will be covered in ample supply (including games of Shaintar:Immortal Legends being run by the creator Sean Patrick Fannon!). Plus, many games will be run in a tournament format with prizes for the winners. If we are missing something, please let us know!
KRIS: What are your goals for CharCon? How do you define success?
TRAVIS: Goals...man that’s a good question. Well first I would like to see attendance be enough so that Nick doesn't take a bath on fronting the money! I want everyone who attends to have fun. I would like to see some younger kids who come in to play say Yu-Gi-Oh see some fabulously created miniature game and say, "WOW! I want to play that!" Then I would like to see some visitors come in because they saw it advertised or someone told them about it and they like what they see enough to upgrade to a real badge, play games and have a blast! If some of these things happen, then we have given back to gaming. If some good looking gamer broad or LARP queen were to fall head over heels in love with Nick because he just has the darned nicest LOTR terrain, well that would be good to I suppose. Oh and if we can make it through the weekend without Dave Gilligan incessantly complaining, that would be ok with me.
KRIS: What has been the hardest part of organizing the con? What has been the most rewarding aspect?
TRAVIS: Trying to remember everything has been a task. We have been pretty lucky in that Nick and I have been able to do most of the planning and we have some people waiting in the wings to help us with key elements. Its kind of a dive to get something like this started. Ask me the hardest part on Sunday the 8th and see what I say! Most rewarding so far would be seeing people we don't know on forums we just stumbled across talking about our Con. That was a rush.
KRIS: What advice would you give other gamers who might want to start a con in their areas?
TRAVIS: First, attend some other Cons. Get a feel for what you want to do and how other people do it. Nick and I spent most of Origins just networking with people and asking questions. Next, establish a core group of people you can count on. We have a board of directors. It includes a Webmaster, a Print Marketing Director, an Events Coordinator, a Customer Service Director. Nick and I are the directors and we pick up the slack on a few other things (like Vendor/Sponsor Liaison, Accounting, Registrations Coordinator). Also, pick one person to be in charge. Matters can be discussed as a group and if everyone agrees--great. If not, you need someone to make decisions. Sometimes things need decided on now and can not wait. I don't just say that because I am in charge of our Con, it truly is a vital piece of the puzzle. After that, pick a venue and reserve it. We went with a high profile venue that gives us lots of space and hopefully will give us some foot traffic. Go with the best thing you can arrange and afford. Once that is done, you only have about 1000 more things left....
KRIS: And is there anything you would like to add?
TRAVIS: I hope CharCon is a huge success and we are able to keep it going for years. Just about everyone we have talked to has been hugely supportive and willing to lend a hand. We don't have aspirations to grow to be a huge con or anything of that sort, but if we can add some gaming to the local area culture and let a bunch of people have tons of fun in the process...great!
As a member of the Appalachian Gamers club, I occasionally rub elbows with members of the larger local wargamers club, the Kanawha Riflemen Wargming group (which specializes in miniature gaming). This spring, I started hearing people daydreaming about creating a local gaming convention. And then one night, I showed up at Ted Cheatham’s house for the weekly game session and learned that the daydream had become a reality. There will be a new game convention in Charleston, West Virginia in October.
I was delighted to learn that two members of the Kanawha club who occasionally show up at Ted’s house are also two of the main movers and shakers behind this convention: Nick Gillispie and Travis Reynolds. (Anyone who went into the miniatures room at Origins this year will remember Nick’s fantastic Lord of the Rings Helm’s Deep and Minas Tirith dioramas). I decided to do an e-mail interview with them to learn more about how to go about forming a new game con. Travis was the one who had time to respond in detail.
KRIS: What is CharCon? When and where will it occur?
TRAVIS: CharCon is a convention focused on gaming that will take place in Charleston, West Virginia at the Charleston Civic Center on October 6th & 7th.
KRIS: How did CharCon begin? How much money did you guys have to come up with?
TRAVIS: Well, for several years a few of our close knit group have talked about different ways that we could become more involved in the gaming community. Give a little something back. At one time, we were discussing the idea of opening a game store, the kind that caters to the gamers. Life being what it is and always interfering, that never got off the ground. So, we started talking about doing a convention. We casually discussed it for awhile and then Nick and I just decided to get on it, and we are making it happen. I would guess that when it is all said and done, the pre-show costs will be between $2000 and $2500. Hopefully we will generate that much with some left over to get started on next year!
(Note: Nick says that expenses have run about $1500 so far, but he suspects they will rise).
KRIS: When will gamers be able to register? How much will it cost?
TRAVIS: Gamers will be able to pre-register sometime prior to August 1st. We will have pre-registration on our web page (www.charcon.org) and at several of our sponsor locations (Treasures, All About Games, etc.). The super affordable price is only $15 for both days and $8 for Friday, $12 for Saturday. Children under 12 get in for $5 a day. Members of HMGS or gamemasters who run a minimal amount of games will receive a $5 discount. Anyone interested in checking things out can pick up a visitors pass for $3.
KRIS: What kind of gamers will the con appeal to? What events will occur?
TRAVIS: Hopefully all of them! We have a large variety of events planned. Miniatures of all sorts. Historical, Fantasy and Sci-Fi. We will have a ton of collectible games like Heroclix, Yu-Gi-Oh, Magic the Gathering and more. There will be plenty of board games for everyone to play. Role Playing Games will be covered in ample supply (including games of Shaintar:Immortal Legends being run by the creator Sean Patrick Fannon!). Plus, many games will be run in a tournament format with prizes for the winners. If we are missing something, please let us know!
KRIS: What are your goals for CharCon? How do you define success?
TRAVIS: Goals...man that’s a good question. Well first I would like to see attendance be enough so that Nick doesn't take a bath on fronting the money! I want everyone who attends to have fun. I would like to see some younger kids who come in to play say Yu-Gi-Oh see some fabulously created miniature game and say, "WOW! I want to play that!" Then I would like to see some visitors come in because they saw it advertised or someone told them about it and they like what they see enough to upgrade to a real badge, play games and have a blast! If some of these things happen, then we have given back to gaming. If some good looking gamer broad or LARP queen were to fall head over heels in love with Nick because he just has the darned nicest LOTR terrain, well that would be good to I suppose. Oh and if we can make it through the weekend without Dave Gilligan incessantly complaining, that would be ok with me.
KRIS: What has been the hardest part of organizing the con? What has been the most rewarding aspect?
TRAVIS: Trying to remember everything has been a task. We have been pretty lucky in that Nick and I have been able to do most of the planning and we have some people waiting in the wings to help us with key elements. Its kind of a dive to get something like this started. Ask me the hardest part on Sunday the 8th and see what I say! Most rewarding so far would be seeing people we don't know on forums we just stumbled across talking about our Con. That was a rush.
KRIS: What advice would you give other gamers who might want to start a con in their areas?
TRAVIS: First, attend some other Cons. Get a feel for what you want to do and how other people do it. Nick and I spent most of Origins just networking with people and asking questions. Next, establish a core group of people you can count on. We have a board of directors. It includes a Webmaster, a Print Marketing Director, an Events Coordinator, a Customer Service Director. Nick and I are the directors and we pick up the slack on a few other things (like Vendor/Sponsor Liaison, Accounting, Registrations Coordinator). Also, pick one person to be in charge. Matters can be discussed as a group and if everyone agrees--great. If not, you need someone to make decisions. Sometimes things need decided on now and can not wait. I don't just say that because I am in charge of our Con, it truly is a vital piece of the puzzle. After that, pick a venue and reserve it. We went with a high profile venue that gives us lots of space and hopefully will give us some foot traffic. Go with the best thing you can arrange and afford. Once that is done, you only have about 1000 more things left....
KRIS: And is there anything you would like to add?
TRAVIS: I hope CharCon is a huge success and we are able to keep it going for years. Just about everyone we have talked to has been hugely supportive and willing to lend a hand. We don't have aspirations to grow to be a huge con or anything of that sort, but if we can add some gaming to the local area culture and let a bunch of people have tons of fun in the process...great!
Thursday, July 20, 2006
If It's Broken, Don't Replay It!
Last month Larry Levy offered up a column that he called The Curse of the Learning Curve in which he opined that players should have patience with new games, lest they throw out something good just because of a bad first-time experience.I can agree with some of Larry's point. It does take some time to really figure out some games. However I disagree with some of his specifics. In particular, I see a big difference between a game that offers a first-time player a shallower experience (because they didn't understand the subtleties) and a game that offers a first-time player a broken experience (because it just didn't work).
Broadly I see four different types of game design that are related to "the learning curve", and in the first two cases I'd fault the designers and developers with bad design.
Case the First: Players Breaking the Game
The worst thing that you can experience in a first-time gameplay is a broken game. This was surely the case with one of the examples that Larry provided, Fifth Avenue. Therein players could place businesses to end the game very quickly, even when it wasn't in their best interest to do so.
Larry brushed this off as "groupthink", but I'd instead describe it as a natural consequence of a game with a nonintuitive strategy. It's not immediately clear which strategies are best in Fifth Avenue, and thus it's not really a surprise that one or more brand new players might try out the thing that happens to end the game.
Larry also said that it "probably couldn’t have been anticipated", and here I'd disagree even more. There's a way to anticipate exactly this sort of thing: blind playtesting. You give a group your game and your rules, then you let them play and you see what happens. Then you do it again and again. Big problems will turn up, and they'll turn up frequently--and then you go back to the drawing board.
If players can break a game through normal gameplay, it's broken. Period, end of sentence. It's a little better if a game can only be broken through subpar gameplay. And it's even better if players can only break it through purposeful, subpar gameplay. But it's still broken, and now we're just talking about degrees.
Sure, there might be a great game in there. It might be easy to figure out how to play that great game, just as the designer intended it. Or, you might keep stumbling around and never figure out the style of play that worked for the designers. I've experienced both situations with games I've tried out. But, the designer (or really, the publisher) still released a broken game.
A better designer or developer would track down the way that players could break the game, and they'd counter them. In Fifth Avenue you might put some cap on business building. It might cost the game some of its elegance, but traded off against even some percentage of first-time players experiencing a game that doesn't work, that's well worth while.
