Some people make a menu for a shabbat meal by sitting down at the table with a pad and paper and a bunch of cookbooks. I make a menu by looking in the fridge.
My first rule is to use up what's already there. Half a can of tomato sauce. Dill. Mint. Two grapefruits. A half bottle of white wine. Open can of mushrooms. Half an onion. Carrots. Broccoli. These ingredients are just sitting around and will spoil if they are not used.
The next rule: every week I make at least one thing that I've never made before. It could be a new recipe, or just something I make up. True, a half a can of something means that the other half was already used this week. My job is to use it in a way that whoever used the first half didn't.
I made chicken with mushrooms and wine a few weeks ago. What else can I do with the wine?
This week's idea: wine and grapefruit sections. Section the grapefruits, soak in wine, add sugar, mint, and cinnamon. Yum. It sounds good on paper, but how will it work out?
My first problem is trying to separate the grapefruit sections and take them out of their membranes. Apparently this is not one of my skills. About half of them I manage to get out two thirds of the way. The remaining half fall into pieces or crumble into their individual pulp sections.
The rest of it is easy enough, and it turns out to be tasty. Only, I think it could be better by having the grapefruits served in a more viscous syrup rather than just a liquid. I'll have to try again.
OK, what's next?
I have a bunch of potatoes to use up. I make potato kugel too often; what should I do with these? And that onion? My onions often dry out when I cook them with the chicken. And my chicken often sticks to the bottom of the pan. I decided to solve all of this at once by cooking the chicken on top of the onions in water, and then adding the onions to the potatoes.
The remainder of the meal is simple inspiration, but the timing has to work. Cook carrots in water, remove, mix with Moroccan spices. Barely cook broccoli in the same water, remove, rinse until cool, mix with Chinese seasoning. Cook "soup" noodles in same water, remove, rinse, toss with oil and set aside. Use veggie water as soup stock, add some salt, tomato sauce, dill, kohlrabi, chicken pieces and celery.
Brew an iced tea.
Shabbat Menu for 6
Tomato chicken soup with kohlrabi and celery, topped with noodles.
Chicken and mushrooms
Moroccan carrots
Chinese broccoli
Potatoes and onions
Grapefruit in white wine
Ice tea
The above was created ad hoc, so we have to rewrite the directions in order to streamline the preparations:
Ingredients: tomato sauce, mushrooms (fresh is best), chicken, onions, kohlrabi, celery, carrots, broccoli, cumin, tumeric, paprika, salt, pepper, soy sauce, sesame oil, olive oil, veg oil, garlic, potatoes, teabags, grapefruit, mint, white wine, sugar, dill, short thin noodles, cinnamon, oregano.
1 - Add enough chopped onions to cover greased pan
2 - Add chicken pieces (save some for soup) and mushrooms, salt, pepper (opt: brown sugar)
3 - Cover pan and begin baking
4 - Add carrots chopped to 1 inch pieces into boiling water
5 - When carrots are half done, add broccoli chopped to 2 inch pieces
6 - Remove carrots and broccoli from water and rinse until cool
7 - Add potatoes to water and continue boiling
8 - Separate broccoli to bowl and add soy sauce, salt, sesame oil, and sugar to broccoli.
9 - Add garlic, cumin, tumeric, salt, and olive oil to carrots
10 - Remove potatoes when done and chop into chunks
11 - Add noodles to water for a few minutes; remove and toss with veg oil
12 - Place potatoes in greased pan and cover with paprika, oregano, salt, pepper
13 - Add salt, tomato sauce, dill, kohlrabi, chicken pieces and celery to soup and cook
14 - Brew teabags in 2 quart pitcher
15 - Separate grapefruit sections and place in bowl with wine, cinnamon, mint and sugar
16 - Remove chicken from oven when done
17 - Remove onions from chicken and place on potatoes
18 - Toss and fry potatoes and onions a bit
19 - Remove teabags, add sugar
Done
Of course, all shabbat meals also include: challah and wine/grape juice. In Israel, they also include "salatim", such as hummus, red eggplant, and so on. And my wife always makes a green salad. Your own family may have different ideas of what makes a meal.
The timing is important. You don't want to cook the broccoli in the potato water. You want to cook the broccoli first. That way you don't have to rinse the starch off of the broccoli. You need to cook the potatoes before mixing with the cooked onions. And so on. It works together pretty well in the right order. If you change one thing, you have to consider the balance, timing and flavor combinations of the entire menu.
Another thing about timing is to ensure that the whole process doesn't take all day. By combining the elements in a staggered way and using various cooking techniques, I can have three things going at once. The whole process takes about two hours, not including cleanup, which is about right for a shabbat meal. That same amount of time would be too long for a weekday meal.
Of course, a menu can't be a success until it is tested. You will find that what you like doesn't always correspond to the likes of your family. You also have to be prepared to deal with leftovers, as a dish that is tasty right after it is cooked may not be as appetizing the next day. In the same vein, a menu that worked one day can become stale when repeated too often. Some people like to eat the same foods day after day. Some like to try something different all the time.
It is definitely possible to make changes. From my experience, every menu is really just the jumping point to the next one. After all, I came up with this one by accident. It is not the exact outcome that matters, but the basic ideas. All it takes is some style and a willingness to experiment knowing that you may have to throw away some mistakes.
Yehuda
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Monday, February 27, 2006
GAME STORE CONFIDENTIAL ~ Nasty Suprises
It's hardly unique to dislike suprises... most of us fear them.
Do you agree or disagree with that statement?
If you disagreed then you're obviously a bonehead who tends not to think things through, acting instead on the faint currents of intelligence that drift lazily through your mind stirring up only the happy, cheerful childhood memories of Christmas mornings, birthdays and playing doctor with the cute chick next door.
Those of you who agreed have tapped into the ugly reality of life... which really is -- at least as described by me -- a never-ending series of chaotic and terrifying events inexorably thundering towards an uncertain future dragging you along kicking and screaming and allowing precious little time for anything but struggling to exert enough tenuous control over the headlong rush that you don't have too many suprises along the way.
Seem harsh? Perhaps. But how many suprises are really that good? Some seem that way at first but rarely turn out as expected. For you men out there, how about what seemed like a nice suprise that night when you, thouroughly drunk and properly attired in fresh beer-goggles, asked what seemed like the hottest chick in the nightclub to come see your (pick one) etchings/game collection/stereo/Halo set-up and she accepted. Nice suprise you thought. Until 6:45 AM rolled around and you looked over at her in the bright morning sunlight and realized that Coyote Ugly isn't a joke after all... you really were going to have to chew your arm off and then move to a new place... before she woke up.
Or this: have you ever accepted a certified letter? You have? What the hell were you thinking? Certified letters are suprises and suprises, when you pass the age of about 7, are almost never good. Someone once noticed I never accepted certified mail and they asked me why? So I asked them, "Have you ever received anything good in a letter you had to sign for?"
"Well, no, not that I can recall."
"Right. Who sends certified mail?"
"Hmmm... I got one once from a lawyer. I was being sued. Then the tax commission sent me several when I was late paying them."
"Yes, yes, but answer me this; have you ever received a certified letter that had a good suprise?"
"No. But if someone was sending you money wouldn't they send it certified? If you didn't accept the letter, you'd miss the good suprise."
"Ah. So... who is going to send you money and not tell you? In fact, just answer the first part of that question."
"Right. I see your point."
What does this have to do with games?
I'm getting there, I had to do the intro and background so the Euro-gamers who read this article aren't left in school while the rest of us go out and play.
Suprise, which we all now understand sucks, is one of the main foundations of a good game. If you think about it, and some of you have done that for sure, the fewer mechanics in a game design that allow for unexpected events, the dryer and less fun the game becomes. Certainly there are some gamers who resist the notion that a true perfect information game, like chess, isn't fun. Okay, for you it's fun. But let's get real here, how highly does chess rate on BGG? For that matter, except for the few of you who actually play chess well, how often is it the game of choice?
Let's take another example, closer to the Game Geek's heart - Puerto Rico. It's nearly a perfect information game, all the elements are there to be seen except for the stacks of plantation tiles. And if you've ever bothered to do a tile count and then kept track of things during the game, those stacks hold very little mystery. The element of suprise in Puerto Rico really boils down to one thing - which player is going to grow so incredibly bored and irritated with the game that they finally snap and take the Craftsman just to get the damned thing over with?
I just described my last five games of Puerto Rico. Which is why every time I think about it and happen to be logged onto BGG I lower my rating another half a point.
At some level you can have all the information about a game but no information about what random elements will cause nasty little suprises for you when the game is actually underway. Poker is a good example. There is a perfect information level of Poker... the 13 cards of four suits. Everybody has that knowledge. But the hidden nature of card distribution and the rules of play, betting, raising, bluffing and so forth make Poker a very tense and highly exciting game to play for money. Or for articles of clothing, whatever your situation dictates.
Random is fun
In DW's little world of gaming I prefer games with random elements that create tension through unexpected occurances. I like suprises in my games much more than I like them in life.
Jumbo-Tron dropped by Saturday and I taught him how to play the excellent Command & Colors: Ancients. He'd played Memoir '44 so it was really just a quick tour of the units, cards and slick new rules additions.
After the first scenario or so I suggested that we play the Lake Trasimenus scenario. This heavily favors the Carthagians who, led by Hannibal, cannily suprised the foppish Roman general Flaminius in a narrow defile near the lake's shore. I've played Rome several times and never won that scenario.
Jumbo started right off by, suprise, bringing his entire cavalry down from the hills on my left flank. Then he rolled like crap. The net result after the first couple of turns was that I had 3 of the victory points out of the 6 needed to win and Jumbo had zip. I had punished Hannibal's light cavalry in the Battle Back phase. Then Jumbo made a poor decision and chose not to evade my infantry when he could.
The battle waxed and waned the next couple of turns as Flaminius struggled to move his forces off the shore. But Jumbo, a worthy Geek to act in Hannibal's stead, had saved up two cards that would suprise the hell out of me and yet again, send Flaming Flammy packing. What Jumbo had was both "line command" cards. These cards allow an entire linked block of foot units to move and attack. He played them back to back and won the game 6 VP's to my 5 VP's.
The whole thing took 45 minutes and was engrossing, fun, suprising and left both of us smiling. The bad rolls, good rolls, unexpected card plays. choice of formation and who to move and where to move them made the 45 minutes seem like a real battle. The game is full of suprises.
In the 5 minutes of post game discussion I looked at my 4 cards and realized something. Jumbo had left a Warrior unit unprotected down on my left flank as he aggressively pursued the victory in the center and right. I was so on the defensive and in a react mode to his onslaught that I lost focus on a single card I had that could have made Flaming Flammy a hero. I had a "move 3 left flank" card. And I had two medium foot and an Auxilia unit along with Flammy himself there. I could easily have blocked all hope of retreat and probably killed that one unit and secured the victory.
But I didn't. Jumbo kept the pressure on and kept me pointed in the direction that he wanted me to point. He suprised me and Flaminius was his bitch in the end.
A good design generates suprise
At least that's how I view board games. In real life I prefer to not be suprised. In gaming, I'm bored and disenchanted if the game is too structured and relegates all potential for suprise to an opponent's suprising choices. That's why I dislike chess and love backgammon. It's why I screen my calls and never sign for mail. Competition of any sort that is designed for fun rather than sheer survival has to have unexpected results or it gets boring.
It's true in sports as well
Yesterday was the first race of the World Superbike 2006 series. During the first race two Japanese riders, Haga and Kagayama, battled for the lead until the last lap. Shadowing them was 2004 Champion, Englishman James Toseland. He was too far back, perhaps half a second, to mount an assault and it looked like Haga would make the final pass on Katayama and win. When Haga went for the pass, several turns from the finish line, his front tire, worn from heavy braking and the heat of the Middle Eastern desert, gave way and he went down hard, sweeping Kagayama's Suzuki along with him and they both crashed out of the race. Toseland rushed to victory. A total suprise.
Using that race to counter my theory you might say: "But that suprise was good for Toseland."
You'd be right. But it was bad for just about everyone else in the Superbike series. Haga crashes a lot and is no threat. Kagayama only does well when his equipment is perfect and he isn't rattled. The second race he drove off the track and finally retired. So for every other contender - primarily two Aussies, both former World Champs themselves - Troy Courser and Troy Bayliss, this was a bad suprise. It meant that Toseland is already a threat.
That's what games are all about to me. Unexpected turns, suprises good and bad. If the design allows for some level of perfect information then it should have elements that shroud what's happening in each player's little universe. I want to come out from behind a wall and suprise you. I want you to think my effort is over here when it's really over there. It doesn't matter if the game is a war game or a trading game, a Euro or something totally American. if it allows for players to generate suprises, then it's a great game.
And please remember, if you're sending that money you owe me, just drop it in an envelope, no need to make me sign for it.
Do you agree or disagree with that statement?
If you disagreed then you're obviously a bonehead who tends not to think things through, acting instead on the faint currents of intelligence that drift lazily through your mind stirring up only the happy, cheerful childhood memories of Christmas mornings, birthdays and playing doctor with the cute chick next door.
Those of you who agreed have tapped into the ugly reality of life... which really is -- at least as described by me -- a never-ending series of chaotic and terrifying events inexorably thundering towards an uncertain future dragging you along kicking and screaming and allowing precious little time for anything but struggling to exert enough tenuous control over the headlong rush that you don't have too many suprises along the way.
Seem harsh? Perhaps. But how many suprises are really that good? Some seem that way at first but rarely turn out as expected. For you men out there, how about what seemed like a nice suprise that night when you, thouroughly drunk and properly attired in fresh beer-goggles, asked what seemed like the hottest chick in the nightclub to come see your (pick one) etchings/game collection/stereo/Halo set-up and she accepted. Nice suprise you thought. Until 6:45 AM rolled around and you looked over at her in the bright morning sunlight and realized that Coyote Ugly isn't a joke after all... you really were going to have to chew your arm off and then move to a new place... before she woke up.
Or this: have you ever accepted a certified letter? You have? What the hell were you thinking? Certified letters are suprises and suprises, when you pass the age of about 7, are almost never good. Someone once noticed I never accepted certified mail and they asked me why? So I asked them, "Have you ever received anything good in a letter you had to sign for?"
"Well, no, not that I can recall."
"Right. Who sends certified mail?"
"Hmmm... I got one once from a lawyer. I was being sued. Then the tax commission sent me several when I was late paying them."
"Yes, yes, but answer me this; have you ever received a certified letter that had a good suprise?"
"No. But if someone was sending you money wouldn't they send it certified? If you didn't accept the letter, you'd miss the good suprise."
"Ah. So... who is going to send you money and not tell you? In fact, just answer the first part of that question."
"Right. I see your point."
What does this have to do with games?
I'm getting there, I had to do the intro and background so the Euro-gamers who read this article aren't left in school while the rest of us go out and play.
Suprise, which we all now understand sucks, is one of the main foundations of a good game. If you think about it, and some of you have done that for sure, the fewer mechanics in a game design that allow for unexpected events, the dryer and less fun the game becomes. Certainly there are some gamers who resist the notion that a true perfect information game, like chess, isn't fun. Okay, for you it's fun. But let's get real here, how highly does chess rate on BGG? For that matter, except for the few of you who actually play chess well, how often is it the game of choice?
Let's take another example, closer to the Game Geek's heart - Puerto Rico. It's nearly a perfect information game, all the elements are there to be seen except for the stacks of plantation tiles. And if you've ever bothered to do a tile count and then kept track of things during the game, those stacks hold very little mystery. The element of suprise in Puerto Rico really boils down to one thing - which player is going to grow so incredibly bored and irritated with the game that they finally snap and take the Craftsman just to get the damned thing over with?
I just described my last five games of Puerto Rico. Which is why every time I think about it and happen to be logged onto BGG I lower my rating another half a point.
At some level you can have all the information about a game but no information about what random elements will cause nasty little suprises for you when the game is actually underway. Poker is a good example. There is a perfect information level of Poker... the 13 cards of four suits. Everybody has that knowledge. But the hidden nature of card distribution and the rules of play, betting, raising, bluffing and so forth make Poker a very tense and highly exciting game to play for money. Or for articles of clothing, whatever your situation dictates.
Random is fun
In DW's little world of gaming I prefer games with random elements that create tension through unexpected occurances. I like suprises in my games much more than I like them in life.
Jumbo-Tron dropped by Saturday and I taught him how to play the excellent Command & Colors: Ancients. He'd played Memoir '44 so it was really just a quick tour of the units, cards and slick new rules additions.
After the first scenario or so I suggested that we play the Lake Trasimenus scenario. This heavily favors the Carthagians who, led by Hannibal, cannily suprised the foppish Roman general Flaminius in a narrow defile near the lake's shore. I've played Rome several times and never won that scenario.
Jumbo started right off by, suprise, bringing his entire cavalry down from the hills on my left flank. Then he rolled like crap. The net result after the first couple of turns was that I had 3 of the victory points out of the 6 needed to win and Jumbo had zip. I had punished Hannibal's light cavalry in the Battle Back phase. Then Jumbo made a poor decision and chose not to evade my infantry when he could.
The battle waxed and waned the next couple of turns as Flaminius struggled to move his forces off the shore. But Jumbo, a worthy Geek to act in Hannibal's stead, had saved up two cards that would suprise the hell out of me and yet again, send Flaming Flammy packing. What Jumbo had was both "line command" cards. These cards allow an entire linked block of foot units to move and attack. He played them back to back and won the game 6 VP's to my 5 VP's.
The whole thing took 45 minutes and was engrossing, fun, suprising and left both of us smiling. The bad rolls, good rolls, unexpected card plays. choice of formation and who to move and where to move them made the 45 minutes seem like a real battle. The game is full of suprises.
In the 5 minutes of post game discussion I looked at my 4 cards and realized something. Jumbo had left a Warrior unit unprotected down on my left flank as he aggressively pursued the victory in the center and right. I was so on the defensive and in a react mode to his onslaught that I lost focus on a single card I had that could have made Flaming Flammy a hero. I had a "move 3 left flank" card. And I had two medium foot and an Auxilia unit along with Flammy himself there. I could easily have blocked all hope of retreat and probably killed that one unit and secured the victory.
But I didn't. Jumbo kept the pressure on and kept me pointed in the direction that he wanted me to point. He suprised me and Flaminius was his bitch in the end.
A good design generates suprise
At least that's how I view board games. In real life I prefer to not be suprised. In gaming, I'm bored and disenchanted if the game is too structured and relegates all potential for suprise to an opponent's suprising choices. That's why I dislike chess and love backgammon. It's why I screen my calls and never sign for mail. Competition of any sort that is designed for fun rather than sheer survival has to have unexpected results or it gets boring.
It's true in sports as well
Yesterday was the first race of the World Superbike 2006 series. During the first race two Japanese riders, Haga and Kagayama, battled for the lead until the last lap. Shadowing them was 2004 Champion, Englishman James Toseland. He was too far back, perhaps half a second, to mount an assault and it looked like Haga would make the final pass on Katayama and win. When Haga went for the pass, several turns from the finish line, his front tire, worn from heavy braking and the heat of the Middle Eastern desert, gave way and he went down hard, sweeping Kagayama's Suzuki along with him and they both crashed out of the race. Toseland rushed to victory. A total suprise.
Using that race to counter my theory you might say: "But that suprise was good for Toseland."
You'd be right. But it was bad for just about everyone else in the Superbike series. Haga crashes a lot and is no threat. Kagayama only does well when his equipment is perfect and he isn't rattled. The second race he drove off the track and finally retired. So for every other contender - primarily two Aussies, both former World Champs themselves - Troy Courser and Troy Bayliss, this was a bad suprise. It meant that Toseland is already a threat.
That's what games are all about to me. Unexpected turns, suprises good and bad. If the design allows for some level of perfect information then it should have elements that shroud what's happening in each player's little universe. I want to come out from behind a wall and suprise you. I want you to think my effort is over here when it's really over there. It doesn't matter if the game is a war game or a trading game, a Euro or something totally American. if it allows for players to generate suprises, then it's a great game.
And please remember, if you're sending that money you owe me, just drop it in an envelope, no need to make me sign for it.
Sunday, February 26, 2006
to fondly bid adieu
It is with our collective "regrets" that we pay homage to our fellow 'blog`r' "Joe Gola" as he makes his departure here, while we ALL wish him and his the very best regards then. Getting the "word" out upon this matter is foremost the BEST 'means' of obtaining leads for those who have to contend with such. I am constantly reminded upon this fact whenever I happen to 'see' some "commercial" about one of them many "Drug Companies" on "T V", while those tend to also bring up some discrepancies that I recollect as well. From when I first 'viewed' an episode from the "T V" series of "Barney Miller"-(probably in "rerun"), then the "issue" of the "Drug Companies" being in 'business' JUST for that 'aspect', while neglecting to create "cures"/'drugs' for the mostly RARE or even extreme 'cases' of maladies, was being 'discussed' within this. I really couldn't tell YOU how this has 'progressed' since then either, so should someone ELSE 'know', then by all means inform the rest of 'us' about that. The gist of the matter was that 'they' wanted to pursue the MOST "profitable" of these, so anything "affecting" people under a certain 'number' wasn't given as much "considerations" for their "R & D" staffs. What a "corporate policy" eh? Well, I'd also advocate "infecting" ALL of the "celebs" with a "disease du jeur" in order to bring much more "attentions" upon the little known 'kinds' that don't have some "official" backings for those. Hey, they don't 'seem' to matter much UNTIL they have 'affected' someone better 'known' than YOU or ME even!So what IS "my problem" about this? I'll hereby 'declare' the ongoing "War on Ignorance" and it's an un-ending 'sort' of 'Conflict' with too many "casualties" and the 'bodies' piling up just about everywhere. NOBODY is 'safe' and we should have an "Alert Indicator" for this with such as the likes of a "lit lightbulb" at the TOP to indicate "Safest" down to the lowly and much maligned "dunce cap" announcing the "State of Decryance" and of which even the 'dumbest' can "relate" to as well. Of course, we'd even HAVE our very 'own' spokesperson in none other than the personage OF the "PREZ" of the 'dis-United States' here, so we's GOT 'that' going for 'us'! In addition, then there's the "policies" of 'his'n' in which "selling off" of whatever can 'be' SOLD, has reached NEW 'lows' that ought to "shame" the previous administration for decades & many to 'see'. Just HOW 'low' could they 'stoop'? Well, I wouldn't put it past 'them' to be able to "pickpocket" a 'midget'-("little person") with the greatest of ease, while I'd "rate" THEM as being between a "snake fart" and "earthworm droppings" on a 'scale' of LOWEST "forms", so that you get the general 'idea' for this.
There's an ongoing "topic of discussion" at the "Geek" upon 'designers' having some form of "expressing" themselves while "under the radar" of the BIG 'Companies'. Let's face it folks, 'they' will ONLY become "enamored" with some innovative 'design' ONCE that has "proven" to be 'profitable', and you can't really blame them for this! Even WHEN these have "appeared" to become ever the MORE "profitable" sorts, then what is WITH their 'attitudes' regarding this "reluctance" for providing those yet again? I'm specifically talking upon the likes of "We the People" or even "Hannibal: Rome VS Carthage" and many others that folks are clamoring FOR! Oh sure, someone will bring 'up' that perhaps some other "company" will be making a few of these available once again, just as soon as the "pigs emerging from posterior orifices" are a common & "everyday" 'occurance'.
Here's a "shout out" to "The Vintage Gamer" podcast, while with the most "au courant" 'episode' has to 'do' with the OLD "Diplomacy" game itself:
"The Vintage Gamer"
We certainly expect to 'see' and "give a listen" to many more of these as well, and "Good JORB!" too.
P.S.-I had to "update" this with a bit of "News" that I had discovered regarding a legendary 'figure' of which many are quite familiar with and this just happens to be "Pappy" Boyington of "Baa Baa Blacksheep" fame. Not too long ago at the "University of Washington" in Seattle, then a 'monument' to HIM was "voted down" by the majority of the "Ass. Stud.Un.Wash. Council Members"-(emphasis ON phallic 'members'), while a 'form letter' of DENIAL about the incident had also been 'issued' from none other than the "University President's" office as a followup! Here's the LINK to read further upon the matter:
"ruleof reason.blogspot"
Well, they ALL should 'make' excellent "Politicians" one day, as they're just following in the footsteps of many others who have trampled underfoot the select few who have made an ultimate 'sacrifice'-(in vain, no less it appears), just so that THESE 'people'-for lack of a "print friendly" description upon their "despicablenessiveitiousivity"-can preserve their 'decorum' of "pussyfied" existances! Sorry about some of my "FRANCELAND"-'speak' here. Yes, let us NOT "look up" to anyone who served their 'Nation' and the rest of the "freedom loving peoples" of the WORLD! Why everyone just 'knows' that had "Ghandi" or these 'people' been 'running' events, then those mean ole "Nazis" & "Fascisti" & "Japs" would have just gone HOME sad & dejected instead of trying to "take over" the 'World' eh? NOT in yours or theirs or our "lifetimes" quite yet right? Man, I'd say "sterilizations" are TOO 'good' for the likes of 'these'! They ought to become "instant organ donors" for anyone ELSE with a better "mindset" than these possess, as they're wasting their "precious existance" like a bunch of 'truffle-stuffed-shirts' that they are. Better still, have these folks 'perform' some "mine clearing duties" as a 'lesson' that they'll "learn", but just won't "learn from" such 'experiences' eh?
"Have a 'nice' life. . .that others 'bought & paid FOR' with their 'own'!"
Saturday, February 25, 2006
The Door to the Outside
It is with some sadness that I must announce that this will be my last regular post to Gone Gaming. I have enjoyed contributing to the site and being a part of this excellent group of people, but at the same time I have always been aware that my table time has never been sufficient to provide material for a biweekly column. My desire to write is fueled by the enthusiasm generated by gaming, and without this spark the exercise feels less like a stroll through a pleasure garden and more like a forced march through a desert. During these months that I have been part of "the staff" here I have always hoped that this situation would improve, but, in the end, life is what it is.
It occurs to me, though, that I am in the fortunate position of (theoretically) having an audience, and so there is an opportunity in my hands to send out a message about something which I think is important. It doesn't have much to do with gaming, unfortunately, but I hope you'll bear with me anyway; while it may turn out to be meaningless to some readers, for one or two it may be the word of warning which helps them to brace themselves before a storm.
The easiest way to begin is to talk about my son. My son is now six years old and is an active, happy and loving boy, one who likes to go on hikes, play with his cars and trains, mess around on the computer, go to the movies, jump on top of his Dad, and lots of other little kid stuff. He is learning to read, he likes to play music, and he recently surprised me by counting to one hundred and ten. However, in the time leading up to his second birthday, we began noticing that something was different about our child. He still only had a few words, and was unusually uncommunicative for his age; he often did not respond to his name or look up when someone entered the room, and he seemed to not have very much interest in the people around him; when excited he would arch his back and flap his arms in a repetitive way; he did not "pretend play" with toys but would instead sort them or line them up; and when in a high-stimulus environment, he could not settle down and play but would run around wildly in circles. We took him to see a developmental pediatrician, and she diagnosed him with Autistic Spectrum Disorder, or ASD.
Every year, an increasing percentage of children are being diagnosed with ASD, a permanent disability which affects sensory input, language development and social relatedness, and which is also often associated with over- or undersensitivity to stimuli, rigid routines, and repetitive behaviors. In some cases the effects are mild, and in truth there is no clear boundary between the mild end of ASD and the shy or quirky end of normalcy. In other cases the effects are devastatingly severe, with individuals who cannot care for themselves independently, individuals unable to communicate by speaking or even pointing, and individuals who can become panicked by the ordinary sights and sounds of the everyday world. I hesitate to speak of statistics, as they tend to elicit as much suspicion as alarm, but according to the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, ten years ago the rate of children being diagnosed with autism was 1 in 2,500; today, that number is now 1 in 166, making it more common than pediatric cancer, diabetes, and AIDS combined. In California, the number of people treated for autism by the State Department of Developmental Services in 1993 was 5,000. That number is more than 26,000 today.
Some have contended that this sharp increase in the statistics has more to do with the frequency of diagnosis than an actual increase of symptoms, and it is true that physicians have begun casting a wider net as they have gained more understanding of the disorder. Previously the definitions of Autism and Asperger's Syndrome* were rather narrow and only included those individuals affected most severely; now doctors are coming to view the umbrella as being a much broader one. The 'spectrum' in Autism Spectrum Disorder refers to the fact that, unlike other developmental syndromes, not all individuals share precisely the same symptoms to precisely the same degree, but rather will have a sigificant number of common symptoms from a cluster that has been recognzied as being autism-related. One child might be non-verbal while another might talk a blue streak, but both might have difficulty with social relations, have sensory defensiveness, and engage in repetitive behaviors. Regardless of the change in definitions, however, the fact that the problem is growing, and quickly, is very real. Talk to the parents, educators, and pediatricians in your life about their experiences; things are quickly reaching the point where everyone knows someone who knows someone who has a child receiving services for developmental delays associated with ASD. Compare that to your own memories of childhood. Certainly I had never heard of autism as a youngster, and speech therapy was for kids who stuttered. And now? I can tell you this: not only is my son not the only kid in town with ASD, and he's not even the only kid in his grade.
What This Means to You
The reason that I am writing about all this today is that a great deal can be done to help kids with Autistic Spectrum Disorder if it is recognized early and if they receive early intervention through therapy. Children are in development-hyperdrive in the first years of their life, and for them to be missing pieces to the puzzle early on has a snowballing effect as time advances, leaving them further and furher behind their peers with each passing month. A lack of relatedness at one and a half leads to or exacerbates their difficulty with language at two and a half, and their difficulty with language at two and a half leads to a lack of real-world knowledge at four that further widens the chasm between themselves and those around them. Furthermore, obsessiveness and rigidity of habits can become a serious problem for individuals with ASD, and the sooner parents nudge these kids down the road to becoming flexible, the better. The refusal of the character of Raymond to buy his underwear anyhwere but K-Mart in the movie Rain Man is not an exaggerated picture of a person with autism; if anything, this character adapted perhaps a little too quickly for someone who had been institutionalized for his entire adult life.
As emotionally difficult as it may be—it's hard for us parents to consider that anything might be awry with our children's development—it is very important for new parents and parents-to-be to be aware of the early signs of autism in children. Typically these start manifesting at some point between eighteen months and two years of age—though some say they can be caught as early as twelve months—and they include such various things as a failure to respond to their name, lack of attention to other people's faces, difficulty transitioning from one activity to the next, lack of ability to engage in shared play, and lack of or loss of words. Much more detailed information can be found here and here.
For those who already do have a diagnosis, I recommend investigating Relationship Development Intervention. This approach is based on the theory that people with Autistic Spectrum Disorder are missing key, low-level, but teachable skills that involve interpersonal relatendess and dynamic thinking. I feel strongly that this is a worthwhile approach and that it has helped bring out the great potential in our son; in the early days he was so disengaged that my wife and I feared that he would never be able to share looks, smiles and laughter with us; now he leaps into our arms, gazes lovingly into our eyes and giggles hysterically as he tells us one of his idiosyncratic jokes. Traditional thinking about autism is that these individuals are incapable of complex social interactions or else simply abhor them; RDI's approach is that these things can be taught, and that once the individuals get started down this path, they want to learn.
In addition, I also suggest that parents investigate the biomedical routes that are available, specifically with a physician who is involved with DAN. Research is finding that children on the Autistic Spectrum tend to have issues with digestion, nutrion, allergies, inflammation and detoxification, and while there is no magic bullet that will cure autism, we have learned some very surprising things about our son while investigating this side of the problem, including his allergies to many common foods and a propensity towards severe systemic yeast infections. It is important, however, to use a consumer's discretion when investigating this route, as there are likely to be a certain number of care providers whose enthusiam or salesmanship outstrips their qualifications and who are only kept in business by the desperation of parents.
On the subject of the biomedical aspect, I should mention that there is a vocal contingency of people who believe that there is no evironmental influence at play in autism whatsoever and that the condition is genetic, end of story. The Wall Street Journal in particular has been very careful to always take a dismissive tone towards the idea that this is a situation that could have been avoided. If one were sufficiently paranoid, one might wonder what interest a financial daily has in editorializing about autism. All I can say is that parents should listen to both sides of the argument before they decide what course they will take in treating their children.
One other thing I'd like to mention is that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children under age two watch zero television. Now, there is no proof that TV, computers or other electronics play a role in autism, but infants are freaky little sponges, sucking up information at an impossible-to-conceive rate, and I often wonder if the inexorable logic of electronic toys and computer programs (and their recent tendency to focus on abstractions such as numbers, patterns and shapes, even when targeted at children of an age for which that content is not appropriate) and the precise, unnatural repetition of experience via DVD or CD exacerbate autistic children's overdependence on static systems (predictable, mathematical, unchanging) versus dynamic systems (relative, indefinite, human).**
Good Things
We've had a tough road, no doubt, but our boy has surprised us by his readiness to rise to every challenge. Once he was a child closed up inside his own world, distant, aloof, shut off and disconnected. My wife and I worried that he would never open up, never be able to share a smile or a laugh with us, never reciprocate the love that we felt for him. However, with a lot of hard work on our part, and even harder work on his, we have a happy, laughing boy who rushes into our arms for hugs and kisses, who tells us his thoughts and feelings when he has the words to express them, and who will take my hand, drag me away from the computer, and say "Daddy, come and play." Many challenges remain: his language skills and social skills still need a lot of work, he continues to be challenged by sensory issues, some rigidities and obsessions still linger, and he is only taking the first tenuous steps towards interacting with his peers. I have found, out, however, that there is one social activity of which he is extremely fond, evidenced by a photograph sent home from school; in the picture my son can be seen relaxed and one of the gang, lying on his belly in among a tight circle of little kindergarten kiddies all centered around...Candyland.
Thanks to everyone who has read and commented on my stuff here at Gone Gaming. Hopefully I'll be able to contribute an article now and then. So, until next time, be sure to keep the door to the outside open.
___________________________________
* Aspberger's Syndrome is a name for a particular manifestation of ASD, once thought to be a separate pathology from Autism but now considered part of the spectrum. It is characterized by high I.Q. and strong verbal skills, though the other deficits of autism, such as underdeveloped interpersonal skills and difficulties with dynamic systems, remain.
** The difference between a static and a dynamic system in this context is that the rules of a dynamic system can evolve whereas in a static system they do not. A casual conversation is a dynamic system because, among other things, topics can change, there is no set ending point, and even the roster of participants can change mid-stream. It is still a system and not a random phenomenon, however, because, even if it is not predictable, it is guided by a collective train of thought, social cues and the judgment of the participants. For example, in the middle of the conversation one of the group may notice that others are behaving in a distracted and listless fashion while a topic is being discussed and so, even though that person might have more to say on the topic, he will allow the flow of conversation to go off on a tangent to keep the entire group engaged. Another person may adopt a tone of levity on a subject, and, depending on whether the group reacts with smiles or uncomfortable fidgeting, will either continue with the jest or drop it. In contrast, games are generally static systems, as players typically cannot decide to change rules mid-game, they cannot walk away and then rejoin the game twenty minutes later, and they are not supposed to change their goals halfway through (for example giving up on gathering victory points and instead trying to make a pleasing pattern on the board with their pieces). However, there are often dynamic systems associated with games, for example negotiation, psychology, metagame, and of course whatever tangential social interactions are going on during the gaming.
It occurs to me, though, that I am in the fortunate position of (theoretically) having an audience, and so there is an opportunity in my hands to send out a message about something which I think is important. It doesn't have much to do with gaming, unfortunately, but I hope you'll bear with me anyway; while it may turn out to be meaningless to some readers, for one or two it may be the word of warning which helps them to brace themselves before a storm.
