Games in the classroom

As a reward for good behaviour, Biggie's teachers decided that the class would have a games day to celebrate the end of the term. Initially it was going to be all boardgames, all the time, but lots of the children wanted to bring their own games to school, so 'our' part of the day was cut back to two hours.

After much consideration, I cut the list of games to take back to around 17. Gregor had kindly offered to help out, and he brought a couple as well, although we found there was less time to talk than we had expected.

We started the day by talking about games - what makes a game a game? First response: "It's about having fun with your friends and spending time with them" - how can I top that?!

Next, we talked about rules for games. There was a lot of discussion about cheating and why that's not acceptable. I used as a basis the rules that Giles Pritchard has suggested - although I condensed them to a few major points:

• Board games are games; the idea of playing them is to have fun in good company.
• You must listen to the rules explainer.
• Cheating is admitting defeat and is completely unacceptable. If a person in a game you are playing is caught cheating the game should be ended immediately and a new game begun – with the promise that cheating will not occur.
• Always treat the game and the game pieces better than you would treat your own game. – After you have finished playing the game there should be no sign that you played it except for a pleasant memory.
• Setting up and cleaning up are a part of the game, you need to do your share.
• Be a good loser and an even better winner.

We summed them all up with the Knizia quote, which we put up on the board as a motto for the day:

“When playing a game the goal is to win,
but it is the goal that is important, not the winning”

I had planned for this to lead into a discussion of how games have designers just like books have authors, but the natives were getting a little restless so we jumped straight into theme, as a way to introduce the first batch of games.

I'd prepared a quick table of the games that I'd taken with a quick overview of each for me, Gregor and the teacher.

Here's what I had about the themed games:

Game	Number of Players	Notes
Incan Gold (Alan R Moon and Bruno Faidutti)	3-8	EXPLORERS! Explore a ruined temple and collect treasures – but if you go too far you might lose it all! 5 explorations = 1 game. Disasters only count the second time.
For Sale (Stefan Dorra)	3-6	GET RICH! Buy and sell property – the winner is the person with the most money at the end. Part 1: Auction properties (buy with money) Part 2: Sell properties (for cheques).
Hey that’s my fish (Günter Cornett & Alvydas Jakeliunas)	2-4	PENGUINS! The players are penguins, trying to catch as many fish as possible. Strategy is to isolate an area from the other players.
Fearsome Floors (Friedemann Friese)	2-7	MONSTER! Race game – players have 14 turns to escape from the monster. Part 1: Eliminated pieces are returned to the player. Ends when all but 2 tiles have been turned over Part 2: Eliminated pieces are eliminated forever.
Cartagena (Leo Colovini)	2-5	PIRATES! Play cards to move forward to the next empty square with a matching symbol Move backwards to an occupied square to collect 1 or 2 more cards.
Pick Picknic (Stefan Dorra)	2-6	CHICKENS! Players compete to get the most food – but are they a corn-eating chicken or a chicken-eating fox?
Pickomino (Reiner Knizia)	2-7	CHICKENS! But this time it’s worms that they want. Yahtzee-style dice game. Remember: You MUST have rolled a worm before you can pick up a tile. Fast rules: Turn over highest tile AND the tile that is returned.

and some others that I took out at that stage:

Game	Number of Players	Notes
Sherlock	2-6+	Memory game testing out-of-sequence memory
Apples to Apples Junior	4-10	All players have 5 red cards; take turns to be the judge (flip a green card). Best red card match gets the green card – winner is first to 4.
Ingenious (Reiner Knizia)	1-4	Match the pattern to place tiles & score in 6 different colours Only your LOWEST score counts! Use paper scoresheets instead of wooden cubes

The children separated into four groups.

• Gregor took a group of girls who were desperate to play For Sale. This was a huge hit with the kids - at the end of the session, they begged me to leave it so they could play it again.
• I took a group of girls and boys who were interested in Fearsome Floors. It was very popular but the kids found it a bit too complicated, especially when I had to move away for a little while
• The teacher sat down with a group of boys who were very interested in Apples to Apples. This was amazing - they played it for over an hour!
• Biggie sat on the floor to teach Pickomino - it seemed to go over very well, too, although I didn't hear any chicken noises from the group.

Meanwhile, one boy was roaming the classroom with Incan Gold in hand, not wanting to play anything else, and another girl was wandering around watching but not wanting to join in.

My Fearsome Floors group moved on to Sherlock and Otto, who had been playing Catch the Match quietly by herself, came to join in. She was pretty pleased to finish in second place in the group of five eight to ten year olds. Meanwhile Gregor had enticed the For Sale girls to play Incan Gold (by promising another game of For Sale later on in the day). Surprisingly, this wasn't much of a hit - they were too interested in getting back to For Sale to enjoy Incan Gold.

I'd prepared some journal pages for the students to reflect on the games they played in between new games. These were filled in with differing levels of detail and success, but with some great answers:

Game	Rating	What I Liked	Something I Learned	Next time I will
Apples to Apples	8	That it had a lot of risk	That you can do opposites	Have a lot of fun!
Make ‘n’ Break	10	It was VERY fun.	It was constructive	Have a lot of fun!
For Sale		It is really fun and I bought a lot of houses	Money!	Do better
Incan Gold		It was really fun	Take your chances	Get more jewels
Pickomino	7	The temptation!	It’s hard!	Play better (hopefully)
Incan Gold		The temptation	That it’s easy to lose	Play with more people and have more fun
Pickomino	10	The temptation and the worms	How lucky you can be!!	Not so much of risk taker
Apples to apples	4	It was funny	That you don’t need to be honest
Apples to Apples	10	It was funny	You don’t need to be honest	Be better
Polarity	6	It was a challenge		Be better
Dancing eggs	9.5	I liked how it was really hard and a challenge to do the actions. I WON!	Never think that anything’s easy	Do the exact same thing!
Finstere Flure	9 Excellent	It was so scary how the monster walked to try and eat you up!	X	Try to go first so I don’t get locked in! (by the other players’ pieces)
Sherlock	5 OK	How you had to use your memory	X	Try to remember much, much more
Fearsome Floors		There was a monster	You don’t always need a dice	Try to win
Sherlock		I WON!!!	You need a REALLY good memory	I’ll win AGAIN.
For Sale		It’s fun and I got to buy good houses	How to sell houses	Not spend too much money
Incan Gold		It was fun	Take your chance	Do something

We came back together as a group to discuss the games we'd played, and what skills we had been using.

• Memory (heh - I pointed out that Otto had come second)
  
• Deciding when to take a risk
• Spending your money
• Opposites (this from the Apples to Apples group, who had played some rounds looking for something that was unlike the faced card)
• Dividing up the treasures
  

To finish up, I took out some games that used a skill that we hadn't used yet: dexterity. We had two groups playing Tier auf Tier, one playing Make 'n' Break and one playing Dancing Eggs - and a copy of Polarity for everyone to try out.