Of all the learning-curve experiences that I discuss in this article, this is the only one that I consider a deal-breaker: the game shouldn't have been published.
(And to close off, another of Larry's example fits into this category for me: Antike. As he notes, players can make that game stagnate through "bad" play. That's another word for broken.)
Case the Second: Players Ruining their Own Game
A less critical problem is when a first-time player is able to make sufficiently bad decisions in a sufficiently unforgiving game system that he ruins his own game, putting himself at such a deficit that he's totally unable to recover. Age of Steam is truly the poster-boy for this type of unforgiving gameplay.
Some players enjoy the challenge of this sort of gameplay, and I'd in no way call it "broken" like I did the previous category of play. However, it is very unfriendly and generally not what I'd consider a good style of play.
For me, a good game allows for players to come back from deficit. If not, there's no reason to continue playing the game after that first fifteen or twenty minutes, as it just becomes a however-many-hour-long festival to annoint the already clear winner.
Beyond allowing players to come from behind, a good game should also guide them in how to play well. I suspect many unforgiving games fall down at least partially in this regard.
So, though I wouldn't call a game with this failing "broken", I would say that it's limited its own appeal, and I wouldn't fault at all a player who decides never to play it again after a terrible first-time experience.
Case the Third: Players Being Confused
Another category of games which have a learning curve are those that are too opaque. I think a lot of Italian games fall into this category, for reasons that I've discussed previously. Il Principe is a fine example of a game that made little sense to me the first time because of the multiple interconnected systems. Many auction games generate this sort of confusion for first-time play because players can figure out how to value things. Michael Schacht's Hansa is another example of a game where the action-victory interface is sufficiently disconnected that, 7 plays later, I still dont' know how to play well.
Now players being confused isn't necessarily a game-breaker. I've been rating these issues in descending order of importance, and so confusion falls somewhere below players totally blowing their own games.
However, confusion isn't a good thing either. A clearer game will result in more enjoyment. Especially in an era where a game might only be played a few times, a designer should do what he can to clarify those first-time plays. Auction games sometimes do this with minimum bids, like those in Ostia. It's amazing how much that single benchmark helps out. Designers who think about these first-time inclarities and improve up them will just be improving their game as a whole.
Case the Fourth: Players Not Seeing The Depth
In Larry's article, he generally suggested that people should hang in there, and try out a game again to try and find its hidden beauty. I generally disagree for all of the cases that I've outlined already. If players can break a game, totally mess themselves up, or are generally confused by a game, then that's because the designer didn't produce a game that was robust, fair, or clear enough. Maybe there's a good game there, but I'll happily suggest that players move on rather than digging.
However there's a fourth case where I generally agree with Larry, and that's for games that have greater depth which you can only discover through additional plays. People often talk about this when they play Reiner Knizia games, and a second or third or fourth game suddenly opens up new realms of possibility.
Game designers have to be careful here, because if their game don't offer sufficient depth of play a first time out, players will have no reason to try again, but if a designer can manage to make a good game great through additional plays, that's well worth while, and shows the sort of thing that additional plays should reveal.
Conclusion
Yes, there's definitely such a thing as first-timer's impatience, and yes, people often move on from a game without having discovered the exact formula that turns it into a great game. But, generally, this is a perfectly valid and reasonable response. There's a glut of games on the market. If something doesn't seem to be working, then move on to the next one, and maybe you'll encourage that designer to make his next game work all the time rather than just part of the time.
It's evolution in action.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
You Might Be A Gamer If...
This was originally posted on my personal blog but I had no fresh ideas this week so I’ve updated this with a couple of new lines.
If the emergency kit in your car’s trunk includes a game for any situation, you might be a gamer.
If your idea of a Square Dance is four people moving around a Formula De board on your kitchen table, you might be a gamer.
If you’ve ever spent more money in a week on games than on groceries, you might be a gamer.
If it’s extremely important to figure out what game the Peanuts gang are playing, you might be a gamer.
If your wife asks you to take out the trash and you grab the Monopoly game, you might be a gamer.
If someone asks you “Have you heard the news?”, and you immediately think that the new game you’ve been waiting for has finally been released, you might be a gamer.
If you knock out a wall in your home to improve access to the game table, you might be a gamer.
If you take a German language course just so you can read the original rules, you might be a gamer.
If your idea of an innovative thinker is the guy who decided to make game pawns that look like little wooden people, you might be a gamer.
If you ever returned that thoughtful gift from your mom and took the money to your local game store to buy a new game, you might be a gamer.
If the first thought you have when you wake up to a blizzard is that it’s Game Time, you might be a gamer.
If receiving your income tax return means finally placing that big game order, you might be a gamer.
If you’ve ever been awakened in the middle of the night by a horrible dream involving cardboard and a large glass of soda, you might be a gamer.
If your favorite designer isn’t interested in fabric color and texture, you might be a gamer.
If your dog gets excited by the sight of the UPS truck coming up the street, you might be a gamer.
If you bought your house mainly for the “game room” you could create, you might be a gamer.
If you carry a picture of your game collection in your wallet, you might be a gamer.
If you buy small Ziploc bags by the case, you might be a gamer.
If you have game rules lying on the back of your toilet instead of the Reader’s Digest, you might be a gamer.
If your dream vacation includes a small bag of clothes and a large empty suitcase, you might be a gamer.
If you have to rearrange some part of your living space to make room for your games, you might be a gamer.
If you’ve ever turned down a date simply because it was on Game Night, you might be a gamer.
If your 3-year-old knows what a DVONN is, you might be a gamer.
If you want your epitaph to read “He/she played a good game”, you might be a gamer.
~~~~~~~~
SLOW
Gamer Crossing
Mary
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Game Group
True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise; it arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self, and in the next from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions. - Joseph Addison
At 5:15 I head for home, stopping at Hebrew University (Givat Ram campus) to pick up Rachel. We arrive home by 5 to 6. As usual, we are pressed for time.
Between the two of us, we form hamburgers from the defrosted meat, chop vegetables, and defrost some pitas. Game night is supposed to start at 6:30.
While Rachel finishes the meal, I place an insert into the table, and bring in the small card table from outside. I unpack and unfold the chairs from the closet, setting up the card table in the living room.
We are ready to sit down to eat at 6:15 or 6:20, which is when Brendan arrives. Brendan catches an infrequent bus from Hebrew University (Mt Scopus campus), so if he didn't arrive early, he would arrive late. He brings with him 2 "mana chama"s, packaged plastic food items that require only hot water to reconstitute. Sometimes we ask him to join us for dinner, and sometimes he insists on eating his plastic food.
We are not done eating when Guy and Nate arrive at 6:28, usually with Binyamin following. Itamar may be with him. Binaymin has brought some games in his bag, probably a few new ones that none of us have played. They talk about games, and may start a warm-up game while we finish eating - something new and short, or San Juan, or similar.
They ask "who is ordering"? There's always a few people ordering food from the local Burger's Bar. Nadine arrives. Elijah arrives. Elijah always orders a steak salad. Nadine usually orders a single burger, spicy. You need at least two people ordering or they won't deliver.
Adam and Gili arrive, and maybe Ben, and some others. Altogether we may now be between ten and fifteen people. If we're over ten people, I let everyone sort out what they will be playing. If under ten, I need to help arrange the games, dealing with the usual chorus of "I don't like that", "I really want to play that", "We played that last time", "I'll play anything but that", "That doesn't work with X players", and so on. So far, this has never taken more than ten minutes.
As requested, some of the players bring snacks, typically some sort of cookies, chips, or similar items. Even though I'm not ordering food, I place the food order now, unless I have to explain a game in which case it will have to wait until the explanation is over. For most games, other people can also explain them, now.
Games explanation is always: 1) These are the victory conditions. 2) These are the primary means of obtaining the victory conditions. 3) This is how each turn works. 4) So, as you can see, the primary paths to obtaining the victory conditions are X, Y, and Z, or a combination thereof. 5) A few things to remember, and a few exceptions.
If David is there, we plot how we can split off from the others to play Magic at some point during the evening: Rochester draft from my cards. I take 20 cards at random from each color, and another 20 cards from artifacts/gold/special lands, shuffle, remove 30, and we draft from that. Then we build decks and I lose three games to him.
Otherwise, if we are lucky, the shorter games have ended by 7:15 or so, and the main games may start. Intro games are often abandoned in favor of the main games, in order to not keep people waiting. As the first game ends, I take out my pen and paper and begin writing down games played, by whom, and scores.
Sometimes with ordering food, a short game, figuring out which game to play, latecomers, and explaining the rules, the main game may not start until 8:00. That eliminates certain games from a number of the participants who have to leave by 10:00 - no Power Grid, Caylus or other games that take too long. Instead, they will opt for Taj Mahal, Puerto Rico, Prince of Florence, or similar.
The noise gets a bit loud, and people are asked to hush. There is a constant chatter about what moves to take, what other players should do, clarifications on the rules. The phone rings at least four times. The food arrives, and everyone starts figuring out how much money to pay and how much tip to give the delivery guy (not required in Israel, but we usually give, anyway). Then people have to figure out where to eat, which are the meat silverware and the meat sink, where is the garbage, and please don't put that cup so close to the game.
If we're lucky, games will end at close to the same time. Those that ended a little earlier may finish eating, talk, surf the net, decide what to play next, or go to the bathroom. If we're unlucky, the Amun-Re game is only at round four by 10:00. People admonish each other to move quicker, yet still take a long time to decide what to do on their own turn. But everyone is pleased with the game.
If the first games end by 9:30, another main game will be started. If later than 10:00, a shorter game, such as Settlers or San Juan. If after 10:30, maybe some Bridge hands.
If a new game has been played, judgment is passed. A poor game will likely not be seen again. A game that some like and some don't will, and it will enter the roster of games that we argue about the next time a game has to be chosen. My own game collection doesn't vary too much, but a borrowed game may be returned, and I may have traded and received the trade recently. Mostly, new games are brought in by others. Mostly Binyamin.