The easiest way to begin is to talk about my son. My son is now six years old and is an active, happy and loving boy, one who likes to go on hikes, play with his cars and trains, mess around on the computer, go to the movies, jump on top of his Dad, and lots of other little kid stuff. He is learning to read, he likes to play music, and he recently surprised me by counting to one hundred and ten. However, in the time leading up to his second birthday, we began noticing that something was different about our child. He still only had a few words, and was unusually uncommunicative for his age; he often did not respond to his name or look up when someone entered the room, and he seemed to not have very much interest in the people around him; when excited he would arch his back and flap his arms in a repetitive way; he did not "pretend play" with toys but would instead sort them or line them up; and when in a high-stimulus environment, he could not settle down and play but would run around wildly in circles. We took him to see a developmental pediatrician, and she diagnosed him with Autistic Spectrum Disorder, or ASD.
Every year, an increasing percentage of children are being diagnosed with ASD, a permanent disability which affects sensory input, language development and social relatedness, and which is also often associated with over- or undersensitivity to stimuli, rigid routines, and repetitive behaviors. In some cases the effects are mild, and in truth there is no clear boundary between the mild end of ASD and the shy or quirky end of normalcy. In other cases the effects are devastatingly severe, with individuals who cannot care for themselves independently, individuals unable to communicate by speaking or even pointing, and individuals who can become panicked by the ordinary sights and sounds of the everyday world. I hesitate to speak of statistics, as they tend to elicit as much suspicion as alarm, but according to the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, ten years ago the rate of children being diagnosed with autism was 1 in 2,500; today, that number is now 1 in 166, making it more common than pediatric cancer, diabetes, and AIDS combined. In California, the number of people treated for autism by the State Department of Developmental Services in 1993 was 5,000. That number is more than 26,000 today.
Some have contended that this sharp increase in the statistics has more to do with the frequency of diagnosis than an actual increase of symptoms, and it is true that physicians have begun casting a wider net as they have gained more understanding of the disorder. Previously the definitions of Autism and Asperger's Syndrome* were rather narrow and only included those individuals affected most severely; now doctors are coming to view the umbrella as being a much broader one. The 'spectrum' in Autism Spectrum Disorder refers to the fact that, unlike other developmental syndromes, not all individuals share precisely the same symptoms to precisely the same degree, but rather will have a sigificant number of common symptoms from a cluster that has been recognzied as being autism-related. One child might be non-verbal while another might talk a blue streak, but both might have difficulty with social relations, have sensory defensiveness, and engage in repetitive behaviors. Regardless of the change in definitions, however, the fact that the problem is growing, and quickly, is very real. Talk to the parents, educators, and pediatricians in your life about their experiences; things are quickly reaching the point where everyone knows someone who knows someone who has a child receiving services for developmental delays associated with ASD. Compare that to your own memories of childhood. Certainly I had never heard of autism as a youngster, and speech therapy was for kids who stuttered. And now? I can tell you this: not only is my son not the only kid in town with ASD, and he's not even the only kid in his grade.
What This Means to You
The reason that I am writing about all this today is that a great deal can be done to help kids with Autistic Spectrum Disorder if it is recognized early and if they receive early intervention through therapy. Children are in development-hyperdrive in the first years of their life, and for them to be missing pieces to the puzzle early on has a snowballing effect as time advances, leaving them further and furher behind their peers with each passing month. A lack of relatedness at one and a half leads to or exacerbates their difficulty with language at two and a half, and their difficulty with language at two and a half leads to a lack of real-world knowledge at four that further widens the chasm between themselves and those around them. Furthermore, obsessiveness and rigidity of habits can become a serious problem for individuals with ASD, and the sooner parents nudge these kids down the road to becoming flexible, the better. The refusal of the character of Raymond to buy his underwear anyhwere but K-Mart in the movie Rain Man is not an exaggerated picture of a person with autism; if anything, this character adapted perhaps a little too quickly for someone who had been institutionalized for his entire adult life.
As emotionally difficult as it may be—it's hard for us parents to consider that anything might be awry with our children's development—it is very important for new parents and parents-to-be to be aware of the early signs of autism in children. Typically these start manifesting at some point between eighteen months and two years of age—though some say they can be caught as early as twelve months—and they include such various things as a failure to respond to their name, lack of attention to other people's faces, difficulty transitioning from one activity to the next, lack of ability to engage in shared play, and lack of or loss of words. Much more detailed information can be found here and here.
For those who already do have a diagnosis, I recommend investigating Relationship Development Intervention. This approach is based on the theory that people with Autistic Spectrum Disorder are missing key, low-level, but teachable skills that involve interpersonal relatendess and dynamic thinking. I feel strongly that this is a worthwhile approach and that it has helped bring out the great potential in our son; in the early days he was so disengaged that my wife and I feared that he would never be able to share looks, smiles and laughter with us; now he leaps into our arms, gazes lovingly into our eyes and giggles hysterically as he tells us one of his idiosyncratic jokes. Traditional thinking about autism is that these individuals are incapable of complex social interactions or else simply abhor them; RDI's approach is that these things can be taught, and that once the individuals get started down this path, they want to learn.
In addition, I also suggest that parents investigate the biomedical routes that are available, specifically with a physician who is involved with DAN. Research is finding that children on the Autistic Spectrum tend to have issues with digestion, nutrion, allergies, inflammation and detoxification, and while there is no magic bullet that will cure autism, we have learned some very surprising things about our son while investigating this side of the problem, including his allergies to many common foods and a propensity towards severe systemic yeast infections. It is important, however, to use a consumer's discretion when investigating this route, as there are likely to be a certain number of care providers whose enthusiam or salesmanship outstrips their qualifications and who are only kept in business by the desperation of parents.
On the subject of the biomedical aspect, I should mention that there is a vocal contingency of people who believe that there is no evironmental influence at play in autism whatsoever and that the condition is genetic, end of story. The Wall Street Journal in particular has been very careful to always take a dismissive tone towards the idea that this is a situation that could have been avoided. If one were sufficiently paranoid, one might wonder what interest a financial daily has in editorializing about autism. All I can say is that parents should listen to both sides of the argument before they decide what course they will take in treating their children.
One other thing I'd like to mention is that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children under age two watch zero television. Now, there is no proof that TV, computers or other electronics play a role in autism, but infants are freaky little sponges, sucking up information at an impossible-to-conceive rate, and I often wonder if the inexorable logic of electronic toys and computer programs (and their recent tendency to focus on abstractions such as numbers, patterns and shapes, even when targeted at children of an age for which that content is not appropriate) and the precise, unnatural repetition of experience via DVD or CD exacerbate autistic children's overdependence on static systems (predictable, mathematical, unchanging) versus dynamic systems (relative, indefinite, human).**
Good Things
We've had a tough road, no doubt, but our boy has surprised us by his readiness to rise to every challenge. Once he was a child closed up inside his own world, distant, aloof, shut off and disconnected. My wife and I worried that he would never open up, never be able to share a smile or a laugh with us, never reciprocate the love that we felt for him. However, with a lot of hard work on our part, and even harder work on his, we have a happy, laughing boy who rushes into our arms for hugs and kisses, who tells us his thoughts and feelings when he has the words to express them, and who will take my hand, drag me away from the computer, and say "Daddy, come and play." Many challenges remain: his language skills and social skills still need a lot of work, he continues to be challenged by sensory issues, some rigidities and obsessions still linger, and he is only taking the first tenuous steps towards interacting with his peers. I have found, out, however, that there is one social activity of which he is extremely fond, evidenced by a photograph sent home from school; in the picture my son can be seen relaxed and one of the gang, lying on his belly in among a tight circle of little kindergarten kiddies all centered around...Candyland.
Thanks to everyone who has read and commented on my stuff here at Gone Gaming. Hopefully I'll be able to contribute an article now and then. So, until next time, be sure to keep the door to the outside open.
___________________________________
* Aspberger's Syndrome is a name for a particular manifestation of ASD, once thought to be a separate pathology from Autism but now considered part of the spectrum. It is characterized by high I.Q. and strong verbal skills, though the other deficits of autism, such as underdeveloped interpersonal skills and difficulties with dynamic systems, remain.
** The difference between a static and a dynamic system in this context is that the rules of a dynamic system can evolve whereas in a static system they do not. A casual conversation is a dynamic system because, among other things, topics can change, there is no set ending point, and even the roster of participants can change mid-stream. It is still a system and not a random phenomenon, however, because, even if it is not predictable, it is guided by a collective train of thought, social cues and the judgment of the participants. For example, in the middle of the conversation one of the group may notice that others are behaving in a distracted and listless fashion while a topic is being discussed and so, even though that person might have more to say on the topic, he will allow the flow of conversation to go off on a tangent to keep the entire group engaged. Another person may adopt a tone of levity on a subject, and, depending on whether the group reacts with smiles or uncomfortable fidgeting, will either continue with the jest or drop it. In contrast, games are generally static systems, as players typically cannot decide to change rules mid-game, they cannot walk away and then rejoin the game twenty minutes later, and they are not supposed to change their goals halfway through (for example giving up on gathering victory points and instead trying to make a pleasing pattern on the board with their pieces). However, there are often dynamic systems associated with games, for example negotiation, psychology, metagame, and of course whatever tangential social interactions are going on during the gaming.
Friday, February 24, 2006
Caylus, the new Addiction!
Hi again everyone.
Brian asked me if I could do an article again, so I am going to post about Caylus.
As everyone knows, lots of people think Caylus is an excellent game. I am obviously among them. I also, in my tradition of preferring 2 player (or 2 sided) games to games with 3 or more separate parties, love 2 player Caylus.
I was talking with the game's designer on BSW, and he mentioned that he designed the game for multiplayer, and 2 player was kindof added on. I was amazed by this, because the 2 player game works so well!
In multiplayer games, with reasonable players, the provost is rarely used to screw someone, unless it is very low cost (the last guy paying $1 to screw him out of an important space, or whatever). This is especially true in 3 player, where there isnt the gangup potential, of someone passing, and then three players after him agreeing to move it back 1 each, or something like that.
In multiplayer, playing at the edge of town adds this vague risk. You have to pass late, and there is a chance that some random other guy might pay money to try and screw you. Or maybe they might be reasonable and not spend their money hurting one opponent.
But in 2 player, the provost creates tremendous tactical opportunities, as now, hurting your only opponent is a direct gain for yourself!
I was talking to a local player in our Saturday game group, Sean McCarthy, who is SevenSpirits on BGG, about 2 player Caylus. Previously, he had played mostly 3-4 player, and was very good at it, while I had played mostly 2 player. We played two games of 3 player in our Saturday game group, and he beat me by 4 and by 1, each time teaching me critical things that were different about 2 player and multiplayer. For example, in 2 player, you will have enough favors to go strong in two favor tracks, and should go Build and Points or Build and Money. In multiplayer, you have enough favors to go strong in only one, with a few favors in another. Thus, you should probably go strong in Build with a bit in Money, or strong in Points with a bit in Money. (Because the Build track and Points track have the big rewards in the middle/end, and thus need concentration to be good, while Money is fairly good even if you only dabble).
Anyway, he mentioned that he had started playing 2 player games. I asked what he thought. He said they were awesome, and they were even more fun!
There you have it! Both of us had the same reaction to 2 player. It's more fun than with more players, though certainly the game is great for multiplayer as well. Of course, we both tend to prefer 2 player games anyway, so if you dislike all 2 player games, it probably isn't for you. Personally, I like partnership games, team games, 1 vs X games, and 2 player games best.
Now on to the strategy! I've analyzed the 2 player opening strategy a fair amount, so here is what I posted on BGG, about the 2 player Caylus Opening:
The Basics:
First of all, you need to know the strengths of the different favor tracks. Of the three non-points tracks, the build track is best, followed by money, then cubes. The points track is great in longer games that aren't highly resource short. It is only bad if the game goes very short, or its very resource light due to almost no production buildings. (More on that later).
You generally have enough favors in the game to go heavily on two tracks. Build + Points is usually best, and Build + Money is second best.
You use the build track to make buildings, mostly stone buildings and some residences. You make one wood building early, and you might use a later favor or two on prestige buildings, or more wood buildings for points if the stone buildings run out. But mostly its stone buildings and residences.
The first time you have the opportunity to make these buildings is once the second phase of the game begins. Thus, you want to end the opening phase with 2 favors placed in the building track, to be ready asap. You don't need more than this in the building track, because the extra wood building for the cost of a favor plus a cube isn't really worth it, and harms your ability to make stone buildings fast at the start of the middle phase of the game.
Thus you need 2 early favors to go to the build track.
The best way to get these early favors is castle builds, when you go first to the castle, and the bonus favor for making 2 batches. Ideally, you want to make 2 batches in the castle, getting a favor each time, plus a bonus favor. This is three favors. The excess third favor should be spent on either the money track or points track. Money if you are hurting on money at any time, points otherwise.
Alternately, if you build 2 batches at once on a turn your opponent build one first, that is ok as well, but it results in one less favor per person. You still need 2 build favors in this case, so be careful. Building another batch in the castle is ok, and get you a 4th total favor, which can be the second money or points track favor, however, this is only worth it if you still have some cubes to start the second game phase, so that you are not harmed in your ability to score favors and make stone buildings there.
Thus your goal in the opening:
Make 2 castle batches, each at a time when the opponent isn't in the castle (or maybe 2 at once when he is there before you). Take two build track favors and spend excess in money or points.
Additionally, end the opening with as much excess money and cubes as possible, hopefully more than your opponent. The best excess cubes to have are food and cloth, to be able to buy favors in joust, and build production buildings (and residences with cloth).
The opportunity cost of placing a worker in the opening
I did an opening analysis with SevenSpirits where we played the first couple turns several times, talked about every move, and then restarted.
We found several things:
The opportunity cost of a cube is $3. That is, when you play to a cube square, you are giving up a net $3 to do so.
This comes from: You either could've played to the $3 space if it is available, which would give you +$2 net. While playing to the cube yields -$1, for a change of -$3. Alternately, you could've passed. If so, you get $1, you don't pay $1, and your opponent doesn't get $1 for passing, for a net change of $3.
So it 'costs' $3 to make a placement.
Another example of this, is that once your opponent has passed, you can safely go to a space by paying $3. Again, you're paying $3 for a cube.
Thus, if you go to the gain $3 space, you are effectively saving yourself the opportunity to buy a cube on a future turn. Say, the cloth space is unsafe (near the provost). But one turn you take the $3 and get plenty of money, the next after your opponent passes you pay $3 to go onto it.
The expected gain of the person going first in the turn
Early in the game, the player going first in a turn should get a net gain of $1 over the other player. (Or a cube and -$2). This is because you can do an equivalent number of things as your opponent and then pass for a buck. Thus, if you gain more than this in a turn you go first, its good, if less, it was not good. The person going first on turn 1 gets this gain first, but then the opponent gets it next. I find the first player to have a small advantage in the game, but I think it is worth less than $1.
Provost Wars:
A provost war is where both players don't want to pass, because at least one player has placed in a 'risky' position, and the players want to move the provost last to control its final position. A 'risky' space is one that is less than 3 spaces behind the provost. The closer it is to the provost, the riskier.
Getting into provost wars is good for the player with more money and not the player with less money. (Counting who will be getting the $3 as part of their money). Once a provost war is initiated, if players wish to follow it to the end, then they find themselves (early on), with no good spaces left, and they start wasting money. Going to the castle is very good (if you will be able to guarantee you can do it), since thats a hard thing to fit in. Making a building is ok (if safe), if you have plenty of cubes. Trading a cube for $4 is breakeven, since a cube is worth 3 and the worker is 1 for a total of 4, but this sale of a cube for its purchase price might be important due to the provost war money drain. The inn is good if you are going to break your opponent in the war but still have some money.
I find that the person who has less money (unless both have a ton) should not continue the provost war. However, initiating a provost war is a great way to enable yourself to get an action in the castle or on the builder square if you want to.
For example, I have a reasonable amount of money, as does my opponent. I can build in the castle, but my opponent wont be able to. So after we take the safe cubes and $3, I take a riskier cube. My opponent takes provost mover (so as not to allow me to pass and get the safe cube without him being able to take the mover). Now I go to the castle. Normally, going to the castle has a cost of $3, since its 1 to go, loss of 1 for not passing, opponent gain of 1 for passing (because you did an extra thing). However, now my opponent cant pass without handing me back my cube placement. So he goes somewhere else. Now I pass.
Net: I spent $1 on the unsafe cube spot, $1 on the castle, I got a $ for passing, cost of $1. I get to go to the castle.
Opponent spent $1 on the provost mover, and $1 on the 'waste of time space'. He spends $2! I had a loss of $1 and get into the castle. Realistically, his waste of time play is probably valued at $1, so it's a net loss of $1 each, so we break even there. This was a way to get into the castle for free! (i.e. without the standard opportunity cost of $3).
Because the opportunity cost of getting the opportunity to build in the castle is generally $3, you want to look for chances to get in more cheaply.
My general valuation of things in the opening is:
Cloth or Stone: better than $3.
Other cube: probably worse than $3, but if you are getting no cubes you are screwed. So once you have plenty of money, you need to do this trade. You don't want to let your opponent get all the cubes, because then he easily gets castle favors and its hard for you. So often the cube is actually better than $3, if you have plenty of money. So if you would be starting the next turn at $6-8, the cube is probably not better, but if you would be starting with $10+, if probably is. (Note that if your opponent is really poor, its still better to take the money gaining opportunity, just to screw him).
Getting into the castle: In a normal circumstance, it costs $3 to be able to go build there. But what you want is to find opportunities to get in cheaper.
Opportunity to build with the Carpenter: In a normal circumstance, it costs $3, plus the two cubes for the build, and is not worth it. However, in a provost war, if the carpenter is safe, and thus your opportunity cost is $0 (just the two cubes), it is good if you have enough cubes to do this and still end up with 2 castle builds in the first scoring section. Put another way, if I could pay two early cubes for a building, with no loss of money or tempo, I would probably do it once. But its not usually worth it because you also give up money and tempo (the ability to get more money via passing first), to get the opportunity.
Inn: You would only go here if it was during a provost war, and your opponent was going to break or nearly break themself in the war.
Sell cube for $4: Its really a break even trade. Only go here in a provost war, if safe, where it is better than simply wasting $1.
Note that the existence of a 2 cube production building devalues the single cube spaces and makes money better. It suddenly makes the $3 better than the cube, in most cases (though the rare cube still could be better). This is because there is now a space that costs the standard $3 to go to, but yields 2 cubes not 1. However, it will be unsafe throughout the first scoring section. This means that if you have a money lead, but not a cube lead, you want to build a production building. Then you can convert money into cubes at a better rate, and devalue your opponents cubes. So if you passed up a cube earlier to take the $3, and you have $3 more than your opponent and he has +1 cube, it's great to build a production building. Conversely, the player with the cube lead and money disadvantage wants to build the sell cube for 6 building, as it allows a reverse sale back into money at a good gain.
Specific Opening Moves:
Since cloth and stone are better than $3 very early, if you can, place your worker on the safest cloth or stone space which is at least 3 back from the provost (i.e. it is safe).
If this is not available, place on the $3 space. (This is actually better than getting a food or wood cube, if those are the only safe cubes, because you can convert the $3 into a better cloth or stone cube later, in a turn the opponent passes first, by paying $3 to play to the space (and they move the provost first).
If all safe cubes and $3 space are taken, your options are to pass and gain money, or initiate a provost war. (If you are getting desperate, you can play to the castle, but you prefer to find a time when this doesn't cost you $3 to do)
The reason to initiate a provost war is because you want to make plays like castle or builder, at a time when your opponent is wasting moves, so you don't have to give up a $3 swing to do it.
Also, a provost war is good if you have more money than the opponent, because it can break him and amplify the money disadvantage. (Don't get into provost wars with less money, unless you still have plenty and your goal is to get into the castle cheap).
Once the provost war has begun, it now no longer is a $2 gain for your opponent to pass (they get $1 and you don't), and thus you can play to things like the castle or carpenter for a lower opportunity cost.
To initiate a provost war, play a worker to the unsafe cube that is the most safe. If you do this, you do not want to also be on the second most unsafe cube, because then you risk both cubes. For example, if you are on the safest and 3rd safest cubes, with your opponent on the 2nd safest, you are fine. They can only screw you out of the 3rd safest, without hurting themself. But if you are on the 2nd and 3rd safest both, you risk losing both in a war, so you don't want to do this unless you have more money and will win the war and that is your goal.
Now, your opponent can accept the war or decline. They decline by passing, thus gaining $1, denying you the $1 for passing, and you spent $1 on the cube. Thus, they get a net gain of $3 while you get a cube. They should do this if they are lower on money, but many won't. Another thing they can do is play on a cube more unsafe than you. Now, they are putting it back in your court, to make a provost war or decline.
They accept the war by going onto the provost-mover, threatening to deny you your space by pushing it back past your space, and then passing later than you to guarantee they can screw you.
Now you can go to the castle. If your opponent passes, then you gain a cube on them by winning the war, they get some money, but you get into the castle cheap. If they keep fighting, by making a 'wasted' (or mildly beneficial) move, then you pass. You lose the war, lose the cube, but don't break yourself, and you got into the castle cheap. If you have a money lead, you can keep fighting the war to drain their cash.
Look to initiate a provost war to get cheap entrance to the castle. Weaker opponents won't figure out what you are really doing, and will feel good that they 'screwed' you out of a cube, when in reality you gained on them. Also be on the watch for your opponent doing this tactic against you. If the war allows them cheap entrance into the castle, you should probably just pass, let them get a cube lead but get a corresponding money lead, and then look to convert the money to a cube later.
If a provost war drags on, the next best spaces after the castle are the carpenter (if safe, i.e. behind the cubes in question), the inn (if the war will break your opponent), and the sell cube for 4 space (if safe).
There is another way the war can go. Say that you and your opponent start by going on the two safest cubes. Next, you go on an unsafe cube, which is 2 back from the provost. Your opponent goes on the $3 square. You could now pass. Now, during the turn you spend $2, get $1 and will get 2 cubes, net $-1 and 2 cubes. Your opponent spends $2, gets $3 and a cube, net $1 and a cube.
You: -$1 and 2 cubes.
Opp: +$1 and 1 cube.
Total: You: 1 cube, Opp: $2. (Your cube is $1 better than his $2 gain, but you went first, so a $1 gain is expected)
Now, it comes to moving the provost. If you move it out 1 space, to ensure your cube, your net gain becomes -$2 and a cube, to his $1. Now, you are at breakeven for the turn, which is BAD when you went first!
If you don't move out the provost, your opponent can leave it as is, or spend $3 to deny the cube. If they spend $3, then the next result is a gain of $1 for you over them, the expected result.
Thus, you should NOT move out the provost in this case. The only time when you should is if you really need that cube, and/or you want the opening to move faster. But remember, that you are essentially losing $1 to your opponent in doing this.
Summary:
Playing to a cube square 2 back from the provost is fine, provided that you do not also have the second most risky cube. If you play right, it is at worst breakeven for you. It also might initiate a provost war which could benefit you.
Now, if you play to a cube space only one back from your opponent, it costs him only $2 to screw you if you pass first (if the provost war is declined). Thus, you result in a loss of $1, and thus this is bad.
Therefore, to successfully initiate a provost war without penalty to yourself, place a worker on a cube space 2 back from the provost, when you do not also have a worker on the second most risky cube.
You can also initiate a provost war against your opponent to try to deny his worker.
When not to initiate a provost war:
1) When you are significantly ($2 or more) poorer, and it might threaten to put you below a decent amount of money (below $7 to start a turn).
2) When your opponent has guaranteed cubes to build in the castle, and can use the war to get in there cheaply.
When to initiate a provost war:
1) When you wish to go to the castle cheaply, and have guaranteed cubes.
2) When you are richer (counting money to be gained this turn)
Best ways to initiate a provost war:
1) Place a worker on a cube space 2 back from the provost, while you do not also have the second most risky cube. 3 back is good also. 1 back probably isn't.
2) Take the provost mover when your opponent has placed onto a risky square, ESPECIALLY if he has the two riskiest workers.
What building to build:
When building an early building, build the one whose presence gives the most value to your current resources and the least value to your opponent's resources.
Factors of who will use the building aren't as relevant in 2er. You want the building whose EXISTENCE is better for you than them.
If you have more buildings, you'll end up getting more points off them than the other guy.
It's also important to have buildings you want, because a significant factor in their advantage is that you can pay $1 to go there if your opponent passes, so it makes it so your opponent cant pass and needs to keep doing things and then you pass and get $1 and they don't get $1, leading to advantage. Alternately, they can play to your (usually unsafe) building to deny this, and then you fight a provost battle (usually with even costs to each party) and get an advantage of 1 point.
Examples of what to build, to maximize the value of your resources and minimize your opponents:
You are ahead on cubes, but not ahead on money (or behind on money):
Build the sell a cube for 6 building. This increases the value of cubes and decreases the value of money.
You are behind on cubes of type X, and possibly behind on cubes in general, and are ahead on money: Build production building of type X. You want to be up on money because the existence of better production buildings changes the 'it costs $3 for a cube' dynamic. Also, this very good space in an unsafe space generates provost wars, which benefit whoever is richer.
Alternately, its good if you are behind on cubes, not ahead on money, but you both have plenty of money: you need the opportunity to regain the cubes you are down.
You are WAY ahead on money, but not way ahead on cubes: Build the buy 2 cubes of your choice for $2. Here you just make a space that is unusable to your opponent, but not to you. This is often worse than just a production building, however it has the advantage of taking any cube to build (that can matter, and is often the reason you do this), and it generates 2 more points initially.
You are way ahead on stone (at least 2, and they have 0), and not behind on cubes overall, and you are not behind on money, and your opponent has committed favors to the build track (you might have also) : Build the stone mason. Though in this case, sell cube for 6 may still be better. If you for some reason are failing to get 2 favors on the build track in the opening, while your opponent is getting them, then this becomes better.
You are way ahead on cloth (at least 2, and they have 0), not behind on cubes, and you have a reasonable amount of money to be able to pay extra for this and to get into provost battles for it: Build the lawyer. However, sell a cube for $6 may still be better. If you for some reason are failing to get 2 favors on the build track in the opening, while your opponent is getting them, then this becomes better.
Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy it and improve your 2 player Caylus play!
Brian asked me if I could do an article again, so I am going to post about Caylus.
As everyone knows, lots of people think Caylus is an excellent game. I am obviously among them. I also, in my tradition of preferring 2 player (or 2 sided) games to games with 3 or more separate parties, love 2 player Caylus.
I was talking with the game's designer on BSW, and he mentioned that he designed the game for multiplayer, and 2 player was kindof added on. I was amazed by this, because the 2 player game works so well!
In multiplayer games, with reasonable players, the provost is rarely used to screw someone, unless it is very low cost (the last guy paying $1 to screw him out of an important space, or whatever). This is especially true in 3 player, where there isnt the gangup potential, of someone passing, and then three players after him agreeing to move it back 1 each, or something like that.
In multiplayer, playing at the edge of town adds this vague risk. You have to pass late, and there is a chance that some random other guy might pay money to try and screw you. Or maybe they might be reasonable and not spend their money hurting one opponent.
But in 2 player, the provost creates tremendous tactical opportunities, as now, hurting your only opponent is a direct gain for yourself!
I was talking to a local player in our Saturday game group, Sean McCarthy, who is SevenSpirits on BGG, about 2 player Caylus. Previously, he had played mostly 3-4 player, and was very good at it, while I had played mostly 2 player. We played two games of 3 player in our Saturday game group, and he beat me by 4 and by 1, each time teaching me critical things that were different about 2 player and multiplayer. For example, in 2 player, you will have enough favors to go strong in two favor tracks, and should go Build and Points or Build and Money. In multiplayer, you have enough favors to go strong in only one, with a few favors in another. Thus, you should probably go strong in Build with a bit in Money, or strong in Points with a bit in Money. (Because the Build track and Points track have the big rewards in the middle/end, and thus need concentration to be good, while Money is fairly good even if you only dabble).
Anyway, he mentioned that he had started playing 2 player games. I asked what he thought. He said they were awesome, and they were even more fun!
There you have it! Both of us had the same reaction to 2 player. It's more fun than with more players, though certainly the game is great for multiplayer as well. Of course, we both tend to prefer 2 player games anyway, so if you dislike all 2 player games, it probably isn't for you. Personally, I like partnership games, team games, 1 vs X games, and 2 player games best.
Now on to the strategy! I've analyzed the 2 player opening strategy a fair amount, so here is what I posted on BGG, about the 2 player Caylus Opening:
The Basics:
First of all, you need to know the strengths of the different favor tracks. Of the three non-points tracks, the build track is best, followed by money, then cubes. The points track is great in longer games that aren't highly resource short. It is only bad if the game goes very short, or its very resource light due to almost no production buildings. (More on that later).
You generally have enough favors in the game to go heavily on two tracks. Build + Points is usually best, and Build + Money is second best.
You use the build track to make buildings, mostly stone buildings and some residences. You make one wood building early, and you might use a later favor or two on prestige buildings, or more wood buildings for points if the stone buildings run out. But mostly its stone buildings and residences.
The first time you have the opportunity to make these buildings is once the second phase of the game begins. Thus, you want to end the opening phase with 2 favors placed in the building track, to be ready asap. You don't need more than this in the building track, because the extra wood building for the cost of a favor plus a cube isn't really worth it, and harms your ability to make stone buildings fast at the start of the middle phase of the game.
Thus you need 2 early favors to go to the build track.
The best way to get these early favors is castle builds, when you go first to the castle, and the bonus favor for making 2 batches. Ideally, you want to make 2 batches in the castle, getting a favor each time, plus a bonus favor. This is three favors. The excess third favor should be spent on either the money track or points track. Money if you are hurting on money at any time, points otherwise.
Alternately, if you build 2 batches at once on a turn your opponent build one first, that is ok as well, but it results in one less favor per person. You still need 2 build favors in this case, so be careful. Building another batch in the castle is ok, and get you a 4th total favor, which can be the second money or points track favor, however, this is only worth it if you still have some cubes to start the second game phase, so that you are not harmed in your ability to score favors and make stone buildings there.
Thus your goal in the opening:
Make 2 castle batches, each at a time when the opponent isn't in the castle (or maybe 2 at once when he is there before you). Take two build track favors and spend excess in money or points.
Additionally, end the opening with as much excess money and cubes as possible, hopefully more than your opponent. The best excess cubes to have are food and cloth, to be able to buy favors in joust, and build production buildings (and residences with cloth).
The opportunity cost of placing a worker in the opening
I did an opening analysis with SevenSpirits where we played the first couple turns several times, talked about every move, and then restarted.
We found several things:
The opportunity cost of a cube is $3. That is, when you play to a cube square, you are giving up a net $3 to do so.
This comes from: You either could've played to the $3 space if it is available, which would give you +$2 net. While playing to the cube yields -$1, for a change of -$3. Alternately, you could've passed. If so, you get $1, you don't pay $1, and your opponent doesn't get $1 for passing, for a net change of $3.
So it 'costs' $3 to make a placement.
Another example of this, is that once your opponent has passed, you can safely go to a space by paying $3. Again, you're paying $3 for a cube.
Thus, if you go to the gain $3 space, you are effectively saving yourself the opportunity to buy a cube on a future turn. Say, the cloth space is unsafe (near the provost). But one turn you take the $3 and get plenty of money, the next after your opponent passes you pay $3 to go onto it.
The expected gain of the person going first in the turn
Early in the game, the player going first in a turn should get a net gain of $1 over the other player. (Or a cube and -$2). This is because you can do an equivalent number of things as your opponent and then pass for a buck. Thus, if you gain more than this in a turn you go first, its good, if less, it was not good. The person going first on turn 1 gets this gain first, but then the opponent gets it next. I find the first player to have a small advantage in the game, but I think it is worth less than $1.
Provost Wars:
A provost war is where both players don't want to pass, because at least one player has placed in a 'risky' position, and the players want to move the provost last to control its final position. A 'risky' space is one that is less than 3 spaces behind the provost. The closer it is to the provost, the riskier.
Getting into provost wars is good for the player with more money and not the player with less money. (Counting who will be getting the $3 as part of their money). Once a provost war is initiated, if players wish to follow it to the end, then they find themselves (early on), with no good spaces left, and they start wasting money. Going to the castle is very good (if you will be able to guarantee you can do it), since thats a hard thing to fit in. Making a building is ok (if safe), if you have plenty of cubes. Trading a cube for $4 is breakeven, since a cube is worth 3 and the worker is 1 for a total of 4, but this sale of a cube for its purchase price might be important due to the provost war money drain. The inn is good if you are going to break your opponent in the war but still have some money.
I find that the person who has less money (unless both have a ton) should not continue the provost war. However, initiating a provost war is a great way to enable yourself to get an action in the castle or on the builder square if you want to.
For example, I have a reasonable amount of money, as does my opponent. I can build in the castle, but my opponent wont be able to. So after we take the safe cubes and $3, I take a riskier cube. My opponent takes provost mover (so as not to allow me to pass and get the safe cube without him being able to take the mover). Now I go to the castle. Normally, going to the castle has a cost of $3, since its 1 to go, loss of 1 for not passing, opponent gain of 1 for passing (because you did an extra thing). However, now my opponent cant pass without handing me back my cube placement. So he goes somewhere else. Now I pass.
Net: I spent $1 on the unsafe cube spot, $1 on the castle, I got a $ for passing, cost of $1. I get to go to the castle.
Opponent spent $1 on the provost mover, and $1 on the 'waste of time space'. He spends $2! I had a loss of $1 and get into the castle. Realistically, his waste of time play is probably valued at $1, so it's a net loss of $1 each, so we break even there. This was a way to get into the castle for free! (i.e. without the standard opportunity cost of $3).
Because the opportunity cost of getting the opportunity to build in the castle is generally $3, you want to look for chances to get in more cheaply.
My general valuation of things in the opening is:
Cloth or Stone: better than $3.
Other cube: probably worse than $3, but if you are getting no cubes you are screwed. So once you have plenty of money, you need to do this trade. You don't want to let your opponent get all the cubes, because then he easily gets castle favors and its hard for you. So often the cube is actually better than $3, if you have plenty of money. So if you would be starting the next turn at $6-8, the cube is probably not better, but if you would be starting with $10+, if probably is. (Note that if your opponent is really poor, its still better to take the money gaining opportunity, just to screw him).
Getting into the castle: In a normal circumstance, it costs $3 to be able to go build there. But what you want is to find opportunities to get in cheaper.
Opportunity to build with the Carpenter: In a normal circumstance, it costs $3, plus the two cubes for the build, and is not worth it. However, in a provost war, if the carpenter is safe, and thus your opportunity cost is $0 (just the two cubes), it is good if you have enough cubes to do this and still end up with 2 castle builds in the first scoring section. Put another way, if I could pay two early cubes for a building, with no loss of money or tempo, I would probably do it once. But its not usually worth it because you also give up money and tempo (the ability to get more money via passing first), to get the opportunity.
Inn: You would only go here if it was during a provost war, and your opponent was going to break or nearly break themself in the war.
Sell cube for $4: Its really a break even trade. Only go here in a provost war, if safe, where it is better than simply wasting $1.