Game	Rating	What I Liked	Something I Learned	Next time I will
Dancing Eggs	5	Dancing eggs was a really fun game
Animal on animal		Stacking animal	How to stacking animals	Try harder
Tier auf Tier		It’s easy	The rules	Try harder
Polarity	9	It was a huge challenge because if the slightest thing was out of place it would fall	I learnt about magnets and balance!	Try and get three!

Overall, the day was a huge success. The teacher liked games, the journal pages, and the way the kids were engaged. Best of all - they're all (teacher and students) keen to do it again :)

To sum up the session:

What I liked

• Having someone (Gregor) to help demo the games was invaluable.
• The game journal pages worked well and made a great record of the day (where they were used)
• Finishing with dexterity games was fantastic, although Dancing Eggs got a bit rowdy
  

Something I learned

• Games work best with supervision - especially if they have a mechanic the kids haven't seen before (eg Finstere Flure)
• It's difficult to involve some kids in the classroom activity, even if they are interested in the material
• Having games that use a range of different skills works well for the larger groups
  

Next time I will

• Try to take fewer games (I say this every time)
• Introduce the game journal pages at the start of the session rather than as games finish.
  

Boy, I stink at this, and golly it was fun

We played High Society again this week as a short game to cap the evening. Once again I lost. I scored no points whatsoever. As readers of last week’s column may remember, I frequently do poorly at auction games with unclear ending times. I keep pulling back from paying high prices in an auction while thinking that in the long run my thriftiness will net me some bargains. But there frequently is no long run.

But I still had a good time.

This week’s question is why we like games we are no darn good at. I can think of several games that I enjoy in spite of my poor performance. Hammer of the Scots, Imperial, Struggle of Empires, and Age of Empires III are games that I like—but have never won.

I think one reason we can enjoy such games is that we believe we could win them sometime in the future. Even though I haven’t won these games, I never thought that I was out of my depth playing them. I either came in close behind the winner, or I ended up with a good idea of what I would do differently next time.

My situation in these games never seemed hopeless—at least before the final turns. In fact, other players often seem to think that I will win Age of Empires—until Charlie comes zooming up from behind with his sneaky colonization strategy.

I contrast this with my one and only play of Age of Steam. By the second turn, I knew I had made a major mistake and that my position was hopeless. I spent the rest of the game pouting. I don’t believe I will ever enjoy a game that makes me feel stupid. I am certainly willing to try Age of Steam again to see if my IQ has improved, but games that are unforgiving of players may find that players reciprocate that sentiment.

It also helps if the games we are lousy at are short. I will happily play High Society again and again to see if I can overcome my own thriftiness streak and actually score some points. But if I can’t, I still haven’t lost more than a half hour or so of my time.

It also helps to have a sense of humor about yourself. To be amused at your own occasional ineptitude.

In fact, I’m still smiling at the though of last night’s low score. I’m up for another game of High Society right now. Want to play? I can almost guarantee I will lose.

Backwards Brainteaser and New Fortnightly Puzzler / Old Puzzler Answer

The Backwards Brainteaser Game

I came up with this little game/brainteaser several months ago. I've mentioned it casually here on Gone Gaming, but I held off showing it because I was searching for a publisher. So far no bites, so I'm debuting it here. I think it should be a computer game because of the unusual movement mechanism, but I'll let you be the final judge. Instead of the usual brainteaser and article, this will stand in for both.

If anyone has any interest in this beyond casual playing, please contact me at smattathias@gmail.com. If you feel the urge to share it with others, please give me credit.

For the puzzle I'll be sharing today, you will need the following:

7 pennies

1 nickel

1 dime (or pawn of any sort)

1 pen

1 sheet of paper

Using the pen, draw a 2 x 9 grid on the piece of paper so that each unit comfortably holds any coin. Label the vertical axis A and B so that the A is next to the bottom row and B next to the top row. Label the horizontal axis 1 through 9, left to right. The labeling should look like this:

B

A

__1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9__

To practice how the movement works, I want to show you two different scenarios.

Place pennies on A3, A4, A5, A6, and A7 (we won't be using the B row in the example. Place the dime (or pawn) on A7; this is you.

The movement rules are as follows:

1) When you move in a given orthogonal direction (N, S, E, or W) and DO NOT land on the last penny in that direction, the furthest penny in that direction will move to the next available spot in the opposite direction (the demonstration of this will be much simpler than the language makes it out to be).

2) When you move in a given orthogonal direction and DO land on the last penny in that direction, nothing happens and the layout remains the same.

3) You may move in any orthogonal direction (N, S, E, W), go back and forth, cross your path multiple times, etc. In short, you may go anywhere.

To get back to the example, move the dime (or pawn) from A7 to A6. This action triggers a movement so that the penny on A3 moves to A8. You moved west; the penny moved east to the next available spot.

Now move to A5. This triggers another movement; the penny on A4 moves to A9. In addition, if you moved back to A6, the penny on A9 would move to A4.

Now, let's try the second scenario. Place pennies on A3, A4, A5, and A6 only. Place the dime (or pawn) on A6.

Once again, move the dime to the west to A5. This triggers the normal movement so that the penny on A3 moves to A7.

Now move west once more to A4. There are no more pennies to the west; therefore, nothing happens and the layout remains the same.

Without further ado, here's today's puzzle:

Place the nickel on A2. The nickel is like a penny in that it takes up a space, but it is unlike a penny in that it is completely immobile.

Now place pennies on A4, A5, A6, A7, B4, B5, and B6. Finally, place the dime (or pawn) on A7.

Your goal is to move the dime and make it land on the nickel. And just an FYI: because of the rules, moving north or south in this particular puzzle will trigger no movement.

What is the fastest solution? Write smattathias@gmail.com, and I'll post the first person to get it. Good luck!

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Old Puzzler Q & A

Q: & (the 'and' sign) : ampersand :: # (the 'pound' sign) : ____?____

A: OCTOTHORPE (and variations on the word as well)

Boardgame, madame? Red or White?

As gamers begin to build their collection of games, soon there are more games available to play than gamers to play them with. The solution? – create more gamers. A key part of creating a new gamer is to find the right game for the person and the situation. Thus, the boardgame sommelier is born. (sommelier = dude who picks wines for other people). Perhaps it should be Gammelier (using a long a sound)? (Although if I were sticking with the French I guess it would Jouelier… but where’s the fun in that?)

To some, matching a game to a person can become a game in itself. Analyze a persons habits, preferences, and hobbies and then try to find a game that they will enjoy. It is easiest to start with broad categories like party or dexterity games and then narrow it down to a few likely candidates. A very good “gammelier” will also take into consideration the overall quality of the game as well as how well it fits the target player. If a game has an excellent reputation, it might be a better choice than a mediocre title that makes a more solid match based on theme and mechanics.

My personal favorite target for my gammelier activities is my wife. She’s a trapped audience and can’t run far. Normally, she’ll play a game now and then as a favor to me since I enjoy them so much, but it is a rare game that will motivate her enough to try to entice me into playing. I figure if I can find the right title, she’ll become that much more of a gamer and I’ll be all set – a live-in game playing opponent!