I will complain that I'm losing, but not seriously. Binyamin will complain that he made the wrong move because he didn't understand the rules. Nadine will suggest that we rewind the game several moves so that someone can redo their turn. Elijah will furrow his brow, or be bored. Adam will warn you not to move where he wants or risk his vengeance. Gili will do whatever is the opposite of what was suggested in order to try something new. Brendan will ask if we can play Apples to Apples after this.
Gili or I will heat up water at some point. Gili drinks Chico, while I drink tea. Brendan drinks cocoa.
Some leave at 10:00 or 10:30. Rachel warns everyone else that she wants game night over by 11:30. On a good day, she will be drawn into a Puerto Rico game with variant buildings and enjoy it, although she will be chomping at the bit to get to her next turn already. She'll win. On a bad day, she may be sucked into the PR game when she had other things to do, and regret playing. In this case, she'll lose.
By 11:30, the last game is almost done, and by 11:45 it is done. There will be a bit more talking as I herd people out the door saying "Goodnight! See you next week!"
After it is over, the tables go out, the chairs are folded, the garbage is thrown out, the cups put into the dishwasher, the insert removed, the floor is swept, the games put away, and the counters cleared. I used to stay up and write the session report on the computer, but now I wait until the next day.
Somewhere in the fabric of the night, the tendrils of gaming and companionship bind us in a web that, though we scatter from the group, bring us back again.
Yehuda
At 5:15 I head for home, stopping at Hebrew University (Givat Ram campus) to pick up Rachel. We arrive home by 5 to 6. As usual, we are pressed for time.
Between the two of us, we form hamburgers from the defrosted meat, chop vegetables, and defrost some pitas. Game night is supposed to start at 6:30.
While Rachel finishes the meal, I place an insert into the table, and bring in the small card table from outside. I unpack and unfold the chairs from the closet, setting up the card table in the living room.
We are ready to sit down to eat at 6:15 or 6:20, which is when Brendan arrives. Brendan catches an infrequent bus from Hebrew University (Mt Scopus campus), so if he didn't arrive early, he would arrive late. He brings with him 2 "mana chama"s, packaged plastic food items that require only hot water to reconstitute. Sometimes we ask him to join us for dinner, and sometimes he insists on eating his plastic food.
We are not done eating when Guy and Nate arrive at 6:28, usually with Binyamin following. Itamar may be with him. Binaymin has brought some games in his bag, probably a few new ones that none of us have played. They talk about games, and may start a warm-up game while we finish eating - something new and short, or San Juan, or similar.
They ask "who is ordering"? There's always a few people ordering food from the local Burger's Bar. Nadine arrives. Elijah arrives. Elijah always orders a steak salad. Nadine usually orders a single burger, spicy. You need at least two people ordering or they won't deliver.
Adam and Gili arrive, and maybe Ben, and some others. Altogether we may now be between ten and fifteen people. If we're over ten people, I let everyone sort out what they will be playing. If under ten, I need to help arrange the games, dealing with the usual chorus of "I don't like that", "I really want to play that", "We played that last time", "I'll play anything but that", "That doesn't work with X players", and so on. So far, this has never taken more than ten minutes.
As requested, some of the players bring snacks, typically some sort of cookies, chips, or similar items. Even though I'm not ordering food, I place the food order now, unless I have to explain a game in which case it will have to wait until the explanation is over. For most games, other people can also explain them, now.
Games explanation is always: 1) These are the victory conditions. 2) These are the primary means of obtaining the victory conditions. 3) This is how each turn works. 4) So, as you can see, the primary paths to obtaining the victory conditions are X, Y, and Z, or a combination thereof. 5) A few things to remember, and a few exceptions.
If David is there, we plot how we can split off from the others to play Magic at some point during the evening: Rochester draft from my cards. I take 20 cards at random from each color, and another 20 cards from artifacts/gold/special lands, shuffle, remove 30, and we draft from that. Then we build decks and I lose three games to him.
Otherwise, if we are lucky, the shorter games have ended by 7:15 or so, and the main games may start. Intro games are often abandoned in favor of the main games, in order to not keep people waiting. As the first game ends, I take out my pen and paper and begin writing down games played, by whom, and scores.
Sometimes with ordering food, a short game, figuring out which game to play, latecomers, and explaining the rules, the main game may not start until 8:00. That eliminates certain games from a number of the participants who have to leave by 10:00 - no Power Grid, Caylus or other games that take too long. Instead, they will opt for Taj Mahal, Puerto Rico, Prince of Florence, or similar.
The noise gets a bit loud, and people are asked to hush. There is a constant chatter about what moves to take, what other players should do, clarifications on the rules. The phone rings at least four times. The food arrives, and everyone starts figuring out how much money to pay and how much tip to give the delivery guy (not required in Israel, but we usually give, anyway). Then people have to figure out where to eat, which are the meat silverware and the meat sink, where is the garbage, and please don't put that cup so close to the game.
If we're lucky, games will end at close to the same time. Those that ended a little earlier may finish eating, talk, surf the net, decide what to play next, or go to the bathroom. If we're unlucky, the Amun-Re game is only at round four by 10:00. People admonish each other to move quicker, yet still take a long time to decide what to do on their own turn. But everyone is pleased with the game.
If the first games end by 9:30, another main game will be started. If later than 10:00, a shorter game, such as Settlers or San Juan. If after 10:30, maybe some Bridge hands.
If a new game has been played, judgment is passed. A poor game will likely not be seen again. A game that some like and some don't will, and it will enter the roster of games that we argue about the next time a game has to be chosen. My own game collection doesn't vary too much, but a borrowed game may be returned, and I may have traded and received the trade recently. Mostly, new games are brought in by others. Mostly Binyamin.
I will complain that I'm losing, but not seriously. Binyamin will complain that he made the wrong move because he didn't understand the rules. Nadine will suggest that we rewind the game several moves so that someone can redo their turn. Elijah will furrow his brow, or be bored. Adam will warn you not to move where he wants or risk his vengeance. Gili will do whatever is the opposite of what was suggested in order to try something new. Brendan will ask if we can play Apples to Apples after this.
Gili or I will heat up water at some point. Gili drinks Chico, while I drink tea. Brendan drinks cocoa.
Some leave at 10:00 or 10:30. Rachel warns everyone else that she wants game night over by 11:30. On a good day, she will be drawn into a Puerto Rico game with variant buildings and enjoy it, although she will be chomping at the bit to get to her next turn already. She'll win. On a bad day, she may be sucked into the PR game when she had other things to do, and regret playing. In this case, she'll lose.
By 11:30, the last game is almost done, and by 11:45 it is done. There will be a bit more talking as I herd people out the door saying "Goodnight! See you next week!"
After it is over, the tables go out, the chairs are folded, the garbage is thrown out, the cups put into the dishwasher, the insert removed, the floor is swept, the games put away, and the counters cleared. I used to stay up and write the session report on the computer, but now I wait until the next day.
Somewhere in the fabric of the night, the tendrils of gaming and companionship bind us in a web that, though we scatter from the group, bring us back again.
Yehuda
Sunday, July 16, 2006
THE COMING TRIUMPH OF THE WARGAME-EURO HYBRID
Once again, this is the last reader submission in the queue. Surely you have better things to do at work than work. Write an essay on the evolution of Meeples, we will post it. Your boss will understand.
Got a 5000 word essay on Mancala that's been kicking around in the back of your head trying to get out? Edit it down to 75 words and 3 pictures and we will post it.
Got some interesting pictures?
What's the state of boardgaming in Debuke, Legos, or your town? Tell us.
Surely someone games with some goofballs they want to tell us about?
Have an idea for a boardgame contest, such as the standard "Can you identify which game these pieces come from" contest? Got a better idea?
Once again, here is Kris Hall. Click on the title for the link to his group, the Appalachian Gamers.
Enjoy.
For a lot of strategy gamers, Sid Meiers’ Civilization is still the gold standard of computer games. Much of the fun comes from the game’s ability to accommodate an enormous range of playing styles. Players can win as Genghis Khan-style conquerors or as Gandhi-like peacemakers. Science and religion are as much a part of the game as armies and fleets. It is often more thrilling to complete a favorite Great Wonder than to smite your annoying neighbors. In short, Civilization seems to be as much the computer equivalent of a Eurogame as the computer equivalent of a wargame.
Boardgame designers may finally be catching up to Sid Meiers. Although wargames have been around for decades, and Eurogames have increased rapidly in popularity in recent years, the wargame-Euro hybrid (WEH) is still a sub-genre in its infancy. But it is an infant that is growing swiftly. These hybrid games have the potential to appeal to both the large wargame community and the larger Eurogame community, but too often their popularity has been limited by rules complexity and long playing times.
Here are some obvious wargame-Euro hybrids:
Civilization/Advanced Civilization/ Age of Renaissance. These are the grand old men of the wargame-Euro hybrid trend. These were (of course) civ-building games with some simple warfare rules. These games had a solid base of fans, but the long playing times kept them from being mainstream hits. These games may be due for redesign and reprints.
Warrior Knights. In Fantasy Flight’s new redesigned game of medieval conflict players send armies to lay siege to each other’s castles. But they also vie for control of the national assembly, and gain faith points that could make them the head of the church. They can invest in trading expeditions to the far East, and pay to improve both the defenses and income from their cities. This game still leans more to the wargame side of hybrid spectrum, but it is a prime example of the evolving genre. Perhaps the biggest problem with the game is that once players finish grabbing the neutral cities the game is almost over. A good variant would allow each player to start with one or two low-level cities to help speed inter-player conflict.
Twilight Imperium 3rd addition. Twilight Imperium is Fantasy Flight’s eternal labor of love. The latest version of this galactic conquest game contains a choose-a-role mechanic straight out of Puerto Rico. Add a tech tree, trading options, and victory conditions that don’t force every player to be a galactic warmonger all the time, and Twilight Imperium comes closer to the center of the hybrid spectrum than almost any other game. Three drawbacks to the game are its high price, long playing time, and intimidating rules book (although the example-laden rules book is much easier to learn than its 45-page count would suggest). Twilight Imperium has inspired more player-designed variants than any other boardgame I’ve seen--indicating a healthy community of fans (and some frustration with the Imperial Strategy Card, a card that rewards players big victory points for doing nothing more than choosing the card). Until some other game company decides to challenge Fantasy Flight in the galactic empire arena, Twilight Imperium will remain the sole in-print boardgame equivalent of the popular Master of Orion series of computer games.