Note that the existence of a 2 cube production building devalues the single cube spaces and makes money better. It suddenly makes the $3 better than the cube, in most cases (though the rare cube still could be better). This is because there is now a space that costs the standard $3 to go to, but yields 2 cubes not 1. However, it will be unsafe throughout the first scoring section. This means that if you have a money lead, but not a cube lead, you want to build a production building. Then you can convert money into cubes at a better rate, and devalue your opponents cubes. So if you passed up a cube earlier to take the $3, and you have $3 more than your opponent and he has +1 cube, it's great to build a production building. Conversely, the player with the cube lead and money disadvantage wants to build the sell cube for 6 building, as it allows a reverse sale back into money at a good gain.
Specific Opening Moves:
Since cloth and stone are better than $3 very early, if you can, place your worker on the safest cloth or stone space which is at least 3 back from the provost (i.e. it is safe).
If this is not available, place on the $3 space. (This is actually better than getting a food or wood cube, if those are the only safe cubes, because you can convert the $3 into a better cloth or stone cube later, in a turn the opponent passes first, by paying $3 to play to the space (and they move the provost first).
If all safe cubes and $3 space are taken, your options are to pass and gain money, or initiate a provost war. (If you are getting desperate, you can play to the castle, but you prefer to find a time when this doesn't cost you $3 to do)
The reason to initiate a provost war is because you want to make plays like castle or builder, at a time when your opponent is wasting moves, so you don't have to give up a $3 swing to do it.
Also, a provost war is good if you have more money than the opponent, because it can break him and amplify the money disadvantage. (Don't get into provost wars with less money, unless you still have plenty and your goal is to get into the castle cheap).
Once the provost war has begun, it now no longer is a $2 gain for your opponent to pass (they get $1 and you don't), and thus you can play to things like the castle or carpenter for a lower opportunity cost.
To initiate a provost war, play a worker to the unsafe cube that is the most safe. If you do this, you do not want to also be on the second most unsafe cube, because then you risk both cubes. For example, if you are on the safest and 3rd safest cubes, with your opponent on the 2nd safest, you are fine. They can only screw you out of the 3rd safest, without hurting themself. But if you are on the 2nd and 3rd safest both, you risk losing both in a war, so you don't want to do this unless you have more money and will win the war and that is your goal.
Now, your opponent can accept the war or decline. They decline by passing, thus gaining $1, denying you the $1 for passing, and you spent $1 on the cube. Thus, they get a net gain of $3 while you get a cube. They should do this if they are lower on money, but many won't. Another thing they can do is play on a cube more unsafe than you. Now, they are putting it back in your court, to make a provost war or decline.
They accept the war by going onto the provost-mover, threatening to deny you your space by pushing it back past your space, and then passing later than you to guarantee they can screw you.
Now you can go to the castle. If your opponent passes, then you gain a cube on them by winning the war, they get some money, but you get into the castle cheap. If they keep fighting, by making a 'wasted' (or mildly beneficial) move, then you pass. You lose the war, lose the cube, but don't break yourself, and you got into the castle cheap. If you have a money lead, you can keep fighting the war to drain their cash.
Look to initiate a provost war to get cheap entrance to the castle. Weaker opponents won't figure out what you are really doing, and will feel good that they 'screwed' you out of a cube, when in reality you gained on them. Also be on the watch for your opponent doing this tactic against you. If the war allows them cheap entrance into the castle, you should probably just pass, let them get a cube lead but get a corresponding money lead, and then look to convert the money to a cube later.
If a provost war drags on, the next best spaces after the castle are the carpenter (if safe, i.e. behind the cubes in question), the inn (if the war will break your opponent), and the sell cube for 4 space (if safe).
There is another way the war can go. Say that you and your opponent start by going on the two safest cubes. Next, you go on an unsafe cube, which is 2 back from the provost. Your opponent goes on the $3 square. You could now pass. Now, during the turn you spend $2, get $1 and will get 2 cubes, net $-1 and 2 cubes. Your opponent spends $2, gets $3 and a cube, net $1 and a cube.
You: -$1 and 2 cubes.
Opp: +$1 and 1 cube.
Total: You: 1 cube, Opp: $2. (Your cube is $1 better than his $2 gain, but you went first, so a $1 gain is expected)
Now, it comes to moving the provost. If you move it out 1 space, to ensure your cube, your net gain becomes -$2 and a cube, to his $1. Now, you are at breakeven for the turn, which is BAD when you went first!
If you don't move out the provost, your opponent can leave it as is, or spend $3 to deny the cube. If they spend $3, then the next result is a gain of $1 for you over them, the expected result.
Thus, you should NOT move out the provost in this case. The only time when you should is if you really need that cube, and/or you want the opening to move faster. But remember, that you are essentially losing $1 to your opponent in doing this.
Summary:
Playing to a cube square 2 back from the provost is fine, provided that you do not also have the second most risky cube. If you play right, it is at worst breakeven for you. It also might initiate a provost war which could benefit you.
Now, if you play to a cube space only one back from your opponent, it costs him only $2 to screw you if you pass first (if the provost war is declined). Thus, you result in a loss of $1, and thus this is bad.
Therefore, to successfully initiate a provost war without penalty to yourself, place a worker on a cube space 2 back from the provost, when you do not also have a worker on the second most risky cube.
You can also initiate a provost war against your opponent to try to deny his worker.
When not to initiate a provost war:
1) When you are significantly ($2 or more) poorer, and it might threaten to put you below a decent amount of money (below $7 to start a turn).
2) When your opponent has guaranteed cubes to build in the castle, and can use the war to get in there cheaply.
When to initiate a provost war:
1) When you wish to go to the castle cheaply, and have guaranteed cubes.
2) When you are richer (counting money to be gained this turn)
Best ways to initiate a provost war:
1) Place a worker on a cube space 2 back from the provost, while you do not also have the second most risky cube. 3 back is good also. 1 back probably isn't.
2) Take the provost mover when your opponent has placed onto a risky square, ESPECIALLY if he has the two riskiest workers.
What building to build:
When building an early building, build the one whose presence gives the most value to your current resources and the least value to your opponent's resources.
Factors of who will use the building aren't as relevant in 2er. You want the building whose EXISTENCE is better for you than them.
If you have more buildings, you'll end up getting more points off them than the other guy.
It's also important to have buildings you want, because a significant factor in their advantage is that you can pay $1 to go there if your opponent passes, so it makes it so your opponent cant pass and needs to keep doing things and then you pass and get $1 and they don't get $1, leading to advantage. Alternately, they can play to your (usually unsafe) building to deny this, and then you fight a provost battle (usually with even costs to each party) and get an advantage of 1 point.
Examples of what to build, to maximize the value of your resources and minimize your opponents:
You are ahead on cubes, but not ahead on money (or behind on money):
Build the sell a cube for 6 building. This increases the value of cubes and decreases the value of money.
You are behind on cubes of type X, and possibly behind on cubes in general, and are ahead on money: Build production building of type X. You want to be up on money because the existence of better production buildings changes the 'it costs $3 for a cube' dynamic. Also, this very good space in an unsafe space generates provost wars, which benefit whoever is richer.
Alternately, its good if you are behind on cubes, not ahead on money, but you both have plenty of money: you need the opportunity to regain the cubes you are down.
You are WAY ahead on money, but not way ahead on cubes: Build the buy 2 cubes of your choice for $2. Here you just make a space that is unusable to your opponent, but not to you. This is often worse than just a production building, however it has the advantage of taking any cube to build (that can matter, and is often the reason you do this), and it generates 2 more points initially.
You are way ahead on stone (at least 2, and they have 0), and not behind on cubes overall, and you are not behind on money, and your opponent has committed favors to the build track (you might have also) : Build the stone mason. Though in this case, sell cube for 6 may still be better. If you for some reason are failing to get 2 favors on the build track in the opening, while your opponent is getting them, then this becomes better.
You are way ahead on cloth (at least 2, and they have 0), not behind on cubes, and you have a reasonable amount of money to be able to pay extra for this and to get into provost battles for it: Build the lawyer. However, sell a cube for $6 may still be better. If you for some reason are failing to get 2 favors on the build track in the opening, while your opponent is getting them, then this becomes better.
Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy it and improve your 2 player Caylus play!
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Anatomy of a Game: Blue Moon
Two weeks ago, Joe Gola published a review of Blue Moon, Reiner Knizia's customizable card game. It's been a game that's been on my mind lately too. This week I 'd like to take a step beyond Joe's introduction (for which, see his article, or else my own review of the game), and instead dig a little deeper to discover what really makes Blue Moon tick, starting with a look at how it really is a customizable auction game, not a CCG.Blue Moon as an Auction
In my overview of Reiner Knizia I made the contention that most of his games are actually auction games, but from the comments on that article I could tell that my point wasn't entirely clear. Fortunately, Blue Moon offers a terrific example of how an otherwise unique-looking game can be based on pure auction mechanics.
Most CCGs are "conflict" games. As it happens, I think that conflict-based games and auction-based games have a lot in common. Thus, it's not too surprising to me that many people look at Blue Moon and see the fighting rather than the bidding. However when you actually dissect the game design elements, I think it becomes a lot more obvious that Blue Moon falls onto the "auction" side of the equation.
To be precise, Blue Moon is a constrained English auction with open turn-based bids, and all payers. In English: the players take turns bidding, back-and-forth, and there are very specific rules for how their bids work. No matter who wins, each player has to discard then entire bid. Many of the bidding restrictions and other rules designed for the Blue Moon auction are somewhat outside of the norm for auction design, but nonetheless most of them can be found in at least a few other auction games.
The constraints of Blue Moon are very tight, and are the core of the gameplay. As in High Society and Beowulf (both Knizia designs), bids are made with discrete cards, and once you've put a card down you can't get it back. Unlike those games, there are even more constraints on your play: you're only allowed to play up to two cards to make your total bid, one general card which must always be played ("character") and one specific card which may be optionally played ("support" or "booster"). Here we can make comparisons to another Knizian auction with tight constraints, Taj Mahal, which likewise only lets you play up to two cards a turn, one "colored", which is required, and one "white", which is optional.
The bidding dynamics of Blue Moon allow for a gradual, but slowly racheting up method of bidding. As in Beowulf and the original For Sale you have two options: to call (bid the same amount) and to raise (bid a higher amount). Most auction games instead require constantly raising bids.
The payment method of Blue Moon, where everyone pays their bids, is slightly unusual, but seen frequently enough that it's got its own name, "the Poker auction". This refers to the fact that players keeping putting bids into a pot, then they all lose what they put in, not that Poker hands are being played. Knizia has used the design in Taj Mahal and (once more) Beowulf, while other notable auctions with very similar payment designs are Condotierre, Havoc: The Hundred Year's War, and the closed bid Fist of Dragonstones.
Finally we come to the truly unique element of the Blue Moon auction system: the turn-based bidding interactions. Effectively, Blue Moon's bidding constantly require geometric increases in bid value, even when you're "calling". This is because you have to constantly replace two of your bidding card types ("charcter" and "booster"), with only the third type ("support") remaining available throughout an entire auction. Thus, bidding exclusively with character cards, if you bid a "2", then a "2", then a "3", you'll have expended a total of 7 resources, rather than the 3 that would have been the case in just about every other auction game.
One other small variation in the Blue Moon auction system is the victory threshold. This is a brinkmanship gameplay element, where the value of victory in an auction doubles when a player has bid sufficient resources. In some ways it offsets the normal Rule of Gambling: that each bid is independent, and that you always have to bid based upon your current chances of victory, not what you've already comitted to the pot.
Overall, Blue Moon has tons that's uncommon or unique in the world of auction design, but when you break it down point-by-point, the ancestry still is fairly obvious. In particular, Blue Moon is similar in many ways to the design of Knizia's later Beowulf, with their shared constrained cards, call-or-raise auctions, and Pokeresque, everyone-pays results. They could easily be the same system, other than Blue Moon's constant, required rebids, and its unique, special-powered cards which draw it closer to the CCG world.
Playing Blue Moon as an Auction
By correctly understanding Blue Moon as an auction, you think about its strategy in some different ways.
I already mentioned the "Rule of Gambling", that you shouldn't stay in an auction if you can't win. There are, however, a number of elements that make this credo more complex in Blue Moon. First, as noted, the stake doubles if a player stays in long enough. Second, you're constantly drawing cards, and thus there's an opportunity to notably better your hand at any time. Third, if you can't do well in the current auction, you might not be able to do well in the next auction either (unless you're more powerful in the opposite "currency"--earth or fire--from what's being used at the current time).
Generally, you shouldn't stay in an auction if you can't win it, and this is especially true if you think you might have a better chance at winning the next auction, either through flipping the element or through discarding and drawing. This should stay foremost in your thoughts in Blue Moon, much as it would in any other auction game.
A second auction-related element that you need to think about in Blue Moon is whether you play low or play high. There are a few purposes to playing low in Blue Moon: to try and get a dragon for a lower expenditure of cards; to cycle low cards out of your hand; to bluff that you have a stronger hand than you actually do; and to build up enough cards to double the stakes. However, playing low also has its disadvantages: you may be giving your opponent a chance to cycle low cards too, which might be particularly useful to him if he just expended high cards in a victorious duel.
A third auction-related element in Blue Moon is the question of whether to call or raise. Much of this goes to the same points as the low-or-high question, but there are also times when it's particularly foolish to call, such as when an opponent is retrieving a character card that he could instantly replay. On the other hand, the higher your "jump bid", the more likely that a savvy opponent will simple bow out, under the theory that you just wasted a lot more money than he did--as if you massively overbid for a check in For Sale.
Playing Blue Moon as an auction game requires a few strategies that might not be immediately obvious, as raised by these various points. You may want to drop out of an auction even if you might be able to win, if you think your opponent bid a lot more than he needed to. You might want to bluff, and imply you have more power than you think you do (though because many players play this as a play-cards-till-I-can't exercise, the usefulness of this could be limited). And, you'll need to seriously think about dilemmas such as bidding-high-or-low or calling-or-raising, as a financial decision, not just a knee-jerk reaction based on what cards you have in your hand.
Blue Moon as Resource Management
At its core mechanical level, I'm pretty confident that Blue Moon is an auction game. However there's another way to look at it: as resource management. Instead of looking at the 6 auction cards that a player has in his hand at any one time, instead consider that each player starts off with identical resources: 30 potential cards. Thus, the ultimate goal is to manage your cost-benefit ratio better than your opponent. If you can gain more dragons than he does by expending the same amount of cards, then you win.
With this in mind, it's worthwhile to consider the composition of the first two Blue Moon decks:
| Hoax | Vulca | |
| Characters | 18 | 18 |
| Boosters | 3 | 4 |
| Support | 6 | 5 |
| Leadership | 3 | 3 |
| Fire Value | 57 | 69 |
| Earth Value | 44 | 45 |
The balance of currency cards (meaning the characters, support, and boosters) between the two decks, really lays out its basis as a resource-management game. The differentiation in currency values is a bit more surprising, but the Hoax deck more than makes up for this with retrievable cards and a few other surprises.
In understanding Blue Moon as a resouce-management game, you can address its strategy from a few different angles, not immediately obvious when thinking about auctions. Namely: are your actions forcing your opponent to spend more resources than you, and if so is that worth losing a dragon (perhaps temporarily)?
Blue Moon as a Card Game
Blue Moon has gotten most of its buzz as a customizable card game. I've saved the discussion of that part of its anatomy last, not because it's not notable, but rather because it's not necessarily the most notable element of the game.
Collectible Card Games of course first appeared with the release of Magic: The Gathering in 1993. There were built on the old trading card model, where cards had different rarities, and you bought a random assortment of cards, then starting building playable decks from those random assortments.
After the initial release of CCGs, two similar card-game types appeared. First were the card-games-that-played-like-CCGs, which were games with special-power heavy cards which were sold as singular entities rather than collectible games. These are mostly American beer & pretzels style games, like Den of Thieves or Portable Adventures, but also have appeared in Euro-designs, such as Jambo.
Slightly more notable is the sub-genre called "customizable card games", which tend also to be games sold in singular, non-collectible units, but which have multiple units that you can combine to form unique, customizable decks. Reiner Knizia has done two of these, Scarab Lords (2002), with sequel Minotaur Lords (2004), and Blue Moon (2004).
Much of the CCG aspect of Blue Moon is pretty standard. You can combine cards in a somewhat arbitrary manner to create a deck that you think will be better than your opponents'. You try and set up good combinations of powers when you do so. However what's really notable about the design of Blue Moon as a CCG is that Reiner Knizia correctly recognizes deck building as a metagame.
Traditional CCGs have used the Magic: The Gathering model, which absolutely balances all cards within the game, so that a player has no better or worse reason to include any card in his deck, other than how it might interact with his deck as a whole. This is typically done through resource costs. In Magic: The Gathering all cards have a casting cost; as cards grow more powerful this cost increases in absolute value, and also might increase in playing difficulty, by requiring multiples of a specific color of mana or multiple specific types of mana. Chaosium's former CCG, Mythos, also used a resource balance. Each card had a sanity value, that tended to run from -3 to +1. Cards with more sanity cost tended to more valuable, and those with sanity gains tended to be fairly weak.
Instead Blue Moon labels cards with a value, from 0 to 4 moons, which is not an in-game resource cost. These moons are used when deck constructing. There are limits on including higher value cards. Thus, there's no longer a need to balance every single card in-game, and deck construction elements are correctly moved from game to metagame, smoothing out the gameplay.
As an aside, Knizia further considered deck building as metagame in his previous CCG release, Scarab Lords. There deck reconstructions happened in between rounds of play from a set deck. It ultimately failed, however, due to a lesser variety in the deck, and the fact that the deck construction was entirely absent if you choose to play only one round of the game.
Concerns & Qualms
Overall, Blue Moon is an elegant, interesting game that combines elements of auction, conflict, resource-management, and (if you want) deck construction. I do ultimately have a few (minor) concerns with it, however.
First and foremost, the endgame is messy. Being forced out of a conflict due to running out of character cards, and then having to discard to end the game is very inelegant, and confusing for first-time players. I'm not sure why the game doesn't end when one player has drawn his deck and is out of character cards, which would be the same thing 90% of the time, and a more elegant, Knizian solution.
Beyond that, I ultimately have some concerns about how the deck construction for Blue Moon works, because I haven't actually done it yet. When the game was originally conceived, it was the decks of cards that were balanced, not the cards themselves. Thus when you move onto deck construction you're left wondering, "Why would I ever include Vetraskedas the Skeptic (Hoax/3/1/no powers) rather than Ledinemras the Monk (Hoax/4/1/no powers)." Clearly, you wouldn't.
My general assumption is that the power level of a Blue Moon deck will increase when you deck construct, but perhaps that's as it should be, because you want to reward good metagaming in a deck-construction environment. I'm planning to try it out later this year, and when I'm done I plan to return here with a few decks that you can use to try and crush your friends.
Until then, watch out for the Buka.
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
The Game Psychiatrist--The Substitute
Dr: Hello, you must be Mary.M: Hi, where’s Dr. Meepolous?
Dr: He had to be away for the week. I’m Dr. Boardbent. How are you doing today, Mary?
M: Well, Doctor, I think I’m losing my love for gaming.
Dr: Uh-huh, that’s good. Dr. Meepolous will be very happy to hear that.
M: ?? You don’t understand; I’m here because that’s a BAD thing. For the last 3 years, gaming has been a big part of my life. What will I do if I lose interest in it?
Dr: You will spend all that wasted money on something worthwhile. Gambling is a terrible addiction which takes your money and leaves you with nothing.
M: !! Gambling! I don’t gamble, I play board games! Are you sure Dr. Meepolous isn’t in the other room? Maybe this is just a test of some sort. Maybe I’m on TV!
Dr: Oh, board games. Yes. I see. Well, you could read a book or take a class in painting.
M: Doc, I hate to say this, but you’re really beginning to piss me off. Have you ever played any Euro-games?
Dr: Euro-games….hmmm…I played Monopoly once as a child and I used to play Risk in college.
M: That’s it?! THAT’S your idea of board games?! Oh, for the love of Knizia!! (heavy sigh) O.k., Doc, there are other games now; games that don’t take hours and hours to play and leave you feeling like the 9th puppy of an 8-teat dog. (Starting to pace the floor) These games give you decisions to make, get your brain working, give you strategic choices.
Dr: Risk has all those things, Mary.
M: You’re just messing with me, aren’t you? And how many games of Risk did you lose because the dice were siding with the other guy just when you REALLY needed them to come up with a lot of happy little pips on them?
Dr: Mm-hmmm. I see your point.
M: Here’s what I’m going to do for you, Doc, I’m going to bring in a couple of my games to show you. Are you going to be here tomorrow?
Dr: Yes. I have a free hour at 2:00.
M: Great. I’ll see you then.
{M to self: I can’t believe Dr. Meepolous had THAT guy sub for him.}
{Dr. to self: That was TOO easy. I hope she brings in Torres; I’ll play that with any number of players.}
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Flandern 1302—A Stagnant Game
I’ve played Flandern 1302 twice, once with 3 players and once with 4, the maximum number of players, and both times I’ve been less than impressed with it; it was, in a word, flat. I was left with the feeling that there should be a good game there but I couldn’t find it.
The board is set up with 6 areas depicting cities, each with 13 spaces to place your tiles in trying to get the majority in the city. Each player has the same hand of cards which include one card for each city that lets you build in that city, a card that lets you build in any city but doesn’t let that tile count until you play in that city again and remove the “under construction” marker, a card that lets you pick up your played cards, and three one-time-use “influence” cards which can give you the chance to play first.
Each player has a set of tiles that match the color of one of the cities but there are also tiles which match the remaining 2 cities. The gray tiles represent another guild vying for superiority in the cities and can be played by anyone. The church tiles can also be played by anyone and add points to the city’s worth when it’s scored.
All players choose a card (or cards, if you want to use your influence to go first) and they are revealed at the same time. The player who plays first is the one who played the most cards but most often all players will choose only 1 card so the start player goes first. If you chose a city card, you can place one of your tiles, one from the neutral guild, or one of the church tiles on that city. The only rules for placement of tiles is that it must be adjacent to a tile already placed and it cannot touch another tile of that color along an edge.
That’s the basics of the game. A city is scored when no more tiles can be added to it.
I can be tenacious when something bugs me so I’ve spent some time trying to figure out why this game doesn’t appeal to me or the other gamers I’ve played it with. My conclusion is that I like a game to have “movement”, the ability to change the board or expand it in some way. My favorite games have that: Magna Grecia, Through the Desert, Torres, Trias, Hacienda, Hansa.
So now I have an answer and my brain proceeds to apply it to this stagnant game. Instead of simply placing a tile on a city, let’s offer you the choice of moving a tile to another city. Now you can change the board and it forces another choice on you: where to put the piece to do you no harm and maybe screwing up someone else in the process. That could work.
The influence cards that let you go first are nice but going first isn’t important very often, at least that was the feeling I got. What if playing the influence card let you take a second turn in the city you chose? Now you can remove a piece from a city and replace it with another. Or you can place 2 tiles in a city in one turn and complete it for scoring. Now THAT’S what I call influence!
Would these changes make the game more appealing to us? I don’t know and it may be a while before I can convince the others to give it a try. There are so many very good games that I rarely get to play, do I even care to waste the time fiddling with this one? And would these changes now make the game even slower since you have more decisions to make? If someone decides to give this a try, I’d love to know what you think.
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Sites
For all of you who like to play games online, there’s a new PBEM site called MaBi Web which offers Hansa and Richelieu. I’ve played several games of Hansa and I’m very impressed with the graphics and implementation of the game. It’s easy to use and has all the features you want in an online game including letting you start your turn over again—almost a requirement in a game where you can play your turn in so many ways. The site is still in Beta testing so there may still be a bug or two but MaBi is very nice and quickly replies to any questions or problems.
I also want to let you know that I have started my own personal blog where I plan to talk about my gaming as well as other things that pop into my head. Come and visit me at Meeple Monologues.
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Until next time, keep your penguins on the ice.
Mary
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Session Report
JRR Tolkein:
The game was set in the deep basement of our little friend, Bandyburr. It was not a barren and sandy basement, nor a wet basement filled with all sorts of mildew and rubbish. It was a Bandyburr basement, and that meant comfort.
The basement was once the great basement of the old Miller family, or, as it was called at that time, "Miller's basement". The Miller's called it "The Cellar", or as we say in modern English "down the stairs". But the Miller family moved away when their pipe-weed ran out, and now the basement, and the house above it, was owned by the Bandyburr clan.
One late evening I sat on the steps with young Bandyburr in his eleventeenth year as he ruminated about his house and his basement. I blew my pipe, sending spheres of multicolored bubbles into the later evening air.
"Why, Gandalf? Why has it come to me? How come I have to live in this house with this basement? I wish it was someone else!"
I answered with a warm smile. "So do all who live in such a house, young Bandyburr. But ours is not to choose what house we live in, but to make the best of the house that has been given to us. You may yet be surprised at the role this basement has to play, for good or for ill."
PG Wodehouse:
"Ah yes, now where was I?" I said. My infernal bowtie!
"You were talking about the game, sir!" said Jeeves as he intervened to fix the tie. Dash it, what a chore it was to fix one's own tie!
"Was I? Oh yes I was! Quite clever of me, wasn't it?"
"Yes, sir. Very clever indeed, sir." The aforementioned tie was just about fixed, in the way that ties can be fixed if they so have a mind to be.
"What was I saying?"
"You were saying how the game was set up, sir."
"Oh, yes, I was. Very good. Good thing you reminded me." I smiled squarely at the mirror. What a tie!
"Yes, sir."
"So. Um... so how was it set up?"
Raymond Chandler:
How was the game set up? That was what the dame was asking me. I wanted to answer. But I could see that she wasn't asking about the Settlers game. There was a game being played, but it wasn't Settlers.
"Why should I tell you?" I played. My card hit the table face down, like my partner's body had hit the pavement. I knew by her straight flush that she hadn't been expecting me to keep my cards hidden. My ace in the hole. Some game, I thought. If I'm playing a game, I want to know what the stakes are. And if any of those stakes are aimed at my throat.
She wasn't talking. Well, she was talking, but she wasn't saying much.
She batted her baby blues and took an interest in her shoes. "Is that any way to talk to a lady?" she asked. Hell, no, I thought. But there were no ladies in here.
Ernest Hemingway:
I looked at the board. It was cardboard. Hexes. A good game. Full of lust and vinegar. My father used to play this game with me. We would go hunting. The smell of metal shot would hang in the air. A fresh blood kill, which meant fresh blood meat. I hated the blood, but the meat was juicy in my mouth even before we brought it home and my mother would sear it up. Then we would play as the searing smell of meat wafted in my nostrils.
The meat is gone, but the memory of the blood lingers on. I see it when I place the clay hex on the board with my straight unshaking fingers. The hard Spanish tequila sits near the board, drilling into my head as I remember the night when I last saw my Spanish hard-bodied girl, Maria Catanialla.
A.A. Milne:
"Here's how we play. We put the settlements on the board and then we get points. Did you get that, Pooh?"
"Pooh, are you listening to Rabbit?" asked Piglet.
"Yes, I was listening, but I didn't hear properly, because just as I was listening I got a rail from TransAmerica stuck in my ear. Could you just repeat that last part?"
"From where should I start?" asked Rabbit.
"From the part where I couldn't hear properly," said Pooh.
"And where was that?" asked Rabbit.
"From the time I got the rail stuck in my ear," said Pooh.
Rabbit threw his hands up in disgust. "Oh Pooh, you have very little brain." He huffed out of the room.
Robert Asprin:
"So you put the house on the board and it scores points," I said, not feeling too confident.
"It's a settlement, and yes, and it also gives you more resources," Aahz was smiling. When Aahz smiles, it doesn't make me feel any more confident. In fact, I felt like my confidence had just gone on a full-blown vacation.
"But you said it scores points," I said tentatively.
"Yes, that's right, kid. Now you got it."
"So how does it give you resources?"
"You roll the dice."
"You can roll the dice if you have a house?" I asked.
"No, you roll the dice, anyway." Aahz began to get that look.
"I don't understand." That was the wrong thing to say.
Aahz looked up at the sky and shook his head. "Of all the people in my game group ... " He looked at me. "Look kid, you gonna roll the dice or am I gonna bite your head off?"
Gleep!
Judy Blume
The boys were making fun of me because I didn't understand the game. It wasn't fair!
"Look at her! She put her house on the 11 - 3 - 2. What a loser!" Bobby laughed and laughed.
"Oh, shut up, Bobby!" I was nearly in tears. I stood up and ran out of the room, crying. I was so mortified! I wanted to die! Why did Mom and Dad have to send me to this game group? Why couldn't we stay in New Jersey?
And on top of that, my stomach was causing me pain. Maybe I was getting my period? What was that like? I wondered.
Elsa Holmelund Minarik
Little Bear put a wood down on the table. He put a brick down on the table.
"That's a wood," he said. "See? That's a wood. And that's a brick. That's a wood and a brick. I can play a road. I will play a road on the board. I will play a road right here."
Little Bear put a road down on the board next to his settlement.
"Very good, Little Bear. You played a road. That was very well done." said Cat.
Little Bear was very happy. He did a little dance.
Monty Python
Fetch me hither a development card, if you please.
I'm sorry, we're right out of development cards. Always get them later in the week.
Tush, tush, not my day, is it? Do you have any roads?
No sir.
Settlements?
Y........ no.
Cities?
No.
Ore?
No.
Brick?
Not today, sir.
I got it. How about wheat?
Not much call for it round here.
Not much call ...? It's the single most popular resource in the world!
Not round here, sir.
I see. So, what is the most popular resource 'round here'.
Wood, sir.
Wood, is it?
Yes, sir.
Wood, you say.
Staggeringly popular. It's our number one best seller.
I see. Wood. OK. .... Have you got any he asked expecting the answer no.
I'll have a look, sir. .... nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn No.
Dylan Thomas
This wood I cut
This wheat I shocked
This heavy brick I built upon
In town at night
So deep and dark
I raged and cried out in the dawn
My father still
So pale and wan
This earthy game was done and gone
His head I held
While whispr'ing I
Sleep now, sleep, for we have won.
Yehuda
The game was set in the deep basement of our little friend, Bandyburr. It was not a barren and sandy basement, nor a wet basement filled with all sorts of mildew and rubbish. It was a Bandyburr basement, and that meant comfort.
The basement was once the great basement of the old Miller family, or, as it was called at that time, "Miller's basement". The Miller's called it "The Cellar", or as we say in modern English "down the stairs". But the Miller family moved away when their pipe-weed ran out, and now the basement, and the house above it, was owned by the Bandyburr clan.
One late evening I sat on the steps with young Bandyburr in his eleventeenth year as he ruminated about his house and his basement. I blew my pipe, sending spheres of multicolored bubbles into the later evening air.
"Why, Gandalf? Why has it come to me? How come I have to live in this house with this basement? I wish it was someone else!"
I answered with a warm smile. "So do all who live in such a house, young Bandyburr. But ours is not to choose what house we live in, but to make the best of the house that has been given to us. You may yet be surprised at the role this basement has to play, for good or for ill."
PG Wodehouse:
"Ah yes, now where was I?" I said. My infernal bowtie!
"You were talking about the game, sir!" said Jeeves as he intervened to fix the tie. Dash it, what a chore it was to fix one's own tie!
"Was I? Oh yes I was! Quite clever of me, wasn't it?"
"Yes, sir. Very clever indeed, sir." The aforementioned tie was just about fixed, in the way that ties can be fixed if they so have a mind to be.
"What was I saying?"
"You were saying how the game was set up, sir."
"Oh, yes, I was. Very good. Good thing you reminded me." I smiled squarely at the mirror. What a tie!
"Yes, sir."
"So. Um... so how was it set up?"
Raymond Chandler:
How was the game set up? That was what the dame was asking me. I wanted to answer. But I could see that she wasn't asking about the Settlers game. There was a game being played, but it wasn't Settlers.
"Why should I tell you?" I played. My card hit the table face down, like my partner's body had hit the pavement. I knew by her straight flush that she hadn't been expecting me to keep my cards hidden. My ace in the hole. Some game, I thought. If I'm playing a game, I want to know what the stakes are. And if any of those stakes are aimed at my throat.
She wasn't talking. Well, she was talking, but she wasn't saying much.
She batted her baby blues and took an interest in her shoes. "Is that any way to talk to a lady?" she asked. Hell, no, I thought. But there were no ladies in here.
Ernest Hemingway:
I looked at the board. It was cardboard. Hexes. A good game. Full of lust and vinegar. My father used to play this game with me. We would go hunting. The smell of metal shot would hang in the air. A fresh blood kill, which meant fresh blood meat. I hated the blood, but the meat was juicy in my mouth even before we brought it home and my mother would sear it up. Then we would play as the searing smell of meat wafted in my nostrils.
The meat is gone, but the memory of the blood lingers on. I see it when I place the clay hex on the board with my straight unshaking fingers. The hard Spanish tequila sits near the board, drilling into my head as I remember the night when I last saw my Spanish hard-bodied girl, Maria Catanialla.
A.A. Milne:
"Here's how we play. We put the settlements on the board and then we get points. Did you get that, Pooh?"
"Pooh, are you listening to Rabbit?" asked Piglet.
"Yes, I was listening, but I didn't hear properly, because just as I was listening I got a rail from TransAmerica stuck in my ear. Could you just repeat that last part?"
"From where should I start?" asked Rabbit.
"From the part where I couldn't hear properly," said Pooh.
"And where was that?" asked Rabbit.
"From the time I got the rail stuck in my ear," said Pooh.
Rabbit threw his hands up in disgust. "Oh Pooh, you have very little brain." He huffed out of the room.
Robert Asprin:
"So you put the house on the board and it scores points," I said, not feeling too confident.
"It's a settlement, and yes, and it also gives you more resources," Aahz was smiling. When Aahz smiles, it doesn't make me feel any more confident. In fact, I felt like my confidence had just gone on a full-blown vacation.
"But you said it scores points," I said tentatively.
"Yes, that's right, kid. Now you got it."
"So how does it give you resources?"
"You roll the dice."
"You can roll the dice if you have a house?" I asked.
"No, you roll the dice, anyway." Aahz began to get that look.
"I don't understand." That was the wrong thing to say.
Aahz looked up at the sky and shook his head. "Of all the people in my game group ... " He looked at me. "Look kid, you gonna roll the dice or am I gonna bite your head off?"
Gleep!
Judy Blume
The boys were making fun of me because I didn't understand the game. It wasn't fair!
"Look at her! She put her house on the 11 - 3 - 2. What a loser!" Bobby laughed and laughed.
"Oh, shut up, Bobby!" I was nearly in tears. I stood up and ran out of the room, crying. I was so mortified! I wanted to die! Why did Mom and Dad have to send me to this game group? Why couldn't we stay in New Jersey?
And on top of that, my stomach was causing me pain. Maybe I was getting my period? What was that like? I wondered.
Elsa Holmelund Minarik
Little Bear put a wood down on the table. He put a brick down on the table.
"That's a wood," he said. "See? That's a wood. And that's a brick. That's a wood and a brick. I can play a road. I will play a road on the board. I will play a road right here."
Little Bear put a road down on the board next to his settlement.
"Very good, Little Bear. You played a road. That was very well done." said Cat.
Little Bear was very happy. He did a little dance.
Monty Python
Fetch me hither a development card, if you please.
I'm sorry, we're right out of development cards. Always get them later in the week.
Tush, tush, not my day, is it? Do you have any roads?
No sir.
Settlements?
Y........ no.
Cities?
No.
Ore?
No.
Brick?
Not today, sir.
I got it. How about wheat?
Not much call for it round here.
Not much call ...? It's the single most popular resource in the world!
Not round here, sir.
I see. So, what is the most popular resource 'round here'.
Wood, sir.
Wood, is it?
Yes, sir.
Wood, you say.
Staggeringly popular. It's our number one best seller.