So, what criteria should I use for my gammelier recommendations? She’s a science professor who is good at spatial reasoning. She loves art and creates a fair bit of it – mostly abstract art with lots of geometric designs. One of her favorite games is RoboRally. (This would be a fine selection the majority of the time, but I personally feel it only becomes a good game once there are at least four players running around on the board.) So, I’m looking for a spatial or pattern recognition type game, that plays well with two players. For some time I had been eyeing Ricochet Robot – a game where players examine a board and try to find the minimum number of moves required to move one of the colored robots to a specific location on the board. I bought the game for my birthday and proceeded to show it to my wife a week or two later. The result? – I’ve created a monster. For the first week after we started playing I wasn’t allowed to pack it up back in the box. I had to leave it out on the kitchen table so we could play it whenever we wanted to. In fact, I took it to the local gaming club and another gamer spouse (who is also a full fledged gamer) also became addicted to it. We couldn’t really start a new game for the evening until we had several more “just one more” rounds of play.

While I am now stuck playing Ricochet Robot several nights a week, this truly is a “good thing”. Any game is better than no game. I’m particularly proud of my selection as I bought Ricochet Robot sight unseen – having never played it before. My next goal is to try to find a good backup game to add a bit of variety. My ADD gaming habits tend to favor variety over quantity, so I just need a few more titles selected for my wife so that I can rotate through them to satisfy my penchant for variety. While SET is a possible candidate (I’m worried she’ll just always beat me into the dust), I’m eyeing one of those games where you race to be the first to create an image out of triangles. Of course, as the gammelier, half the fun for me will be the search.

Where do the games fit in?

Biggie's teacher: So, Melissa, what is it that you actually DO?
Me: I'm a consultant in online services. I help companies improve their websites & web presence, and to manage them better.
Teacher: (Looks confused). So, where do the games fit in?


We've had this before, too, with comments like, "I didn't know you ran a book shop" (I don't, we just like to read).


I wonder whether it would be different if I coached a children's netball or hockey team three times a week. There doesn't seem to be an expectation that people are paid for their volunteer sporting activities - so it intrigues me that other recreational activities are automatically assumed to be money-making. I only wish they were! Who wouldn't prefer to play & talk about games all day?


This weekend, I'm playing and re-learning all the games that I want to take to Biggie's school on Friday, for her class's last-day-of-term games day. I'm trying to design some curriculum-related material around it, not so much for the kids (who will have fun anyway) but to demonstrate to the teacher how good a fit games can be in the classroom.

The other thing on the gaming agenda is restacking the game shelves. They are a bit like wardrobes: they're fine, they're fine, everything fits ... and then you buy ONE MORE ITEM and suddenly nothing fits anymore and you have piles of games lying around everywhere and nowhere to put them. (Or piles of clothes, in the case of the wardrobe). I think our games may have been spawning while we weren't looking - anyway, I think it's time to retire some stuff to the attic or maybe even to eBay. You know storage space is tight when you catch yourself eyeing the bedroom, thinking, "well if I turned the bed around, then I would have a WHOLE WALL that I could fill with bookshelves!"

And rearranging the bookshelves would let me set up my system for sorting the games properly, too.

Time is Fleeting

During the first half of last night’s game of Tigris & Euphrates, I drew only red and blue tiles. For approximately the same period of time, Dave drew no red tiles. I took this statistical oddity in stride, but Dave felt the need to denounce the goddess of fortune for playing her little practical jokes on him (which may be the reason why she gets so much satisfaction focusing on Dave).

One reason why the odd luck didn’t bother me was because of my subconscious feeling that there was plenty of time for statistics to travel back to the norm. As it turned out, Dave probably had a more accurate view of the situation than I did, because neither of us ever got the correct balance of victory cubes to win the game.

The belief that there is plenty of time may be why I often do so poorly in auction games. I usually let others win the early auctions hoping to pick up a bargain when others have exhausted their funds. This strategy often fails because the games end sooner than I expect. In one memorable game of Ra, I scored no points at all during the first two rounds, and was soundly beaten by a newbie. I tend to do better with games like Struggle of Empires in which the game’s time frame is clearly laid out, and I can see exactly when the end will come.

In spite of my knowledge of my own skewed time perspective, I don’t seem to be able to change my behavior. Perhaps this is because my feeling that there is plenty of time plays out in real life as well. I was never a young man in a hurry, and I have a strong suspicion that I could have made more of my life if I had not approached it with such a leisurely attitude.

Biographers tell us that John F. Kennedy lived with a sense that time is fleeting. The death of his older brother in World War II, his own brush with death in the Pacific, and his many health problems all reminded Kennedy that his time on this earth was limited. His awareness of the brevity of life can help explain his energy, his ambition, and perhaps his compulsive promiscuity.

I believe that in gaming, as well as in life, it is important to remember two essential truths: our time is limited, and it is later than you think.

Five Game Design Don'ts

If you're designing a game, here's a short list of five things that you shouldn't do:

Don't Reward the Last Man Standing. This is one of the things that Eurogames do right, so it scarcely needs to be said any more. However, it's still an important point. Unless your game is really short, you shouldn't allow player elimination, and you especially shouldn't decide who wins your game based on the same. After all, what are the eliminated players supposed to do until the game ends?

Although, as I said, most Eurogames don't use last-man-standing mechanics, nonetheless there are some who allow players to be effectively eliminated. Mare Nostrum is an example of this from the warfare side of things: you can get to a sufficiently bad state that you just don't have the resources to come back. Likewise there are any number of games where you can look at your score and quickly realize that you have no chance of winning.

This is one of the great benefits of hidden scores. Even if the information is all technically trackable, a losing player is the player least likely to take advantage of that ability. It's the old happier-if-you-don't know idea that your parents used to love.

Otherwise, you need to have some way that a player can catch up. Risk-reward systems usually allow this. If you have a big risk that has almost no chance of paying out, then the big reward might get you back into the game ... and it gives you something to do until the game is over, anyway.

Don't Confuse Complexity with Depth of Strategy. This is another one that Eurogames tend to get right ... usually. Lots of modifiers to die rolls, lots of different options, or generally a game that's more complex than others out there isn't necessarily better ... and may well be worse. There's much to be said for cutting out complexity until you have the shining gem at the core of your game design, and only then looking to see if anything else actually added to your gameplay.

Unless you're trying to write a simulation, and you know your players want to play a simulation, complexity is usually not the right move.

Don't Support False Strategy. False strategy is a somewhat hard thing to define, but I know it when I see it. Unfortunately, it also seems pretty hard to convince a game designer that his game includes false strategy ... and I've tried. False strategy involves including choices in your game that are essentially meaningless.

Nautilus was one of the games that I tagged with this label. There you make really careful choices about where to go and where to explore, but the actual results are so random that any strategic gameplay is largely outweighed by whether you got lucky or not. I think that having luck weigh considerably heavier than strategic choice is probably the easiest way to introduce false strategy into your game.

Don't Include Rock-Scissors-Papers. I think games that include important rock-scissors-paper mechanics are fine examples of the idea of false strategy that I just mentioned. These are usually blind-bidding games where you have three essentially equal choices, in which there is no way to choose intelligently between the choices.