Twilight Struggle. Not an expansion to Twilight Imperium, but a wildly-popular GMT game of cold war conflict. This card-driven area-majority game comes from a company known for its complex wargames, but TS also appeals to open-minded Euro-gamers. Reportedly, this is one of Alan Moon’s favorite games.
Byzantium. Martin Wallace’s game of medieval near-eastern strife would seem to be pure wargame at first glance. But some unusual design decisions (players control armies on both sides of the conflict) and the wooden-cube management aspect of the game give it the feel of a hybrid.
Serenissima. You may be scratching your head and wondering why I’ve included this game of Renaissance merchant trading in a list of wargame-Euro hybrids. But that’s only because we’re used to hybrids being wargames with some Euro chrome grafted on. Serenisima is a Euro game with some wargame chrome grafted on. Give this game to some mellow Euro-gamers and all you’ll see is a lot of cube shuttling. Give it to some rabid wargamers and be prepared for constant pirate action.
Mare Nostrum. I know less about this civ-building game than any other game I’ve mentioned, so I will just note that it seems to be a low-complexity hybrid game about the growth of ancient Mediterranean nations. It reputedly has some game-balance issues, but it was successful enough to warrant an expansion.
Sid Meier’s Civilization—The Boardgame. This Eagle Games boardgame version of Sid Meiers’ classic had the near-impossible task of trying to recreate the computer game experience. Not surprisingly, it did not take the gaming community by storm. The long playing time was one factor that limited the game’s appeal (players seem to be more tolerant of long computer games than long board games).
There have also been quite a few games over the years that borrow some of the characteristics of the WEH without fully qualifying. Some are:
7 Ages. This civ-building game from Australian Design Group has an epic feel to it, but the complex rules and long playing time have limited its appeal. And the cardboard counters make it seem more like a wargame.
Here I Stand. In this new GMT game of Reformation military and religious conflict, players can rack up points by sponsoring voyages of discovery, converting regions from one religion to another, getting the Queen pregnant (if you play Henry VIII), building Saint Peter’s in Rome, or even translating the Bible into the vernacular of various regions. The main reason this game fits the wargame profile more than the WEH category is the game’s high complexity and long playing time.
Princes of the Renaissance, Struggle of Empires, and Conquest of the Empire (with the Martin Wallace rules). These Martin Wallace games stand at the edges of the WEH category. Princes of the Renaissance doesn’t qualify because of the lack of conventional conquest in the game. Struggle of Empires and Conquest of the Empire allow players to develop their nations in non-military ways to a limited degree, but are still basically wargames.
War of the Ring. There have been several games with this title over the years, but the Nexus/Fantasy Flight version is the champ. Although this strategic treatment of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy is almost all wargame, the hunt for the Ring adds an all-important sub-system that gives War of the Ring some of the feel of a hybrid.
Empires of the Middle Ages. This Decision Games reissue of the old SPI game has many Civ-building aspects to it, but is too dry and complicated to fit comfortably in the WEH category. And the pieces are still cardboard chits.
Conquistador/New World. This old SPI game and its Avalon Hill redesign are as much about colonization and plunder as combat. But the complex rules and cardboard chits make the games feel more like wargames than true hybrids.
Supremacy. This out-of-print game featured economic development as well as military combat, and plenty of toys. But it was still more wargame than hybrid, and the infinite number of expansions made the rules increasingly unwieldy.
Why do so many designers like to design wargame-euro hybrids? I believe there are several factors at work.
1) Wargame hybrids mirror history and the real world better than pure wargames, at least when we consider long periods of time. Most nations fight wars at one time or another, but the successful nations are good at a lot of things other than military conflict. If you want to make a strategic game about World War II, you don’t have to give your players economic or production decisions. But if you want to make a game about the whole 20th century, your game had better have more in it than armies and warfare.
2) A lot of gamers aren’t interested in games that concentrate solely on military conflict. Some gamers find war so distasteful that they avoid pure wargames. But some of these gamers will tolerate some military conflict in a game if there are other aspects that appeal to them. By increasing the breadth of the subject matter, game designers can make their games appeal to a wider audience. For example, I can occasionally get my wife to play a Euro game of moderate complexity, but I wouldn’t bother trying to get her to play a wargame more complicated than Risk.
3) Adding non-military sub-systems into a game with warfare gives the players more layers of decisions. Even a devout living-room Napoleon may realize that games can be more interesting if there is more to decide than which unit should go in which hex.
4) Layers of sub-systems mean that games don’t have to be zero-sum contests. In other words, different players can be succeeding in different aspects of the same game. In a tight game of War of the Ring, the Shadow will be on the verge of conquering Middle Earth even as Frodo is scrambling up the slopes of Mount Doom. In Warrior Knights, one player may have the most cities, a second player might have the largest armies, a third might have the most votes in the assembly, a fourth might be the head of the church, and a fifth player might have a fortune invested in trading voyages which will result in enormous profits. Much of the conflict comes from each player trying to make his advantage in one area create dominance in other areas. The inter-play of the various sub-systems of hybrid games often creates fun in ways that purely military games can’t match.
I believe that someday a game company will design a WEH game with the right balance of military conflict, civ-building, accessible rules, and fun toys, and that when they do, their sales will shoot through the roof. A comparable example might be the success of Caylus. There were plenty of resource conversion games before Caylus—such as Goa, and Princes of Florence. But the Caylus mechanism of placing workers to activate buildings created constant direct competition between players, and the large menu of building tiles meant a huge number of options for players at all times. With Caylus everything clicked together to push the resource-conversion game genre to a new level, and the sales figures increased to reflect this. Someday something similar will happen with the WEH genre.
Let me make some fairly safe predictions about this future hit game.
1) I believe it will be strategic rather than operational or tactical. Military operations fit better with non-military elements at the strategic level. This is another way of saying that it will be a Civ-building (or at least an economic-development) game as well as a wargame.
2) The basic rules will be of simple or moderate complexity. There may be advanced, optional, or expansion rules which will push the game’s complexity into the high category, but the basic game’s complexity will be tolerable to most Euro-gamers. All other things being equal, the more complex the game, the fewer copies that get bought.
3) The basic game will be played from start to finish in under four hours. Maybe under three hours. Again, there may be options for longer games, but only moderate game length leads to big sales figures.
4) The non-military aspects of the game will be of at least equal importance with the military aspects. This hit won’t just be a wargame with a production mechanism grafted on. Non-military paths to victory will be viable options. Players will rack up points by growing their cities, developing their technology, exploring their world, or improving their culture.
5) The game will have great toys. Along with plastic military pieces, the game will have miniature cities or cathedrals or universities or factories or trains. At the end of the game, the board will look as colorful and developed as the board at the end of a game of Railroad Tycoon or Mexica.
This future hit could be a game of competing fantasy empires, galactic empires, gangster empires, alternate history empires, or a slice of real history that lasts only a century or two. The nations of the game might not be generic empires, but actual countries with lots of historical abilities and limitations. Cards might throw large amounts of historical events and detail into the mix and root the game in a specific time period. (Card-driven wargames have shown that one way to limit the complexity of rules is to shoehorn the history onto cards rather than into the rules).
Finally, let me point out a few WEHs coming soon to a store or internet site near you:
Shogun. This re-themed version of Wallenstein from Rio Grande Games is due out in August.
Tempus. This new Martin Wallace game is reputed to be Civ-building made simple. The 20 or so copies available this year at Origins disappeared in a twinkling. It’s from Café Games and is due out in August.
Conquest of Paradise. This GMT game of civ-building in the South Pacific may have traditional cardboard wargame-style counters, but the game mechanics may help it appeal to Euro gamers. Due out later this year or early next year.
Age of Empires III. This game of New World colonization and conquest from Eagle Games inspired rave reviews from those lucky enough to play it at Origins. It’s due out in August or September.
All of these games are reputedly of medium complexity. It will be interesting to see if any of them become breakout hits.
Wargame-Euro hybrids are one of my favorite sub-genres of games. I am convinced that we will see more and better hybrids in years to come.
Got a 5000 word essay on Mancala that's been kicking around in the back of your head trying to get out? Edit it down to 75 words and 3 pictures and we will post it.
Got some interesting pictures?
What's the state of boardgaming in Debuke, Legos, or your town? Tell us.
Surely someone games with some goofballs they want to tell us about?
Have an idea for a boardgame contest, such as the standard "Can you identify which game these pieces come from" contest? Got a better idea?
Once again, here is Kris Hall. Click on the title for the link to his group, the Appalachian Gamers.
Enjoy.
For a lot of strategy gamers, Sid Meiers’ Civilization is still the gold standard of computer games. Much of the fun comes from the game’s ability to accommodate an enormous range of playing styles. Players can win as Genghis Khan-style conquerors or as Gandhi-like peacemakers. Science and religion are as much a part of the game as armies and fleets. It is often more thrilling to complete a favorite Great Wonder than to smite your annoying neighbors. In short, Civilization seems to be as much the computer equivalent of a Eurogame as the computer equivalent of a wargame.
Boardgame designers may finally be catching up to Sid Meiers. Although wargames have been around for decades, and Eurogames have increased rapidly in popularity in recent years, the wargame-Euro hybrid (WEH) is still a sub-genre in its infancy. But it is an infant that is growing swiftly. These hybrid games have the potential to appeal to both the large wargame community and the larger Eurogame community, but too often their popularity has been limited by rules complexity and long playing times.
Here are some obvious wargame-Euro hybrids:
Civilization/Advanced Civilization/ Age of Renaissance. These are the grand old men of the wargame-Euro hybrid trend. These were (of course) civ-building games with some simple warfare rules. These games had a solid base of fans, but the long playing times kept them from being mainstream hits. These games may be due for redesign and reprints.
Warrior Knights. In Fantasy Flight’s new redesigned game of medieval conflict players send armies to lay siege to each other’s castles. But they also vie for control of the national assembly, and gain faith points that could make them the head of the church. They can invest in trading expeditions to the far East, and pay to improve both the defenses and income from their cities. This game still leans more to the wargame side of hybrid spectrum, but it is a prime example of the evolving genre. Perhaps the biggest problem with the game is that once players finish grabbing the neutral cities the game is almost over. A good variant would allow each player to start with one or two low-level cities to help speed inter-player conflict.