I see. Wood. OK. .... Have you got any he asked expecting the answer no.
I'll have a look, sir. .... nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn No.
Dylan Thomas
This wood I cut
This wheat I shocked
This heavy brick I built upon
In town at night
So deep and dark
I raged and cried out in the dawn
My father still
So pale and wan
This earthy game was done and gone
His head I held
While whispr'ing I
Sleep now, sleep, for we have won.
Yehuda
Monday, February 20, 2006
GAME STORE CONFIDENTIAL ~ How to avoid being a Whiny Little Puke.
I had another article all ready to go for today. It's a great one too... it's all about what I'm going to do with the $365 million bucks I get from the big Power Ball lottery. Then I found out some loser in Nebraska won. Crap!
That's actually too bad for you because I was going to give each of you $10,000 apiece.
Oh well, next time maybe. That'll teach me to pick my lottery numbers based on the dates I was divorced from all of my ex-wives and the number of attorneys still hounding me for their fees.
So here I am Monday morning ruiminating about how many people bitch about games. Not just on www.boardgamegeek.com either. On various blogs and sites about the world there is an annoying undercurrent about rules, boards, cardboard thickness, paper selection and the size of cards or quality of dice.
The thing about all this carping is that there is a grain of truth in most of it. But the fact is you could take almost any product on the Earth and select out one or two specific features and then accuse the manufacturer of that product of selling a shabby item. BGG is rampant with this manner of carping and grousing.
Let's take Railroad Tycoon and the infamous warping board... a bunch of us went to a fellow BGG member's house Saturday evening, Johnnybravo (kind of an odd handle because Jon is pretty much a computer nerd and bears little resemblence to the super hero or adventurer the name implies, whereas I look exactly like DW Tripp) and his gracious wife actually let us in the door for 8 hours. One of the games that came out was Railroad Tycoon. My boards had a little warpage initially and I fixed it by back-bending them gently over the course of the first several plays. I have suggested that about 100 times on BGG and yet it appears there is a very vocal group who'd much rather accuse Eagle Games of, of, of... of something! Anything! They just want to make sure Eagle is accused and if they simply fixed their stupid boards then what would they bitch about?
I asked one of the other players Saturday if his copy of the game had warped boards. He said yes and that he had gently back-bent them a few times and they were fine now. Hmmm... either this really isn't a major issue or Eagle Games made sure the gamers in Idaho all got the good copies.
To carry the story a bit further; last night Jumbo-Tron and Ro-Bee wedged their way into my little hovel and we played a bunch of rounds of GMT's Formula Motor Racing to warm up. Then I brought out my copy of Tigris & Euphrates. I hadn't even opened the game for two years. When I did I noticed the board didn't lay flat... yes, when I last played T&E a couple of years ago I had to bend it slightly to get it flat. But wait! About 6 weeks ago a bunch of us played Oasis once or twice a week and guess what? The board needed gentle bending prior to play.
You know, it seems to me that the only game boards that consistently laid flat from opening the box were the very heavy mounted boards from Avalon-Hill and some of the heavy boards that SPI produced. Oh sure, there are isolated cases of boards that come out okay, FFG did a great job on Runebound and several others, but I have had to bend a few FFG products. And the German publishers also have this issue from time to time, but realistically, so many of the Euro-Snoot games have small cards instead of boards that it's not a real problem. Think Puerto Rico or Princes of Florence. But when the board gets large, like so many area-control or war games, this is common. Mare Nostrum? A few gentle bends the first several plays, now no problem. Giganten? Yes, slightly warped... very slight. problem fixed after the first play.
I think there is a nasty little sub-culture of Game Geeks who will find something, anything, to bitch about unless the game is on their top 5 list. You guys, and you know who you are, are really sick little twerps. My dog wouldn't even pee on your shrubbery.
Having not played Tigris & Euphrates for a couple of years Jumbo-tron suggested we read the rules. Phew! There really aren't a lot of rules but grasping the concepts in a game like T&E make the rules seem....difficult.
This got me to thinking about rules. That's the second most popular subject of carping in the Game Geek universe. And like the board issue, sometimes it's just griping to gripe (or to be noticed) and sometimes it's accurate. Usually it's not accurate critcism and I'll tell you why.
Beacause you are doing the reading and you don't know how to play the game yet. Once you understand the rules you'll see that they normally (at least in this day and age) are well written. What I'm saying here is that it's the reader who applies their own definitions to the sentences on the page. You may have a misunderstanding about a word. Or perhaps you're mentally applying one specific defintion whereas the person who wrote the rules means another thing entirely.
This can be ludicrous at times. Even with simple rules. Back in the 70's I bought a very simple race game called London Cabbie. Essentially you drive your cabs around London pick up & deliver style and race to amass the most cash before the fares run out. I was playing with a guy named Bob one evening who was a tough guy to game with because he had a college degree and already knew everything better than anyone on the planet. Well, the rules state very cleary that once a cab you own picks up a fare you have to take the most direct route to the fares destination. I'll repeat that... the most direct route.
Bob saw a situation where he could block one of my cabs by turning up a one-way street and he did so. I pointed out that when he did that he was now taking a less direct route... ergo, not the most direct. What ensued was a 15 minute firefight over the definition of the word "direct". This was followed by looking up the word "most" in the dictionary. Despite the fact that used the dictionary and the applied literacy of both of us, Bob steadfastly refused to accept that his move couldn't somehow fall under the "most direct" rule and he refused to take it back.
So I sent him away forever.
No, I didn't kill him. I just never played another game with him.
My point is that unless the rules are actually written poorly, with mistakes in them and unanswered questions that refer to vital elements of the mechanics, then the constant carping about rules is usually indicitive of user error. T&E is a great example. After playing last night I realized that the rules are well-written but that grasping the subtle concepts of the game require not referring mentally to other games when digesting the T&E rules. This is a tough game for a war gamer to grasp initially because you really don't "own" a kingdom in T&E, you merely help establish kingdoms and then use them to build victory points. The rules tell you that. Now you have to make the leap of understanding what the author is saying.
Power Grid is another matter though because Rio Grande failed to properly vet the rules and they use "phase" and "step" differently in different places, adding some real confusion. In addition, the layout could definitly have been better. The actual mechanic that triggers the end game is buried in the b&w rules in small print. Hidden. Whereas T&E has a section that makes the end game conditions obvious.
A few weeks ago I mentioned that I own Reef Encounter and after reading the rules I had no concept of how to even begin to play. Johnnybravo told me he's played several times online and doesn't know the rules either. Henry Rhombus posted on this blog in response saying that Reef Encounter would begin to make sense if I read the rulebook backwards.
So... does this sound like a good product to you? I mean, if the rules are so difficult and so poorly written that reading them backwards might give someone an idea how to play then it seems to me that the designer did a lousy job of explaining what he designed. I'm keeping Reef Encounter despite the fact that nobody can figure out how to play it. It looks great and I think when I get really old I'm going to while away my golden years learning the rules.
Despite Power Grid's editing breakdown and Reef Encounter's convoluted rule book, Power Grid is a great game and Reef Encounter will make a great book-end. Why go online and put these games down? It takes a person with some sort of serious emotional flaw to spend their valuable time writing about how awful other people's products are. Man, I'm glad I don't act that way.
What got me thinking about rules as a much more vital element of game publishing than the boards was that I was using BGG to get some info on Columbia Games' recent product Crusader Rex, which I think I'll get. So I looked at this excellent review:
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/77772
Dane Peacock (who I understand actually looks like his name also) did a great job. Yet the follow-up commentary devolved into one or two members attacking the game because the rules were poorly written. You read it and tell me if I'm wrong when I suggest that the rules are probably not poorly done, but the one particular member who made it an issue just wanted to bitch about Columbia Games.
Which brings me back to what I think I was saying to begin with - some people just like to put other people down. Some people are pissy little complainers and no matter how nice the product, they'll find fault in it because... because... well, because other people like it! I expect this sort of behaviour in politics or environmental discussions, or religion. But it always sets my teeth on edge when I see it in the game universe.
These are just games. Some are better than others and frankly -- and this is to the pissy little complainers who really ought to get a life -- they are all better than the games you have published. So go write a review, sell off your copy of the game and be done with it. Why go on a crusade to keep others from buying it?
Okay. I feel better now. Thanks for listening and I apologize that you didn't get your $10,000, I promise to pick new lottery numbers based on the amount of times I fell asleep with the Reef Encounter rules in my hand.
Oh yeah, and this is to Gary, who probably never stops by to read my articles...
"Dude. I apologize for slapping you repeatedly across the face and upper torso with the Blood Bowl rules. I realize now that was unwarranted behaviour on my part. I'll never hit another person with a rule book again. But in my defense, you really were being a dick. "
That's actually too bad for you because I was going to give each of you $10,000 apiece.
Oh well, next time maybe. That'll teach me to pick my lottery numbers based on the dates I was divorced from all of my ex-wives and the number of attorneys still hounding me for their fees.
So here I am Monday morning ruiminating about how many people bitch about games. Not just on www.boardgamegeek.com either. On various blogs and sites about the world there is an annoying undercurrent about rules, boards, cardboard thickness, paper selection and the size of cards or quality of dice.
The thing about all this carping is that there is a grain of truth in most of it. But the fact is you could take almost any product on the Earth and select out one or two specific features and then accuse the manufacturer of that product of selling a shabby item. BGG is rampant with this manner of carping and grousing.
Let's take Railroad Tycoon and the infamous warping board... a bunch of us went to a fellow BGG member's house Saturday evening, Johnnybravo (kind of an odd handle because Jon is pretty much a computer nerd and bears little resemblence to the super hero or adventurer the name implies, whereas I look exactly like DW Tripp) and his gracious wife actually let us in the door for 8 hours. One of the games that came out was Railroad Tycoon. My boards had a little warpage initially and I fixed it by back-bending them gently over the course of the first several plays. I have suggested that about 100 times on BGG and yet it appears there is a very vocal group who'd much rather accuse Eagle Games of, of, of... of something! Anything! They just want to make sure Eagle is accused and if they simply fixed their stupid boards then what would they bitch about?
I asked one of the other players Saturday if his copy of the game had warped boards. He said yes and that he had gently back-bent them a few times and they were fine now. Hmmm... either this really isn't a major issue or Eagle Games made sure the gamers in Idaho all got the good copies.
To carry the story a bit further; last night Jumbo-Tron and Ro-Bee wedged their way into my little hovel and we played a bunch of rounds of GMT's Formula Motor Racing to warm up. Then I brought out my copy of Tigris & Euphrates. I hadn't even opened the game for two years. When I did I noticed the board didn't lay flat... yes, when I last played T&E a couple of years ago I had to bend it slightly to get it flat. But wait! About 6 weeks ago a bunch of us played Oasis once or twice a week and guess what? The board needed gentle bending prior to play.
You know, it seems to me that the only game boards that consistently laid flat from opening the box were the very heavy mounted boards from Avalon-Hill and some of the heavy boards that SPI produced. Oh sure, there are isolated cases of boards that come out okay, FFG did a great job on Runebound and several others, but I have had to bend a few FFG products. And the German publishers also have this issue from time to time, but realistically, so many of the Euro-Snoot games have small cards instead of boards that it's not a real problem. Think Puerto Rico or Princes of Florence. But when the board gets large, like so many area-control or war games, this is common. Mare Nostrum? A few gentle bends the first several plays, now no problem. Giganten? Yes, slightly warped... very slight. problem fixed after the first play.
I think there is a nasty little sub-culture of Game Geeks who will find something, anything, to bitch about unless the game is on their top 5 list. You guys, and you know who you are, are really sick little twerps. My dog wouldn't even pee on your shrubbery.
Having not played Tigris & Euphrates for a couple of years Jumbo-tron suggested we read the rules. Phew! There really aren't a lot of rules but grasping the concepts in a game like T&E make the rules seem....difficult.
This got me to thinking about rules. That's the second most popular subject of carping in the Game Geek universe. And like the board issue, sometimes it's just griping to gripe (or to be noticed) and sometimes it's accurate. Usually it's not accurate critcism and I'll tell you why.
Beacause you are doing the reading and you don't know how to play the game yet. Once you understand the rules you'll see that they normally (at least in this day and age) are well written. What I'm saying here is that it's the reader who applies their own definitions to the sentences on the page. You may have a misunderstanding about a word. Or perhaps you're mentally applying one specific defintion whereas the person who wrote the rules means another thing entirely.
This can be ludicrous at times. Even with simple rules. Back in the 70's I bought a very simple race game called London Cabbie. Essentially you drive your cabs around London pick up & deliver style and race to amass the most cash before the fares run out. I was playing with a guy named Bob one evening who was a tough guy to game with because he had a college degree and already knew everything better than anyone on the planet. Well, the rules state very cleary that once a cab you own picks up a fare you have to take the most direct route to the fares destination. I'll repeat that... the most direct route.
Bob saw a situation where he could block one of my cabs by turning up a one-way street and he did so. I pointed out that when he did that he was now taking a less direct route... ergo, not the most direct. What ensued was a 15 minute firefight over the definition of the word "direct". This was followed by looking up the word "most" in the dictionary. Despite the fact that used the dictionary and the applied literacy of both of us, Bob steadfastly refused to accept that his move couldn't somehow fall under the "most direct" rule and he refused to take it back.
So I sent him away forever.
No, I didn't kill him. I just never played another game with him.
My point is that unless the rules are actually written poorly, with mistakes in them and unanswered questions that refer to vital elements of the mechanics, then the constant carping about rules is usually indicitive of user error. T&E is a great example. After playing last night I realized that the rules are well-written but that grasping the subtle concepts of the game require not referring mentally to other games when digesting the T&E rules. This is a tough game for a war gamer to grasp initially because you really don't "own" a kingdom in T&E, you merely help establish kingdoms and then use them to build victory points. The rules tell you that. Now you have to make the leap of understanding what the author is saying.
Power Grid is another matter though because Rio Grande failed to properly vet the rules and they use "phase" and "step" differently in different places, adding some real confusion. In addition, the layout could definitly have been better. The actual mechanic that triggers the end game is buried in the b&w rules in small print. Hidden. Whereas T&E has a section that makes the end game conditions obvious.
A few weeks ago I mentioned that I own Reef Encounter and after reading the rules I had no concept of how to even begin to play. Johnnybravo told me he's played several times online and doesn't know the rules either. Henry Rhombus posted on this blog in response saying that Reef Encounter would begin to make sense if I read the rulebook backwards.
So... does this sound like a good product to you? I mean, if the rules are so difficult and so poorly written that reading them backwards might give someone an idea how to play then it seems to me that the designer did a lousy job of explaining what he designed. I'm keeping Reef Encounter despite the fact that nobody can figure out how to play it. It looks great and I think when I get really old I'm going to while away my golden years learning the rules.
Despite Power Grid's editing breakdown and Reef Encounter's convoluted rule book, Power Grid is a great game and Reef Encounter will make a great book-end. Why go online and put these games down? It takes a person with some sort of serious emotional flaw to spend their valuable time writing about how awful other people's products are. Man, I'm glad I don't act that way.
What got me thinking about rules as a much more vital element of game publishing than the boards was that I was using BGG to get some info on Columbia Games' recent product Crusader Rex, which I think I'll get. So I looked at this excellent review:
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/77772
Dane Peacock (who I understand actually looks like his name also) did a great job. Yet the follow-up commentary devolved into one or two members attacking the game because the rules were poorly written. You read it and tell me if I'm wrong when I suggest that the rules are probably not poorly done, but the one particular member who made it an issue just wanted to bitch about Columbia Games.
Which brings me back to what I think I was saying to begin with - some people just like to put other people down. Some people are pissy little complainers and no matter how nice the product, they'll find fault in it because... because... well, because other people like it! I expect this sort of behaviour in politics or environmental discussions, or religion. But it always sets my teeth on edge when I see it in the game universe.
These are just games. Some are better than others and frankly -- and this is to the pissy little complainers who really ought to get a life -- they are all better than the games you have published. So go write a review, sell off your copy of the game and be done with it. Why go on a crusade to keep others from buying it?
Okay. I feel better now. Thanks for listening and I apologize that you didn't get your $10,000, I promise to pick new lottery numbers based on the amount of times I fell asleep with the Reef Encounter rules in my hand.
Oh yeah, and this is to Gary, who probably never stops by to read my articles...
"Dude. I apologize for slapping you repeatedly across the face and upper torso with the Blood Bowl rules. I realize now that was unwarranted behaviour on my part. I'll never hit another person with a rule book again. But in my defense, you really were being a dick. "
Sunday, February 19, 2006
WHAT the "hey all"
I was just a-goofin' around the other day with a fellow "Geek" who happens to be over in 'Belgium', and this is "gwen" in case you're wondering. Anyways, WE were using that NEW "Google-TALK" as the "Geek" were a-'t`weakin' at the time. Guess WHAT? Oh, you'd NEVAR! and don't 'kid' yourself, so this is what I'd "arrived" upon for a 'notion' of OURS and that is to conduct "talking blogs" portions with 'guests' while you can SAVE a 'transcript' of THAT for later inclusion within your 'blog'! I also have to 'credit' our fellow 'blog`rs' of Melissa & Fraser & "biggie" & whomever else assisted upon this, with providing the LINK for the "audacity" feature, of which I have this now and will be working upon something else as well. You may wish to confine these to around 10-minutes in length in order to NOT overwhelm your own 'systems' with the FILE lengths. But you can decide upon that yourself as we certainly don't want to constrain anyone with what they would truly like to 'produce' eh? I'm sure that there are plenty of folks who would like nothing better than to "give a listen" where some "fave" game 'designer' of theirs was being "interviewed" for like the HUNDREDth 'time' or the like. Yeah, I'm being factitous about such since there ARE many others who ought to become "better known" and getting THEM into the "spotlight" would do wonders for their "self esteem", as well as those folks unfamiliar or desiring with learning MORE upon these people. I'm sure that some have more "hangers on" around their 'posterior' than there are "Klingons" around 'Uranus', of which I 'hear' that the "Starship Enterprise" is then akin to "Charmin" toilet paper in the 'ridding' of such. So where's the equivalent FOR them 'folks' about this? Oh well, I suppose that 'fawning' does have its merits as well as its detriments such as when "stalking" rears its ugly head. Alright then, there's a NEW "term" I'm 'coining' for them, as "Klingons" and NOT "in a good way" either. I'd also 'coined' such as another "term" for them "followers of OPRAH" with "D`oh!~prahs!" too, just so's you don't think that I'm 'picking' on just these. NONE will readily 'admit' to being such, since they're so caught up in their "followings" that they don't SEE it as thusly, just as "sheep" don't consider the 'shepard' as "one of them", and so we dearly hope!So what ELSE did we 'do' for the FUN of this? Well, for starters, then I wanted them to "give a listen" upon some music of mine and so I 'piped in' some tunes and either this was 'heard' through my 'mic' or it was 'drawn' from within and then sent on its way to them! They were jokingly referring to it all as GROG-'jukebox' since I was able to 'play' just about ANY 'song' that they wished to listen upon, and that I had available. For some of you, then you might want to put on your "headset" where you have this through your 'work station' in order to avoid the "wrath of BOSS!" if this were 'discovered' being utilized. We were wondering upon whether it would be possible to then 'play' in the CD-drive with something, and then being able for another to "listen" to that? This may have to become further "explored" upon, although with having that 'piped' through your speakers and then into the 'mic' ought to be easily enough done. Now, I can just imagine the reactions from the likes of those greedy, money-grubbing types such as the RIAA upon this, and you know what? That's right, I'll gladly take THEM into "court" for infringing upon MY 'rights' to "turn on" someone else to decent "music" and then allowing THEM the opportunity to obtain what it IS that they happened to 'discover' and LIKE, while hopefully they will then PURCHASE the "tunes" in a 'legit' fashion. So, I can 'see' where the I.C.C., and any "International" sort like that, would then become "involved" ON mine, and any other's behalves for just such an 'occasion'. I'd really like to see those-for lack of a better sub-genus 'species' denotation-'people' be taken to the cleaners and then financially "reemed" just as they've done for others. I won't begrudge the "artists" in obtaining what is 'due' them at all, as they should be duly compensated upon this in its entirety, while I don't care for the sort of "B.S." that this is dredging UP either. Hey, "fight FIRE with Nuclear Blowout" is what I'd advocate to teach them a very valid "lesson" in the matter. Alright then, enough of the "soapbox" denouement and onto other FUN stuff as well.
I'd been "going on" about that "Combat System" method of mine with many having some 'problems' in grasping the 'gist' of the matter, while I do apologize for "assuming" that 'others' are as "advanced" in their grey-matter processes as I believe myself to 'be'. The best method to getting that ALL 'across' is through "examples" provided, and some shall then be a 'given' for starters. Since I wish to create yet many others with this later on, then those will be obtained with a "subscription" for these so that you can pick & choose which ones happen to "catch your fancy" upon the topic or subject covered. I am concentrating upon the 'items' involved with this so that they are readily obtained, or already have been, and so that yet ANOTHER 'means' can be utilized with those. This initial "release" is going to be for a rendition upon the confrontation known as "The Battle of Waterloo" where this is just OF the "Battle" itself and NOT of the entire 'Campaign', although that might become a possibility once it becomes apparent to some upon the matter. The reason that I 'picked' this "title" is in tribute to the very 1st "Wargame" that I began my "grognard" gamings with. For the most part, then you'd just need to "print out" and perhaps 'mount' the components of the "gamemap" and 'Charts', etc. for it. Then we'll 'see' how this transpires for those who wish to have many other applications conducted in a similiar manner. I do intend for this to become a FREE offering to whet the appetites of any who care to partake of it, while I then would 'create' yet others from what many should expect to "contribute" in a more 'monetary' means to show their appreciation for the 'work' involved. I also have some other 'notions' of which I'd be willing to delve into after the "ball is rolling" for such, and it'll include "Expansions" as well to further enhance these, in a more aesthetically 'pleasing' manner.
Here's a "shout out" to "HAVE GAMES, WILL TRAVEL!" and a direct LINK for this:
"Have Games, Will Travel"
Give this a "look-see" or maybe even a "listen-hear" then will yas?
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Museum excitement - and an experiment
We had an exciting phone call a couple of weeks ago.
Late last year, I wrote to the Melbourne Museum's Community Collections program curator about our boardgames. They called to say that we have been selected to exhibit our games collection at the Museum for the month of September.
What this involves is really up to us - and up to what our gaming buddies can come up with. There's a smallish space with a couple of glass display cabinets and lots of wall space, as well as the opportunity to give talks or run workshops and supply handouts for people to take away with them.
We're in the very early stages of planning what we will do, and hoping to find lots of support from other gamers, both locally and internationally. Obviously, we will set up some games in the display cases, but we're stuck for how best to use the wallspace. Posters? Mounted game boards? Information sheets? Puzzles for people to do? Giant Meeple cutouts?
We don't see much point in giving talks (because wouldn't everyone rather get their hands on a game?), but are keen to set up some workshops where people can actually learn to play games, as well as getting some people to run demonstration games as well. September includes 2 weeks of school holidays, so family and kids' games will have to have a role somehow too. We hope to coordinate with local gamers to run workshops & staff the exhibit during the week as well as on weekends, if possible - and of course we're planning to have some handouts for interested visitors. The museum shop may also be interested in stocking some games, to tie in with the display.
A colleague asked me why we would want to do this, and I looked at him blankly. He elaborated: "What's in it for you?"
I don't really know what's in it for us; it just seemed like a really cool, fun thing to do. In the end, I just settled for explaining that gaming is an evangelistic hobby, and making new gamers is an end in itself. I don't think he understood, though.
Look for more (many more!) posts about this during the year - we are keen to make this a fantastic exhibition as it really could get a lot of publicity. If anyone has suggestions for activities, approaches, great exhibitions, etc, we'd love to hear from you.
Meanwhile, I tried something new this week - an audio post. Comment if you like it, let me know if you don't, but I hope it's enjoyable for you. I talk about my games played over the last week and overuse the word 'social', and there's a special sound clip for you too.
(Post file is about 1.8 MB in size, 7 and a half minutes long).
Until next time,
Melissa
Late last year, I wrote to the Melbourne Museum's Community Collections program curator about our boardgames. They called to say that we have been selected to exhibit our games collection at the Museum for the month of September.
What this involves is really up to us - and up to what our gaming buddies can come up with. There's a smallish space with a couple of glass display cabinets and lots of wall space, as well as the opportunity to give talks or run workshops and supply handouts for people to take away with them.
We're in the very early stages of planning what we will do, and hoping to find lots of support from other gamers, both locally and internationally. Obviously, we will set up some games in the display cases, but we're stuck for how best to use the wallspace. Posters? Mounted game boards? Information sheets? Puzzles for people to do? Giant Meeple cutouts?
We don't see much point in giving talks (because wouldn't everyone rather get their hands on a game?), but are keen to set up some workshops where people can actually learn to play games, as well as getting some people to run demonstration games as well. September includes 2 weeks of school holidays, so family and kids' games will have to have a role somehow too. We hope to coordinate with local gamers to run workshops & staff the exhibit during the week as well as on weekends, if possible - and of course we're planning to have some handouts for interested visitors. The museum shop may also be interested in stocking some games, to tie in with the display.
A colleague asked me why we would want to do this, and I looked at him blankly. He elaborated: "What's in it for you?"
I don't really know what's in it for us; it just seemed like a really cool, fun thing to do. In the end, I just settled for explaining that gaming is an evangelistic hobby, and making new gamers is an end in itself. I don't think he understood, though.
Look for more (many more!) posts about this during the year - we are keen to make this a fantastic exhibition as it really could get a lot of publicity. If anyone has suggestions for activities, approaches, great exhibitions, etc, we'd love to hear from you.
Meanwhile, I tried something new this week - an audio post. Comment if you like it, let me know if you don't, but I hope it's enjoyable for you. I talk about my games played over the last week and overuse the word 'social', and there's a special sound clip for you too.
(Post file is about 1.8 MB in size, 7 and a half minutes long).
Until next time,
Melissa
Friday, February 17, 2006
Big Head of Pointless Steam*
Gaming is another form of literacy, and can be acquired.
I was perusing the Boardgamegeek forums and I ran across that statement. With a little thought I could milk that statement for an entire series of blogs. I will not inflict that upon you, dear reader. Instead I will make a couple points and happily resume putting the stickers on my new copy of Commands and Colors. (For those of you keeping score I'm up to the cavalry units.)
Craniac made the above comment during a discussion about the Golden Age of Boardgaming.
I am a bona fide boardgame snob. When I see people playing Monopoly, Life, Sorry, etc. I cringe. I must feel the same way a wine snob feels when his date orders the house wine at a mediocre restaurant, the same way a beer snob feels when his coworker brings a half rack of Milwaukee's Beast to the company party, the same way an English professor feels when he sees his students reading Harry Potter or Danielle Steel.
I know I am not alone. There are many other boardgame snobs. Just because we are snobs are we clued into a higher form of literacy? It certainly is a grandiose thought. It could be wishful thinking.
Is it true? Is boardgaming another form of literacy? If it is true does that mean some games constitute literature and some pulp fiction?
Let us work backward. The second question is undoubtedly true. Monopoly, Sorry, Pictionary, Scene It, etc. are mindless diversions that have mass market appeal much in the tradition of romance novels or serial thrillers. They are the gaming equivalent of pulp fiction. They provoke little or no thought. They have no socially redeeming qualities. They sell very well.
If you are reading this blog you know that there are richly layered, multi-faceted, strategically challenging boardgames. There may be a breakout hit or two, but in general the public will never embrace our games. To much of the public Car Wars, Apples to Apples and Munchkin are insider games.
I'm looking at the top 50 games on BGG. How many of these games would be recognized by more than 5% of the general public? Go? Acquire at #59?
Those two are my best guesses, and only because those two games are old enough to have some name recognition even if the person in question hasn't played the game, not unlike having heard of, but never having seen "Gone with the Wind" and "The Jazz Singer".
The games in the BGG top 50 may not be recognized by the public in general, and may have some strategic depth, but does that mean that they have some socially redeeming value as would be implied by comparing them to literature?
A good game is certainly thought provoking and has characteristics that only reveal themselves with multiple plays, just as literature is thought provoking and has meaning that only reveals itself with study. Stratego and Boggle can be thought provoking, as is The DaVinci Code which is decidedly not literature. Stratego, Boggle and The DaVinci Code are only thought provoking in one aspect each. Stratego can be a challenging memory game. Boggle is a variable puzzle, it is challenging to find the most solutions in a short period of time. The DaVinci code is thought provoking in that it causes the reader to seriously wonder if there is a nugget of truth in what is otherwise a completely over the top premise. While it is true that the more you play Stratego and Boggle the better you get, neither game has numerous subtle strategies that are only apparent to a Stratego or Boggle master with 400+ games under his belt.
Puerto Rico on the other hand does have strategies that are only apparent to a master, or "Puerto Rico Jedi" to borrow a phrase.
But so does checkers.
I don't know. I have many more thoughts on the subject, most of which lead me to think boardgames are not another form of literacy. I won't inflict them upon you. If I have some spare time to ponder such things I might delve deeper into such matters at a later date.
CF
* Title lifted from this guy via Boggled Thoughts
I was perusing the Boardgamegeek forums and I ran across that statement. With a little thought I could milk that statement for an entire series of blogs. I will not inflict that upon you, dear reader. Instead I will make a couple points and happily resume putting the stickers on my new copy of Commands and Colors. (For those of you keeping score I'm up to the cavalry units.)
Craniac made the above comment during a discussion about the Golden Age of Boardgaming.
I am a bona fide boardgame snob. When I see people playing Monopoly, Life, Sorry, etc. I cringe. I must feel the same way a wine snob feels when his date orders the house wine at a mediocre restaurant, the same way a beer snob feels when his coworker brings a half rack of Milwaukee's Beast to the company party, the same way an English professor feels when he sees his students reading Harry Potter or Danielle Steel.
I know I am not alone. There are many other boardgame snobs. Just because we are snobs are we clued into a higher form of literacy? It certainly is a grandiose thought. It could be wishful thinking.
Is it true? Is boardgaming another form of literacy? If it is true does that mean some games constitute literature and some pulp fiction?
Let us work backward. The second question is undoubtedly true. Monopoly, Sorry, Pictionary, Scene It, etc. are mindless diversions that have mass market appeal much in the tradition of romance novels or serial thrillers. They are the gaming equivalent of pulp fiction. They provoke little or no thought. They have no socially redeeming qualities. They sell very well.
If you are reading this blog you know that there are richly layered, multi-faceted, strategically challenging boardgames. There may be a breakout hit or two, but in general the public will never embrace our games. To much of the public Car Wars, Apples to Apples and Munchkin are insider games.
I'm looking at the top 50 games on BGG. How many of these games would be recognized by more than 5% of the general public? Go? Acquire at #59?
Those two are my best guesses, and only because those two games are old enough to have some name recognition even if the person in question hasn't played the game, not unlike having heard of, but never having seen "Gone with the Wind" and "The Jazz Singer".
The games in the BGG top 50 may not be recognized by the public in general, and may have some strategic depth, but does that mean that they have some socially redeeming value as would be implied by comparing them to literature?
A good game is certainly thought provoking and has characteristics that only reveal themselves with multiple plays, just as literature is thought provoking and has meaning that only reveals itself with study. Stratego and Boggle can be thought provoking, as is The DaVinci Code which is decidedly not literature. Stratego, Boggle and The DaVinci Code are only thought provoking in one aspect each. Stratego can be a challenging memory game. Boggle is a variable puzzle, it is challenging to find the most solutions in a short period of time. The DaVinci code is thought provoking in that it causes the reader to seriously wonder if there is a nugget of truth in what is otherwise a completely over the top premise. While it is true that the more you play Stratego and Boggle the better you get, neither game has numerous subtle strategies that are only apparent to a Stratego or Boggle master with 400+ games under his belt.
Puerto Rico on the other hand does have strategies that are only apparent to a master, or "Puerto Rico Jedi" to borrow a phrase.
But so does checkers.
I don't know. I have many more thoughts on the subject, most of which lead me to think boardgames are not another form of literacy. I won't inflict them upon you. If I have some spare time to ponder such things I might delve deeper into such matters at a later date.
CF
* Title lifted from this guy via Boggled Thoughts
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Three Collaborative Designers: Faidutti, Colovini & Schacht
Back in December I wrote an article on three game designers, and I'll cop to lining up the usual suspects: Knizia, Kramer, and Teuber. They were easy to write about because I've played a slew of their games and I've played them many times.I always intended that article to be the start of a series, however, and I was even more excited about writing about designers who weren't quite as well known as the big three, because they've been less written about, and thus there's more opportunity to be clever, insightful, and original.
This week I've decided to write about three collaborative designers, who also happen to come from three different countries: Bruno Faidutti (France), Leo Colovini (Italy), and Michael Schacht (Germany). They also all appear pretty centrally on my Six Degrees of Collaboration chart, with Colovini & Faidutti being two of the larger foci in the chart. (Writing this article was actually what got me started on that chart, which then took on a life of its own.)
#1: Bruno Faidutti
Bruno Faidutti is familiar to many online gamers because he's a net.personality. His web site is entirely delightful. The ideal game library is nice enough, and when he's written something about a game I want to learn more about, I'll usually read it. However, it's his pages on his own games that I find particularly enjoyable. I especially enjoy his "histories", which talk about the development of his games.Faidutti has gotten a reputation as being "the chaotic designer". There's definitely a lot of chaos in his games: usually cards or tiles that turn a game upside down. However, as I wrote in my article on Schools of Game Design, I think that's a pretty strong element of French design in general. It's just Faidutti who happens to get tagged with this label because he's one of the most prominent French designers. I've seen some people who have entirely blasted Faidutti's games for their high chaos. Democrazy in particular is a game that seems to have come across badly to a lot of people. To which I'd say: get over it. Chaos is implicit in his games, and you should know that going in. (As an aside: Faidutti says that not all of his games are chaotic, but the non-chaotic examples that he offers, Babylone and China Moon, haven't been printed in the United States.)
My first instinct is to call Faidutti's games light; either in game-length or mechanic-weight they don't usually feel like they can sustain a night of gaming on their own. However, that's largely because so many of his designs are card games. Mystery of the Abbey and Iglu Iglu are both fine full-length games, while from what I've heard Valley of the Mammoths is if anything too long. Currently Bruno seems to be turning toward more big-box games, with Key Largo, Mission: Red Planet, and Silk Road all on the horizon, as well as the new Warrior Knights, which he had a hand in. But for now I'll stay with my statement of "light", as I can't really tell how heavy his upcoming games are.
Despite most of his games being card-based, Bruno does stretch the medium quite a bit. He's done quite a few auction card games, including Boomtown (which has simple, open auctions), Queen's Necklace (including a turn-based auction), and Fist of Dragonstones and Corruption (each of which has unique blind bids where everyone loses what they bid). Bruno's classic Citadels is essentially a resource-management game played with cards, while Democrazy is voting, Dragon's Gold is negotiation, and Knock! Knock! is bluff. Terra and The Hollywood! Card Game have more common, set-collection mechanisms, but that's a rarity among Bruno's designs.
As you might have guessed from last week's graph, Bruno's designs are usually collaborations. Despite that I personally think he's done his best design work on his own (Citadels, Corruption, Democrazy, and the very-interesting-though-not-a-good-game Terra), but some of his collaborations are strong as well. I enjoy his Serge Laget designs (Castle, Mystery of the Abbey) and his works with Michael Schacht (Fist of Dragonstones, The Hollywood! Card Game) the most.