A game like Basari where there is a meaningful difference between the rock (points), the scissor (gems), and the paper (die roll) is different because you can try and balance what choices people might make based on the options presented to them, but without that difference ... people are worrying about a choice that has no actual meaning.

Don't Develop Your Own Game. My heart aches every time I see a game that could have been a contender, but isn't because someone insisted on self-publishing. Unless you've already gotten 20 or so games under your belt, you don't have the ability to remove yourself from your game design and see its flaws, and you don't have the fortitude to cut out those beautiful subsystems that don't really improve the game. An external developer does and he will make your game better.

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If you consider these points, game reviewers and game players alike will thank you.

Short Game thoughts

There's been a flood of new games¹ recently. Too many to play all of them, and all too many of them have turned out to be sizable time commitments. I've been spoiled by Taluva, Ur, Yspahan and the like. Bring back my one hour game!

So here's my thoughts on recent games. Not really reviews. Just impressions and thoughts.

Tide of Iron
Unplayed. Not sure if I'll actually get around to it. A couple of customers like it though.

Notre Dame
I love drafting cards. Years spent drafting Magic: The gathering have left me with a passion for "choose one and pass the rest" I'm glad that this design space is being explored. Notre Dame is pretty good, and also probably the shortest of the latest crop. I think experienced players could play it in under 45 minutes. I still haven't figured out if one of the seven actions is just completely underpowered, or if there's some way to exploit it. Not going to blow anyone away, but a fun game.

Ran
Do you like the Great Battles of History series? No? Move along.²

Colosseum
An interesting game with lots of neat bits (both bits and bitz), slick execution, two ways to play... and about 45 minutes too much game. At 75 minutes this would be great. At the 120 minutes it's taken to play 5 turns, I've been dissapointed. High points involve collecting chariot riding poets, some decent auctioning (using the variant rules), and a very constricted build tree. Low points involve a trading phase that can drag and those extra 45 minutes. Sadly I don't know how I could speed it up.

Age of Empires III³
Glenn Drover has really found his place in the world of game design. He takes other peoples ideas and respins them into a form that is identifiable, but uniquely his. It's not just the excess of sculpted plastic pieces, but something else that links his games together. Drawing heavily on the action selection mechanisms of Caylus, AoE brings special worker pieces, action tiles, and some area control into the mix. Unfortunately, it hasn't fixed the only real complaint I have about Caylus - the time it takes for beginners to play the game. We can often get through 3-4 games in an evening, but AoE took 3.5 hours for the first game. Obviously it would speed up a bit with play, but it is definitely too long. Otherwise I enjoyed it. Is it worth the extra money for the plastic bitz? No. A smaller box and cheaper pieces would have been a better game.

Stack Market
I'm excited, but every game group since this appeared has been five players. Bring me four players! Bring me tall stacks of cubical corporations!

And then there's the faceless rest that are waiting for me to play. Several that I don't think I'll get to play for a while, and some that are on my short list. Many of them also cap out at 4 players, so are suffering just like Stack Market. Oh well.


Aaron

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¹at least new-to-domestic games. While I'm always happy to play imports, specifically post essen, or what have you, I tend to consider a game 'unavailable' until it gets a domestic release, or the European publisher will return my emails. Of course it's the retailer in me - tracking the 'newness' of a game by when it shows up on my shelves. But it does often come down to exposure. Even if it is easy to find the game at a FOGS - if it needs a rules translation and people can't pick it up off the shelf, it really isn't 'available'. It's just available to the fanatics who do crazy things like blog about games. Sheesh.

²I don't move along. Samurai plus GBH? yay!

³Ah, such an improvement over Age of Empires II, this returns the series to it's roots and reminds us all of how much we loved the original.

The Australian Games Expo 2007

Last week we went to the Australian Games Expo in Albury (a bit over three hours drive from Melbourne and six to seven hours from Sydney, the two main population centres in Australia). The expo officially ran on Saturday and Sunday, we arrived on Friday afternoon and left on Monday morning.

Last year we stayed at the Hume Inn and used their function room one very cold night. We thought that if it was heated it would make an excellent evening games venue. Local resident and tournament organiser Neil Thomson made enquiries and a deal was struck that we could have their function room for free if thirty bookings were made at the motel. This was achieved and we had the function room for gaming on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights.

Last year I played in both the Settlers of Catan and Carcassonne tournaments. It meant that my daylight hours were driven by the tournament schedule and there was very little time to browse, chat or play other games, especially longer games. This year I decided to go sans-tournament and make my time my own.

Here are the games that I remember I played.

Friday
We had dinner at TB’s, which is a tradition for some of us whenever we hit Albury and then Melissa went off schmoozing and I took the girls back to the motel. Melissa came back to the room about 10:30 during Daughter the Elder’s meltdown about not being allowed to sleep in a wardrobe instead of her bed, so I was relieved of duty and went off to the function room.

I joined in a six player game of Antike. The other players were Rob, Bill, Kev, Louise, Rose. The game started slowly as we built up the necessary resources to do anything and then hurried along in the mid game (the term “hurried” is used advisedly given the actual duration of the game) and then the fine art of bash the leader, a new leader appears, bash the leader, rinse, lather and repeat began. This meant that the end game was a) quite slow and b) quite engrossing. Kev almost pulled victory off three turns in a row but was thwarted, for two gold more to take my gold and coin total to twenty-six I could have pulled it off on a different turn, and Rob and Bill were also in contention. I do believe we spent close to two hours in the end game and if all of the last three victory point cards had gone to Rose we could have ended up with the victory point supply expended and no actual winner. Joe from the motel who was running the bar was paying close attention to the game. Bill managed to score the win a little before three o’clock in the morning, which was not so good for me since I had to be in at the expo five hours later. The game took us about four hours, with more experienced players or less than six I can see it running a lot quicker. I enjoyed it and have put it on my wishlist as a definite possibility.

I don’t actually remember if we were the last game to finish that night. After the game was packed up and the floor check done, I headed off back to our room, to find Daughter the Elder asleep in the shower recess. She had not been allowed back into the wardrobe, refused her bed, or the floor, so went for the shower recess. One must give her points for sheer bloody mindedness if nothing else :-)


Saturday
A few hours later, I was up and dressed and headed off for breakfast and then off to the Expo. First there was some wandering around checking out the stalls. Then I ran into Ben and Vince and somebody suggested Hey that’s my Fish!. A quick explanation of the rules and we were off. The territorial wars started right form the very start and once the smoke settled, Vince had managed to isolate himself a very rich fishing ground indeed. Vince 35, Fraser 30, Ben 28. This is a great little game, plays quickly, can be nice, can be nasty and it has penguins.

After a little more cruising around we had a group of seven or eight who then split into a game of something and a four player game of Imperial. I was playing with Hayden, Greg and Andrew. I found out the next day that Greg’s surname was Greg Pinder. After a few whirs and clicks from my memory I remember that Greg is one of the founders of the Australian Design Group. Greg and Andrew were new to the game, I had played once before and Hayden twice. We called on Ben at the other game for rules advice occasionally. The countries were closely contested with lots of banter. I spent quite a while without a controlling interest in any county, a couple of times I managed to snatch control only to have it immediately taken back off me. Now this doesn’t necessarily ruin your position in the game at all, in fact I came second and if England had been one more point down the track I would have actually come first, but the period where you are sitting there hoping that somebody pays a dividend out in one of the countries you have invested in can get rather boring as you are just a passenger. I like the game, but this possibility of being removed from any active decision making for potentially lengthy periods of the game can be a little off putting.