Twilight Imperium 3rd addition. Twilight Imperium is Fantasy Flight’s eternal labor of love. The latest version of this galactic conquest game contains a choose-a-role mechanic straight out of Puerto Rico. Add a tech tree, trading options, and victory conditions that don’t force every player to be a galactic warmonger all the time, and Twilight Imperium comes closer to the center of the hybrid spectrum than almost any other game. Three drawbacks to the game are its high price, long playing time, and intimidating rules book (although the example-laden rules book is much easier to learn than its 45-page count would suggest). Twilight Imperium has inspired more player-designed variants than any other boardgame I’ve seen--indicating a healthy community of fans (and some frustration with the Imperial Strategy Card, a card that rewards players big victory points for doing nothing more than choosing the card). Until some other game company decides to challenge Fantasy Flight in the galactic empire arena, Twilight Imperium will remain the sole in-print boardgame equivalent of the popular Master of Orion series of computer games.
Twilight Struggle. Not an expansion to Twilight Imperium, but a wildly-popular GMT game of cold war conflict. This card-driven area-majority game comes from a company known for its complex wargames, but TS also appeals to open-minded Euro-gamers. Reportedly, this is one of Alan Moon’s favorite games.
Byzantium. Martin Wallace’s game of medieval near-eastern strife would seem to be pure wargame at first glance. But some unusual design decisions (players control armies on both sides of the conflict) and the wooden-cube management aspect of the game give it the feel of a hybrid.
Serenissima. You may be scratching your head and wondering why I’ve included this game of Renaissance merchant trading in a list of wargame-Euro hybrids. But that’s only because we’re used to hybrids being wargames with some Euro chrome grafted on. Serenisima is a Euro game with some wargame chrome grafted on. Give this game to some mellow Euro-gamers and all you’ll see is a lot of cube shuttling. Give it to some rabid wargamers and be prepared for constant pirate action.
Mare Nostrum. I know less about this civ-building game than any other game I’ve mentioned, so I will just note that it seems to be a low-complexity hybrid game about the growth of ancient Mediterranean nations. It reputedly has some game-balance issues, but it was successful enough to warrant an expansion.
Sid Meier’s Civilization—The Boardgame. This Eagle Games boardgame version of Sid Meiers’ classic had the near-impossible task of trying to recreate the computer game experience. Not surprisingly, it did not take the gaming community by storm. The long playing time was one factor that limited the game’s appeal (players seem to be more tolerant of long computer games than long board games).
There have also been quite a few games over the years that borrow some of the characteristics of the WEH without fully qualifying. Some are:
7 Ages. This civ-building game from Australian Design Group has an epic feel to it, but the complex rules and long playing time have limited its appeal. And the cardboard counters make it seem more like a wargame.
Here I Stand. In this new GMT game of Reformation military and religious conflict, players can rack up points by sponsoring voyages of discovery, converting regions from one religion to another, getting the Queen pregnant (if you play Henry VIII), building Saint Peter’s in Rome, or even translating the Bible into the vernacular of various regions. The main reason this game fits the wargame profile more than the WEH category is the game’s high complexity and long playing time.
Princes of the Renaissance, Struggle of Empires, and Conquest of the Empire (with the Martin Wallace rules). These Martin Wallace games stand at the edges of the WEH category. Princes of the Renaissance doesn’t qualify because of the lack of conventional conquest in the game. Struggle of Empires and Conquest of the Empire allow players to develop their nations in non-military ways to a limited degree, but are still basically wargames.
War of the Ring. There have been several games with this title over the years, but the Nexus/Fantasy Flight version is the champ. Although this strategic treatment of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy is almost all wargame, the hunt for the Ring adds an all-important sub-system that gives War of the Ring some of the feel of a hybrid.
Empires of the Middle Ages. This Decision Games reissue of the old SPI game has many Civ-building aspects to it, but is too dry and complicated to fit comfortably in the WEH category. And the pieces are still cardboard chits.
Conquistador/New World. This old SPI game and its Avalon Hill redesign are as much about colonization and plunder as combat. But the complex rules and cardboard chits make the games feel more like wargames than true hybrids.
Supremacy. This out-of-print game featured economic development as well as military combat, and plenty of toys. But it was still more wargame than hybrid, and the infinite number of expansions made the rules increasingly unwieldy.
Why do so many designers like to design wargame-euro hybrids? I believe there are several factors at work.
1) Wargame hybrids mirror history and the real world better than pure wargames, at least when we consider long periods of time. Most nations fight wars at one time or another, but the successful nations are good at a lot of things other than military conflict. If you want to make a strategic game about World War II, you don’t have to give your players economic or production decisions. But if you want to make a game about the whole 20th century, your game had better have more in it than armies and warfare.
2) A lot of gamers aren’t interested in games that concentrate solely on military conflict. Some gamers find war so distasteful that they avoid pure wargames. But some of these gamers will tolerate some military conflict in a game if there are other aspects that appeal to them. By increasing the breadth of the subject matter, game designers can make their games appeal to a wider audience. For example, I can occasionally get my wife to play a Euro game of moderate complexity, but I wouldn’t bother trying to get her to play a wargame more complicated than Risk.
3) Adding non-military sub-systems into a game with warfare gives the players more layers of decisions. Even a devout living-room Napoleon may realize that games can be more interesting if there is more to decide than which unit should go in which hex.
4) Layers of sub-systems mean that games don’t have to be zero-sum contests. In other words, different players can be succeeding in different aspects of the same game. In a tight game of War of the Ring, the Shadow will be on the verge of conquering Middle Earth even as Frodo is scrambling up the slopes of Mount Doom. In Warrior Knights, one player may have the most cities, a second player might have the largest armies, a third might have the most votes in the assembly, a fourth might be the head of the church, and a fifth player might have a fortune invested in trading voyages which will result in enormous profits. Much of the conflict comes from each player trying to make his advantage in one area create dominance in other areas. The inter-play of the various sub-systems of hybrid games often creates fun in ways that purely military games can’t match.
I believe that someday a game company will design a WEH game with the right balance of military conflict, civ-building, accessible rules, and fun toys, and that when they do, their sales will shoot through the roof. A comparable example might be the success of Caylus. There were plenty of resource conversion games before Caylus—such as Goa, and Princes of Florence. But the Caylus mechanism of placing workers to activate buildings created constant direct competition between players, and the large menu of building tiles meant a huge number of options for players at all times. With Caylus everything clicked together to push the resource-conversion game genre to a new level, and the sales figures increased to reflect this. Someday something similar will happen with the WEH genre.
Let me make some fairly safe predictions about this future hit game.
1) I believe it will be strategic rather than operational or tactical. Military operations fit better with non-military elements at the strategic level. This is another way of saying that it will be a Civ-building (or at least an economic-development) game as well as a wargame.
2) The basic rules will be of simple or moderate complexity. There may be advanced, optional, or expansion rules which will push the game’s complexity into the high category, but the basic game’s complexity will be tolerable to most Euro-gamers. All other things being equal, the more complex the game, the fewer copies that get bought.
3) The basic game will be played from start to finish in under four hours. Maybe under three hours. Again, there may be options for longer games, but only moderate game length leads to big sales figures.
4) The non-military aspects of the game will be of at least equal importance with the military aspects. This hit won’t just be a wargame with a production mechanism grafted on. Non-military paths to victory will be viable options. Players will rack up points by growing their cities, developing their technology, exploring their world, or improving their culture.
5) The game will have great toys. Along with plastic military pieces, the game will have miniature cities or cathedrals or universities or factories or trains. At the end of the game, the board will look as colorful and developed as the board at the end of a game of Railroad Tycoon or Mexica.
This future hit could be a game of competing fantasy empires, galactic empires, gangster empires, alternate history empires, or a slice of real history that lasts only a century or two. The nations of the game might not be generic empires, but actual countries with lots of historical abilities and limitations. Cards might throw large amounts of historical events and detail into the mix and root the game in a specific time period. (Card-driven wargames have shown that one way to limit the complexity of rules is to shoehorn the history onto cards rather than into the rules).
Finally, let me point out a few WEHs coming soon to a store or internet site near you:
Shogun. This re-themed version of Wallenstein from Rio Grande Games is due out in August.
Tempus. This new Martin Wallace game is reputed to be Civ-building made simple. The 20 or so copies available this year at Origins disappeared in a twinkling. It’s from Café Games and is due out in August.
Conquest of Paradise. This GMT game of civ-building in the South Pacific may have traditional cardboard wargame-style counters, but the game mechanics may help it appeal to Euro gamers. Due out later this year or early next year.
Age of Empires III. This game of New World colonization and conquest from Eagle Games inspired rave reviews from those lucky enough to play it at Origins. It’s due out in August or September.
All of these games are reputedly of medium complexity. It will be interesting to see if any of them become breakout hits.
Wargame-Euro hybrids are one of my favorite sub-genres of games. I am convinced that we will see more and better hybrids in years to come.
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Daughters, BSW vs FtF and some new games
Daughter the Younger
A couple of days ago I played what I would consider the first or second game with Daughter the Younger. We played Color Clowns properly. We took it in turns to roll the dice and place the appropriate shape to make the required color as determined by the dice roll. As I mentioned in my review it's quite a tedious game towards then end, but the pattern recognition, turn taking and appreciation of mixing colours are all very educational for a three year old. The two of us have played this many times before, but previously we have just been playing with the bits as opposed to playing the game. I'll have to see if there is a complete set of Tummy Ache left after her "playing" with it. If there is I think this could be the next cab off the rank. We also got close to a real game of Dominos this week, mostly following the rules of placing pieces. In about two years we should have that home grown four player Settlers game. For now if we could just convince her not to go and help herself to games off the shelves, some of "her" games would be more complete and ready for real play.