My Reviews: Boomtown (B+), Castle (B), Citadels (A-), Corruption (B-), Democrazy (C), Fist of Dragonstones (B-), The Hollywood! Card Game (B), Iglu Iglu (B), Mystery of the Abbey (B-), Queen's Necklace (B-), Terra (B-).
Interviews: About.com (2000), Fairplay Games (2002), Interviews by an Optimist (2005)
Web Site: www.faidutti.com, Forums (French)
#2: Leo Colovini
Leo Colovini doesn't necessarily get a lot of press. For whatever reason, his games don't make big waves, and you'll rarely find them on any top ten upcoming lists for Essen or Nurnburg (though actually, his upcoming game, Masons, almost made my Nurnberg list last week because it looks neat). Nonetheless, he pretty consistently publishes games, and a lot of them get some pretty consistent play. Clans is one that I use as a very regular filler.Overall I'd call Colovini "the quiet designer". This isn't due to his personal nature (though perhaps he's quiet; I don't know), but rather the tenor of his games. I can frequently tell when a Colovini game is being played because an unnatural, deathly quiet falls upon the group, as they study their best moves and take them, all with no verbal interaction. I expect some people don't like the lack of conversation that his games seems to invoke, but at the same time it bespeaks the depth of analysis that his games allow. Related to all this, Colovini's games are very dry and abstract. Personally, I'd say moreso than anything that Reiner Knizia does, and I generally think that he's more "German" than most German designers.
Overall, Colovini's games fall into a strange category that I call the "serious filler". Most of his popular games play in 30-45 minutes, and they tend to depend upon just one or two mechanisms. In addition, there's not a lot of luck in the games, and there is a lot of ability to plan serious strategies, or else make brilliant tactical moves. Alexandros, The Bridges of Shangrila, Cartagena, Clans, Go West! , and Submarine all fit right into this category for me. (That's actually caused me some problems with The Bridges of Shangrila because of its large box size. I don't want to expend that much space in my game bag for something that's really a filler!)
Magna Grecia and Inkognito are exceptions to this general pattern of producing filler-length games. They're both longer and I'd feel more comfortable making them the focus of a game night--but they're also both collaborations (with Michael Schacht and Alex Randolph, respectively). Carolus Magnus, Colovini's dynamic majority-control game, skirts this line too, and it's one he designed on his own.
I've noted a particular game mechanism that's shown up in a few Colovini games: player-triggered scoring. In both Alexandros and Go West! players can take an action to trigger scoring for everyone, with the idea that you'll do so when you're in the lead. Thus far I've found it a very tenuous mechanic that I think puts too much weight on the players' shoulders. It's OK in Alexandros, but just barely works in Go West! It also seems to get shakier the more players you have in the game.
I've played quite a few more Colovini games than I've reviewed, but have given my best ratings of everything I'm pretty familiar with.
My Reviews: Alexandros (B), The Bridges of Shangrila (B+), Carolus Magnus (B), Cartagena (B-), Clans (A-) , Corsari (C-), Go West! (C+), Magna Grecia (B), Submarine (D+)
Interviews: BoardGameNews (2006)
#3: Michael Schacht
Completing our survey of European designers we come to Michael Schacht in Germany. He's produced pretty huge numbers of games, but less than a dozen that have gotten any amount of attention in the United States. That's partially because many of his games are independently published by his own company, Spieles aus Timbuktu, and thus never make it to this side of the Atlantic. I suspect Uberplay's recent copublications of a few Schacht Abacus Spiele games and Rio Grande's recent picking up of the Queen line are going to start increasing his profile here.I'd generally call Schacht the "connections designer", because he has a strange obsession with connectivity in his games. It's an interesting mechanic that's of course the heart of many railroad games, but which Schacht uses a lot more widely. So you have China's connected road scoring and the similar scoring in Architekton. You have valuable connected resources that you can buy in Industria and a directed graph at the heart of Hansa. Magna Grecia (codesigned with Colovini) is entirely about the valuations created by connections. I suspect you could use graph theory to figure out strategies in a lot of Schacht's games, and I've heard some comments that Paris Paris, another network-centered game, may indeed be solvable in that manner.
One major element of Schacht's output seems to be very light card games. The well-received Coloretto is a simple set-collection game, as is the more recent Hollywood! Card Game (with Bruno Faidutti). Richeliu (which is actually related to Web of Power), Station Manager, and Coloretto Amazonas (which isn't actually related to Coloretto at all) are more set-collection games, while Hispaniola is trick-taking.
Moving on to board games, Schacht put together short to medium-length boardgames, running about an hour, which nonetheless have a fair amount of good strategic complexity. It's somewhat similar to Colovini's output, but a little longer and a little less serious (as odd as that might sound). Some of Schacht's great time-to-strategy ratio probably comes from his emphasis on very simple systems that still have a lot of depth (much as with Knizia's designs).
The mechanics of Schacht's games cover a what's what of German game design, so we find tile-laying (Kontor, Isis & Osiris), majority-control (Web of Power, rethemed as China), auction (Fist of Dragonstones, Industria, Don, Mogul), and trading (Dscunke). Like Wolfgang Kramer, he really seems to enjoy covering a lot of ground.
Again, I've given my guesses at a few Schachts that I've played but not yet reviewed. Schacht is a designer that I'm likely to revisit when more of his games end up in wider distribution in the United States.
My Reviews: Architekton (C), China (A), Coloretto (A), Fist of Dragonstones (B-), Hansa (A-), The Hollywood! Card Game (B), Industria (B+), Magna Grecia (B+)
Interviews: About.com on Web of Power (2001), Gamefest (2004), Interviews by an Optimist (2005)
Web Sites: Spiele aus Timbuktu (w/connection-based navigation)
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Gaming with a Grandma
One key to happiness – GAMES
I recently wrote about Gaming with a Grandson, relating some stories about my grandson. My wife and I were talking about gaming after that, and I mentioned remembering playing games with my grandmother. My wife suggested that might be the basis for another article, so here goes……
When I was in elementary school in a very small rural town in Oklahoma in the 1950’s, we lived a couple of blocks from one set of my grandparents (and across town from the other set). I walked to and from school, a route that took me past my nearby grandparents’ house twice a day. Most days, after school, I stopped at their house on the way home and stayed a while. Sometimes during these visits, grandma and I played games. They did not own any real commercial boardgames, and they did not play cards, but grandma taught me some games and some things about gaming.
The first game I recall learning from her was checkers. We played checkers a lot, although it has never been a favorite of mine. However, she taught me a checkers variation that I enjoyed very much. The game was called “Six Corner Kings,” and I believe she learned to play it a few years just before or just after 1900. I have looked for information about this game online, but have found no mention of it. If anyone reading this knows of a reference for this game, please let me know.
To the best of my memory, this is how Six Corner Kings is played. Using a regular 8x8 checkerboard, with a light square in the bottom right corner, both players place six checker kings on the board, in opposite corners. The kings are placed on dark squares in the player’s right corner, so they form two diagonal lines of three kings each, facing the same arrangement, diagonally, in the opponent’s right corner. The kings may move forward or backward, only diagonally on dark squares, normally one square at a time. A king may diagonally jump friendly kings (the same player’s kings) without removing them from the board, and multiple jumps are allowed. Kings capture (and remove from the board) opposing kings by jumping over them on a diagonal. Multiple jumps (with intervening open squares) may include both friendly and opposing kings, in any order, removing only the opposing kings. This allows some intriguing set-ups and trap plays. Jumps of opposing kings must be taken when available, including multiple jumps, but a player is not required to jump his own king, which may stop a multiple-jump move, if the player chooses. The object is to capture all the opposing kings.
Grandma was a whiz at this game; she probably played the game for over 60 years. We sometimes played many games of Six Corner Kings in one sitting.
She taught me dominoes, too. She only played a basic version, with scoring of combinations of 5 or multiples of 5. I had never seen dominoes played before she explained to me how to play this game. Interestingly, it was one of two games I played with my wife’s stepfather, much later in life, and he was a whiz at it, virtually always beating me. I also played with dominoes during lunch hours at work even later in life, playing a variation called “Shoot the Moon,” with six players on two teams. And, even today, our family occasionally plays “Mexican Train Dominoes,” but it was grandma who taught me the rudiments of dominoes.
The third type of game grandma played with me was one we made up (as have a great many people in this country, I’m sure) – States and Capitals. We each took turns naming a U.S. state, while the other person had to name that state’s capital. Oh, yes, there were only 48 states at that time. That game was a major reason for my long-term interest in geography, I believe.
Grandma’s game library and game interests were extremely limited, but we had many hours of fun playing those games together.
Beyond playing the games themselves, however, she taught me some things about gaming, not overtly, but subtly and by example. She did not play in a cutthroat manner, but played games for fun. I know she let me win a lot, until I realized what was happening and could compete well on my own. Then, she played to win, and any bad moves in checkers or missed scoring in dominoes had to stand. She laughed a lot during our game sessions, and the atmosphere was light and friendly, but still competitive. She would play checkers or dominoes anytime I suggested it, and she always congratulated me when I won. She displayed good sportsmanship (gamesmanship? gameswomanship?) at all times. She played until I was ready to quit, never indicating that she was too tired to play another game. She provided me with a gamer’s role model that could not have been better planned. I have realized only in recent years how much I learned about gaming from her, while playing only those two (or three) different games. I’ve also realized that she, even more importantly, taught me how to be a grandparent.
---- Gerald; near Denver, Colorado
aka: gamesgrandpa -- a grandpa who is a mile high on gaming
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Is it My Turn?
What is this thing called, anyway?
This is an old argument that goes back to roleplaying, second only to the confusion about the word "level".
The four most popular appear to be "turn", "round", "action", and "phase". There is no guarantee that anyone will use these words in the way you want them to be used. You could have several phases within a turn, or several turns within a phase.
Take two actions on your turn. Or is it three turns per round? Or three rounds per turn?
Does "round" imply that everyone gets a turn, and "turn" imply that only one person gets a turn?
Games and turns
Most games consist of a number of ... let's call 'em "turns" for now. However, not all do. A simple game of Pit is one turn for all players. In fact, you could say that there are no turns at all.
In games with turns you may have a fixed number of turns or a variable number, or both. A number of games now have the "until someone wins or N turns maximum" rule, which is a neat way of preventing a game from dragging on. Or dealing with a flawed game design.
Turn equality
In some games, each player has the same capabilities on their turn as every other player. Chess is a good example. One turn, one piece.
In other games, players may have unequal turns. On my turn I may be able to do X, Y, and Z, but on your turn you can only P and Q. This is usually due to having been assigned a certain role in the game, such as the Traitor in Shadows over Camelot, or the judge in Apples to Apples. In Cosmic Encounter it could be due to a variable player power.
Turn subdivisions
Sometimes it is hard to define what a turn consists of. In Apples to Apples, is a turn "each person gets to be the judge", or is it "one person judges and the other players play a card"? Is that one round with a number of turns?
Some games explicitly have unfairly balanced positions. They may say that multiple games are played with each player getting a chance to have a certain advantage or disadvantage. Is that one game with multiple turns, or multiple games?
And when dividing turns, you can end up with several types of divisions.
Phases
ASL is a classic example of this, as is Puerto Rico, Civilization, and so on. On each turn you do A and then B and then C, or you may be able to do A, B, and C in any order on your turn.
Action points
Tikal and Torres are famous examples, but so is Princes of Florence. There is no guarantee in any game that all people have the same number of points on each turn. In Goa, for example, some players earn additional action points through the auctions or other means.
Maybe in any game with resources, such as money or acquired cards, you can look at your holdings as action points. E.g. in Settlers of Catan you might have three wood action points, two brick action points, and a wheat action point. You get to play as many actions as you want or can by spending these points, or you can hold them over to the next round. In Power Grid you have as many actions as your money allows.
Sometimes they can be saved from one turn to the next, and sometimes action points are inherently variable (roll a die each round to see how many times you can play).
Task list
Similar to phases, you may have the opportunity to do certain things a certain number of times. For example, in Magic the Gathering you draw once, may attack once, may play a land once, and may play other cards multiple times.
Like action points, the game can make the available tasks variable or let you save them from one turn to the next.
Timed turns
A favorite of party games. In an odd contrast, also a favorite of tournament strategy games which give you an allotment of time you have to use for the entire game, such as Chess or Scrabble.
So there's more in common between Chess and Time's Up than you thought.
Turn Order
How do you take turns?
Simultaneous turns
Pit. Icehouse. Anagrams. Any game where all player's turns are simultaneous. Unless we're talking about sports, these games are usually loud and highly chaotic. Sports are less chaotic, but just as loud.
Responsive simultaneous turns
This would be any game where one player, or group of players, acts and then the other players act. Zendo is an example, where each player sets up a figure, then one player judges, and then this repeats. Or where teams take turns asking each other questions.
Alternating turns
Your classic turn taking game.
Alternating interruptible turns
Your classic turn taking game where other players have an opportunity to do something during your turn, such as Magic the Gathering (play instants) or Settlers of Catan (trade). These games are generally more involving than strictly alternating turns, unless the turns are short.
Alternating turn layers
Games where a turn is broken into various phases where all players act in sequence. It amuses me, so I will once again I will lump Puerto Rico and ASL together as good examples.
Fixed turn rotations
Not all games give each player a turn every N turns. This could be due to players earning or winning extra turn cards (Cosmic Encounter's Timegash), or due to a turn order changing mechanism (Puerto Rico, if you think of the phases as turns). Or in games where the winner of the round is "it" for the next round.
Variable number of turns
In some games you can only play if some conditions are fulfilled. In San Marco, you no longer play if you have accumulated a certain number of cards. In Goa, the player with the starting flag gets an extra turn to auction.
Of course, in some games you stop playing if you have been eliminated from the game. As bad as player elimination is as a mechanism, it is recommended that players stop taking turns when eliminated from the game only in games that actually include this mechanism.
Other player's turns
What do you do on other player's turns?
Think
If the turns are short, you may not have time to think much. If the turns are too long, you may not want that much time to think. If the game is chaotic, thinking on other player's turns may be irrelevant. The game state will have changed so much by the time it gets back to your turn that you'll have another think coming.
Interrupt
When the game allows, you can participate when it is not your turn, such as offering to trade during Settlers of Catan. Or, when allowed, you may be able to interfere with their actions. For example, guarding the goalposts in some dexterity game. Sadly, I can't think of any Eurogames that allow this.
Assist
I could mean either one of two things with this. Either give advise to the other player, which some people like and some don't.
Or, if the game allows, I could mean give assistance, such as throwing cards that help the other player or calling out guesses for your team during Charades.
So nu? Is it my turn, yet?
Yehuda
This is an old argument that goes back to roleplaying, second only to the confusion about the word "level".
The four most popular appear to be "turn", "round", "action", and "phase". There is no guarantee that anyone will use these words in the way you want them to be used. You could have several phases within a turn, or several turns within a phase.
Take two actions on your turn. Or is it three turns per round? Or three rounds per turn?
Does "round" imply that everyone gets a turn, and "turn" imply that only one person gets a turn?
Games and turns
Most games consist of a number of ... let's call 'em "turns" for now. However, not all do. A simple game of Pit is one turn for all players. In fact, you could say that there are no turns at all.
In games with turns you may have a fixed number of turns or a variable number, or both. A number of games now have the "until someone wins or N turns maximum" rule, which is a neat way of preventing a game from dragging on. Or dealing with a flawed game design.
Turn equality
In some games, each player has the same capabilities on their turn as every other player. Chess is a good example. One turn, one piece.
In other games, players may have unequal turns. On my turn I may be able to do X, Y, and Z, but on your turn you can only P and Q. This is usually due to having been assigned a certain role in the game, such as the Traitor in Shadows over Camelot, or the judge in Apples to Apples. In Cosmic Encounter it could be due to a variable player power.
Turn subdivisions
Sometimes it is hard to define what a turn consists of. In Apples to Apples, is a turn "each person gets to be the judge", or is it "one person judges and the other players play a card"? Is that one round with a number of turns?
Some games explicitly have unfairly balanced positions. They may say that multiple games are played with each player getting a chance to have a certain advantage or disadvantage. Is that one game with multiple turns, or multiple games?
And when dividing turns, you can end up with several types of divisions.
Phases
ASL is a classic example of this, as is Puerto Rico, Civilization, and so on. On each turn you do A and then B and then C, or you may be able to do A, B, and C in any order on your turn.
Action points
Tikal and Torres are famous examples, but so is Princes of Florence. There is no guarantee in any game that all people have the same number of points on each turn. In Goa, for example, some players earn additional action points through the auctions or other means.
Maybe in any game with resources, such as money or acquired cards, you can look at your holdings as action points. E.g. in Settlers of Catan you might have three wood action points, two brick action points, and a wheat action point. You get to play as many actions as you want or can by spending these points, or you can hold them over to the next round. In Power Grid you have as many actions as your money allows.
Sometimes they can be saved from one turn to the next, and sometimes action points are inherently variable (roll a die each round to see how many times you can play).
Task list
Similar to phases, you may have the opportunity to do certain things a certain number of times. For example, in Magic the Gathering you draw once, may attack once, may play a land once, and may play other cards multiple times.
Like action points, the game can make the available tasks variable or let you save them from one turn to the next.
Timed turns
A favorite of party games. In an odd contrast, also a favorite of tournament strategy games which give you an allotment of time you have to use for the entire game, such as Chess or Scrabble.
So there's more in common between Chess and Time's Up than you thought.
Turn Order
How do you take turns?
Simultaneous turns
Pit. Icehouse. Anagrams. Any game where all player's turns are simultaneous. Unless we're talking about sports, these games are usually loud and highly chaotic. Sports are less chaotic, but just as loud.
Responsive simultaneous turns
This would be any game where one player, or group of players, acts and then the other players act. Zendo is an example, where each player sets up a figure, then one player judges, and then this repeats. Or where teams take turns asking each other questions.
Alternating turns
Your classic turn taking game.
Alternating interruptible turns
Your classic turn taking game where other players have an opportunity to do something during your turn, such as Magic the Gathering (play instants) or Settlers of Catan (trade). These games are generally more involving than strictly alternating turns, unless the turns are short.
Alternating turn layers
Games where a turn is broken into various phases where all players act in sequence. It amuses me, so I will once again I will lump Puerto Rico and ASL together as good examples.
Fixed turn rotations
Not all games give each player a turn every N turns. This could be due to players earning or winning extra turn cards (Cosmic Encounter's Timegash), or due to a turn order changing mechanism (Puerto Rico, if you think of the phases as turns). Or in games where the winner of the round is "it" for the next round.
Variable number of turns
In some games you can only play if some conditions are fulfilled. In San Marco, you no longer play if you have accumulated a certain number of cards. In Goa, the player with the starting flag gets an extra turn to auction.
Of course, in some games you stop playing if you have been eliminated from the game. As bad as player elimination is as a mechanism, it is recommended that players stop taking turns when eliminated from the game only in games that actually include this mechanism.
Other player's turns
What do you do on other player's turns?
Think
If the turns are short, you may not have time to think much. If the turns are too long, you may not want that much time to think. If the game is chaotic, thinking on other player's turns may be irrelevant. The game state will have changed so much by the time it gets back to your turn that you'll have another think coming.
Interrupt
When the game allows, you can participate when it is not your turn, such as offering to trade during Settlers of Catan. Or, when allowed, you may be able to interfere with their actions. For example, guarding the goalposts in some dexterity game. Sadly, I can't think of any Eurogames that allow this.
Assist
I could mean either one of two things with this. Either give advise to the other player, which some people like and some don't.
Or, if the game allows, I could mean give assistance, such as throwing cards that help the other player or calling out guesses for your team during Charades.
So nu? Is it my turn, yet?
Yehuda
Monday, February 13, 2006
GAME STORE CONFIDENTIAL ~ Why Johnny can't game: Spousal interference and the effects of Panty-Waist behaviour on the Board Game industry.
“That’s okay DW, I don't need the box."
"What do you mean, 'you don't need the box'?"
"Just give me the bag, I'll throw the box away here"
So I handed Bob his bag and shoved the Warhammer Fantasy Battle boxed starter set to him. Warhammer boxes are about 2 feet long and weigh 10 pounds, they're stuffed to bursting with plastic miniatures, books, rulers, dice and other goodies. I watched as he ripped it open and started putting the parts and pieces in the large bag. Bob was only a semi-regular customer and I didn't really know him well, so I decided to warm him up a bit with my legendary Game Store Charisma.
"What the hell is this all about Bob?"
He looked up, but quickly went back to his bag-stuffing chore, talking as he worked.
"It's all about my wife DW. She'd kill me if she knew I bought this, so I put the bag in my car’s trunk and then carry a little bit in every day when I get home from work."
"You mean you sneak game pieces into the house, a little at a time?"
"Yep."
"Like the guys in that movie, The Great Escape, tunneling away and carrying the dirt out in their pockets a little at a time." Bob glanced up at me quizzically. I explained, "It's a prison movie. They were prisoners of war escaping from their German captors."
"Yeah, well, I guess it's sort of like that."
"Right. Except you're freeing little Dwarves and Orcs from my store and smuggling them into your house... right under the watchful eye of Sergeant Schultz's sister." Bob glanced up at me quizzically. I explained, "You know, the bumbling German sergeant? He was always the butt-end victim of Hogan and his band of nefarious, but lovable, Nazi prison camp detainees."
"Oh yeah", a look of slow recognition showed on Bob's face as he jammed plastic sprues into the bag, " well, not exactly, she isn't so jowly and her hair is long now." He went back to work on his purchase.
On his way out the door he waved, smiled brightly and said, "See ya next payday!"
Now for those who think I'm making this up, you're wrong. Bob never once cracked a smile at my Sergeant Schultz jibe. And what he did - sneaking games into his own home - was something I had witnessed hundreds of times in over twenty years of selling games. I consider this irrational behaviour a bizarre and deep-rooted blight upon gaming, not to mention a serious erosive factor that is at least partially responsible for the growing divorce rate and the increasing threat of Road Rage incidents. This covert behaviour can have negative effects on a gamer’s life well beyond the range of what might be normally expected. For example:
"That's okay DW, I don't want a bag."
"Really? Why not?"
"My wife knows your bags. No other store has black bags and when she sees one, we get into a fight."
"You know Ernie, all couples fight from time to time. It's normal"
"No DW, I don't mean we fight... I mean we fight... knives, brickbats, handguns, that sort of fight."
"Ah. So that would explain why you're always limping and have so much visible scar tissue."
"Now you're getting it DW."
Or the customers, more than I can count, who would buy a miniature pack or two, open them up, throw away the packs and foam inserts and put the miniatures in their pocket. I asked a couple of them here and there what they were doing and the generic answer was, "She'd never notice another miniature, the package she'd see."
"Even if you buried it in the bottom of the garbage?"
"Hey! That'd be sneaky. Behavior like that can ruin a relationship!"
Even RPG books didn't escape from having to be smuggled into a marriage. More than one customer not only refused a bag, but since I always put every book in a plastic cover, they'd leave that on the counter as well and then toss the receipt into the garbage on their way out the door.
I've sold several thousand packs of Magic cards to customers who opened the packs, took all the rares and uncommons out and left the commons, lands, boxes and wrappers behind, casually tucking the good cards in their shirt pocket or their card folders.
Now perhaps you're asking yourself: what does all this have to do with board games? Well, think about it for a moment... board games not only come in a box, they need a box. The box is an integral part of the game itself. Cruise over to BGG and you'll find 5 page threads where Geeks are flaming, counter-flaming, insulting, defending and boycotting game publishers because of the box the game comes in. Board gamers dedicate entire rooms to their boxes of games. They buy expensive shelving to accommodate their collections. They cram their kids into bunk beds and ceiling hammocks rather than convert their game box storage back to sleeping quarters. The internet is literally sagging with digital images of game collections; color coded, arranged by size, weight, temperature and various weird and arcane cataloging criteria.
Boxes are easily as important to a surprising number of gamers as the game itself, moreso in an uncomfortable number of cases. There were several lengthy threads a year or two back about what a horrible box and insert Mayfair's Modern Art reprint had. I read each thread, all the way through and there was almost no mention of Modern Art as a game, but there were some very militant people discussing ways to punish Mayfair for how they boxed it.
Hell, boxes are so critical an issue that when I saw the problems Hasbro was creating with their unusable Heroscape boxes I quickly bought stock in Rubbermaid. And I haven’t been disappointed.
Some people though, lead empty lives, ones filled with hopeless acceptance and quiet desperation. Those like Bob, and his gaming brothers-in-arms, will never be able to buy board games. If they do, their wives have convinced them they'll call a lawyer and file for divorce that night. Think I'm joking? I had at least two lengthy conversations in the last year I was in business with good RPG and miniature customers who came in often to play board games at my store. They loved board games. They coveted board games. But they didn't own any because their wives would find out - board games are a little hard to conceal amongst the dieffenbachia.
Both of them confessed that not being able to buy and have boardgames in their own homes had drained their lives of joy and that if they didn't have a greater fear of never being able to attract another woman than they had of the woman they did attract, they'd toss her out in a heartbeat and go on a board game buying binge.
And speaking of Boardgamegeek, there are scores of threads and lists where many Geeks lament not being able to buy the games they desire because of spousal control over the family budget and their personal time.
Now do you see the threat?
You're probably thinking that I'm laying this insidious and sinister epidemic at the feet of legions of unforgiving and steely-eyed spouses. Well, I'm not, the steely-eyed spouse legions certainly create the bulk of difficulties us men have, but not this one. The real carriers of this nasty disease are Panty-Waist Game Geek Wannabes. Gamer Guys who merely pretend to be bona fide Geeks, but who can't be counted on to stay in the fox hole when it's dinner time or when the 'better half' calls on the cell phone.
Basically, the only thing keeping board gaming from achieving the same levels of cultural immersion as CCG's and RPG's are fearful and weak male gamers who have ceded all control over their time and money to some little 5'3" shrew. One who probably spends more money every month on lip gloss, water pills and panty hose than the average Game Geek spends on games in a year.
You guys, and you know who you are, are pathetic. Oh sure, she may be cute. Yeah, yeah, so you have a kid or two (seemingly, you never heard of birth control). And woe is you if you end up in divorce court. Don't you see though? Once she has control over your money, she has control over your gaming. Once she controls that, she controls everything. At that point you might as well start brewing meth in your bathtub and dating trashy women on the side. Apparently the little woman doesn't want you to have any life at all, so why not just finish the job and ruin your existence the rest of the way?
My commentary this week is all about turning your life around. It's about taking a stand for Game Geekdom. Wouldn't you rather live a life of gaming freedom than the one you currently live, skulking around and fondling other people's board games? How about a life where you buy what you want, play when you want to and feel totally confident that the cell phone won't ring and you'll hear the dreaded: "When. Exactly. Were. You. Thinking. About. Coming. Home?"
Isn't that the life you really want? If so, then you need to do something about the problem. And I'm going to help you get started. Since personality disorders and other problems, like drug addiction and obsessive chat room behaviour, seem to respond so well to programs like AA’s 12-step program, I’ve developed my own program, complete with steps. My program is carefully designed to make men out of you wimpy and whipped little boys who only buy and play when SHE allows it.
Ready? Here we go, the steps to gaming freedom are:
1. Determine which game you really, really want to own.
2. Go buy it.
This isn't a 12-step program, it’s a two step program. You do step one. Follow it with step two.
Buy the game and make something happen. Walk in the door and show it to her. You may have to brush aside her cosmetics, hair styling implements, scrapbook gadgets, movie magazines, diet sodas, empty ice cream tubs, cats, yard sale treasures, magical-purse-of-hand-cream-holding, address books, origami failures, Oprah reading selections and assorted chocolate bars from the table in order to get room for your game. Just sweep all that useless crap off the table. You'll have her undivided attention at that point, so merely show her the game. Look her right in the eye and tell her it's about time she learned to play a few games with you. Make it a togetherness sort of thing. It’ll be a classic and memorable moment of bonding.
Go ahead, don't be a pussy. Just do it man! Trust me.
Once you’ve made a stand and proved to the little witc--, er, woman, that you are still that same rugged and confident stud that angered her so much in the first place that she decided to neuter you herself, your life will never be the same from that point forward.
And I'll guarantee you this... whatever the outcome of my two-step program, you'll get all the gaming time you could ever want if you follow it to the letter.
"What do you mean, 'you don't need the box'?"
"Just give me the bag, I'll throw the box away here"
So I handed Bob his bag and shoved the Warhammer Fantasy Battle boxed starter set to him. Warhammer boxes are about 2 feet long and weigh 10 pounds, they're stuffed to bursting with plastic miniatures, books, rulers, dice and other goodies. I watched as he ripped it open and started putting the parts and pieces in the large bag. Bob was only a semi-regular customer and I didn't really know him well, so I decided to warm him up a bit with my legendary Game Store Charisma.
"What the hell is this all about Bob?"
He looked up, but quickly went back to his bag-stuffing chore, talking as he worked.
"It's all about my wife DW. She'd kill me if she knew I bought this, so I put the bag in my car’s trunk and then carry a little bit in every day when I get home from work."
"You mean you sneak game pieces into the house, a little at a time?"
"Yep."
"Like the guys in that movie, The Great Escape, tunneling away and carrying the dirt out in their pockets a little at a time." Bob glanced up at me quizzically. I explained, "It's a prison movie. They were prisoners of war escaping from their German captors."
"Yeah, well, I guess it's sort of like that."
"Right. Except you're freeing little Dwarves and Orcs from my store and smuggling them into your house... right under the watchful eye of Sergeant Schultz's sister." Bob glanced up at me quizzically. I explained, "You know, the bumbling German sergeant? He was always the butt-end victim of Hogan and his band of nefarious, but lovable, Nazi prison camp detainees."
"Oh yeah", a look of slow recognition showed on Bob's face as he jammed plastic sprues into the bag, " well, not exactly, she isn't so jowly and her hair is long now." He went back to work on his purchase.
On his way out the door he waved, smiled brightly and said, "See ya next payday!"
Now for those who think I'm making this up, you're wrong. Bob never once cracked a smile at my Sergeant Schultz jibe. And what he did - sneaking games into his own home - was something I had witnessed hundreds of times in over twenty years of selling games. I consider this irrational behaviour a bizarre and deep-rooted blight upon gaming, not to mention a serious erosive factor that is at least partially responsible for the growing divorce rate and the increasing threat of Road Rage incidents. This covert behaviour can have negative effects on a gamer’s life well beyond the range of what might be normally expected. For example:
"That's okay DW, I don't want a bag."
"Really? Why not?"
"My wife knows your bags. No other store has black bags and when she sees one, we get into a fight."
"You know Ernie, all couples fight from time to time. It's normal"
"No DW, I don't mean we fight... I mean we fight... knives, brickbats, handguns, that sort of fight."
"Ah. So that would explain why you're always limping and have so much visible scar tissue."
"Now you're getting it DW."
Or the customers, more than I can count, who would buy a miniature pack or two, open them up, throw away the packs and foam inserts and put the miniatures in their pocket. I asked a couple of them here and there what they were doing and the generic answer was, "She'd never notice another miniature, the package she'd see."
"Even if you buried it in the bottom of the garbage?"
"Hey! That'd be sneaky. Behavior like that can ruin a relationship!"
Even RPG books didn't escape from having to be smuggled into a marriage. More than one customer not only refused a bag, but since I always put every book in a plastic cover, they'd leave that on the counter as well and then toss the receipt into the garbage on their way out the door.
I've sold several thousand packs of Magic cards to customers who opened the packs, took all the rares and uncommons out and left the commons, lands, boxes and wrappers behind, casually tucking the good cards in their shirt pocket or their card folders.
Now perhaps you're asking yourself: what does all this have to do with board games? Well, think about it for a moment... board games not only come in a box, they need a box. The box is an integral part of the game itself. Cruise over to BGG and you'll find 5 page threads where Geeks are flaming, counter-flaming, insulting, defending and boycotting game publishers because of the box the game comes in. Board gamers dedicate entire rooms to their boxes of games. They buy expensive shelving to accommodate their collections. They cram their kids into bunk beds and ceiling hammocks rather than convert their game box storage back to sleeping quarters. The internet is literally sagging with digital images of game collections; color coded, arranged by size, weight, temperature and various weird and arcane cataloging criteria.
Boxes are easily as important to a surprising number of gamers as the game itself, moreso in an uncomfortable number of cases. There were several lengthy threads a year or two back about what a horrible box and insert Mayfair's Modern Art reprint had. I read each thread, all the way through and there was almost no mention of Modern Art as a game, but there were some very militant people discussing ways to punish Mayfair for how they boxed it.
Hell, boxes are so critical an issue that when I saw the problems Hasbro was creating with their unusable Heroscape boxes I quickly bought stock in Rubbermaid. And I haven’t been disappointed.
Some people though, lead empty lives, ones filled with hopeless acceptance and quiet desperation. Those like Bob, and his gaming brothers-in-arms, will never be able to buy board games. If they do, their wives have convinced them they'll call a lawyer and file for divorce that night. Think I'm joking? I had at least two lengthy conversations in the last year I was in business with good RPG and miniature customers who came in often to play board games at my store. They loved board games. They coveted board games. But they didn't own any because their wives would find out - board games are a little hard to conceal amongst the dieffenbachia.
Both of them confessed that not being able to buy and have boardgames in their own homes had drained their lives of joy and that if they didn't have a greater fear of never being able to attract another woman than they had of the woman they did attract, they'd toss her out in a heartbeat and go on a board game buying binge.
And speaking of Boardgamegeek, there are scores of threads and lists where many Geeks lament not being able to buy the games they desire because of spousal control over the family budget and their personal time.
Now do you see the threat?
You're probably thinking that I'm laying this insidious and sinister epidemic at the feet of legions of unforgiving and steely-eyed spouses. Well, I'm not, the steely-eyed spouse legions certainly create the bulk of difficulties us men have, but not this one. The real carriers of this nasty disease are Panty-Waist Game Geek Wannabes. Gamer Guys who merely pretend to be bona fide Geeks, but who can't be counted on to stay in the fox hole when it's dinner time or when the 'better half' calls on the cell phone.
Basically, the only thing keeping board gaming from achieving the same levels of cultural immersion as CCG's and RPG's are fearful and weak male gamers who have ceded all control over their time and money to some little 5'3" shrew. One who probably spends more money every month on lip gloss, water pills and panty hose than the average Game Geek spends on games in a year.
You guys, and you know who you are, are pathetic. Oh sure, she may be cute. Yeah, yeah, so you have a kid or two (seemingly, you never heard of birth control). And woe is you if you end up in divorce court. Don't you see though? Once she has control over your money, she has control over your gaming. Once she controls that, she controls everything. At that point you might as well start brewing meth in your bathtub and dating trashy women on the side. Apparently the little woman doesn't want you to have any life at all, so why not just finish the job and ruin your existence the rest of the way?
My commentary this week is all about turning your life around. It's about taking a stand for Game Geekdom. Wouldn't you rather live a life of gaming freedom than the one you currently live, skulking around and fondling other people's board games? How about a life where you buy what you want, play when you want to and feel totally confident that the cell phone won't ring and you'll hear the dreaded: "When. Exactly. Were. You. Thinking. About. Coming. Home?"
Isn't that the life you really want? If so, then you need to do something about the problem. And I'm going to help you get started. Since personality disorders and other problems, like drug addiction and obsessive chat room behaviour, seem to respond so well to programs like AA’s 12-step program, I’ve developed my own program, complete with steps. My program is carefully designed to make men out of you wimpy and whipped little boys who only buy and play when SHE allows it.
Ready? Here we go, the steps to gaming freedom are:
1. Determine which game you really, really want to own.
2. Go buy it.
This isn't a 12-step program, it’s a two step program. You do step one. Follow it with step two.