It was being able to play Imperial that reinforced to me that my decision to not play in the tournaments was the correct one to make.

Later on I joined up with Patrick and Paul for a game of Slutty Princess^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Kingdom Quest, part of a range of well produced, recently released games. Readers with good memories may remember Melissa’s piece on the Toy and Hobby Expo where she coined the phrase “The Slutty Princess” about this game. I am afraid that it has stuck in our household. Anyway, when one of the official demo guys came over to talk to us about the game he mentioned that the Princess was known by another name. He asked us if we knew about BoardGameGeek which was when Patrick piped in that he was “user number eight”. The demo guy said that a lady had written a nice piece on the game and had called the Princess the Slutty Princess which was where I got to roll out that classic vaudeville punch line “That was no lady, that was my wife!”. We certainly thought it was funny.

The game itself is interesting, you have a bunch of identical cubes, and move them on the board by rolling them orthogonally. This make a different character appear on the top face, thus changing the character. If you end next to another player’s cube with the appropriate character face up you create a pairing and remove the other player’s cube. The thinking can get quite deep and you will find yourself playing around with a spare cube to determine what your moves should be. Definitely not a game to play with AP sufferers! I suspect it would be quite easy for a two player game to fall into a Mexican stand off position. The three player game potentially runs the risk of two of the players ganging up on the third, although this did not overtly happen in our game. It would probably be best with four. This was a win for me.

Since we were right next to the Z-Man games stand, we checked out a few of Zev’s games and ended up playing Owner’s Choice because Gregor had played it before and could teach the rest of us including Anna, Paul and Patrick.

This is not a deep game by any means, but it is quite short and a bit of fun. There are four companies that you can invest in. People then choose to move one, two or three spaces around the board. If they land on a company the president (controlling shareholder) can choose to roll the President’s die which will do something good or bad for the company. Each company has a different die and thus different effects occur. The idea is to hopefully buy in, push the shares up, sell them off and hope they fall again. At the end of the game most of thought it was being fought out between me and Patrick, but Anna had snuck the win and trounced us all. A good filler type game, definitely not gamer’s game material, but it is quicker that The Stock Market Game probably quite good with older children too.

After dinner it was back the Hume Inn where I managed to get into a game of On the Underground being taught by Neil T. I had seen this a couple of times at Gamers@Dockers but never managed to get into a game. I made a bit of a mistake by starting in the centre with my short line instead of the long one. We had five players, but I forgot to make a note of anybody else’s name. It ended up being a very tight game with only a five point spread between first and last. I will definitely be playing this again.

Next up Neil F taught Patrick, Paul and myself Spank the Monkey. The rules explanation actually took longer than the game did, since Neil said we were playing one optional rule which was multiple build cards. I was first, played a couple of cards, then Patrick had his turn and went build, build, build right up to the monkey, rolled and won. Game over red rover.

After that we moved on to Tichu. Those weird New South Welshmen don’t play by the rules, instead of going to the right they play clockwise. Since it was three to one, I had to relent. It meant that whenever I had the one, I was remembering what I passed to the person on my right which was then useless. Neil F and I defeated the two P’s. It was now after midnight and time for me to relieve my sister of her babysitting duties. Melissa played on until about three am.


Sunday
Another early morning to a breakfast talk by Mike Hirtle. Very interesting.

The first game was Gheos. Melissa and I who had played it once before two player at the start of the year, taught it to Patrick and Paul as we were the veterans. It has less of an abstract feel as you add extra players. I benefited greatly when four epoch tiles were drawn in a row and I had control of the largest empire at the time. This gave me the lead, which was never overtaken. The scoring tokens seem to be a lot more important in a four player game than a two. I think this is more likely to come out at home now.

Later on I was watching some others play three piece Ubongo, a couple of them had to leave to go play a tournament so I was one of the substitute players when they started the four piece version. I got my first puzzle very quickly and then struggled for the most of the rest. I am sure practice will make perfect and a copy of this was part of our rather large purchase from Zev.

Speaking of Zev, my next game was Castle Merchants with Melissa, Duncan and Paul. It took a little while to get the hang of what was going on, and I think we would be more focused and quicker the next time. If it was around, I would play it again, but I don’t feel the urge to purchase it, although it would probably work quite well with older children. I managed to snatch the win from Duncan and Paul.

Melissa and I tried Khet next. We had a twenty second run through and no copy of the rules, so we are not entirely sure if we were playing it correctly. After killing off a few of my own pieces (assuming that is legal) I managed to defeat Melissa. This game is defitinitely one of those that has the WOW factor. I’d like to play it again a few times before deciding on a purchase though. The distributor told us that they had sold over sixty copies during the expo.

Next was The Princess and the Pea with Melissa and one of the guys from the Mayfair stand. This would be good with two and three year olds, but Daughter the Younger is already too old for it. Nice components, but small children only.

Another Haba game, this time with Patrick and Daughter the Elder was Von 0 auf 100. We had had a demo copy from CaterpillarGames for the school games night and I had taken it to work and played it a few times and enjoyed it. I hadn’t had a chance to try it out with Daughter the Elder and Patrick hadn’t played it either. Perhaps she is spoiled since we already play Formula De but Daughter the Elder was not taken with it, so it has now dropped a few points down my wishlist. Patrick was the first player car home.

Killing some time as the Expo closed down, I played a game of Chess with Hayden. I was holding my own for a while, but then the façade dropped and I was crushed.

After dinner at TB’s again, we headed off to the Hume Inn function room for more games. I only managed one that night but it was a good one. Zev had one carton of Duel in the Dark. Zev had one at the Hume Inn, punched and ready to go. A few of us were chatting to him when he brought it out and suggested we play. Giles and I were the lucky ones. You can read my session report and mini review and the review by Giles based on that evening. This is another game that has WOW factor. It looks great. Most people who looked at it or watched it being played want a copy.

I am told that the last game of Werewolf finished at six am and that Joe from the Hume Inn was playing it that. Excellent service from the Hume Inn.

Other highlights not involving playing games. Chatting to the designer of Squatter about some of the differences between the current edition and the old ones and how the new one actually reflects some of the colours that he wanted in the original edition. Watching Mike and Mary's Hive grudge match, talking to various stall holders and catching up with old gaming friends or meeting new ones, including Patrick, Paul, Richard, Neil F, Al, Max, Phil, Terry, Rob, Kev, Bill, Louise, Shebby, John, Neil T, Patty, Janet, The whole Melbourne Crew that I see normally anyway, Greg, Andrew and many more. Last but not least was the launch of the GamesAustralia awards.

Apologies for the lateness of this post, but we were playing Die Macher this afternoon, I am sure you will understand.