Daughter the Elder
We picked up Yinsh and Dvonn recently because they were heavily reduced. Melissa and I have played a couple of games of Yinsh and so far she has scored one ring. She was a bit tired for our first game, but will free admit that abstracts are not her forté. The first game I played with Daughter the Elder she lost three to two. The second game she won! The third game was mine, but again only three to two. She picks up quick our girl, and not only abstracts. The last game of San Juan we played was a tie. In the majority of games we play with her we just play straight rules, no handicapping for anyone, so she is doing this on her own. I keep forgetting that she was quite a mean Chess player by age six, so I shouldn't be surprised that an almost eight year old will beat me after a couple of outings of a game, but I am.
BSW vs FtF
Last weekend I played three five player games of Power Grid, two on BSW during the Lupis Landing on-line convention and one face to face at ConVic 4 (although you will only see the latter appear in my games logged stats as I only log face to face games). The comparison of the games reinforced the opinion that I have had for a while which is that I do better at most games face to face than I do on-line. In face to face games, especially ones like Power Grid, I tend to be more aware of what is going on and what position different players are in. In on-line games the end game seems to suddenly sneak up on me, even though all the information is theoretically available to me as per the face to face game. For some reason I don't seem to concentrate as much with the on-line games and play much more in a by the seat of my pants style. This seemed to be backed up by the fact that I came fourth in both the BSW games and second in the face to face game.
In card games like 6 Nimmt! , Diamant or Lost Cities I do quite well on-line, but as soon as the complexity gets upped a bit I seem to flounder in the electronic environment. I even found this against computer opponents. On the PC version of Saint Petersburg Melissa can consistently beat the computer version at a much higher level than I can, yet when we play face to face I usually beat her.
New (to me) games
In the last few weeks I have managed to chalk up quite a few first plays for games - Age of Steam, Saboteur, Mü und Mehr, Tombouctou, Poison Pot, Express, Memoir '44, and Yinsh.
Age of Steam
I actually picked up my copy of Age of Steam about two years ago based on extensive GeekBuddy Analysis and other research at BGG. Following up the conclusion of that analysis I also have the first three expansions and about a fortnight ago I finally played it!
All I can say is my GeekBuddies did me no wrong, I really enjoyed it. I didn't go bankrupt and I ended the game in the middle of the field. It has a lot of fans at the weekly Gamers@Dockers and monthly Eurogamesfest sessions so I hope to get to play it again soon. I wasn't even aware that there was a fourth (official) expansion for this out until this week. Another thing to keep my eyes out for.
My analysis after a single play is that Age of Steam is not the super heavy that it is sometimes made out to be and whilst Railroad Tycoon craps all over it in terms of components, Age of Steam is the one that I would prefer to replay the most.
Saboteur
After a couple of games my conclusion is that it needs six or more players for a better experience. Wise man say - with eight players and only two saboteurs, the gold will most likely be found. The scoring does seem rather arbitrary, but it is a fun filler type game that can keep a lot of people occupied. We found at ConVic 4 that it can be picked up by non-gamers very quickly.
Mü und Mehr
So far I have played Mü and The Last Panther out of the Mü und Mehr box. With Mü the bidding and, more to the point, the bidding strategies and tactics take a few hands to start to get your head around them. It is an interesting game with quite a bit of depth once the bidding is down pat. The Last Panther is really a nothing more than a Hearts (or fill in your local regional name) variant, not that there is anything wrong with that - it was a mainstay of lunch times in my first year at University.
Tombouctou
This game is nicely themed, the mechanics of moving the camel trains works well, it scales well and the scoring system is interesting. However I my overall impression was only lukewarm. We played it four player, there were five important bits of information available each round, but any individual player would only find out about three of them. It felt like an artificially constrained version of Cluedo to me. I could utilise the information that I did know, but the complete ignorance about the other two seemed to make it a bit of a luckfest about who was going to be robbed or not.
Poison Pot
This was one of the games that John Farrell brought down on his visit to Melbourne for ConVic 4. A ruthless abstract which caters for two or three players. I only played it once and got slaughtered, but I would happily play it again.
Express
I believe this can be played as individuals, but I it would seem to be much better as a partnership game. Dates back to 1990 and there seems to be a nod to Mille Bornes with the disaster cards. It has its own clever mechanics though, the passing of cards between partners as the locomotives is one that particularly stands out. Certainly not a filler, but still a game I would certainly play again and wouldn't mind obtaining.
Memoir '44
The Manly Man, Joe Steadman is correct, this is not a simulation. It is however a nice and simple game. So far I have only played one of the simple starting scenarios but look forward to working my way through the other ones.
Yinsh.
As mentioned above, I have played it with Melissa and Daughter the Elder. I like this a lot.
One thing I noticed doing some of the research for links etc. for this piece is that whilst my games logged stuff is almost up to to date, my games owned is not and my ratings are, in some cases, woefully out of date. There are games I have played many times that I still haven't rated or commented on. I need to bite the bullet, extract my collection and review all ratings. The only problem being that could cut into game time :-)
Mmm meeples taste like...
A couple of days ago I played what I would consider the first or second game with Daughter the Younger. We played Color Clowns properly. We took it in turns to roll the dice and place the appropriate shape to make the required color as determined by the dice roll. As I mentioned in my review it's quite a tedious game towards then end, but the pattern recognition, turn taking and appreciation of mixing colours are all very educational for a three year old. The two of us have played this many times before, but previously we have just been playing with the bits as opposed to playing the game. I'll have to see if there is a complete set of Tummy Ache left after her "playing" with it. If there is I think this could be the next cab off the rank. We also got close to a real game of Dominos this week, mostly following the rules of placing pieces. In about two years we should have that home grown four player Settlers game. For now if we could just convince her not to go and help herself to games off the shelves, some of "her" games would be more complete and ready for real play.
Daughter the Elder
We picked up Yinsh and Dvonn recently because they were heavily reduced. Melissa and I have played a couple of games of Yinsh and so far she has scored one ring. She was a bit tired for our first game, but will free admit that abstracts are not her forté. The first game I played with Daughter the Elder she lost three to two. The second game she won! The third game was mine, but again only three to two. She picks up quick our girl, and not only abstracts. The last game of San Juan we played was a tie. In the majority of games we play with her we just play straight rules, no handicapping for anyone, so she is doing this on her own. I keep forgetting that she was quite a mean Chess player by age six, so I shouldn't be surprised that an almost eight year old will beat me after a couple of outings of a game, but I am.
BSW vs FtF
Last weekend I played three five player games of Power Grid, two on BSW during the Lupis Landing on-line convention and one face to face at ConVic 4 (although you will only see the latter appear in my games logged stats as I only log face to face games). The comparison of the games reinforced the opinion that I have had for a while which is that I do better at most games face to face than I do on-line. In face to face games, especially ones like Power Grid, I tend to be more aware of what is going on and what position different players are in. In on-line games the end game seems to suddenly sneak up on me, even though all the information is theoretically available to me as per the face to face game. For some reason I don't seem to concentrate as much with the on-line games and play much more in a by the seat of my pants style. This seemed to be backed up by the fact that I came fourth in both the BSW games and second in the face to face game.
In card games like 6 Nimmt! , Diamant or Lost Cities I do quite well on-line, but as soon as the complexity gets upped a bit I seem to flounder in the electronic environment. I even found this against computer opponents. On the PC version of Saint Petersburg Melissa can consistently beat the computer version at a much higher level than I can, yet when we play face to face I usually beat her.
New (to me) games
In the last few weeks I have managed to chalk up quite a few first plays for games - Age of Steam, Saboteur, Mü und Mehr, Tombouctou, Poison Pot, Express, Memoir '44, and Yinsh.
Age of Steam
I actually picked up my copy of Age of Steam about two years ago based on extensive GeekBuddy Analysis and other research at BGG. Following up the conclusion of that analysis I also have the first three expansions and about a fortnight ago I finally played it!
All I can say is my GeekBuddies did me no wrong, I really enjoyed it. I didn't go bankrupt and I ended the game in the middle of the field. It has a lot of fans at the weekly Gamers@Dockers and monthly Eurogamesfest sessions so I hope to get to play it again soon. I wasn't even aware that there was a fourth (official) expansion for this out until this week. Another thing to keep my eyes out for.
My analysis after a single play is that Age of Steam is not the super heavy that it is sometimes made out to be and whilst Railroad Tycoon craps all over it in terms of components, Age of Steam is the one that I would prefer to replay the most.
Saboteur
After a couple of games my conclusion is that it needs six or more players for a better experience. Wise man say - with eight players and only two saboteurs, the gold will most likely be found. The scoring does seem rather arbitrary, but it is a fun filler type game that can keep a lot of people occupied. We found at ConVic 4 that it can be picked up by non-gamers very quickly.
Mü und Mehr
So far I have played Mü and The Last Panther out of the Mü und Mehr box. With Mü the bidding and, more to the point, the bidding strategies and tactics take a few hands to start to get your head around them. It is an interesting game with quite a bit of depth once the bidding is down pat. The Last Panther is really a nothing more than a Hearts (or fill in your local regional name) variant, not that there is anything wrong with that - it was a mainstay of lunch times in my first year at University.
Tombouctou
This game is nicely themed, the mechanics of moving the camel trains works well, it scales well and the scoring system is interesting. However I my overall impression was only lukewarm. We played it four player, there were five important bits of information available each round, but any individual player would only find out about three of them. It felt like an artificially constrained version of Cluedo to me. I could utilise the information that I did know, but the complete ignorance about the other two seemed to make it a bit of a luckfest about who was going to be robbed or not.
Poison Pot
This was one of the games that John Farrell brought down on his visit to Melbourne for ConVic 4. A ruthless abstract which caters for two or three players. I only played it once and got slaughtered, but I would happily play it again.
Express
I believe this can be played as individuals, but I it would seem to be much better as a partnership game. Dates back to 1990 and there seems to be a nod to Mille Bornes with the disaster cards. It has its own clever mechanics though, the passing of cards between partners as the locomotives is one that particularly stands out. Certainly not a filler, but still a game I would certainly play again and wouldn't mind obtaining.
Memoir '44
The Manly Man, Joe Steadman is correct, this is not a simulation. It is however a nice and simple game. So far I have only played one of the simple starting scenarios but look forward to working my way through the other ones.