Buy the game and make something happen. Walk in the door and show it to her. You may have to brush aside her cosmetics, hair styling implements, scrapbook gadgets, movie magazines, diet sodas, empty ice cream tubs, cats, yard sale treasures, magical-purse-of-hand-cream-holding, address books, origami failures, Oprah reading selections and assorted chocolate bars from the table in order to get room for your game. Just sweep all that useless crap off the table. You'll have her undivided attention at that point, so merely show her the game. Look her right in the eye and tell her it's about time she learned to play a few games with you. Make it a togetherness sort of thing. It’ll be a classic and memorable moment of bonding.
Go ahead, don't be a pussy. Just do it man! Trust me.
Once you’ve made a stand and proved to the little witc--, er, woman, that you are still that same rugged and confident stud that angered her so much in the first place that she decided to neuter you herself, your life will never be the same from that point forward.
And I'll guarantee you this... whatever the outcome of my two-step program, you'll get all the gaming time you could ever want if you follow it to the letter.
Sunday, February 12, 2006
CONTACT!
Yep, I've re-established a 'source' for much of my own, as well as many other's "gaming supplies", with a fellow of whom I'd met years ago over around the 'Olympia, WA state' area! His name is "John McEwan" and he's been keeping busy all of this time as well, with even moving from where HE used to be, to where he's at NOW! That also happens to 'be' right in the TOWN next door to myself here, while I hope to become a close 'provider' for HIM and many others, of "game bits" of a unique nature in mind. I expect the many devoted "fanzoids" for the 'A&A' line of games, to then 'be' ever "bigger" ones for THIS! Since they are the prime 'motivators' for their "gaming needs", then it just stands to 'reason' that they'll most likely want to HAVE these *Special* pieces done up properly and since no one ELSE is going to, then why NOT 'us'? I'll provide some "teasers" here so that YOU can 'see' for yourself just what I'm going on about:
While some of YOU might 'recognize' THESE, then let me reassure you upon them, that they are CLOSE approximations and NOT "exact duplicates", for the sake of 'protections' regarding any such. Of course, then YOU could "modify" these to your heart's content, ONCE you have your 'grubby mitts' upon them. There is much more for your considerations as well, and take your time when you can afford that, to delve into each & every kinds of these. He's even into some "minis" gaming with a select 'group', and of which I hope to become ONE of them! They're currently conducting some "Battling" within the "World War I in Africa" settings, and for which HE has provided ample 'means' for this with HIS 'set' of "figurines" that are available too.
Here is the LINK directly to the "website" of his:
"Tin-Soldier.com" REVIRESCO
and you can then check out upon MANY more there in the various sections. Those also include "Paper Models", as well as many metal-cast figurines, or even 'kits', while some of them can be 'purchased' pre-assembled and 'painted' already, should you wish to obtain such. He's even got some FREE "sample" types to have you get begun in some of these, while I'll leave that up to YOU to 'find' and obtain any.
Also check out "Joe Steadman's" website for the astute "grognards" amongst you, upon his up and becoming well known 'place' to BE with the "Wargame News" and its coverages of "What's Happ`nin mon!" in these regards. A big "shout out" and WELCOME to the esteemed, while venerable, ole "Rich BERG" himself, upon becoming "Geek-i-fied" now, and cut him some 'slack' will yas? We ALL have our 'opinions' and he's NOT making YOU "read over" his`n, is`n he now?
Here's "JOE's" LINK then: "Wargame News"
and let HIM 'know' that I sent yas!
Saturday, February 11, 2006
Blue Moon
Civil war has ripped across a fantastic world of beasts and magic. Two royal heirs, Prince Roland and Princess Elinor, each seek ascendancy to the throne of Blue Moon City, but the land is in chaos. In an outburst of violence during the ceremonial contest of succession, the two contenders lost control and slew Ordrac, the golden dragon of guidance and wisdom. With the death of the dragon, earthquakes shook the city on that Night of Doom, and the land's most holy relic, the crystal of psi, symbol of harmony and source of power, shattered into pieces.
Now the enmity between the rivals has deepened, and the two heirs enlist the aid of the eight peoples of the Blue Moon world to further their causes: the mighty Terrah, tenders of the land who control earthquake and storm; the Vulca, priests of fire and magical arts; the Aqua, guardians of water who command serpents and floods; the Flit, elusive rulers of the air striking from above; the childlike Khind, the city's crass brawlers who overwhelm with their numbers; the proud Mimix, fierce women warriors of the wilderness; the Hoax, protectors of knowledge who strike with science; and the mysterious Pillar, explorers, traders of potions, masters of the fearsome giant caterpillars. As the battle rages, successful leaders are awarded shards of the broken crystal by the three elemental dragons who guard them; when enough pieces are collected, the victor will be crowned and—it is hoped—peace and unity will be restored to the land.
Such is the setting of Reiner Knizia's two-player strategy card game Blue Moon, published in German by Kosmos Verlag and in English by Fantasy Flight games. In the game, each player is a general commanding one of the peoples of Blue Moon in battle; there are a series of fights in which players lay down cards of escalating strength, and the winners of these fights gain advantage in the tug-of-war for the three dragons' favor. When one player has run out of cards, crystals are awarded to the player who has swayed the dragons to his side, and the first player to amass five crystals is the winner.
The eight peoples of Blue Moon are each represented by their own deck of cards, and before the game begins the players will select the decks with which they will do battle. These decks are made up of four kinds of cards: Character, Booster, Support and Leadership. The most important card type is the Character, as these are the individuals who will be doing battle on the players' behalf; on a player's turn he must either lay down a character and continue the current battle or retreat. Each Character has a strength in the realms of fire and earth—for example four fire and six earth, or three fire and two earth, or even zero fire and zero earth—and these numbers are the basis for the way that battles are fought. At the beginning of a fight, a player will lay down a card, choose whether the fight will be in the realm of fire or earth, and then announce a total power within that realm, for example "four fire." His opponent must then lay down a Character card and announce a power that matches or exceeds the current total; if he is able to do so, the ball is tossed back to the first player, who then plays new cards on top of the old, announces a new power, and so forth, until one player cannot or does not wish to match the current total and so retreats from the fight.
In addition to the characters, players will also have Booster cards and/or Support cards in their decks; these are weapons, magic, monsters, forces of nature and other elements which aid the characters with additional power or by conferring other special advantages. The difference between the two types of card is how long their effects last: Boosters' effects only last for one turn, and are covered over by the next character played in the fight; Supports, however, last for the duration of the fight, and are only discarded when a player retreats. The rules governing how they are played are the same, however. On each turn after the first turn of a new fight (so as not to give the starting player too much of an advantage, presumably), players may play one Booster or Support card along with their character. Some Boosters and Supports will merely show values in fire and earth, and these numbers are simply added to the character's values (along with as any Support cards from previous turns). Instead of or in addition to values for earth and fire, Boosters and Supports can also have special power text which confers advantages on the player; they may alter the total power that may be announced, or the total power that needs to be met, or it may restrict what the opposing player may do on his next turn, or cancel the effects of other cards, et cetera. Character cards may also have special text as well, and so there is often a complex interaction among the various cards on the table.
The final card type is the Leadership card, of which each preconstructed deck has two or three. These cards confer powerful one-time advantages which are beyond the scope of power values; for example, they can allow a player to draw extra cards, or retrieve a card from the battlefield, or discard cards to attract a dragon, or remove cards from the opponent's display, et cetera. Players may play one Leadership card at the beginning of their turn, regardless of whether or not they plan to continue the current battle.
I have purposely not gone into too much detail regarding the specific rules and details of the game so as to keep the thematic strengths of Blue Moon in the forefront, but there is one particular rule which is important to highlight in order to fully convey the depth of the game play. When, during a fight, a player has laid down six Character, Booster and Support cards (not all of which need still be active), his potential gains double; if that player wins the fight, the dragons' favor is adjusted by two dragons rather than just by one. However, while one player is amassing cards, so is his opponent, and so one must always be aware of when the other player's potential reward will increase. What this means in terms of strategy is that players must constantly be judging their strength mid-fight; if weak, or if it would require the use of too many good cards to compete, one can bail out early to avoid a two-dragon loss; conversely, if a player is confident, he can try to string their opponent along so that they reach six cards and then try to deal a knockout blow. Players can even bluff by putting down a dangerous support card with nothing left in-hand to back it up in the hopes that the other player will be frightened away lest the contest drag on. What also factors into these decisions is the element in which players are fighting; the player who retreats will be starting the next fight, and so choosing whether the next contest will be in fire or earth. If one knows that he is generally strong or weak in one element or another, he can try to string the opponent along in his weak element, drop out before his opponent reaches six cards, and then make a more concerted push in the element in which he feels more confident.
Reiner Knizia's games often seem to have that "extra idea" which elevates the game from good to great. In Euphrat & Tigris, it is the balanced scoring; in High Society, it is least-money instant loss; in Amun-Re, it is the blind bidding for favors simultaneously determining economics. In Blue Moon, it is the interplay between the need to struggle in two different suits combined with the stakes-doubling of the prolonged fights. Without this concept the game would only be advanced War; with it, there is a constant need to assess one's situation, both short- and long-term. As one might imagine, there are a fair number of special powers which allow players to put down more than their typical allotment of one Character plus one Booster/Support on their turn, and these only add to the strategizing that needs to be done.
Such is the basic strategic framework for the game, and what fleshes out this system are the decks of cards themselves, for each has its own particular personality, strengths, and strategies. Each deck even has its own artist, style and color palette, and so one can usually tell which deck a card comes from just by glancing at the artwork.
The Vulca are tall, angular humanoids with multicolored fire erupting from their heads and who are rendered in deep yellows, oranges, reds, purples and blues. They are one of the more simple decks to play, as their advantage lies the strength of their characters; their numbers in fire are on the average greater than that of any other people deck. In addition, their supports tend to be negative rather than proactive in effect and frustrate their opponent's offense, for example by disallowing him to play Leadership Cards, disallowing him to play Support cards, or disallowing him to draw new cards into his hand.
The Hoax take the form of elderly scholars, painted in pale grays, blues and browns with precise detail; the characters always have books or writing as part of their accoutrements, and the supports and boosters tend to take the form of technology, from ballistae to strange science-fiction devices. They are also relatively straightforward to play, but their strength lies not in their characters' values but their cards' special power texts. Arguably some of the best cards in the game are to be found in the Hoax's deck (Tome of Wisdom, Duplicator of Strength, Brain Drain and Muster Reinforcements), and they have more Support cards than any other people. They are slightly harder to play than the Vulca because in order to compete they need to keep in their hand a good balance between Characters and Supports and Boosters.
The Mimix are fierce, feral, female warriors of the wilderness painted in a more-or-less naturalistic palette. The Mimix have fewer special-text tricks than either the Vulca or the Hoax, but their advantage is in their ability to play multiple characters on their turns, both to achieve high numbers and to more quickly reach the goal of six cards. Each Mimix is one of a pair of sisters who can be played together on one turn, and in addition there are "Free" Characters which do not count towards the typical limit of one Character per turn. In order to help the Mimix player find the mates to their cards, the deck also includes shamen who let the player draw extra cards from their draw or discard pile.
The Flit are strange, taciturn bird-men rendered in a simple, almost cartoonish style in watercolor-like tones. The Flit are one of the most unusual of the decks in that Characters make up less than half of the cards; however, most of the Characters have the "Retrieve" ability which allows them to be taken back into one's hand for reuse at the beginning of their turn. Each Character is relatively weak, but many have valuable speical power texts, and most of the rest of the deck is made up of Booster cards which can be paired together like the Mimix Characters, except that all there are not specific pairs but rather any two can be played together. These characteristics result in the Flit's being one of the most thematic decks, as the Characters will swoop in and out of battle dropping destruction from above. They are probably also one of the more difficult to play well, as one needs to make judicious use of the boosters and resist the urge to always retrieve their Characters (thus stagnating their hand).
The Terrah are men and women of a Native American or South Sea Islander look, painted in vivid reds and deep earth tones. They are the mirror image of the fiery Vulca, being strong in Earth values, and like the Vulca they have relatively straightforward Boosters and Supports that tend to hinder the opponent's free range. In addition there are also three Storm Boosters in the deck which can be used to draw the dragons' favor each turn until the opponent retreats. The Terrah are so strong and easy to play, in fact, that they are perhaps best used in handicap situations when there is a skill mismatch between the players.
The Khind are childlike creatures painted in a wry, surreal style with oversaturated reds and greens and purples and oranges popping out from chaotic backgrounds. The deck is primarily made up of Character cards, and all of these belong one of four gangs, the Cool, the Top, the Fun and the No. Individually the characters are weak, but like the Mimix and their pairs the members of a gang can all be played together and their power added, and, more importantly, one gang member can be played into a gang already on the table from the turn before and the cards are not pushed under the new play but are instead added to it. It can be difficult to mount a Khind offensive if the player is unable to draw into gangs, and so may have to tread water until he is able to collect a set, but once that player does have a healthy gang in his hand, he can be impossible to stop.
The Pillar are grim, wire-haired humans clothed in chitinous body armor and painted in browns and oranges. They are a relatively straightforward deck, like the Vulca or Hoax, but with more thematic supports; some of their Boosters are potions which increase their strength, while others are the dreaded giant caterpillars which force the opponent to discard Characters or retreat. Additionally there are giant butterflies which act as Supports or which force opponents to reveal the cards in their hand.
The Aqua are made up of amphibian women and the undersea creatures they control, painted in deep blues and greens. The Aqua is perhaps the most subtle of the decks and so the most difficult to describe, but you could sum it up by saying that there is a certain fluidity to the Aqua player's hand; there are cards that let the player discard cards, move cards to the bottom of his deck, and, most importantly, reshuffle his discard pile into his draw pile. Because of all this the Aqua have more ability to tailor their hand to the needs of the moment than the other decks.
However, it should be mentioned players need only buy as many Blue Moon decks as they wish; the base game comes with a straightforward but fascinating and replayable matchup, the Hoax versus the Vulca, and each deck can be purchased separately after that. With three decks there are three different matchups, with four there are six, with five there are ten, with six there are fifteen, with seven there are twenty-one, and between all eight peoples there are twenty-eight different matchups (or thirty-six if both players have a complete set of decks and you allow a people to fight against itself). Each matchup has been playtested, and, because of the interactions of the various cards, each has its own particular nuances. A combination that is devastating against the Flit may be harmless against the Khind, and vice versa.
If players want an additional challenge, they can incorporate deck-building into the game, although it might be more accurate to call it "deck-tweaking." Each player chooses a people* and then may swap or add in cards from other sets up to a total of thirty cards and ten 'moons', the moons being a rating of how powerful a card is (a relatively weak card may have no moons on it, whereas a very desirable card like Muster Reinforcements will be rated at four moons). If players want further leeway in the deck-building, they may buy one or both of the expansion sets, the "Emissaries and Inquisitors." These decks contain additional cards for each of the eight peoples, plus Inquisitors, which are meta-cards that allow players to have decks larger than thirty cards and ten moons and/or confer other special abilities, plus new types of cards which can be included in a deck to add new dimensions to the game and metagame (most likely in an inquisitor deck with its extra room, I would think).
This "scalable-to-interest" nature of the Blue Moon world I find very exciting; even just the base game on its own is perfectly enjoyable and highly replayable in its own right; in fact, it is just another entry in the Kosmos "Spiele für Zwei" series, and a comparatively good one at that. For just a little more variety a person could pick up a couple more decks and, as said earlier, have six different matchups to explore. Those who are captivated by the world can acquire all eight people sets and begin making their own decks, and for a more CCG-like experience they can put their creativity to the test and design something even more personalized using the Inquisitors and expansion cards. As of this writing the world of Blue Moon continues to grow, with invaders from other lands appearing for the first time, namely The Buka, and perhaps later the Phar.
The overall feel of the game is that of a struggle for which strength must be mustered, consistent pressure must be applied, and energy and advantage must be conserved for the moments when their judicious use will achieve results. The players are managing their decks of cards as they pass through them, and, unlike a war played out on a map where strength and weakness have locations on coordinates, the battlefield is that of time, where players must make the most of their forces and recognize the opportunities for triumph or disaster as they coalesce in the moment. As players get to know the decks better and better, they can plan for certain threats, count cards, look forward to certain combinations and play the odds.
As a game I feel that Blue Moon offers a great deal to those with an appetite for discovery and who like to sink their teeth into a system. There is depth, intensity and flavor; players can explore all the races, delighting in the different chemical reactions between the various reagents, or else concentrate on their favorites, studying their decks so that mid-stride they can see the continuum of force that they are marching through, passing through shuffled uncertainty closer and closer towards a known, inevitable, and hopefully prepared-for endgame. Skill and knowledge will be fearsome weapons, twin scythes cutting crosswise through the grain, but in every battle there are also moments of lightning surprise and blown kisses from fortune, turning the tide and sweeping startled armies out to sea. It is strategic...but alive.
It's rare that one has the opportunity to be present and aware as a great, sprawling creative effort is unfolding for their pleasure, being there to see each new chapter in the story as it is unveiled. Each new step on the journey brings us not merely farther, but deeper. For those who are gaming on the frontier, I highly recommend Blue Moon.
______________________________
* This may be more information than is necessary, but the preconstructed sets are not purely made up of only one people; each preconstructed set contains three cards from other sets swapped in plus one mutant which does not belong to any specific people.
Now the enmity between the rivals has deepened, and the two heirs enlist the aid of the eight peoples of the Blue Moon world to further their causes: the mighty Terrah, tenders of the land who control earthquake and storm; the Vulca, priests of fire and magical arts; the Aqua, guardians of water who command serpents and floods; the Flit, elusive rulers of the air striking from above; the childlike Khind, the city's crass brawlers who overwhelm with their numbers; the proud Mimix, fierce women warriors of the wilderness; the Hoax, protectors of knowledge who strike with science; and the mysterious Pillar, explorers, traders of potions, masters of the fearsome giant caterpillars. As the battle rages, successful leaders are awarded shards of the broken crystal by the three elemental dragons who guard them; when enough pieces are collected, the victor will be crowned and—it is hoped—peace and unity will be restored to the land.
Such is the setting of Reiner Knizia's two-player strategy card game Blue Moon, published in German by Kosmos Verlag and in English by Fantasy Flight games. In the game, each player is a general commanding one of the peoples of Blue Moon in battle; there are a series of fights in which players lay down cards of escalating strength, and the winners of these fights gain advantage in the tug-of-war for the three dragons' favor. When one player has run out of cards, crystals are awarded to the player who has swayed the dragons to his side, and the first player to amass five crystals is the winner.
The eight peoples of Blue Moon are each represented by their own deck of cards, and before the game begins the players will select the decks with which they will do battle. These decks are made up of four kinds of cards: Character, Booster, Support and Leadership. The most important card type is the Character, as these are the individuals who will be doing battle on the players' behalf; on a player's turn he must either lay down a character and continue the current battle or retreat. Each Character has a strength in the realms of fire and earth—for example four fire and six earth, or three fire and two earth, or even zero fire and zero earth—and these numbers are the basis for the way that battles are fought. At the beginning of a fight, a player will lay down a card, choose whether the fight will be in the realm of fire or earth, and then announce a total power within that realm, for example "four fire." His opponent must then lay down a Character card and announce a power that matches or exceeds the current total; if he is able to do so, the ball is tossed back to the first player, who then plays new cards on top of the old, announces a new power, and so forth, until one player cannot or does not wish to match the current total and so retreats from the fight.
In addition to the characters, players will also have Booster cards and/or Support cards in their decks; these are weapons, magic, monsters, forces of nature and other elements which aid the characters with additional power or by conferring other special advantages. The difference between the two types of card is how long their effects last: Boosters' effects only last for one turn, and are covered over by the next character played in the fight; Supports, however, last for the duration of the fight, and are only discarded when a player retreats. The rules governing how they are played are the same, however. On each turn after the first turn of a new fight (so as not to give the starting player too much of an advantage, presumably), players may play one Booster or Support card along with their character. Some Boosters and Supports will merely show values in fire and earth, and these numbers are simply added to the character's values (along with as any Support cards from previous turns). Instead of or in addition to values for earth and fire, Boosters and Supports can also have special power text which confers advantages on the player; they may alter the total power that may be announced, or the total power that needs to be met, or it may restrict what the opposing player may do on his next turn, or cancel the effects of other cards, et cetera. Character cards may also have special text as well, and so there is often a complex interaction among the various cards on the table.
The final card type is the Leadership card, of which each preconstructed deck has two or three. These cards confer powerful one-time advantages which are beyond the scope of power values; for example, they can allow a player to draw extra cards, or retrieve a card from the battlefield, or discard cards to attract a dragon, or remove cards from the opponent's display, et cetera. Players may play one Leadership card at the beginning of their turn, regardless of whether or not they plan to continue the current battle.
I have purposely not gone into too much detail regarding the specific rules and details of the game so as to keep the thematic strengths of Blue Moon in the forefront, but there is one particular rule which is important to highlight in order to fully convey the depth of the game play. When, during a fight, a player has laid down six Character, Booster and Support cards (not all of which need still be active), his potential gains double; if that player wins the fight, the dragons' favor is adjusted by two dragons rather than just by one. However, while one player is amassing cards, so is his opponent, and so one must always be aware of when the other player's potential reward will increase. What this means in terms of strategy is that players must constantly be judging their strength mid-fight; if weak, or if it would require the use of too many good cards to compete, one can bail out early to avoid a two-dragon loss; conversely, if a player is confident, he can try to string their opponent along so that they reach six cards and then try to deal a knockout blow. Players can even bluff by putting down a dangerous support card with nothing left in-hand to back it up in the hopes that the other player will be frightened away lest the contest drag on. What also factors into these decisions is the element in which players are fighting; the player who retreats will be starting the next fight, and so choosing whether the next contest will be in fire or earth. If one knows that he is generally strong or weak in one element or another, he can try to string the opponent along in his weak element, drop out before his opponent reaches six cards, and then make a more concerted push in the element in which he feels more confident.
Reiner Knizia's games often seem to have that "extra idea" which elevates the game from good to great. In Euphrat & Tigris, it is the balanced scoring; in High Society, it is least-money instant loss; in Amun-Re, it is the blind bidding for favors simultaneously determining economics. In Blue Moon, it is the interplay between the need to struggle in two different suits combined with the stakes-doubling of the prolonged fights. Without this concept the game would only be advanced War; with it, there is a constant need to assess one's situation, both short- and long-term. As one might imagine, there are a fair number of special powers which allow players to put down more than their typical allotment of one Character plus one Booster/Support on their turn, and these only add to the strategizing that needs to be done.
Such is the basic strategic framework for the game, and what fleshes out this system are the decks of cards themselves, for each has its own particular personality, strengths, and strategies. Each deck even has its own artist, style and color palette, and so one can usually tell which deck a card comes from just by glancing at the artwork.
The Vulca are tall, angular humanoids with multicolored fire erupting from their heads and who are rendered in deep yellows, oranges, reds, purples and blues. They are one of the more simple decks to play, as their advantage lies the strength of their characters; their numbers in fire are on the average greater than that of any other people deck. In addition, their supports tend to be negative rather than proactive in effect and frustrate their opponent's offense, for example by disallowing him to play Leadership Cards, disallowing him to play Support cards, or disallowing him to draw new cards into his hand.
The Hoax take the form of elderly scholars, painted in pale grays, blues and browns with precise detail; the characters always have books or writing as part of their accoutrements, and the supports and boosters tend to take the form of technology, from ballistae to strange science-fiction devices. They are also relatively straightforward to play, but their strength lies not in their characters' values but their cards' special power texts. Arguably some of the best cards in the game are to be found in the Hoax's deck (Tome of Wisdom, Duplicator of Strength, Brain Drain and Muster Reinforcements), and they have more Support cards than any other people. They are slightly harder to play than the Vulca because in order to compete they need to keep in their hand a good balance between Characters and Supports and Boosters.
The Mimix are fierce, feral, female warriors of the wilderness painted in a more-or-less naturalistic palette. The Mimix have fewer special-text tricks than either the Vulca or the Hoax, but their advantage is in their ability to play multiple characters on their turns, both to achieve high numbers and to more quickly reach the goal of six cards. Each Mimix is one of a pair of sisters who can be played together on one turn, and in addition there are "Free" Characters which do not count towards the typical limit of one Character per turn. In order to help the Mimix player find the mates to their cards, the deck also includes shamen who let the player draw extra cards from their draw or discard pile.
The Flit are strange, taciturn bird-men rendered in a simple, almost cartoonish style in watercolor-like tones. The Flit are one of the most unusual of the decks in that Characters make up less than half of the cards; however, most of the Characters have the "Retrieve" ability which allows them to be taken back into one's hand for reuse at the beginning of their turn. Each Character is relatively weak, but many have valuable speical power texts, and most of the rest of the deck is made up of Booster cards which can be paired together like the Mimix Characters, except that all there are not specific pairs but rather any two can be played together. These characteristics result in the Flit's being one of the most thematic decks, as the Characters will swoop in and out of battle dropping destruction from above. They are probably also one of the more difficult to play well, as one needs to make judicious use of the boosters and resist the urge to always retrieve their Characters (thus stagnating their hand).
The Terrah are men and women of a Native American or South Sea Islander look, painted in vivid reds and deep earth tones. They are the mirror image of the fiery Vulca, being strong in Earth values, and like the Vulca they have relatively straightforward Boosters and Supports that tend to hinder the opponent's free range. In addition there are also three Storm Boosters in the deck which can be used to draw the dragons' favor each turn until the opponent retreats. The Terrah are so strong and easy to play, in fact, that they are perhaps best used in handicap situations when there is a skill mismatch between the players.
The Khind are childlike creatures painted in a wry, surreal style with oversaturated reds and greens and purples and oranges popping out from chaotic backgrounds. The deck is primarily made up of Character cards, and all of these belong one of four gangs, the Cool, the Top, the Fun and the No. Individually the characters are weak, but like the Mimix and their pairs the members of a gang can all be played together and their power added, and, more importantly, one gang member can be played into a gang already on the table from the turn before and the cards are not pushed under the new play but are instead added to it. It can be difficult to mount a Khind offensive if the player is unable to draw into gangs, and so may have to tread water until he is able to collect a set, but once that player does have a healthy gang in his hand, he can be impossible to stop.
The Pillar are grim, wire-haired humans clothed in chitinous body armor and painted in browns and oranges. They are a relatively straightforward deck, like the Vulca or Hoax, but with more thematic supports; some of their Boosters are potions which increase their strength, while others are the dreaded giant caterpillars which force the opponent to discard Characters or retreat. Additionally there are giant butterflies which act as Supports or which force opponents to reveal the cards in their hand.
The Aqua are made up of amphibian women and the undersea creatures they control, painted in deep blues and greens. The Aqua is perhaps the most subtle of the decks and so the most difficult to describe, but you could sum it up by saying that there is a certain fluidity to the Aqua player's hand; there are cards that let the player discard cards, move cards to the bottom of his deck, and, most importantly, reshuffle his discard pile into his draw pile. Because of all this the Aqua have more ability to tailor their hand to the needs of the moment than the other decks.
However, it should be mentioned players need only buy as many Blue Moon decks as they wish; the base game comes with a straightforward but fascinating and replayable matchup, the Hoax versus the Vulca, and each deck can be purchased separately after that. With three decks there are three different matchups, with four there are six, with five there are ten, with six there are fifteen, with seven there are twenty-one, and between all eight peoples there are twenty-eight different matchups (or thirty-six if both players have a complete set of decks and you allow a people to fight against itself). Each matchup has been playtested, and, because of the interactions of the various cards, each has its own particular nuances. A combination that is devastating against the Flit may be harmless against the Khind, and vice versa.
If players want an additional challenge, they can incorporate deck-building into the game, although it might be more accurate to call it "deck-tweaking." Each player chooses a people* and then may swap or add in cards from other sets up to a total of thirty cards and ten 'moons', the moons being a rating of how powerful a card is (a relatively weak card may have no moons on it, whereas a very desirable card like Muster Reinforcements will be rated at four moons). If players want further leeway in the deck-building, they may buy one or both of the expansion sets, the "Emissaries and Inquisitors." These decks contain additional cards for each of the eight peoples, plus Inquisitors, which are meta-cards that allow players to have decks larger than thirty cards and ten moons and/or confer other special abilities, plus new types of cards which can be included in a deck to add new dimensions to the game and metagame (most likely in an inquisitor deck with its extra room, I would think).
This "scalable-to-interest" nature of the Blue Moon world I find very exciting; even just the base game on its own is perfectly enjoyable and highly replayable in its own right; in fact, it is just another entry in the Kosmos "Spiele für Zwei" series, and a comparatively good one at that. For just a little more variety a person could pick up a couple more decks and, as said earlier, have six different matchups to explore. Those who are captivated by the world can acquire all eight people sets and begin making their own decks, and for a more CCG-like experience they can put their creativity to the test and design something even more personalized using the Inquisitors and expansion cards. As of this writing the world of Blue Moon continues to grow, with invaders from other lands appearing for the first time, namely The Buka, and perhaps later the Phar.
The overall feel of the game is that of a struggle for which strength must be mustered, consistent pressure must be applied, and energy and advantage must be conserved for the moments when their judicious use will achieve results. The players are managing their decks of cards as they pass through them, and, unlike a war played out on a map where strength and weakness have locations on coordinates, the battlefield is that of time, where players must make the most of their forces and recognize the opportunities for triumph or disaster as they coalesce in the moment. As players get to know the decks better and better, they can plan for certain threats, count cards, look forward to certain combinations and play the odds.
As a game I feel that Blue Moon offers a great deal to those with an appetite for discovery and who like to sink their teeth into a system. There is depth, intensity and flavor; players can explore all the races, delighting in the different chemical reactions between the various reagents, or else concentrate on their favorites, studying their decks so that mid-stride they can see the continuum of force that they are marching through, passing through shuffled uncertainty closer and closer towards a known, inevitable, and hopefully prepared-for endgame. Skill and knowledge will be fearsome weapons, twin scythes cutting crosswise through the grain, but in every battle there are also moments of lightning surprise and blown kisses from fortune, turning the tide and sweeping startled armies out to sea. It is strategic...but alive.
It's rare that one has the opportunity to be present and aware as a great, sprawling creative effort is unfolding for their pleasure, being there to see each new chapter in the story as it is unveiled. Each new step on the journey brings us not merely farther, but deeper. For those who are gaming on the frontier, I highly recommend Blue Moon.
______________________________
* This may be more information than is necessary, but the preconstructed sets are not purely made up of only one people; each preconstructed set contains three cards from other sets swapped in plus one mutant which does not belong to any specific people.
Friday, February 10, 2006
It's a cooperative game, not winner take all.
Susan over at Game Ranch posted some insightful comments about the BGG/game bloggers conflict, whether it be real or imagined. Naturelich (who I have always envisioned as a hippie for some reason) followed up. Fairly quickly several other bloggers chimed in. The topic sprouted and took on a life of its own.
Boardgamegeek vs. the Blogs
First of all Boardgamegeek is the site for the boardgame community world wide. There is no other place to go to research such a variety of games. There is no blog, nor any other medium on the horizon that will replace BGG anytime soon.
Second of all I don't accept the notion that a lot of quality content is being moved from the Geek to the blogs. Some has moved to be sure. Much more is still being added to the BGG database. Most importantly, I believe that much of the material on the blogs would have never been created if the blogosphere didn't exist.
But as much as I appreciate Boardgamegeek...
...the point I want to make is that BGG is no longer a community. It is a bustling city. Don't get me wrong, growth is good. I like to see a healthy boardgame industry. I like to see good game database where enthusiasts can meet and interact even across borders.
But as is always the case with growth I no longer know my neighbors. I no longer feel like I'm chatting over the fence with Wilson. Wilson moved out and a fraternity bought his house. A well behaved fraternity to be sure, but there are people in and out at all hours of the day and I can no longer keep track of who's who.
There used to be a yappy Potter dog that occasionally disturbed the neighborhood. Now the noise of passing traffic is constantly drowning out the sounds of the kids playing across the street. The cranky guy who would sit at the diner and randomly correct people's English doesn't seem to get out much anymore.
Aldie Griffith and Derk Fife used to keep things under control, now there is a full time police force. All the police are fine people, but the fact they are needed is sad. About the only thing the police used to deal with was the town drunk. Now when Otis "Shillking" Widderich gets drunk, obnoxious and riles up some old ladies he doesn't even stand out from the crowd.
The transient population is booming. Every year the traffic gets worse. Billboards are springing up along the streets, which is good I guess. The revenue from advertising offsets the need for taxes. But...
This is a real ad. I clipped it Thursday:
Carcassonne Travel Guide
Traveling to Carcassonne?
Start with Yahoo!
Travel Guides and save
up to 70% on hotels.
Find...
travel.yahoo.com
Advertising is needed to keep the site free, but is this advertisement adding to the community?
The city fathers are dealing with the expansion very well and deserve lauds. Nevertheless many of us have decided to move to the burbs.
Right now in the blog-burbs property is cheap. There are no zoning regulations. The traffic is slower. The neighbors keep to themselves, but will always wave if you are passing by. If someone leaves some trash on my street I can throw it away. When I throw it away I can be reasonably sure no one will complain that they have a right to leave trash and by removing it I am censoring them.
I still commute to the city everyday. I go where I need to go and if I happen to meet an old acquaintance all the better. Although I still think of the city as my city, more and more of my time is spent tinkering around in my own garage. I walk the dog around my own neighborhood once each day to keep just to track of the neighbors.
I think everyone in the burbs has an interest in maintaining a vibrant city. The little secret of blog-burb is that most bloggers only last for a few months and then crap out. Most boardgame blogs only get updated once every month or two. There are only a handful that are updated every day and less than a dozen others that are regularly updated 2-3 times each week. The boardgame blogoshere isn't as healthy as it might seem to an outsider. The ranks of the bloggers are mainly replenished by people who cut their teeth on the Geek.
It doesn't have to be a case of Us vs. Them and I don't think it is. If the Geek ever goes into decline it will affect the blog-burbs and the whole boardgame world negatively. I think every blogger is aware of that fact on some level.
Coldfoot
Boardgamegeek vs. the Blogs
First of all Boardgamegeek is the site for the boardgame community world wide. There is no other place to go to research such a variety of games. There is no blog, nor any other medium on the horizon that will replace BGG anytime soon.
Second of all I don't accept the notion that a lot of quality content is being moved from the Geek to the blogs. Some has moved to be sure. Much more is still being added to the BGG database. Most importantly, I believe that much of the material on the blogs would have never been created if the blogosphere didn't exist.
But as much as I appreciate Boardgamegeek...
...the point I want to make is that BGG is no longer a community. It is a bustling city. Don't get me wrong, growth is good. I like to see a healthy boardgame industry. I like to see good game database where enthusiasts can meet and interact even across borders.
But as is always the case with growth I no longer know my neighbors. I no longer feel like I'm chatting over the fence with Wilson. Wilson moved out and a fraternity bought his house. A well behaved fraternity to be sure, but there are people in and out at all hours of the day and I can no longer keep track of who's who.
There used to be a yappy Potter dog that occasionally disturbed the neighborhood. Now the noise of passing traffic is constantly drowning out the sounds of the kids playing across the street. The cranky guy who would sit at the diner and randomly correct people's English doesn't seem to get out much anymore.
Aldie Griffith and Derk Fife used to keep things under control, now there is a full time police force. All the police are fine people, but the fact they are needed is sad. About the only thing the police used to deal with was the town drunk. Now when Otis "Shillking" Widderich gets drunk, obnoxious and riles up some old ladies he doesn't even stand out from the crowd.