Mmm meeples taste like

Shooting Zombietown

We had a lot of unfinished games at last night’s meeting of the Appalachian Gamers. Usually we stop in mid-game if we’re just playing a filler and a new arrival walks in. But we were playing Zombietown (from Twilight Creations) for the first time, and we found an excuse to quit. Zombietown is not meant to be just a filler game (unless your definition of a filler game is a lot different than mine). I actually can’t remember exactly what caused us to stop playing, but I know the motivation behind the stoppage: we found the game hard to swallow.

Sorry, Zombietown is a game that inspires tasteless humor. This is a game that glories in ultra-gory brain-blasting zombie-killing imagery on combat cards. Not that that’s a bad thing. While I wouldn’t describe the Appalachian Gamers as a small horde of Ameritrash dice addicts who crave red-meat combat games, neither are we a bunch of sherry-sipping wooden-cube-loving elitists who distain any game that doesn’t require a calculator to tabulate victory points. In fact, the majority of the group expressed fondness for another zombie game—Mall of Horror.

So what were our beefs with Zombietown?

One number, the rules. I’ve never seen a game played with the rulebook so much in hand. We had far too many questions and debatable interpretations of the rules—especially considering that the game wasn’t even that complex. Maybe we could have saved ourselves some time and trouble by looking for an FAQ on Boardgamegeek, but that sort of effort shouldn’t be required.

Two, the game play wasn’t that interesting. The zombies seemed pathetically easy to kill. Yes, I understand that as the game progresses the hordes of zombies increase until there is the possibility that players could get overwhelmed. But we seemed to be halfway done with the game and no one was in any danger yet.

Players seemed to have only two things to do: either shoot zombies to gain points, or run to the house next door to get supply cards. It didn’t take long for this kind of decision-making to pale.

Now, maybe I’m being a little hard on a game that isn’t trying to be zombie Puerto Rico. Maybe the game was meant to be played with beer in hand while watching a George Romero DVD triple feature on Halloween. If someone suggests playing the game under those conditions, maybe you could have some fun with it.

But first go to Boardgamegeek and look for an FAQ

The News in Thongs / Old Puzzler Answer / New Fortnightly Puzzler

A Cribbage Tale

The highest ranked cribbage player in the states is DeLynn Colvert. He's won the Cribbage Nationals four times, as well as countless other tournaments. Because of the volatility of the game, the American Cribbage Congress awards points for tournament victories, and these points make up the ranking system (that is to say, you could win Nationals but not be the highest ranked player). Last time I checked, DeLynn's closest competitor was several thousand points behind him.

DeLynn Colvert is a full-time cribbage player. He travels over 40,000 miles a year to various tournaments. He lives and breathes cribbage, and when you see him, you start to understand. He is usually sporting an ACC cap and is often wearing a cribbage sweatshirt.

DeLynn also lives in Missoula, Montana, and I've been itching to play him for months. World Games of Montana carries his book "Play Winning Cribbage" with his now famous Theory of 26. I've only glanced at the book, so I can't go into much detail. The Theory of 26 is a law of averages for cribbage, and as such, it is a framework for how to play if you start the game as dealer or if you start as non-dealer.

Cribbage is a game I only picked up last year. I've read one book on it, didn't get perfect scores on any of the tests, and haven't read another book since. I would call myself a beginner, and a solid one at that, but nothing more. When DeLynn came in the store earlier this week, I challenged him to a game. He accepted.

At his own admittance, DeLynn believes that every beginner who doesn't make any substantial errors should win about four games out of ten against anyone. Basically, anyone should win four games out of ten against anyone. It's those two leftover games that are closely fought over, as far as averages go.

We cut to go first, and DeLynn got the lower card. "That just gave me a 4% edge," he said. But I got a nice cut card in the first round (a 5) to match my double run of face cards, so I started off just behind DeLynn. He led the way around the board for more than 60 points of the game, but then had a terrible streak of no-pointers.

What I found incredible was his pegging during these awful hands. DeLynn was still getting around six to eight points and jumping ahead of me each time. In my opinion, pegging is the trickiest part of the game and at the heart of a lot of wins. Still, my better hands finally took a toll. I took the lead from around 90 points, with about ten to fifteen points between us.

As befitting this exciting occasion, I landed on 120 points as non-dealer and ended my turn. DeLynn caught up to about 110. In this situation, the game is usually won by a single pegged point. I felt pretty confident. My hand was an odd one; I kept two cards I thought were decent pegging cards and the other two were ten-counts. DeLynn, I soon found out, kept small numbered cards.

DeLynn laid a 4 down; I couldn't make points. I made a terrible play and played a 3; he paired it for two. Still, I couldn't make any points, so I played a 10 bringing the total up to 20. At this point, DeLynn deliberated. He quickly played an ace, bringing it up to 21. I looked at my hand and dropped the second face card, making 31 and my last point needed. Yes!

So perhaps the game was simply one of the four granted all beginners. Who knows? But after the game, DeLynn was the picture of perfect sportsmanship. He was so nice after the game you would have sworn he had just won. The board we played on was one he won in 2005, a $200 board that he had never played on before. He joked that he used up all his luck winning that cribbage board!

I really appreciated his time and courtesy. In those final moments, I feel I saw part of what it means to be a champion.

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Old Puzzler Q & A

Q: This is a personal story about a magician which will lead into the puzzler.

A friend once took me to see his uncle. His uncle loved magic tricks and jumped at the opportunity to show them off, especially to new people.

When I met him, it seemed we were opposites of sorts. I was a kid in high school; he was a husband and father of two. I wore a baseball cap to block the Texas sun; he wore nothing. I had baggy jeans; he wore shorts and a T-shirt. Somehow, he knew I was the perfect mark.

He had me sit down in a chair on the living room carpet. He then took a roll of paper towels and ripped off one sheet. He showed me both sides of his arms to demonstrate that he wasn't using any machine or apparatus.

He then started swinging his arms in front of me like a person mimicking a giant alligator. One arm would go high, and the other would go low. As he made this movement, he crumpled the paper towel and switched hands. Up and down the paper towel would travel, and smaller and smaller it became as he crumpled it. Finally, poof! It disappeared.

"Do you know where it went?" he asked. I shook my head. "Ok," he said, "I'll do it again." He repeated the trick. Again, the paper towel disappeared. Again, I didn't know what happened.

"Ok," he said, "This time, I'll make it easy on you." He then took the entire paper towel roll, a pretty hefty full roll, and did the same thing. Up and down it went in his alligator jaw pattern. Finally, and I kid you not, it disappeared right before my very eyes.

Can you guess how he was doing it?

A: Two people guessed and got it right, one with part of the details of the trick. My friend's uncle simply threw the paper towels, wadded up, over my head and behind me. While this seems pretty obvious, there are a few things to consider: 1) my cap cut off my upper peripheral vision, 2) we were on carpet so the already quiet paper towels were made even more quiet when they landed (even the roll didn't seem to make a sound), 3) common courtesy is to make eye contact, so I didn't consider looking behind me.

Magic tricks, both simple and complex, are fascinating when executed well. A good showman with a simple trick is likely to be talked about for a long time.