Yinsh.
As mentioned above, I have played it with Melissa and Daughter the Elder. I like this a lot.
One thing I noticed doing some of the research for links etc. for this piece is that whilst my games logged stuff is almost up to to date, my games owned is not and my ratings are, in some cases, woefully out of date. There are games I have played many times that I still haven't rated or commented on. I need to bite the bullet, extract my collection and review all ratings. The only problem being that could cut into game time :-)
Mmm meeples taste like...
Friday, July 14, 2006
Coldfoot on death, obits, a couple non-depressing items, and the ultimate test to determine your fitness to belong to the cult of night owls
Lost a boardgamer to the War on Terror. Commence with the 21-die-roll salute.
I only played with Gordy a couple times. He was a tough opponent and a very, very likeable guy. Gordon spent most of his time in Iraq in the two years I knew him. He leaves behind a wife and two children.
From the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner 7-4-6
Gordon 'Gordy' Cook
Second-generation Fairbanksan Gordon "Gordy" Joseph Cook, 36, died July 2, 2006, in Sadr City, Iraq, while working as a civilian contractor.
Gordy was born Nov. 18, 1969, in Fairbanks, the youngest son of Billie and Cornelius "Bud" Cook. Gordy was a star center football player while attending West Valley High School. After graduating in 1988, Gordy enlisted in the Marines.
Throughout his military career, Gordy served in the Marines, Air Force and Army. He was stationed in several locations overseas including Subic Bay in the Philippines, North Korea and he served in Iraq during Desert Storm.
Gordy and Michelle Coben were married in 1999. They have two children, Kameron and Emmy.
In 2003, Gordy decided to work as a civilian contractor during Operation Iraqi Freedom and spent most of the last three years in Iraq.
Gordy was a partner with his sister, Heidi, in the Old F.E. Gold Camp in Chatanika.
He was preceded in death by his father Cornelius Cook and grandmother Gertrude Crosman.
He is survived by his mother, Billie of Fairbanks; wife Michelle and children Kameron and Emmy, currently of Olympia, Wash.; brothers, David, wife Linda and their children Aidan and Aisla of Ames, Iowa, Art of Seattle and Walter of Fairbanks; sisters, Heidi Cook and children, Kyle and Meighan of Fairbanks; Sandra Boatner of North Pole and Marnie Sheridan and husband Mick and their children, Karl, Heidi, Brian and Julie, of Dublin, Ireland; aunts and uncles, Carl Crosman, Carol Cornelius, Aileen Marsh and Marnie Metz.
Services will be announced at a later date.
-----------------------
I arrived at my nursing job recently and there were 3 other obituaries posted on the wall. All of them were people I knew.
Obits are routinely and frequently posted in my workplace, all of them people we knew. A couple months ago a certain fellow passed away. When I saw his obituary my first thought was: He might have liked German games, I should have taught him Samurai that night he couldn't sleep.
Chances to play games at work are very limited, but I now have my copy of Samurai in my car, just in case the opportunity arises. I don't know why Samurai immediately came to mind but it is simple, quick, thought provoking and scales very well. I think it's the perfect game for my purposes as a nurse.
------------------------
How good is Puerto Rico?
Looking at the game rankings on Boardgamegeek, the number one game, Puerto Rico is 0.25 points higher than the next highest ranked game, Tigris and Euphrates. How significant is a quarter point difference? A quarter point is greater than the difference between the number two game and the number six game. A quarter point separates the number six game from the number sixteen game, and the number sixteen game from the number thirty eight game.
A quarter point difference puts Puerto Rico in rarefied air, definitely in a class by its self. Is it that good?
On the other end of the spectrum, the lowest rated game, Tic-Tac-Toe, is quarter point lower than the next lowest game, Bingo. How is that? You at least have a couple decisions to make in Tic-Tac-Toe, Bingo is strictly passive. In fact the next 4 lowest ranked games are passive. From the lowest they are, Chutes and Ladders, LCR, War, and Candyland.
--------------------------
Less than four months until BGG.con. Wooooo-hoooooo.
Note to self: Don't piss off any more users on BGG.
Yeah. Like that'll happen.
---------------------------
Oooooops. Failed already.
OK. Starting NOW. No pissing off weak kneed, pro-terrorist, anti-gun, mentally unstable, anti-free speech, anti-bathing, communist leaning, pro nanny state, Klingon speaking, Dungeon Twister playing, non-spellcheck users on BGG.
--------------------------
Just out of curiosity, is there anyone out there who works the night shift in the U.S. or Canada who can't answer this question off the top of their head:
What's Richard Hoagland's middle initial?
If you know, do you know what the M stands for in Linda M. Howe?
Who recently died: Lex, Ramona, or Yeti?
If you've been working the night shift for no more than the last 20 minutes you should be able to answer those questions. How about these:
Who is a nutjob: JR, RC, or JC?
Linda Howe was:
A) In the Missouri legislature
B) Miss Idaho
C) Science advisor to Walter Kronkite
Who was the premier nutjob 5 years ago? Leonard, Hank, or Harriet?
Who was denounced by the government, his personel file "lost", and could only prove that he worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory because his picture had been in the local paper a couple times during his stint at the lab?
Reaching back 10 years or more:
Where was Paco from?
Who was the guy who worked at the Post Office in somewhere in California?
Where was/is Mel's hole?
What did Bugs shoot?
What was "that one caller" supposedly flying over when he was shot down by the U.S. Air Force?
I could go on, but I will finish with this:
For the title of The Grand Master, Cult of Night Owls, what was Al Bielek's birth name? (No Googling, please.)
Sorry if you don't know what I am talking about. I would love to tell you but I can't. I would then have to kill you. Even if there are only seven people reading this blog, that is entirely too much travelling for me to kill all of you just to keep a secret.
Plus, I'm morally opposed to killing off our readers.
I only played with Gordy a couple times. He was a tough opponent and a very, very likeable guy. Gordon spent most of his time in Iraq in the two years I knew him. He leaves behind a wife and two children.
From the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner 7-4-6
Gordon 'Gordy' Cook
Second-generation Fairbanksan Gordon "Gordy" Joseph Cook, 36, died July 2, 2006, in Sadr City, Iraq, while working as a civilian contractor.
Gordy was born Nov. 18, 1969, in Fairbanks, the youngest son of Billie and Cornelius "Bud" Cook. Gordy was a star center football player while attending West Valley High School. After graduating in 1988, Gordy enlisted in the Marines.
Throughout his military career, Gordy served in the Marines, Air Force and Army. He was stationed in several locations overseas including Subic Bay in the Philippines, North Korea and he served in Iraq during Desert Storm.
Gordy and Michelle Coben were married in 1999. They have two children, Kameron and Emmy.
In 2003, Gordy decided to work as a civilian contractor during Operation Iraqi Freedom and spent most of the last three years in Iraq.
Gordy was a partner with his sister, Heidi, in the Old F.E. Gold Camp in Chatanika.
He was preceded in death by his father Cornelius Cook and grandmother Gertrude Crosman.
He is survived by his mother, Billie of Fairbanks; wife Michelle and children Kameron and Emmy, currently of Olympia, Wash.; brothers, David, wife Linda and their children Aidan and Aisla of Ames, Iowa, Art of Seattle and Walter of Fairbanks; sisters, Heidi Cook and children, Kyle and Meighan of Fairbanks; Sandra Boatner of North Pole and Marnie Sheridan and husband Mick and their children, Karl, Heidi, Brian and Julie, of Dublin, Ireland; aunts and uncles, Carl Crosman, Carol Cornelius, Aileen Marsh and Marnie Metz.
Services will be announced at a later date.
-----------------------
I arrived at my nursing job recently and there were 3 other obituaries posted on the wall. All of them were people I knew.
Obits are routinely and frequently posted in my workplace, all of them people we knew. A couple months ago a certain fellow passed away. When I saw his obituary my first thought was: He might have liked German games, I should have taught him Samurai that night he couldn't sleep.
Chances to play games at work are very limited, but I now have my copy of Samurai in my car, just in case the opportunity arises. I don't know why Samurai immediately came to mind but it is simple, quick, thought provoking and scales very well. I think it's the perfect game for my purposes as a nurse.
------------------------
How good is Puerto Rico?
Looking at the game rankings on Boardgamegeek, the number one game, Puerto Rico is 0.25 points higher than the next highest ranked game, Tigris and Euphrates. How significant is a quarter point difference? A quarter point is greater than the difference between the number two game and the number six game. A quarter point separates the number six game from the number sixteen game, and the number sixteen game from the number thirty eight game.
A quarter point difference puts Puerto Rico in rarefied air, definitely in a class by its self. Is it that good?
On the other end of the spectrum, the lowest rated game, Tic-Tac-Toe, is quarter point lower than the next lowest game, Bingo. How is that? You at least have a couple decisions to make in Tic-Tac-Toe, Bingo is strictly passive. In fact the next 4 lowest ranked games are passive. From the lowest they are, Chutes and Ladders, LCR, War, and Candyland.
--------------------------
Less than four months until BGG.con. Wooooo-hoooooo.
Note to self: Don't piss off any more users on BGG.
Yeah. Like that'll happen.
---------------------------
Oooooops. Failed already.
OK. Starting NOW. No pissing off weak kneed, pro-terrorist, anti-gun, mentally unstable, anti-free speech, anti-bathing, communist leaning, pro nanny state, Klingon speaking, Dungeon Twister playing, non-spellcheck users on BGG.
--------------------------
Just out of curiosity, is there anyone out there who works the night shift in the U.S. or Canada who can't answer this question off the top of their head:
What's Richard Hoagland's middle initial?
If you know, do you know what the M stands for in Linda M. Howe?
Who recently died: Lex, Ramona, or Yeti?
If you've been working the night shift for no more than the last 20 minutes you should be able to answer those questions. How about these:
Who is a nutjob: JR, RC, or JC?
Linda Howe was:
A) In the Missouri legislature
B) Miss Idaho
C) Science advisor to Walter Kronkite
Who was the premier nutjob 5 years ago? Leonard, Hank, or Harriet?