The transient population is booming. Every year the traffic gets worse. Billboards are springing up along the streets, which is good I guess. The revenue from advertising offsets the need for taxes. But...
This is a real ad. I clipped it Thursday:
Carcassonne Travel Guide
Traveling to Carcassonne?
Start with Yahoo!
Travel Guides and save
up to 70% on hotels.
Find...
travel.yahoo.com
Advertising is needed to keep the site free, but is this advertisement adding to the community?
The city fathers are dealing with the expansion very well and deserve lauds. Nevertheless many of us have decided to move to the burbs.
Right now in the blog-burbs property is cheap. There are no zoning regulations. The traffic is slower. The neighbors keep to themselves, but will always wave if you are passing by. If someone leaves some trash on my street I can throw it away. When I throw it away I can be reasonably sure no one will complain that they have a right to leave trash and by removing it I am censoring them.
I still commute to the city everyday. I go where I need to go and if I happen to meet an old acquaintance all the better. Although I still think of the city as my city, more and more of my time is spent tinkering around in my own garage. I walk the dog around my own neighborhood once each day to keep just to track of the neighbors.
I think everyone in the burbs has an interest in maintaining a vibrant city. The little secret of blog-burb is that most bloggers only last for a few months and then crap out. Most boardgame blogs only get updated once every month or two. There are only a handful that are updated every day and less than a dozen others that are regularly updated 2-3 times each week. The boardgame blogoshere isn't as healthy as it might seem to an outsider. The ranks of the bloggers are mainly replenished by people who cut their teeth on the Geek.
It doesn't have to be a case of Us vs. Them and I don't think it is. If the Geek ever goes into decline it will affect the blog-burbs and the whole boardgame world negatively. I think every blogger is aware of that fact on some level.
Coldfoot
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Games to Watch For: Nurnberg '06
The Eurogaming year is centered on two points. Toward the end of the year we get the huge consumer show at Essen, and then in February we get the Nurnburg Toy Fair. Nurnberg is a different sort of show than Essen. It's not open to the public, and there are more prototypes shown off, which might not become actual games for many months. Nonetheless, there's cool stuff to be seen.Last year in October I wrote about the newest releases at Essen, and now I'm going to follow that up with Nurnberg '06: a look at a new set of games that may be making their way to us between now and ... next Essen. As before, I've picked my top ten, mostly focusing on gamer's games, with my top contenders marked with a star(*).
I should note that, as I commented on in my year-end round-up, much of the gaming fare continues to get lighter. Many of the games I selected are on the light-to-medium side of things, and many designers who have done heavier work in the past are emphasizing lighter games now. Over at BoardGameNews, a translated Nurnberg report seems to make the same point.
Augsburg 1520*
URL: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/21892
Authors: Karsten Hartwig
Synopsis: auctions, economics, resource management
Background: Germany, 1520
Like: Chinatown, Louis XIV
U.S. Publisher: Rio Grande(?)
Alea has two games demo-ing at Nuremberg, this one and For Rum, Renown, and Honor. The latter looks to be pretty light, and has put a few people off Alea from its previews, but Augsburg 1520 seems to be in the old Alea mold, just like Louis XIV was last year. It's about Jakob Fugger, and is a game of economics, auctions, and favor trading. I'm guessing it's going to be another somewhat dry game, also like Louis XIV. Karsten Hartwig, the designer, just has two games to his credit: Chinatown and Lucky Loop.
There's been no actual word on U.S. publication, but I think it's a fair bet that Rio Grande will step up.
Bison*
URL: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/21287
Authors: Wolfgang Kramer & Michael Kiesling
Synopsis: exploration, majority control
Background: Native America
Like: El Grande, Goldland, Lost Valley
U.S. Publisher: Phalanx Games
There's two Kramer & Kiesling games out this Nurnberg. Unfortunately K&K's other new release of this season, Celtica, has already gotten pretty trounced for the crime of being a family game. Not so Bison, which looks to be a new gamer's game. It follows in the footstep of Phalanx's Maharaja, which didn't exactly set the world afire, but was a solid tactical game. This one looks a like like Kronberger's Lost Valley, and no doubt will combine tactical play, resource management, and (I think) exploration. There's apparently majority control with a unique twist, as different place players score for different things.
Blue Moon City
URL: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/21882
Authors: Reiner Knizia
Synopsis: card management, city development, majority control
Background: Blue Moon City, after the war
Like: Maharaja, Tower of Babel
U.S. Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games(?)
Most Reiner Knizia big-box games are cause for attention, and this one seems to be no exception. It's a unique building game, where you're using hands of cards to rebuild Blue Moon City. You can use stronger cards to build faster or weaker cards to give you special advantages with their powers. Blue Moon City has two pretty uncommon features for Knizia. First, the game seems to have a pretty strong geographical basis, something you find in Knizia's tile-laying games, and just about nowhere else. Second, there's some majority control, with people who help a lot in a building rewarded more than people who help less. We saw majority control in last year's Tower of Babel, but it's again a pretty rare Knizia element. (If Knizia does a third majority-control-based game this year or next, we can call it his "Majority Control Trilogy".) Don't get your hopes up too high for another Tigris & Euphrates or Through the Desert; I'd guess this is going to be medium-light, but if you liked last year's Tower of Babel and Palazzo, I'd bet this one will please too. As with Augsburg, there's not yet a confirmed American producer for this title, but Fantasy Flight Games is a pretty good bet.
California
URL: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/21464
Authors: Michael Schacht
Synopsis: house development, resource management, tile laying
Background: California, modern-day
Like: New England
U.S. Publisher: currently none
This was one of my last additions to the list because the theming looks sooo bad. It's Beverly Hill Billies California, full of movie stars and billionaires, and you're trying to decorate your house. Yet there's an interesting looking "house construction" game with tile-laying that's very reminescent of New England (or Eden) for that fact that you're trying to match certain patterns. And some of Schacht's other Abacusspiele games in this same size (Hansa and China) have been great. So, it's a wait and see. Of course it might be a long wait because there's no American publisher on board that I know of, and Uberplay who did Schacht's last few from Abacusspiele, isn't doing co-ops with Germany anymore due to the precipitous plunge of the American dollar.
Cleopatra & The Society of Architects
URL: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/22141
Authors: Bruno Cathala & Ludovic Maublanc
Synopsis: card management, palace development, brinkmanship
Background: Egypt, 1st century BC
Like: Big City, High Society
U.S. Publisher: Days of Wonder
Days of Wonder produces light yet beautifully produced games. This one looks like it's going to blow the doors off their normally high production values, with its promise of high-quality 3D pieces that you use to build Cleopatra's palace. Personally, I'm a sucker for Egyptian themes, and even if it's light I'll be happy to see this new game beside Ra and Amun-Re. It looks like there's some card management here but that the real catch of the game is that if you use too many "good" cards, you end up out of the game, which is shades of High Society, where the biggest spender loses. The mechanic isn't innovative, but always introduces an interesting dilemma into the gameplay.
Emira
URL: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/18931
Authors: Paul van Hove & Liesbeth Vanzeir
Synopsis: auction, economics, palace development
Background: Arabia
Like: Princes of Florence
U.S. Publisher: Mayfair Games
This was literally the last item I added to the list, and that was because of the theming. Originally called Harem. Though it's now called the much more empowering Emira, it's still about collecting women. Now, I'm by no means a prude, but I know a game who's theming is going to make it hard to get it to the table when I see one, and I'm afraid this one could sit next to Relationship Tightrope, gathering dust. In any case, Emira won the 2004 Hippodice Game Design competition, and with its publication it'll join luminaries from that competition such as Chinatown, Mississippi Queen, and Vino. The gameplay doesn't sound terribly innovative, but it looks like you have interesting economic decisions and auctions as you try and improve your palace and yourself in order to attract women. From here the similarities to Princes of Florence look strong.
Gloria Mundi
URL: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/13286
Authors: James Ernest & Mike Selinker
Synopsis: card management, resource management
Background: Rome, c. 500
Like: The Settlers of Catan, Der Untergang von Pompeji
U.S. Publisher: Rio Grande Games
Just last month I was talking about how Rio Grande's inability to do their own productions might be putting them into a death spiral. And here they are producing their first original big-box game ever. James Ernest isn't really known for doing complex games, but his collaborations with Selinker seem to be his higher concept releases. This one has some resource management, but the need to constantly protect those resources from invading hordes. The race to flee the fall of Rome reminds me of the similar flight from Pompeii in last year's Klaus Jurgen-Wrede disaster game. Of course it coule be a while before we see this game, because it was on the Essen '05 lists too, and RGG's last self-production works, the Bohnanza supplements, certainly took a long time to come to fruition.
Leonardo da Vinci
URL: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/21920
Authors: A group of designers
Synopsis: auction, resource management
Background:
Like: Princes of Florence?
U.S. Publisher: Mayfair Games
I have some reluctance to include a daVinci game (the publisher, not the inventor) here, because frankly they don't have any track record for gamer's games. Don't get me wrong, they did a great beer-and-pretzels game (Bang!) and a number of good family or party games (Dancing Dice, Farfalia, Lupus in Tabula, Tuchulcha). Contrariwise, however, their attempts at gamer's games have had various flaws in them, including the weird complexity of Oriente, the endgame failure of Fredericus, and the chaotic craziness of Palatinus. Given that pedigree, I'd be pretty tempted to take a wait-and-see attitude toward Leonardo. However, Leonardo has gotten a lot of press as a real gamer's game, and as a result I feel like I have to include it. In addition it's been picked up by German publisher Abacusspiele, which I believe is a first for daVinci. So, I've got some concerns, but hope.
The mechanic is apparently using auctions to buy resources to build inventions, and I think the success of the game will mainly depend on how well those auctions work. I've definitely played many American auction games which just plain didn't work, and many German ones which largely did; I'm hoping this falls into the latter category, because the theming could produce a very evocative game. (I pretty arbitrarily listed Princes of Florence as a similar game because it's a rare game where you auction items, then do something useful with them rather than just collecting. I've actually seen just about no info on how the game works, so it could really be like anything.)
Thurn & Taxis*
URL: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/21790
Authors: Andreas Seyfarth & Karen Seyfarth
Synopsis: connectivity, logistics
Background: Germany, 18th century
Like: China, Medieval Merchant, Puerto Rico
U.S. Publisher: Rio Grande Games
Thus far Andreas Seyfarth remains a one-hit wonder; well, perhaps one-and-a-half, since he added San Juan to the Puerto Rico family a couple of years ago. Nonetheless a new Seyfarth game bears at least some attention, especially when it's being produced by Hans im Gluck, who has a good reputation for serious games. This one is going to be lighter than Puerto Rico. It looks like a pretty simple connectivity game where you're constantly getting points for laying longer routes based on cards in your hand (but about mail coaches, not railroads). It's got some action roles too, ala Puerto Rico (or moreso: Age of Steam, since they're an extra effect on a turn, not the main thing).
Ticket to Ride: Marklin Edition*
URL: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/21348
Authors: Alan R. Moon
Synopsis: connectivity, delivery, set-collection
Background: Germany, recent centuries
Like: Ticket to Ride
U.S. Publisher: Days of Wonder
I'm not sure the third iteration of Ticket to Ride still qualifies as new and exciting, and it's certainly not as much of a gamer's game as some of the other things I've mentioned here. Nonetheless, I suspect it'll get more plays in my house than anything else on this list. This new game is set on a German map. However, Moon has taken a step beyond, and continues to make sure that each new edition of Ticket to Ride has new mechanics and thus some notably different gameplay, which I think does a lot to keep the franchise fresh. This time around we have passengers and merchandise and a 10-point endgame reward for the most tickets rather than the longest route, all around resulting in something new and different.
Other Releases of Note
Nurnberg truly seems to be the season of the expansion, especially if you're the SdJ winner, so we have the fourth Alhambra supplement, the fifth (eighth?) for Carcassonne, and the first for Niagra, as well as the first for the non-SdJ-winning War of the Ring. And I've already covered the newest Ticket to Ride, being offered as a new game rather than a supplement. Queen is taking a similar route, rereleasing Wallenstein as Shogun (though I'm not convinced we'll see it before Essen, because I don't see it mentioned in any previews, else I'd have included it here).
Beyond that there are many more releases, and no doubt I've missed something notable. I've already mentioned two near misses from this list: Celtica and For Rum, Renown, and Honor, each of which appear to be very light big-box games. They were my first eliminations from my original list of 15, shortly followed by Reiner Knizia's Double or Nothing and Tom Lehmann's Um Krone & Kragen. I'm not sure the first is actually being released at Nurnberg, and they both look like lighter dice games. My #11 which barely missed the list was Mykerinos by Ystari Games. It looks lighter than Ystari's previous releases, and it's by a brand-new author, so I eventually let if fall off the bottom.
If anything was missing from my list, hopefully it's one of those five and not something I overlooked entirely.
Essen Mini-Followup
Finally, I want to do a short followup on the games I highlighted in my Essen watchlist, last October. I'm going to write a full column on it at some point in the future, but since they still qualify as new games, they're worth a short note here.
Of the 10 games I mentioned there, 9 have been released, with Tempus being the stubborn hold-out. In addition I feel like I missed just one game of note: Antike, which despite its issues is an intriguing Mediterannean logistics game. Of those 11 games (including Antike) I've played six. Here's my thoughts of them, in the form of blog entries or reviews. I'll write a more extensive entry on them all when I've gotten to play most of the rest.
My Reviews: Antike (C+), Caylus (A, with caveat on length), Elasund: The First City (B+), Hacienda (B), Mesopotamia (B-), Railroad Tycoon (B+)
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
A Lesson From Bess
The house was quiet, all the lights turned off except the one I was reading by, four cats quietly snoozing in various areas of the house when all of a sudden schwoongngngng. (O.k., onomatopoeia is not my strong suit.) Bess had decided she wanted to play with the donut. This is a simple but brilliant cat toy consisting of a plastic ball trapped inside a plastic ring in such a way that the cat can smack the ball around the ring but can’t remove it.
When my heart had returned to its normal pace, I was struck by a thought (as I am wont to do in the rare moments of quietude): cats do not require someone to play with them. She was quite happy and entertained to sit there swatting that ball around and watching it until it taunted her enough to swat it again.
Could I get to that place with my board games? Did I even want to try? Maybe the lesson is that we should take quiet moments to enjoy the simple things around us.
~~~~~~~~
What Are The Odds?
We were six on our last game day, one relatively new to strategy games (Melissa) and one new to the group whose experience and expertise was yet to be determined (Jeremy), so I pulled out Shadows Over Camelot. Mike and I decided to throw in the Traitor since we hadn’t played with it in the previous game we’d played.
The new players seemed to get the hang of it with the exception that Jeremy kept choosing to draw a black card or place a siege engine when he could have taken a relatively painless life hit since he was playing Sir Palamedes and would receive an additional life point when he helped complete a quest. We reminded him a couple of times but didn’t really think too much of it when he chose to ignore our helpful suggestion. I know, we should have been more suspicious but we had no previous games with which to judge his mind-set. Maybe he loathed the idea of being down to 1 or 2 life points and living on the edge, as it were. Anyway, I’m sure you’ve guessed that he was, in fact, the Traitor. We would be more aware of the brute now.
We all had such a fun time that we decided to play again. The cards were all well-shuffled and we were off to be heroic deed-doers again. This time we were a little more wary of our fellow knights. Melissa made a suspicious choice of using an extra action, which cost her a life point, to turn in 3 identical cards and receive a life point. Hmmmm. We tried to explain the waste of a move to her but she insisted. Ah-ha! Traitor, cried Mike. But we were wrong. On we pushed with the thought that maybe we were free of a traitor this time.
We were very close to winning the last quest we would need to win the game but also very close to losing one that would put the last siege engine around our castle. We thought we had a plausible, cooperative plan that would see us through to win the day but then Jeremy took a siege engine from supply and plunked it down on the board. Hey! If you do that, we lose—game over; you know that, right? A smile crossed his face. Yeah, he knew.
So what are the odds that the same person would be the Traitor in two successive games? I don’t know but we laughed about it the rest of the night. I guess we now have an idea of Jeremy’s expertise in the game arena. We also know that Mike can’t shuffle 8 cards worth a darn!
~~~~~~~~
Until next time, may all of your expeditions be profitable.
Mary
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Inside and Outside the Game Experience
This article is sort of a followup to this. You can also refer to Adam Conus's The Trading Game Experience: Part 1 for another description of the game experience.
RPGs
I have once again started creating an RPG world; my game group consists of a number of people from diverse backgrounds. Some of them have RPG experience and, like me, quit playing after 3e DnD (another discussion). Some of them never played an RPG and are interested in knowing what it's all about. It's just another type of game, right?
Well, no.
We won't be playing our first game for another two weeks, at least. Yet for the next several weeks, we will be "playing the game". We're reading rules, designing characters and the campaign. Discussing. Planning. And so on.
DnD, and RPGs in general, provides not only a game but an entire game experience. Maybe it's the complexity of the rules, which requires study by the game players to get the full experience. You might be tempted to say that it's a deficiency that so much has to be built before you can start playing; I don't think so. You may as well say that C++ is deficient because so much has to be programmed before you get an application.
This game system, game preparation, game immersion, what have you, creates passionate gamers. The "game" is not something you take out of the box, play, and put away. It is a little world that creeps into your own world, the way that sports teams become important to you.
It's the same way that a hobby becomes important to you. You can garden. Or you can immerse yourself in gardening, learn about soil and acidity, meet other gardeners, and learn about mail-order delivery. The hobby becomes part of you, even when you are not directly involved in it.
CCGs
Despite DW's ranting, Magic and CCGs hold the same allure. It is not the preconstructed decks that make the hobby. It is the deckbuilding and research that adds so much to the game. Now my own Magic experience is limited to the few thousand cards I and my friends own. When we want to play Magic, we grab some cards, draft, build decks, and play. That is nowhere near the immersion you get from following pro-tours, but even that experience is more than a typical board game. Drafting. Deck-building.
Chess
RPGs and CCGs are game experiences because they are so complex and allow so much personal preparation. But note that another game with a complete game experience is Chess. Little old boring always-starts-the-same-way Chess (not talking here about Chess960).
Someone once commented (can't find it!) that coming into a game of chess was very similar to coming into a game of Magic: each player brings a "deck of strategies". You play this opening, I counter with that. You cast this instant, I cast this creature. You play an enchantment. I throw a fireball.
I guess if you sit down to game of chess without this sort of preparation, you could still enjoy the game, but you miss out on a grand experience. There is something nice about that experience. There is also something nice about playing without that experience.
(Let's not get into the old "jedi vs ewoks" debate again, however. Let us just assume that both types are valid. In fact, let us assume that both types are entirely different games. Casual chess vs Serious chess. Casual PR vs serious PR. Entirely different games.)
Other board games
The same experience can be found in some board and card games, such as Scrabble (memorize those word lists!), Bridge (iron out that bidding convention!), and so on.
Did you ever hear anyone talk about Puerto Rico that way? It takes five to ten minutes to set up a Puerto Rico game, but I've never heard anyone call that quality game time. "Oh, I've been thinking about the different ways we could set up the colonists. I tried it a few hundred times in a practice run, but I wasn't so happy, so I swapped out a few brown ones and put in a few green ones. Want to run it through a few times tonight?"
Even when I play, and I play by drawing or arranging buildings from a pool of 120 different buildings, I never experience the pre or post PR game as quality game time. Maybe, maybe, we might discuss a certain move in round 12 that threw the game, but that's as far as it goes. Puerto Rico is not a game experience. (I still love it.)
I imagine that Alex and Jim got a bit of that experience while they were working on their PR strategy guides, but thereafter it must have waned.
What does it take to get that rich experience in a board game?
- An incredibly diverse type of playing experience each time it is played. For RPGs you have an infinite worldspace. For CCGs, you have thousands of card combinations. For chess, your worldspace and pieces are limited, but the game is sufficiently balanced and sufficiently analyzable that you can find thousands of valid stylistic play patterns.
- Personal preparation is inherent to the game. Preparing a common set of buildings in Puerto Rico is not personal preparation. If there were several hundred buildings, and each player brought to the game those buildings he or she would be allowed to build during the game, you might have a game experience.
- It doesn't hurt to have open source components, so that people can spend their time building and collecting beautiful components (such as chessboards).
- A system that encourages contributions from people to enhance the game also helps. For RPGs, this means that anyone can create new adventures, character classes, spells, and so on. Wizards of the Coast is the only one who can create cards to their game, but the deck creation and combinations are open source.
Instead
Since most board games don't seem to have this "game experience", people in the board game world have created their own experience by collecting multiple games. Storing games, buying games, trading games, comparing games. Game play order at a game club is like playing with a deck of cards: "I'll play Puerto Rico, and then Age of Steam, then I'll hit you with San Juan." "Oh yeah? Well, I counter your San Juan with my Alhambra, and cast Torres on your butt! Eat hot action points, flyboy!"
Our game experience is blogging, reading, and so on about a whole bunch of games, instead of about just one game.
I think this is a cop-out. I think it points to something lacking in the games themselves. If each one of these games can't hold our attention long enough to create an obsession, is it really that good? Yeah, if I weighed fifty of these games versus a CCG, I would pick the games. But if you had to weigh only ONE game vs a CCG, which would you choose?
Yehuda
RPGs
I have once again started creating an RPG world; my game group consists of a number of people from diverse backgrounds. Some of them have RPG experience and, like me, quit playing after 3e DnD (another discussion). Some of them never played an RPG and are interested in knowing what it's all about. It's just another type of game, right?
Well, no.
We won't be playing our first game for another two weeks, at least. Yet for the next several weeks, we will be "playing the game". We're reading rules, designing characters and the campaign. Discussing. Planning. And so on.
DnD, and RPGs in general, provides not only a game but an entire game experience. Maybe it's the complexity of the rules, which requires study by the game players to get the full experience. You might be tempted to say that it's a deficiency that so much has to be built before you can start playing; I don't think so. You may as well say that C++ is deficient because so much has to be programmed before you get an application.
This game system, game preparation, game immersion, what have you, creates passionate gamers. The "game" is not something you take out of the box, play, and put away. It is a little world that creeps into your own world, the way that sports teams become important to you.
It's the same way that a hobby becomes important to you. You can garden. Or you can immerse yourself in gardening, learn about soil and acidity, meet other gardeners, and learn about mail-order delivery. The hobby becomes part of you, even when you are not directly involved in it.
CCGs
Despite DW's ranting, Magic and CCGs hold the same allure. It is not the preconstructed decks that make the hobby. It is the deckbuilding and research that adds so much to the game. Now my own Magic experience is limited to the few thousand cards I and my friends own. When we want to play Magic, we grab some cards, draft, build decks, and play. That is nowhere near the immersion you get from following pro-tours, but even that experience is more than a typical board game. Drafting. Deck-building.
Chess
RPGs and CCGs are game experiences because they are so complex and allow so much personal preparation. But note that another game with a complete game experience is Chess. Little old boring always-starts-the-same-way Chess (not talking here about Chess960).
Someone once commented (can't find it!) that coming into a game of chess was very similar to coming into a game of Magic: each player brings a "deck of strategies". You play this opening, I counter with that. You cast this instant, I cast this creature. You play an enchantment. I throw a fireball.
I guess if you sit down to game of chess without this sort of preparation, you could still enjoy the game, but you miss out on a grand experience. There is something nice about that experience. There is also something nice about playing without that experience.
(Let's not get into the old "jedi vs ewoks" debate again, however. Let us just assume that both types are valid. In fact, let us assume that both types are entirely different games. Casual chess vs Serious chess. Casual PR vs serious PR. Entirely different games.)
Other board games
The same experience can be found in some board and card games, such as Scrabble (memorize those word lists!), Bridge (iron out that bidding convention!), and so on.
Did you ever hear anyone talk about Puerto Rico that way? It takes five to ten minutes to set up a Puerto Rico game, but I've never heard anyone call that quality game time. "Oh, I've been thinking about the different ways we could set up the colonists. I tried it a few hundred times in a practice run, but I wasn't so happy, so I swapped out a few brown ones and put in a few green ones. Want to run it through a few times tonight?"
Even when I play, and I play by drawing or arranging buildings from a pool of 120 different buildings, I never experience the pre or post PR game as quality game time. Maybe, maybe, we might discuss a certain move in round 12 that threw the game, but that's as far as it goes. Puerto Rico is not a game experience. (I still love it.)
I imagine that Alex and Jim got a bit of that experience while they were working on their PR strategy guides, but thereafter it must have waned.
What does it take to get that rich experience in a board game?
- An incredibly diverse type of playing experience each time it is played. For RPGs you have an infinite worldspace. For CCGs, you have thousands of card combinations. For chess, your worldspace and pieces are limited, but the game is sufficiently balanced and sufficiently analyzable that you can find thousands of valid stylistic play patterns.
- Personal preparation is inherent to the game. Preparing a common set of buildings in Puerto Rico is not personal preparation. If there were several hundred buildings, and each player brought to the game those buildings he or she would be allowed to build during the game, you might have a game experience.
- It doesn't hurt to have open source components, so that people can spend their time building and collecting beautiful components (such as chessboards).
- A system that encourages contributions from people to enhance the game also helps. For RPGs, this means that anyone can create new adventures, character classes, spells, and so on. Wizards of the Coast is the only one who can create cards to their game, but the deck creation and combinations are open source.
Instead
Since most board games don't seem to have this "game experience", people in the board game world have created their own experience by collecting multiple games. Storing games, buying games, trading games, comparing games. Game play order at a game club is like playing with a deck of cards: "I'll play Puerto Rico, and then Age of Steam, then I'll hit you with San Juan." "Oh yeah? Well, I counter your San Juan with my Alhambra, and cast Torres on your butt! Eat hot action points, flyboy!"
Our game experience is blogging, reading, and so on about a whole bunch of games, instead of about just one game.
I think this is a cop-out. I think it points to something lacking in the games themselves. If each one of these games can't hold our attention long enough to create an obsession, is it really that good? Yeah, if I weighed fifty of these games versus a CCG, I would pick the games. But if you had to weigh only ONE game vs a CCG, which would you choose?
Yehuda
Monday, February 06, 2006
Game Store Confidential ~ Make room! Make room!
There really are a lot of big games.
It’s not as if I wasn’t peripherally aware that quite a number of board games take up a fair amount of real estate when you get them spread out, it just never surfaced as a problem for me.
Until now.
Now I don’t have the game tables at my store. Now I don’t have a larger house, replete with “Bonus Room” to set up a large game in.
Now I am temporarily in what I refer to, only partially in jest, as my hovel. It's 900 square feet of early 1970’s luxury, courtesy of Boise-Cascade’s pre-cut, staple and glue home building assembly line from the glory days of Idaho’s first housing boom. That was the one where the state population finally increased to approximately the size of Cleveland.
What this means is I have a garage stuffed to the rafters, a storage rental in Boise, a storage rental about a mile from The Hovel and I still have a full storage building back at Mosquito Acres… along with about 40 boxes, a tall file cabinet, a motorcycle fairing, a printer, two typewriters and a pair of waders in the shop at the old ranch. No wonder my charming former girlfriend (and proud new owner of a large amount of mud and horse manure) keeps asking when I’m getting a new place. She needs the room out there so she can buy new crap and fill up the storage areas.
The other night four of us got together at The Hovel for a little gaming. In attendance was my new friend Shaun, who used to shop at my store in Boise about 20 years ago, his cousin Jumbo-Tron and Jumbo’s brother, RoBee. I’m not a big guy, 5’11” (and descending as I age) and maybe 158 pounds, soaking wet. Shaun is my height but built like a tree stump, wide but not gamer-sized. Jumbo-Tron is aptly named, he’s jumbo. And RoBee, his younger brother is either slightly larger or slightly smaller, it’s hard to tell because he wears those really stupid looking giant skate shoes that are purposely left unlaced and I think they create some sort of visual paradox or something. When I see RoBee at his place of work he looks smaller, when he shows up to game with the shoes on he seems larger.
So there we sat, in the tiny little dining area of The Hovel’s kitchen, playing, of all things, a card game called Fairy Tale. My back was against the door to the garage, Shaun was to my right, the window overlooking the yard to my left and Jumbo-Tron and RoBee towering like a shield wall across the table from me. The little table, one I had actually built myself about 20 years ago, could handle a card game. It even handled Way out West when that was brought out. It did fine for Russian Rails a few weeks ago too. But if we wanted to play World of Warcraft, or any of the Eagle Games, or Mare Nostrum or Formula De or Power Grid we would be screwed. And if we added a fifth player to the tiny little dining area my innate fear of being trapped in a small room by huge gamers would probably rear its ugly head.
So how do Europeans do it? Or people who live in those tiny little houses in Japan? For that matter, how did I play big games in the early days before I bought my first house?
Thinking back, I have some vague and murky memories of large maps spread on living room floors or sawhorses set up with a sheet of plywood on top. In truth, my first home didn’t have a big enough extra room for a really large game so I had a ping-pong table in the garage, wedged in with about 12 motorcycles and a 1962 MG with no top. As a twenty-something gamer I easily adapted to the situation of having big games and small rooms. Other things were less important. And by the time my first child came along I had bought a brand new home with plenty of extra room.
That was 28 years ago and in 28 years I have been totally spoiled. I have either had a large family room, extra bedroom, den, office, basement or a game store with purpose-built tables and I have been able to play any game I want of any size without giving it a second thought.
And now I’m living in… The Hovel.
By the way, if anyone believes for a second that I have any empathy for Europeans, Asians, college students, trailer park residents or gamers who live in a tight situation, I don’t. This article is merely commentary about the fact that some games are big and should not be misconstrued as sympathy. I worked around it when I was in their shoes, so can they.
Time to get to the point here though… I have been looking for a suitable home since I rented The Hovel. This is where things get weird because it wasn’t until about two weeks ago, when I discovered two places the same day that fit what I wanted, that an anomaly in my personality occurred to me that I had never before noticed. It was when I called the rep for the second house and told her that was the one I wanted that it struck me why I chose that one. It’s more money. It’s not any better located. In fact, it might even cost more per month to run and maintain.
But it has what realtors now call “The Bonus Room”.
What struck me about my decision making process was that I never really thought about the fact that when looking for a place to live, gaming space is not optional. This may not be significant to other gamers, but it is to me because I have never thought about it before. When I was a teenaged gamer and when I was in my twenties I simply lived where I could afford or bought what I could scrape the money together for. Then I spent 23 years owning a game store and two large homes in succession. In that period of time playing games became so much a part of my life that now I reject, out of hand, anything that I can’t fit both Jumbo-Tron and RoBee into comfortably, along with several other gamer-sized friends, a game of Railroad Tycoon or Conquest of the Empire, lots of space for snacks and drinks and a pc, TV, stereo, coat rack and spare bathroom. The spare bathroom is vital so I can keep my gaming buddies from seeing my stash of Rogain and Geritol as well as my ear hair trimmer.
All of this transitioning in my life fits in with some of the discussions I see cropping up on http://www.boardgamegeek.com/ lately about game size. Now perhaps I’m being a bit judgmental here, but when you have people who are griping about some games taking up too much space don’t you wonder why they are griping about that rather than just buying a house or renting a place that can accommodate large games and larger game crowds?
Look, let’s get real, you aren’t really a Game Geek, a real one, if you buy games that fit your home rather than buy a home to accommodate your games. People who carp about Eagle Games board sizes, or lament not being able to play a real war game because they’re too big aren’t real Geeks. They posers. Also rans. Back markers. Squids.
What kind of person would sell their Warhammer Army or their Napoleonic miniatures because they didn’t have room to play? A dilettante, a dabbler, that’s who. But not a real Geek, a real Geek would figure it out. Then they’d email Eagle Games and bitch at Glenn Drover because they don’t make their boards large enough.
So hopefully in about a month’s time I’ll be back to normal. I really don’t need three bedrooms and the three baths are okay and yes, the garage is large enough that I can almost get everything in it, all that is fine. The real prize is the 14X18 Bonus Room.
Now that I've settled this whole space situation I'm off to email Eagle Games and prod them some more about making a Western USA extension map for Railroad Tycoon and find out if the rumors are true that they're working on a miniatures version of World in Flames.
********************************************************
Gaming sideline time ~
We enjoyed Fairy Tale quite a bit. The rules could be better written Zev, so perhaps in a reprint you can make the flip/unflip mechanic a little less fuzzy?
Way Out West is definitely okay. Not as refined as Martin Wallace did on later designs with similar mechanics, but a solid game.
We have also recently played Mall Of Horror. I like this game very much but it suffers unless there is a full complement of six players. We have played with five and it was good, but I'd never choose to play it with four.
Jumbo-Tron and RoBee can't get enough of RK's Formula Motor Racing and whether we have three or six players on game night they always request it. I am aware that many on BGG pan it slightly for being weak because the last couple of plays are what determines the winner, but I think they're missing the whole thing that makes the game fun ~ it's one of the best "take that" games out there. And moving the little cars back and forth is just plain fun.
I pulled out Reef Encounter and gave the rules a once over. Huh? How the hell do you play this game? These rules make the Power Grid rules look like the state of the art! What a confusing and jumbled mess. I know there are many who sneer at American games but one thing for sure, most American games can be at least partially understood on the first read through.
Okay, I'm done here. I think I'll go log onto The Geek and piss some Euro-Snoots off.
It’s not as if I wasn’t peripherally aware that quite a number of board games take up a fair amount of real estate when you get them spread out, it just never surfaced as a problem for me.
Until now.
Now I don’t have the game tables at my store. Now I don’t have a larger house, replete with “Bonus Room” to set up a large game in.
Now I am temporarily in what I refer to, only partially in jest, as my hovel. It's 900 square feet of early 1970’s luxury, courtesy of Boise-Cascade’s pre-cut, staple and glue home building assembly line from the glory days of Idaho’s first housing boom. That was the one where the state population finally increased to approximately the size of Cleveland.
What this means is I have a garage stuffed to the rafters, a storage rental in Boise, a storage rental about a mile from The Hovel and I still have a full storage building back at Mosquito Acres… along with about 40 boxes, a tall file cabinet, a motorcycle fairing, a printer, two typewriters and a pair of waders in the shop at the old ranch. No wonder my charming former girlfriend (and proud new owner of a large amount of mud and horse manure) keeps asking when I’m getting a new place. She needs the room out there so she can buy new crap and fill up the storage areas.
The other night four of us got together at The Hovel for a little gaming. In attendance was my new friend Shaun, who used to shop at my store in Boise about 20 years ago, his cousin Jumbo-Tron and Jumbo’s brother, RoBee. I’m not a big guy, 5’11” (and descending as I age) and maybe 158 pounds, soaking wet. Shaun is my height but built like a tree stump, wide but not gamer-sized. Jumbo-Tron is aptly named, he’s jumbo. And RoBee, his younger brother is either slightly larger or slightly smaller, it’s hard to tell because he wears those really stupid looking giant skate shoes that are purposely left unlaced and I think they create some sort of visual paradox or something. When I see RoBee at his place of work he looks smaller, when he shows up to game with the shoes on he seems larger.
So there we sat, in the tiny little dining area of The Hovel’s kitchen, playing, of all things, a card game called Fairy Tale. My back was against the door to the garage, Shaun was to my right, the window overlooking the yard to my left and Jumbo-Tron and RoBee towering like a shield wall across the table from me. The little table, one I had actually built myself about 20 years ago, could handle a card game. It even handled Way out West when that was brought out. It did fine for Russian Rails a few weeks ago too. But if we wanted to play World of Warcraft, or any of the Eagle Games, or Mare Nostrum or Formula De or Power Grid we would be screwed. And if we added a fifth player to the tiny little dining area my innate fear of being trapped in a small room by huge gamers would probably rear its ugly head.