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New Fortnightly Puzzler

Here's a trivia question from long ago:

& (the 'and' sign) : ampersand :: # (the 'pound' sign) : _________.*

* Thanks for all puzzle solving attempts! Please do not post answers on the blog, however. If you feel the need, you can email me at smattathias@gmail.com. Thanks!

A simile of games or "Die Polyps"

As gamers determined to proselytize the unwashed masses of non-gaming folk we need to take it upon ourselves to provide a welcoming atmosphere. In any hobby, a vernacular arises around important people, actions, and other subjects. Walk into a bowling alley on league bowling night and try to hang out with the crowd present. You will quickly see the need to know the difference between a spare, a split, and a turkey. We have some of our own in the boardgaming world: grognard, eurogame, and meeples. While it is great to have some terms that describe useful ideas and concepts within our hobby, we have to try to remember to remain as friendly as possible to newcomers if the hobby is going to continue to grow (at least I would like to see that).

In general, I find boardgamers to be some of the friendliest people I know. We’re generally not cliquish (well, aside from invitation-only conventions, but even there the folks are friendly to new faces) and are typically glad to see newcomers arrive at our gaming evenings. However, there are a few habits that sometimes arise in the online boardgame community that can be frustrating to new boardgamers. One of the common ones, and the subject of this brief post, is the boardgame simile.

In many of the reviews posted online on the Boardgamegeek and other sites, the reviewer will use one or more games to explain aspects of another. This game is like Goa’s auctions with a bit of Caylus-like worker placement and Puerto Rico’s role selection. A single game is like Goa, like Caylus, and like Puerto Rico. (Yes, its not a true modern simile, but work with me here… ) If a new gamer wanders over to a recent review, they may get very little out of it. Using some games to describe others is a great shorthand for those who have played and are familiar with a wide range of games, but it isn’t so useful for the newcomer. Like the poor soul who finds two words in the dictionary that are used to define each other, a new gamer can be awash in game comparisons before they even get a chance to become familiar with a few of them. So, lets remember out there to keep the comparisons to a minimum whenever possible, or at least be sure to follow up comparisons with a bit of further explanation.

This whole mini-rant came about during a facetious comment while I was explaining Reef Encounter to folks in my local gaming group. Known for somewhat difficult instructions, I consider the polyp tile scoring mechanism to be partially at fault. It is a difficult concept to grasp without actually playing through the game. Having to play through a game to understand the intricacies of the scoring is typically not a good sign. Regardless, I enjoy the game due to its theme (yes, it is pasted on but I like the cool pieces and the thought to trying to be the best coral reef I can be is just too enticing to a science teacher like myself.) As I tried to explain the manipulation and control of the coral ranking/scoring tiles, one player piped up: “It’s like the leader board in Die Macher!” We proceeded to tear up the game making as many Die Macher comparisons as possible. There is conflict on four different boards at a time. Your opponents are always trying to reduce your prime scoring areas. Eating your polyps could be like taking a little “vote” to score points, and so on… Since I had already mentioned the scoring is a bit strange until experienced, we decided to describe the game to anyone who asked us playing using words one might rarely expect to hear: “Reef Encounter? Oh, it’s like an advanced game of Die Macher”.

Sneaking in an extra post out-of-turn

I am sneaking in an extra post to say two things.

1. The Australian Games Expo was a blast. And the support from the city council was astonishing. They even painted the Expo logo & details on the back of the city's shuttle bus! (Wish I had taken a photo ...). Next year is when we need to see more people making the trip, especially some international players and companies (mad props to Zev Z-Man for coming this year). If you are thinking of coming to Australia, why not come in the middle of winter when it is really incredibly cold in June?

2. If you have ever even vaguely considered playing Euphrat and Tigris, you should read Marshall P.'s amazing session report of a game that Latria, Koert, Grinningpik and I played last year. And if you have never considered playing Euphrat and Tigris, then you should read it anyway because it will make you want to play. I never usually do link posts, but this is truly exceptional.

Games Australia Announcement

We are away at the Australian Games Expo in Albury this weekend. (I did an interview on ABC radio about it earlier in the week as well as some (unrecorded) regional breakfast radio). I will login with photos if I can find any internet access (unlikely, as I will probably leave even my new pink notebook pc at home).

One of the highlights of the Expo this year will be the announcement of GamesAustralia, offering a new, independent, credible award for boardgames in Australia. We're delighted to be part of this new organisation and look forward to announcing our first winners in 2008.

Here's the text:

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GamesAustralia today announced the establishment of a new award for quality board games. The inaugural winners of the awards will be announced in June, 2008.

The Game of the Year award will be awarded to the best new game available on the australian market that is suitable for families. Local/Australian Game of the Year will be awarded to the best new game with australian creative content. Children's Game of the Year will be awarded to the best new game for under 8 year old children.

Research shows that families that work well and produce happy, resilient children spend time doing things together. More and more families are looking for an interactive alternative to solitary computer games. The many wonderful new board games appearing in the specialist market in the "new golden age" of the boardgame offer social interaction as well as intellectual stimulation. Every year brings more exciting board games that challenge children's higher order and strategic thinking skills, expose them to new themes and ideas, and offer countless opportunities for negotiation and discussion. And the best thing is, they're fun!

GamesAustralia aims to stimulate the growth and raise the profile of boardgaming in Australia by establishing and promoting awards that recognise and reward excellent new local and international boardgames.

The GamesAustralia awards fill an important niche. Although there are recognised independent international awards such as the Spiel des Jahres (Game of the Year) award from Germany, these awards do not reflect the games' availability and suitability for the Australian market. The Australian Game of the Year award will help to raise the profile of creative Australians internationally as well as at home, while the set of awards will offer a relevant, independent and highly credible overview of the best games available to Australians today.

The members of GamesAustralia have come together to create a credible award that is independent of game publishers or retailers. The Committee includes teachers, journalists, parents, academics and business people united by a passion to foster positive engagement of families and friends around the games table.

Like most things, board games have developed a lot over the last century. While we may be familiar with music and films made after the 1950s, this is generally not true for board games: did you know Monopoly is more than 70 years old? The "Hollywood" for modern board games is Germany where family gaming is very popular, and a wide range of these games are now available in English. They are easy to learn and play, and typically last less than an hour.

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Expect to hear more from and about GamesAustralia over the coming months.

Railroads West

Last night at the Appalachian Gamers meeting I got to continue my exploration of great variants. We played Railroad Tycoon with the California expansion board. I wish I knew who designed this variant (the rules I have don’t have a name attached) so I could thank him for a fine game.

The California map has a more even distribution of cities than the regular map, and there doesn’t seem to be any essential area where you have to guide your railroads. Building costs are higher in this variant, but many cities are close together so higher costs are not a big problem. In our six-player game the board became quite crowded, but players always seemed to have some option open to them.

Many common sense improvements are in place here. Instead of secret tycoon cards that award bonus points, there are a whole series of open bonus point cards available to all that go to the player who best qualifies for them. Two new event cards come into play each turn so that the draw line of cards seldom gets thin.