Who was denounced by the government, his personel file "lost", and could only prove that he worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory because his picture had been in the local paper a couple times during his stint at the lab?
Reaching back 10 years or more:
Where was Paco from?
Who was the guy who worked at the Post Office in somewhere in California?
Where was/is Mel's hole?
What did Bugs shoot?
What was "that one caller" supposedly flying over when he was shot down by the U.S. Air Force?
I could go on, but I will finish with this:
For the title of The Grand Master, Cult of Night Owls, what was Al Bielek's birth name? (No Googling, please.)
Sorry if you don't know what I am talking about. I would love to tell you but I can't. I would then have to kill you. Even if there are only seven people reading this blog, that is entirely too much travelling for me to kill all of you just to keep a secret.
Plus, I'm morally opposed to killing off our readers.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Strategy of a Game: Blue Moon, Part Two: Flit & Mimix
This is the second in a series of strategy articles about Blue Moon, which I'll be publishing about once a month here at Gone Gaming. If you haven't already, you'll want to read my original discussions of the game and my strategy notes about The Hoax & The Vulca.This time around I'll be moving on to cover the first two standalone decks, The Flit and The Vulca. These notes originally appeared at RPGnet in a slightly different form, but have been revised, expanded, and edited for inclusion here.
As before, I'll be starting out with some looks at card counts in the decks. I'm building on my listings from the last article to put everything into perspective.
Card Counts
Here's a breakdown of the card types in the decks:
| Card Types | Leadership | Characters | Boosters | Support |
| Flit | 3 | 14 | 13 | 0 |
| Hoax | 3 | 18 | 3 | 6 |
| Mimix | 2 | 23 | 2 | 3 |
| Vulca | 3 | 18 | 4 | 5 |
These are pretty dramatic departures from the original decks, with the Flit having slightly fewer characters, but a huge numbers of boosters and the Mimix being very heavy on characters.
Here's card icons.
| Card Icons | Free | Gang | Pair | Prot. | Repl. | Retr. | EShield | FShield | Stop |
| Flit | 0 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 11 | 2 | 1 | 1* |
| Hoax | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1* |
| Mimix | 3 | 1** | 13** | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3* |
| Vulca | 0 | 0 | 1** | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1* |
* Keep in mind that each deck tends to have a mutant with the icons: earth shield, fire shield, stop. Thus a base number of 1/1/1 for these last three icons is normal.
** This count includes 1 gang/paired card whose matches don't appear in this deck.
We can see a lot about the strengths of the decks just from this chart. The Flit has a mess of paired boosters and retrievables, while the Mimix has almost half a deck of paired characters. We'll get back to these ...
Finally, here's some combat value counts:
| Counts | Earth Sum | Earth Max | Fire Sum | Fire Max | 2C Max Play |
| Flit | 45 | 4 | 44 | 4 | 8 either |
| Hoax | 44 | 5 | 55 | 5 | 10 earth |
| Mimix | 69 | 6 | 70 | 6 | 8 either |
| Vulca | 46 | 5 | 69 | 7 | 14 fire |
Max shows the highest card of the type while "2c max play" shows the highest value possible when playing two cards, usually a character plus a booster or support.
Mimix looks quite strong, but that's just because of its Character card bias, while both decks (particularly the Mimix) can very easily exceed a two-card play because of their pairs, and the frees for the Mimix, so the 8 attack values can actually go much higher.
Deck #3: The Flit
Strengths: Retrievable characters, multi-paired boosters.
Weaknesses: Low-value characters. Utter dependence on boosters.
Cards of Note: The following cards are of particular note in the Flit deck.
Commence Mega Launch (Leadership). Even better than a paired booster, you can play this card, then drop any number of boosters onto the table, hopefully jumping immediately to six cards and blowing your opponent out of the water.
Fel-Nar-Gan (Character). The Flit deck mutant is a really nice match for the rest of the deck, because it allows you to swap the element of the fight if you have no cards in your combat area, and that's pretty easy to do if you've been bouncing Flit back into your hands.
Various Characters (Character). There's a bunch of Flit with kinda' neat powers, that aren't extraordinary. In particular: Cheepchirrup (2/2) limits your opponent to just 1 card play, and so is great if your opponent hasn't gotten out any support. Trillilling (2/2) ignores your opponent's boosters, Flitterflutter ignores your opponent's support, Tittertweet ignores your opponent's special effects, and Cark Kamikaze Crow doubles the value of his boosters. Various of these will be particularly effective against various decks, depending on whether they depend on boosters, support, or special effects to win
Strategy: The strategy of the Flit is beautifully mirrored in their theming. They dive down and pull up in an arial dance, and sometimes they make large, sudden attacks that their opponents don't expect at all.
Much moreso than in the basic decks, it pays to generally play low when you're playing the Flit. Drop the lowest character you can, then retrieve it. Rinse, lather, wash, repeat. This will cause your opponent to waste cards while you're having no impact on your own card supply.
You almost always want to retrieve your retrievable cards. This does have some deficits. You won't draw new cards after your first retrieval. In addition, you're not building your combat area up to the 6 cards required for a double-dragon reward. However, you can utterly bamboozle your opponent.
Be aware that you're going to eventually have to "sacrifice" some of your Flit, because when you win a duel the winning Flit is going to be discarded. If you have a choice, think about which Flit you don't mind going away. Also consider that you might sometimes want to sacrifice a Flit before the battle ends to ensure that you hit 6 cards. The easiest way to do this is to play a Flit with two boosters followed by a Flit with two boosters. It costs 40% of your paired booster supply, but if it gives you a two-dragon swing, it's probably well worthwhile.
The boosters do work the best as pair, because they can let you make a sudden increase to a hard-to-match number. A 7-8 is quite possible, while a 10 is doable in a perfect world--but probably overkill.
Ideally during a fight you'll want to bounce a few retrievable characters off the table while your opponent is playing early cards. Then, when you think you've seen his best hand strength hit him with one of the special characters and a good pair of boosters; between the special effect limitations and the high value he'll have a hard time matching you.Counter Strategy: I'm generally not a big fan of card counting, but if your opponent is playing the Flit you must keep track of the retrievable cards that they've retrieved. Unless you're just trying to cycle your hand or increase your combat area to 6 cards you never want to play a card whose value is lower than or equal to a retrievable that you know your opponent is holding. Generally, if you can play medium-value characters (4+) rather than low-value characters (1-3) you have a better chance of keeping your opponent on the defensive. Otherwise, you'll just be watching him drop and retrieve cards as you edge the combat value up.
If you can keep the combat value at 4 or 5 you'll generally be forcing your opponent to either play boosters or drop out of a fight. However try and keep some support, boosters, or high-value characters on hand to defend against a sudden Launch.
Also don't be afraid to drop out of a battle just to kill one of your opponent's retrievables, particularly the better ones. They're a limited resource. Even if you lose a dragon you may be hurting your opponent's chances for the future.
Finally, be very aware of any anti-booster cards you might have, because if you can prevent the play of boosters, or ignore them, you'll greatly hurt a Flit player's chances to win. Consider those cards very valuable in a fight against the Flit.
Deck #4: The MimixStrengths: Strong characters which can be easily combined
Weaknesses: Few special effect texts, with the best (shamans) pretty hard to play.
Cards of Note: The following cards are of particular note in the Mimix deck.
The Two Call Spirits (Leadership). Call Spirit of the Underworld lets you recover something from the discard pile, and Call Spirit of the Battlefield lets you retrieve something from the combat area. These should both be used to help put pairs of Mimix together.
The Four Shamans (Character). These four 2/2 characters represent most of the Mimix's special effect characters. They're all hard to play because of their low values, and the Shaman of the Afterlife and Shaman of the Here and Now are even more dificult because they have "stop" symbols on them. As a result, you should play Shamans whenever you have an opportunity, starting off duels with them, or responding with them if your opponent starts off low. Every one of the Shamans let you draw a card (from the draw deck or the discard), thus allowing you another opportunity to get pairs of Mimix.
Virgins of Pure Fire & Earth (Character). A 6/1 and a 1/6. Don't bother playing them paired, as they're almost as good on their own.
Strategy: Playing the Mimix is all about playing the pairs of Amazons. You've got tons of character cards, so you shouldn't be afraid to play them, and you want to play them as pairs whenever you can, to make up for the general lack of boosters and support in this deck.
The trick is, of course, getting the pairs. You don't want to just depend on luck for this; instead you should concentrate on using the cards you have that can help you set up pairs. As already noted, that's the shamans and the Call Spirit cards. I see much of the Mimix gameplay as a dance between Shamans and the Amazons. You play the Shamans whenever you can to create pairs of Amazons, and otherwise you tread water until you're ready to drop a pair down together, hopefully as a crippling blow.
One of the hard decisions with the Mimix is always when to play a character when you don't have its pair. Generally it's better to do this with the weaker cards than the strong ones; you can quickly remember which category a card fits into by looking at its moons (from 0-2) or by summing up its fire + earth values to remind you of its paired total (from 5-8). In addition, remember that the Heroine of the High Flames doesn't have a pair in this deck (it's in the Vulca deck), so you shouldn't be concerned about playing her. Likewise, as already noted, because the Virgins are so offbalanced, you probably want to play them standalone anway
You should also be more willing to play an umatched card if you haven't yet used the cards which let you retrieve a played card yet. (That's the two Call Spirits and the Shaman of the Afterlife.)
Counter Strategy: The Mimix's greatest weakness is ultimately their dependence on paired, no special-effect characters. Thus, particularly effective cards against them are ones that limit the playing of cards (say, to just one in the combat area) and ones that require them to play characters with special effects. The latter can knock the Mimix straight out of a fight since every one of their special effect cards is a 2/2.
Generally, pressing a fight quickly can hurt the Mimix. The faster you hop to the high numbers, the less likely they are to be able to build up to their pairs. In addition, always try and jump the duels straight up to "3" or higher. This will prevent them from playing their Shamans unless they waste a bosoter or support when they do so (and that's not even possible with the two Shamans who have stop icons.)
Support can be particularly effective against the Mimix, because they have to match it with expendable cards, so don't be afraid to play Support against them early in a fight, forcing them to waste better resources throughout the battle.
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