So how do Europeans do it? Or people who live in those tiny little houses in Japan? For that matter, how did I play big games in the early days before I bought my first house?
Thinking back, I have some vague and murky memories of large maps spread on living room floors or sawhorses set up with a sheet of plywood on top. In truth, my first home didn’t have a big enough extra room for a really large game so I had a ping-pong table in the garage, wedged in with about 12 motorcycles and a 1962 MG with no top. As a twenty-something gamer I easily adapted to the situation of having big games and small rooms. Other things were less important. And by the time my first child came along I had bought a brand new home with plenty of extra room.
That was 28 years ago and in 28 years I have been totally spoiled. I have either had a large family room, extra bedroom, den, office, basement or a game store with purpose-built tables and I have been able to play any game I want of any size without giving it a second thought.
And now I’m living in… The Hovel.
By the way, if anyone believes for a second that I have any empathy for Europeans, Asians, college students, trailer park residents or gamers who live in a tight situation, I don’t. This article is merely commentary about the fact that some games are big and should not be misconstrued as sympathy. I worked around it when I was in their shoes, so can they.
Time to get to the point here though… I have been looking for a suitable home since I rented The Hovel. This is where things get weird because it wasn’t until about two weeks ago, when I discovered two places the same day that fit what I wanted, that an anomaly in my personality occurred to me that I had never before noticed. It was when I called the rep for the second house and told her that was the one I wanted that it struck me why I chose that one. It’s more money. It’s not any better located. In fact, it might even cost more per month to run and maintain.
But it has what realtors now call “The Bonus Room”.
What struck me about my decision making process was that I never really thought about the fact that when looking for a place to live, gaming space is not optional. This may not be significant to other gamers, but it is to me because I have never thought about it before. When I was a teenaged gamer and when I was in my twenties I simply lived where I could afford or bought what I could scrape the money together for. Then I spent 23 years owning a game store and two large homes in succession. In that period of time playing games became so much a part of my life that now I reject, out of hand, anything that I can’t fit both Jumbo-Tron and RoBee into comfortably, along with several other gamer-sized friends, a game of Railroad Tycoon or Conquest of the Empire, lots of space for snacks and drinks and a pc, TV, stereo, coat rack and spare bathroom. The spare bathroom is vital so I can keep my gaming buddies from seeing my stash of Rogain and Geritol as well as my ear hair trimmer.
All of this transitioning in my life fits in with some of the discussions I see cropping up on http://www.boardgamegeek.com/ lately about game size. Now perhaps I’m being a bit judgmental here, but when you have people who are griping about some games taking up too much space don’t you wonder why they are griping about that rather than just buying a house or renting a place that can accommodate large games and larger game crowds?
Look, let’s get real, you aren’t really a Game Geek, a real one, if you buy games that fit your home rather than buy a home to accommodate your games. People who carp about Eagle Games board sizes, or lament not being able to play a real war game because they’re too big aren’t real Geeks. They posers. Also rans. Back markers. Squids.
What kind of person would sell their Warhammer Army or their Napoleonic miniatures because they didn’t have room to play? A dilettante, a dabbler, that’s who. But not a real Geek, a real Geek would figure it out. Then they’d email Eagle Games and bitch at Glenn Drover because they don’t make their boards large enough.
So hopefully in about a month’s time I’ll be back to normal. I really don’t need three bedrooms and the three baths are okay and yes, the garage is large enough that I can almost get everything in it, all that is fine. The real prize is the 14X18 Bonus Room.
Now that I've settled this whole space situation I'm off to email Eagle Games and prod them some more about making a Western USA extension map for Railroad Tycoon and find out if the rumors are true that they're working on a miniatures version of World in Flames.
********************************************************
Gaming sideline time ~
We enjoyed Fairy Tale quite a bit. The rules could be better written Zev, so perhaps in a reprint you can make the flip/unflip mechanic a little less fuzzy?
Way Out West is definitely okay. Not as refined as Martin Wallace did on later designs with similar mechanics, but a solid game.
We have also recently played Mall Of Horror. I like this game very much but it suffers unless there is a full complement of six players. We have played with five and it was good, but I'd never choose to play it with four.
Jumbo-Tron and RoBee can't get enough of RK's Formula Motor Racing and whether we have three or six players on game night they always request it. I am aware that many on BGG pan it slightly for being weak because the last couple of plays are what determines the winner, but I think they're missing the whole thing that makes the game fun ~ it's one of the best "take that" games out there. And moving the little cars back and forth is just plain fun.
I pulled out Reef Encounter and gave the rules a once over. Huh? How the hell do you play this game? These rules make the Power Grid rules look like the state of the art! What a confusing and jumbled mess. I know there are many who sneer at American games but one thing for sure, most American games can be at least partially understood on the first read through.
Okay, I'm done here. I think I'll go log onto The Geek and piss some Euro-Snoots off.
Sunday, February 05, 2006
the BIG 'game' A
Yep its ON right now as I 'type' this UP! so here's my "obligatory" 'shout-out' about "GO WIN SEAHAWKS!" We'd been awaiting upon THIS for lo these many decades and FINALLY it is "happenin!" I know many others are just as happy upon that little 'factoid' as well, so ROOT for WHOOT you GOOT, and that's 'who' WE gotz! They JUST 'played' some little 'ditty' by "Harrison Ford" and what's UP with 'that'? DAMMZ, anyone ELSE 'do' better? "are you READY for some FOOTBALL?!?" yes, so STFU and 'play' the damm 'game' will yas? sorry about my "FRANCE-land-'speak'!" there, but "hype" goes ONLY so far, while them damm "advert-spazz`rs" just don't 'get it', or so it seems. Most of the times then I just 'click' onto another "pre-set" channel during those, and I would rather 'catch' something else instead. I'll "recap" this as it goes from 'Quarter-1' and on. The Seahawks get the "coin flip" and 'elect to recieve' in this, with them having to "Punt" after a 'set of plays' without 'scoring', and the "Steelers" end up with the BALL on their '20-yard-line', from that going into the "end zone". Penalties aren't helping matters for THEM. '2'-"false starts" with '3' & OUT! with "Punt" to the "Seattle" '38'-yard-line. '2' more SETS of '3'-&-OUT for EACH of them now. oh yeah, from the looks of this, then those 'folks' who GOT the '0'-'0' "line" in their "pools" ought to be "happier" about THIS. oops! too late as Seattle 'scores' a "Field Goal" in the waning 'seconds' of that.2nd 'Quarter'-"yadda yadda yadda", for "Pittsburgh" with defensive 'pick' by "Seattle" and "got nuthin" from that, while the "D-fens" steps up but the Steelers make a BIG 'play' now so that they BOTH got a 'score' = "T D" so 7 to 3 now. It should NOT have been 'given' for theirs "T D", unless you CHEAT like a 'scurvy cheater', but what can you 'do'? while I'm sure that THEY would've on their next attempt, and the NEXT time then I hope that WE 'get' a "controversial CALL" our 'way' ya bastiches! oops! I 'guess' NOT eh? "double-scurvy-cheaters-squared-&-quartered" it would seem huh? boy some folks JUST can't "play fair & square". . .'mumble-grumble-bumble-moanble' "missed 'it' by a 'foot'!" So just before the END of the "half" with "Seattle" on the 'march', then they 'settle' FOR a "Field Goal" and for "naught"! geez-loueeze
3rd 'Quarter'- kicking OFF to the Steelers then they bring it OUT to the HALF the mid-field and start from there. 1st play OFF and they 'score'! not too shabby & "meh!" damm 'lucky' bastiches
so Seattle DEFENSE din`t, but oh yeah they 'did'! NOW the 'O' EARNS scorn with their 2nd MISS of a "Field Goal", and little wonder that the Steelers bested them. But DAMM "luck" is in their 'favor' it would seem, as not much of "playing" is taking place. so instead of this being 14 to 10('16') then it is worse,
4th-'Quarter'-with the "D"-din`t agin with 21 to 10 now when it ought to have been 17 to 14, and what's to say? it SUX! do ANYTHING! why don't this END as a 'pity' `pon us, as it is a letdown for the SEAHAWKS! fans today. There was so much 'promise' in them and let's HOPE like "hell" it don't TAKE another '30'-years to get BACK! dammit! with their "missing" points it didn't HELP then, and it would be MUCH "different" but NO such "luck" there EH!
oh yeah and the "spread" WAS 'covered' in this heh heh Good for YOUS!
As for the other portion of THIS, then I wish to have it become well known, as well as 'established' that MY "Combat Resolution System" will be 'going' as a "commercial" entity. I've already got it 'posted' upon the BGG 'site', while further "refinements" shall 'evolve', as I put them into practices. This has the "dice roll"-LESS-tm, and "Simul-FIRE"-tm methods for the time being, and YES I'm 'serious'! I fully intend and can conceive OF & for yet others once I 'apply' their "specifics" FOR each 'one' of them. ANYONE who would like to partake of the "experience" can MAKE their very OWN "personal use" copies of whatever I conceive, and I would welcome ANY to 'make up' their very 'own' GAME as well. It is WHY I desire to keep the BASICS open and available to whomever. You'd "catch on" FAST then. Then with just the basic "expansions" FOR them you can proceed from ONE to the 'next' or even 'combine' YOURS and 'others' when you gather for whatever. The BEST 'part' of it ALL is that you just whatever 'bits' YOU happen to have while we'd provide distinctive & appropriate 'types' as well in a "Battle Set" but YOU have to seek somone to 'detail' these yourself, OR that WILL "cost extra", and try this sometime to 'see' what I 'mean'.
Saturday, February 04, 2006
Gaming at Work
It sounds like an ideal job concept for a gamer doesn't it? Unfortunately this piece is not about being paid to play games, but about playing games at your, well actually at my, place of employment.
I work for a large organisation in two interconnected eight-storey buildings down by the riverfront at the Docklands in Melbourne, Australia.
The buildings are open plan with a large number of meeting rooms, including some outside the security zone near the reception area and some public places in the interconnects between the two buildings.
The second building was opened in October 2004 and Gamers@Dockers was founded by Greg Collins, David Coutts and myself shortly thereafter.
We sent out initial announcements to four main groups:
1) Gamers that we knew inside the organisation (a small group)
2) IT staff within the organisation (more gamers per square inch than the general population)
3) Other gamers in Melbourne that we knew
4) boardgamegeek where I requested that an Australia > Victoria sub forum be set up
When we started Gamers@Dockers we realised that there were at least four or five gamers working in the same building so we started to hold occasional lunchtime game sessions.
We utilised one of the public areas that had a decent sized table. Our lunchtime is an hour in length, so this does immediately rule out quite a few games, but still leaves a surprising number eligble for play. Card games have been the most common with Gang of Four, Mag Blast (classic and 2nd edition), David and Goliath, Lost Cities, Bang!, High Society and Guillotine all being played. We have also played Ra, Tigris & Euphrates, TransAmerica, Tower of Babel, Duell and Lord of the Rings: the Confrontation as well.
The current mainstay is Gang of Four. Our lunchtime group is generally four or five, although it can vary from two to six. We play Gang of Four with three to five players. We have a five player variant where the dealership is rotated around the table, with the dealer sitting out of the hand and the first player is the person with the multicoloured one. As I work through my list of unplayed games at home I might introduce some of them at to lunchtime games at work. Frank's Zoo, 6 Nimmt! and Tichu spring to mind as possible candidates.
Of course we also like to play games that go for longer than one hour too and that was one of the reasons for setting up Gamers@Dockers.
Initially we ran Gamers@Dockers sessions every 2nd and 4th Thursday of the month, but towards the end of 2005 we moved to every Thursday.
The sessions are scheduled to start at 5:30 pm and generally run until somewhere around 10-11 pm. They could run later as the security desk is 24 hours a day, although I think the main limiting factors are that public transport starts to peter out at about midnight and most of us have to work the next day. This still gives a gaming window of about five hours, which means with a bit of pre-arranging some quite long games can be scheduled. I haven't organised a session of Die Macher yet, but possibly sometime this year I might.
There are two twelve-seat rooms and two six-seat rooms in the public area where we meet. We normally have three or four games running in the first twelve seat room and spill over to other rooms as required.
Before we moved to weekly sessions we were getting up to twenty-five people each time. Not everyone, myself included, can come every week, so numbers dropped to about ten when we first went weekly and are now back up to fifteen or so. There are probably seven or so regulars from our work and the rest are from Melbourne at large. Some work nearby, others travel quite a way. Thanks mainly to the boardgamegeek.com listing we also have had interstate and international visitors as well. One of our very early regulars was a German backpacker who was spending a few months in Melbourne.
There are no membership fees and no club library of games. There are usually about four people who bring in a collection of games that make up the selection to choose from. I have often taken in unplayed games and found someone who is willing to teach a bunch of newbies. I find this is a good way of working through my rather long list of unplayed games.
The only mark against Gamers@Dockers is that due to the cost of babysitting and Daughter the Elder's extracurricular activities it is not financially viable for both Melissa and I to attend together except occasionally during the school holidays. Fortunately we have gaming friends who are happy to come over to our house to indulge us.
Mmm, meeples taste like...
I work for a large organisation in two interconnected eight-storey buildings down by the riverfront at the Docklands in Melbourne, Australia.
The buildings are open plan with a large number of meeting rooms, including some outside the security zone near the reception area and some public places in the interconnects between the two buildings.
The second building was opened in October 2004 and Gamers@Dockers was founded by Greg Collins, David Coutts and myself shortly thereafter.
We sent out initial announcements to four main groups:
1) Gamers that we knew inside the organisation (a small group)
2) IT staff within the organisation (more gamers per square inch than the general population)
3) Other gamers in Melbourne that we knew
4) boardgamegeek where I requested that an Australia > Victoria sub forum be set up
When we started Gamers@Dockers we realised that there were at least four or five gamers working in the same building so we started to hold occasional lunchtime game sessions.
We utilised one of the public areas that had a decent sized table. Our lunchtime is an hour in length, so this does immediately rule out quite a few games, but still leaves a surprising number eligble for play. Card games have been the most common with Gang of Four, Mag Blast (classic and 2nd edition), David and Goliath, Lost Cities, Bang!, High Society and Guillotine all being played. We have also played Ra, Tigris & Euphrates, TransAmerica, Tower of Babel, Duell and Lord of the Rings: the Confrontation as well.
The current mainstay is Gang of Four. Our lunchtime group is generally four or five, although it can vary from two to six. We play Gang of Four with three to five players. We have a five player variant where the dealership is rotated around the table, with the dealer sitting out of the hand and the first player is the person with the multicoloured one. As I work through my list of unplayed games at home I might introduce some of them at to lunchtime games at work. Frank's Zoo, 6 Nimmt! and Tichu spring to mind as possible candidates.
Of course we also like to play games that go for longer than one hour too and that was one of the reasons for setting up Gamers@Dockers.
Initially we ran Gamers@Dockers sessions every 2nd and 4th Thursday of the month, but towards the end of 2005 we moved to every Thursday.
The sessions are scheduled to start at 5:30 pm and generally run until somewhere around 10-11 pm. They could run later as the security desk is 24 hours a day, although I think the main limiting factors are that public transport starts to peter out at about midnight and most of us have to work the next day. This still gives a gaming window of about five hours, which means with a bit of pre-arranging some quite long games can be scheduled. I haven't organised a session of Die Macher yet, but possibly sometime this year I might.
There are two twelve-seat rooms and two six-seat rooms in the public area where we meet. We normally have three or four games running in the first twelve seat room and spill over to other rooms as required.
Before we moved to weekly sessions we were getting up to twenty-five people each time. Not everyone, myself included, can come every week, so numbers dropped to about ten when we first went weekly and are now back up to fifteen or so. There are probably seven or so regulars from our work and the rest are from Melbourne at large. Some work nearby, others travel quite a way. Thanks mainly to the boardgamegeek.com listing we also have had interstate and international visitors as well. One of our very early regulars was a German backpacker who was spending a few months in Melbourne.
There are no membership fees and no club library of games. There are usually about four people who bring in a collection of games that make up the selection to choose from. I have often taken in unplayed games and found someone who is willing to teach a bunch of newbies. I find this is a good way of working through my rather long list of unplayed games.
The only mark against Gamers@Dockers is that due to the cost of babysitting and Daughter the Elder's extracurricular activities it is not financially viable for both Melissa and I to attend together except occasionally during the school holidays. Fortunately we have gaming friends who are happy to come over to our house to indulge us.
Mmm, meeples taste like...
Friday, February 03, 2006
A Good Excuse to Play More Games/Finally Came Up With a Tag Line
Alternate Title: Minus 40 Degrees of Collaboration
I like to play games that are new to me. Some people like to play the hell out of a few games and rarely, if ever, experience new games. I suppose most people fall in the middle somewhere.
In my circle of gaming friends there a couple others who I consider to be as enthusiastic as I am to discover new games. There are a couple others who strongly prefer to play games they are familiar with. As you might imagine this leads to some tension on game night. Should we play a tried and true game like Puerto Rico for the umpteenth time or try a new game that we can expect to make some mistakes and spend time looking up and arguing rules?
Don't get me wrong. I like Puerto Rico. It's a good game to break out regularly. I even like to play bad games a few times just to make sure I'm not missing something, but more importantly for me I have a strong desire to expand my horizons.
My owned-but-unplayed-list includes Taj Mahal, Settlers of Nurnberg, Die Macher, Reef Encounter, Keythedral, La Citta, Revolution: The Dutch Revolt, Citadels, Lowenherz, Conquest of Empire, 7 Ages, Tichu, Mu and Mehr, Ricochet Robots, Indonesia, Borderlands, Attack (and Expansion), Mystic Wood, A House Divided, Chariot Lords, Polarity, Junta, Samarkand, 2038, Sienna, Anno 1503 among many lesser ranked games*. Many of these games have been sitting unplayed for several years. For every game that sits unplayed I must have 2 games that have only hit the table once and are begging to be played again.
After one contentious game night I awoke from a deep sleep with an epiphany. True story by the way. We need an evening dedicated to learning new games. It doesn't need to be a long night. Just a couple hours would do, so it could even be during the week. We don't need to have a large group, just a few people who are willing and are expecting to learn a new game. We have no shortage of unplayed games, and not just mine. Having a night dedicated to learning new games would allow us to pick and choose which games to introduce to the main group on our regular game night. I think much of the reluctance to play new games could be mitigated if we could cull the stinkers before introducing them to the others.
A couple of us agreed to gather on Monday evenings with the goal of learning new games. So far it has worked pretty well. Everyone involved knows that it is new-game night, so no one can complain if we don't play Settlers of Catan or Traders of Genoa. No one even suggests it.
The games we play don't even have to be new to everyone involved. We have played several games that were new to most of the group.
So far this approach has worked well. Those of us who like it get to learn new games, and the others don't feel obligated to play games they don't want to play. I've found that new-game-night has the added benefit of giving us a better idea of strategy and pitfalls that can occur in the game. We can then share that information with the regular group on Friday should we determine that a certain game will go over on regular game night.
I've found that people who like to stick to a few familiar games do so for a reason. They are often frustrated when they make a move that they thought was good but turns out to be a mistake. There are usually charges thrown about of changing the rules, or you didn't tell me that was a bad move. I (like to think I) take such mistakes in stride, count it as a lesson learned and apply that knowledge in the next game. Others let it ruin their game experience. Fleshing out games first helps greatly in this aspect, but most importantly it is a great excuse to play more often.
On a completely unrelated note;
Woooo-Hooooo. It's February!!! Only 3 more months 'til spring!!!!!!
Coldfoot
Boardgamers do it for hours
* Doge, Oh Pharaoh, Freedom in the Galaxy, Mall World, Dragon Hunt, Terra, A Line In the Sand, Medici, Medieval, Tyrus, Tongiaki, Panzer Leader, Origins, Clash of Gladiators, Divine Right, Silverton, Bobby Lee, Victory, Pacific Victory, Ur: 1830 B.C., Oriente, Alexander, Beowulf, Mystery Rummy: Jack the Ripper, Kings and Things, The Motley Fool, Africa, Quest for the Dragonlords, GemQuest, numerous game expansions... and others.
I like to play games that are new to me. Some people like to play the hell out of a few games and rarely, if ever, experience new games. I suppose most people fall in the middle somewhere.
In my circle of gaming friends there a couple others who I consider to be as enthusiastic as I am to discover new games. There are a couple others who strongly prefer to play games they are familiar with. As you might imagine this leads to some tension on game night. Should we play a tried and true game like Puerto Rico for the umpteenth time or try a new game that we can expect to make some mistakes and spend time looking up and arguing rules?
Don't get me wrong. I like Puerto Rico. It's a good game to break out regularly. I even like to play bad games a few times just to make sure I'm not missing something, but more importantly for me I have a strong desire to expand my horizons.
My owned-but-unplayed-list includes Taj Mahal, Settlers of Nurnberg, Die Macher, Reef Encounter, Keythedral, La Citta, Revolution: The Dutch Revolt, Citadels, Lowenherz, Conquest of Empire, 7 Ages, Tichu, Mu and Mehr, Ricochet Robots, Indonesia, Borderlands, Attack (and Expansion), Mystic Wood, A House Divided, Chariot Lords, Polarity, Junta, Samarkand, 2038, Sienna, Anno 1503 among many lesser ranked games*. Many of these games have been sitting unplayed for several years. For every game that sits unplayed I must have 2 games that have only hit the table once and are begging to be played again.
After one contentious game night I awoke from a deep sleep with an epiphany. True story by the way. We need an evening dedicated to learning new games. It doesn't need to be a long night. Just a couple hours would do, so it could even be during the week. We don't need to have a large group, just a few people who are willing and are expecting to learn a new game. We have no shortage of unplayed games, and not just mine. Having a night dedicated to learning new games would allow us to pick and choose which games to introduce to the main group on our regular game night. I think much of the reluctance to play new games could be mitigated if we could cull the stinkers before introducing them to the others.
A couple of us agreed to gather on Monday evenings with the goal of learning new games. So far it has worked pretty well. Everyone involved knows that it is new-game night, so no one can complain if we don't play Settlers of Catan or Traders of Genoa. No one even suggests it.
The games we play don't even have to be new to everyone involved. We have played several games that were new to most of the group.
So far this approach has worked well. Those of us who like it get to learn new games, and the others don't feel obligated to play games they don't want to play. I've found that new-game-night has the added benefit of giving us a better idea of strategy and pitfalls that can occur in the game. We can then share that information with the regular group on Friday should we determine that a certain game will go over on regular game night.
I've found that people who like to stick to a few familiar games do so for a reason. They are often frustrated when they make a move that they thought was good but turns out to be a mistake. There are usually charges thrown about of changing the rules, or you didn't tell me that was a bad move. I (like to think I) take such mistakes in stride, count it as a lesson learned and apply that knowledge in the next game. Others let it ruin their game experience. Fleshing out games first helps greatly in this aspect, but most importantly it is a great excuse to play more often.
On a completely unrelated note;
Woooo-Hooooo. It's February!!! Only 3 more months 'til spring!!!!!!
Coldfoot
Boardgamers do it for hours
* Doge, Oh Pharaoh, Freedom in the Galaxy, Mall World, Dragon Hunt, Terra, A Line In the Sand, Medici, Medieval, Tyrus, Tongiaki, Panzer Leader, Origins, Clash of Gladiators, Divine Right, Silverton, Bobby Lee, Victory, Pacific Victory, Ur: 1830 B.C., Oriente, Alexander, Beowulf, Mystery Rummy: Jack the Ripper, Kings and Things, The Motley Fool, Africa, Quest for the Dragonlords, GemQuest, numerous game expansions... and others.
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Six Degrees of Collaboration
"Reiner Knizia," Eric said.We were at DunDraCon, working our way through a yearly alcoholic binge, and at the same time playing the newest geek-game, Six Degrees of Bruno Faidutti. I knew Eric thought he had me stumped, and not just because of the quirky smirk on his face. He knew--hell, we all knew--that Reiner Knizia had clearly and publicly stated that he didn't do collaborations. He appreciated the heck out of his playtesters, but his core designs were his and his alone.
But I had something in my back pocket--a pair of serial collaborations that were easily overlooked. I'd been hoarding them all night waiting for just this opportunity.
"Four," I said and smirked myself as the smile dropped off Eric's face. "Knizia revised Jurgen-Wrede's classic as 'Carcassonne: The Castle'. It was also revised by Leo Colovini as 'Carcassonne: The Discovery'. Leo Colovini and Michael Schacht designed 'Magnus Grecia' and Michael Schacht and Bruno Faidutti designed a couple of different games, of which you've played 'Fist of Dragonstones' and 'The Hollywood! Card Game'."
And then Eric's face lit right back up. He'd been playing me. "I can top that at three," he said. "Colovini and Faidutti directly collaborated on a little-known 2001 game called Vabanque. That cuts out Schacht and drops the Faidutti number by one."
I sighed and signalled to the waitress that I'd be paying for the next round. We were up to green in the Rainbow and so I ordered everyone grasshoppers.
Despite the loss, I was feeling good.
The Art of Collaboration
Collaborations are a common event in the gaming landscape, much moreso than in any other creative endeavor at a similar level. Perhaps there's more opportunity for rampant, chaotic creativity before the hard work begins. Perhaps it gives you the advantage of having someone else to fix the mistakes you can't see, a sort of in-house developer before you hand your game off for actual development. In any case, there are several designers who constantly collaborate, sometimes with a single friend, sometimes with many.
Collaboration itself can encompass many types of creative interaction. I've experienced a very personal, direct sort of collaboration, where a friend and I brainstorm in real time, writing down notes as we come to agreement, then I head off to clean that all up, and sort out anything we missed before I bring it back for another round. Bruno Faidutti, meanwhile, talks about a much more indirect form of collaboration, where he and his collaborator might go off with just the most basic ideas, and then come back with two games whose best mechanics are then integrated. Of course this can also result in two different games.
Serial collaboration involves a new designer coming in and iterating an existing game system without necessarily working with the original designer. Thus we've seen two serial designs of Carcassonne (The Castle and The Discovery) and numerous serial designs of the Empire Builder system. Bruno Faidutti just recently did a serial design of Warrior Knights.
Development is a slightly different bird, as usually the developer's role is considered subsidiary and somewhat invisible. However some development is big enough that the developer's name ends up on the box next to the designer's, and I think when it reaches that extent you'd have to call that a collaboration too. I'm thinking primarily of Fantasy Flight Games here. I know how extensive the work that Kevin Wilson did on Arkham Horror was, and I'd suspect that Darrell Hardy's contribution to Runebound was similar.
With Kevin Bacon as Bruno Faidutti
There's no doubt to me that the Kevin Bacon of our gaming industry is Bruno Faidutti. He's done multiple collaborations with other designers in France, including Bruno Cathala, Serge Laget, and Ludovic Maublanc. But he's also crossed national lines and collaborated with Italian Leo Colovini and several Americans including Alan Moon and Mike Selinker, as well as German Michael Schacht.Though he's the center piece for my "six degrees" game (and I think quite a well-warranted one), Faidutti is far from the only well-partnered designer. Another nexus point in a graph of designer collaborations is Leo Colovini himself. Besides his own Venice Connection (founded with Dario De Toffoli and Alex Randolph) he's also collaborated with several Italians, with Frenchmen Duccio Vitale and Bruno Faidutti and also with Michael Schacht.
What particularly strikes me about European collaborations is that they generally seem to be at a personal level. You have designers working with each other across international lines, with nothing in common but their games. It's pretty rare that they form companies together (with Venice Connection being that rare exception). Instead they work together in a dynamic fashion when they feel like it.
And America Providing the Production Studios
The power of Bruno Faidutti is such that his reach extends both across the Atlantic and across time. Tracking from his designs out through collaborators' collaborators we shortly come to Fantasy Flight Games, Hasbro, and Cheapass Games, three modern game companies. In addition (thanks to Don Greenwood, Alan Moon, and Mike Selinker) we encounter the American game companies of the 1970s and 1980s: TSR, GDW, Yaquinto, the old Avalon Hill, and the Old Mayfair.The American companies are notable for how different they are from the European collaborative model. Here collaboration is done because people work together, and there's a much higher incidence of designers actually working at companies. That's how Alan Moon got his start after all, at Avalon Hill and Parker Brothers, before he moved on to independent work and the European collaborative model.
Cheapass and Fantasy Flight still seem to work much like those older companies, so it's not just an issue of age.
Conclusion
At right you'll find a link to my complete chart of collaborations. Click on it to view an ~800x1300 copy of the entire graph. It should be fully readable at screen resolution.I traced through all of Faidutti's major collaborators and extended out from there until I'd filled a bit more than an 11x17" sheet of electronic paper. I'd originally expected to have a few dozen designers, probably segregated into a couple of different communities. I expected to see Faidutti's collaborators, Kramer's collaborators, and the people who've been working with Fantasy Flight Games, but I didn't think they'd connect up.
Instead, as the project grew, more and more people glommed on, until it truly did become a "Six Degrees of Bruno Faidutti". After a bit I started ignoring singleton leaves of the graph: people who had done one collaboration, but not much else. Sometime after that I started ignoring entire branches that I wasn't familiar with. I could have dug much deeper into the Italian designers, since they seem to work together quite a lot. I also had pretty full access to wargame designers through a few different nodes (including Richard Borg, Frank Chadwick, and Bill Fawcett). I ultimately decided to ignore branches where I didn't think most people would recognize the names or the games. I also ended up ignoring some connections to FASA and Games Workshop that showed up when I finally connected in Warrior Knights, mainly because I didn't have any space to fit them in. Maybe in some future iteration ...
I quite enjoy the fact that the graph constantly loops. When I got down to AH's Don Greenwood on one side of the graph and Mayfair's James Griffin on the other I realized that I could connect the two sides of my graph through Yaquinto, and I did, even though I'm not familiar with most of those designers. I also enjoy the connections that Cheapass and Eagle both form between Hasbro and Fantasy Flight and I was quite happy when I discovered that Derek Carver formed a second connection down to Don Greenwood of Titan fame.
And who's the designer that's the most degrees removed from Bruno Faidutti? That'd be Bruno Faidutti, at 16, forming a perfect circuit. He designed several games with Michael Schacht who designed Magna Grecia with Leo Colovini who connects up to Klaus-Jurgen Wrede then Reiner Knizia through Carcassonne: The Discovery and Carcassonne: The Castle. Knizia's work was revised by Don Greenwood as Titan: The Arena, who forms the start of the Yaquinto chain that goes through Michael Matheney (Circus Maximus), J. Stephen Peek (Shooting Stars), Craig Taylor (Shenandoah), and Neal Zimmer (Naval War). This brings us up into Mayfair where we connect up to James D. Griffin with Hammer's Slammers, to Bill Fawcett with a variety of games, and to Darwin Bromley with the classic Empire Builder. Still in the 1980s we connect to Tom Wham for Iron Dragon then to Richard Hamblen for The Great Khan Game. We're then greeted by Alan Moon who designed Fortress Europa with Hamblen and he brings us back to the present with his two collaborations with Bruno Faidutti, Diamant and For a Few Orc's More.
Whew.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Board Game => Card Game
Some of the most popular strategy board games have been recreated into card games with little loss of popularity, fun or strategy. It’s amazing to me that someone has managed to take the best parts of the games and converted them into a portable, easy-to-set-up card game when the board and pieces seem so integral to the game.
Settlers of Catan, a game which so many gamers recall as their intro to Euro-games, has a modular board which would seem to be a major part of what makes the game and yet someone considered it a good choice to be made into a card game. It’s a 2-player game rather than 3-4 and maybe that’s why it works without a board. It lost some of the interaction between players but that has been replaced with variety in the building of your own personal province.
Puerto Rico, with its many chits and bits, wouldn’t seem a likely choice for a card game but San Juan has been well-received. It’s a lighter game since it’s introduced luck into the game with the card draw, but the character selection and building portion of the game are intact and hand-management has been added. Such ingenuity in converting it has got to be applauded and marveled at.
Tigris and Euphrates, a VERY popular game, would seem to rely on its board since placement of pieces is what the game is all about and yet it now has a child which you can take anywhere. From what I’ve read, it appears to parallel its parent very well although I doubt it will ever walk in his shoes.
Ra, one of the most lauded auction games, was re-themed and converted to a card game. O.k., that one didn’t go over so well with Ra fans mainly due to the absence of an equivalent to the disaster tiles but many still like it as a lighter version, especially for teaching to new players.
So, as a purely mental exercise, which of your favorite games would you like to see reborn in a smaller package—portable and easy to set up but without losing too much of what you love about it?
How about Torres? We could be rid of the tediousness of having to collect and stack our tower pieces for each round. Placement on the board and height to the board is where the game is but I’m sure some brilliant designer can figure a way to overcome that.
Through the Desert may suffer as a card game since it would lack those candy-like pastel camels but I’m sure the cards could have equally endearing drawings of pastel camels. And you could pop them right into a pocket and weave your way through a paper desert wherever you go.
Wouldn’t it be nice to play Tikal without having to sort and stack all those pieces? If someone could figure a way do it for Puerto Rico, why not Tikal?
In a couple of years, Caylus could be a contender. Once all the hubbub has died down and it’s settled into its appropriate ratings niche, it could be revived with a card game version.
Who knows but that a suggestion here may kick the turning wheels of inspiration in someone’s head into high gear and a wonderful new game will emerge.
~~~~~~~~~
Games
This week I got my copy of Commands & Colors: Ancients and spent about 5 hours putting the stickers on the pieces. That sounds like a long time when some other players have said it took them 2-3 hours but I was also watching CSI and Medium so my attention wasn’t solely on my task. That and I’m as picky as you get about placement.
One of the most obvious differences between Ancients and Memoir ’44 is that there are more types of units available, most with their own unique movement rates, strengths in combat, and special rules that apply. I haven’t played with the elephants yet but I’m looking forward to my first elephant rampage!
The next big addition is the difference between Ranged Combat units and Close Combat units which seems to this inexperienced wargamer to add a level of strategy which is missing in Memoir ’44. Some units cannot fire from a distance—they have to get in there and fight hand to hand—but they’re stronger in a battle (roll more dice) than the units that have the option of Ranged or Close Combat.
The drawback to Close Combat is another addition to Ancients. The defender now has the ability to return the attack under some circumstances. I think this is very cool since it removes a little of the bad luck if you can’t draw a card which lets you order that unit.
Ancients has also added Leaders and they aren’t just another block to move around, offering scant help on occasion. They give you an extra hit symbol when battling from their hex or an adjacent hex, let you ignore one retreat flag for their hex, and lets foot units make a Bonus Close Combat attack after advancing. Nice guys to have around and fairly hard to kill unless they’re alone.
I know some people are disappointed that the game didn’t come with miniatures but I like the blocks. They’re easier to move around in a group and the different sizes are useful for assessing the board at a glance. I also think it would be hard to tell the difference between the types of infantry and cavalry if it were done with miniatures whereas the green circles, blue triangles and red squares are very easy to display on the blocks. Besides, miniatures like the ones in Memoir have a tendency to come with strange quirks like the guns that shoot around corners and the infantrymen that are perpetually leaning into the wind.
I AM disappointed that the Light Infantry and the Auxilia units’ pictures are so hard to tell apart, especially for older eyes like mine, but that may get easier with more play. I’ve found that laying at least one block in the hex down makes it easier to see the difference between them, at least in the lighting that I play under.
This is one of those games that has invaded my thoughts long after I finished playing it and I can’t wait to play again. I was looking for a war game with a little more strategy and control than Memoir ’44 while not being overwhelming in the rules department and I think I’ve found it.
~~~~~~~~
Until next time, watch your flanks.
Mary
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