There are special rules that simulate the California gold rush and its effect on the railroad industry. There are special gold cities labeled with “A,” “B,” and “C.” At the beginning of the game, players can deliver gold to the A cities and earn an extra delivery point. In the middle of the game, the B cities come online and the A cities no longer accept gold. In the final stages of the game, the C cities become destination cities for gold.

There are a whole series of western (or maybe eastern) link locations at the edge of the board. In our game only one player actually made one of these connections, but that is probably because in a six-player game, the game ends before players become super-wealthy. In a game with fewer players, these links may become more viable goals.

There is one oddity. There is a hex labeled “$12,000” next to the city of Yuma, but there is no explanation of what this means in the rules. We decided that the first player to connect to Yuma gets the $12,000. This was not an outrageous bonus for connecting to this out-of-the-way city, and the player who got that bonus didn’t win our game.

Like Age of Steam, Railroad Tycoon has spawned several alternate maps. Unlike Age of Steam, all the alternate maps for RRT are designed by players and can be downloaded for free from Boardgamegeek. If you like RRT and you have the ability to print these maps, then you should try one or more of these variants.

I’m looking forward to trying the India map one day.

Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror, Part Two: Three Mini Reviews

Over at Skotos I'm continuing my work on Xenagia, our new science-fiction, fantasy, and horror community. Thus these three genres remain foremost in my mind, and I'm continuing my series here discussing them. If you missed it, you should read my first article on this topic, which covered history and ten top games in the genres.

(I've got one more article planned, for two weeks from now.)

The interesting thing about the fantasy, science-fiction, and horror genres is how completely they describe hobbyist game production in the United States from the early 1970s to the late 1990s. Aside from historical military conflicts, if a hobbyist game came out in the United States, the odds were at least 50/50 that it was a genre game. I still have about half a bookshelf full of Dragon Pass, The Riddle of the Ring, Dune, Kings & Things, Hacker, and other similar games from this period.

However there were always three games that really stood out to me as the definitive American hobbyist games, and which got much love and play over the years until I discovered Eurogames: Cosmic Encounter, Illuminati, and Wiz-war. I played all three for the first time in college and they largely defined my gameplaying for a decade. They've now all fallen out of favor, especially by crowds won over by Eurogames, but they're still worth a look, so here's my thoughts on them:

Cosmic Encounter (B)

Cosmic Encounter is, at heart, a simple wargame. Each turn you are randomly told what player to attack, you load up some attackers, you and the defender each get a chance to gather allies, and then you blind bid attack cards which are added to your force numbers. Simple.

The joy of the game comes in two elements: the social interaction and the powers.

The social interaction, embodied by that option to gather allies, is well done because there's always a reason to join in a fight. As an attacker you get a presence on the planet--which ultimately means victory points--while as a defender you get valuable new cards added to your hand. Few games manage to give players real reasons to get involved in other conflicts, and thus stay involved in the game, but Cosmic Encounter does it effortlessly.

The powers are what give the game color and appeal. Each player has an individual and unique ability which gives him an advantage over his peers. One power makes a player's troops four times as powerful, another lets the player choose his bidding card after he sees his opponent's, and another can choose whether "high" or "low" bin wins. The game also gains additional color through "flares" and "edicts", which you can draw amidst the blind-bidding number cards.

Cosmic Encounter is by no means a perfect game. As with many wargames it can drag on if there's too much back and forth between the players. I love the game when it lasts 30 minutes to an hour, but at 3 or 4 hours I'm ready to claw my eyes out. Thus, it's a bit of crapshoot sometimes.

Cosmic Encounter was released in four different versions over the years. Eon Publishing put out the original game and supplemented it with many expansions which added to the color and thus interest of the game. It's the best respected version of the game, but also the most expensive on secondary markets. West End Games and Hasbro each put out an unsupplemented version of the game, neither of which old-time players care for that much. The advantages of the Hasbro version are that it has great pieces--the only edition where that's true--and that it's in print. The best compromise may be the Mayfair version, where you can get a pretty expansive version of the game by buying Mayfair's original Cosmic Encounters and the expansion More Cosmic Encounters (though they're a little pricey on the secondary market too).

However in the modern world I think Cosmic Encounter Online may be an even better choice. It's by the original Eon folks, it's got a set of alien powers that has gradually increased, and it plays fast, thus never running into the main flaw of the game.

Overall I give Cosmic Encounter a B. It's got solid mechanics, with some fear of long-play, and it's got colorful theming.

Illuminati (C+)

Illuminati is just barely a genre game since it's mostly about silly conspiracies. However, it is one of my triad of classic American games, and it does include Servants of Cthulhu, UFOs, and other fanastic elements, so I've included it here.

The basic idea behind Illuminati is that you're trying to take over the world. You do this through webs of power. Each web of power begins with your Illuminati, which is who you're playing. You might get some special powers and/or special victory conditions from that group. You then use your Illuminati to take over other groups. Each group has a name, a power, an income, and "control arrows", which help define how many groups it can take over.

The gameplay is pretty basic: you collect income, and either steal other players' groups, take over neutral groups, or destroy groups. You can spend money to help these activities, and you can encourage other players to do the same, sort of like the alliances in Cosmic Encounter (but without the rewards). However the true enjoyment in the game comes through its pure silliness, which is generally the case in Steve Jackson Games. Basically, Illuminati is the game where you can say "My Cattle Mutilators try and take over Animal Testing Labs".

Of my classic American games, Illuminati is the one I'm the least forgiving of, because it can drag on and on much more than any others for pretty much the same reasons: back-and-forth, a general flaw in a lot of American game designs. Nonetheless, it's a classic.

Illuminati has been released in a number of forms, all by Steve Jackson Games, including some mini-game editions and a Deluxe edition released back in 1987. The best version to get is probably the Deluxe edition that was released in 1999, as that one's the only one in full-color (with older editions having plain black and white cards). There was a CCG using some of the same ideas called Illumanti: New World Order, but it doesn't have quite the same gameplay. (In fact, it's fatally flawed in some ways, as I've had games where I never got a second turn because someone had already won).

Wiz-War (A)

Tom Jolly's game of warring wizards is one of my all-time favorites because it encapsulates so many of the good things in American game design. You have very freeform play, a huge variety of cards that introduce lots of fun chaos into the game, and really nice theming.

The basic idea is that you're a wizard, with a maze-like home base which is a 5x5 grid that contains your two treasures. Every other wizard has a similar base, and they're all connected together in a big tesserect-like shape. Your object is to get two other treasures back to the center of your home tile.

Each turn you move three spaces and play one or more cards. You have lots of number cards, which can be used to move faster or to power some spells, and you have spells, items, and other objects too, all randomly drawn as cards. As players wander back and forth trying to get treasures much interaction, combat, and fun occurs.

There are all the usual problems, from players getting eliminated to widely variable game length, but this one has enough variability and color to keep me interested anyway--unless I'm that unfortunate early eliminee.

There are seven editions of Wiz-War. I've never seen the earlier one, but all the recent ones have been published by Chessex. Sixth edition and "Classic" edition both used bigger board and generally nicer components, and thus are the ones to get. Sixth and Classic are actually entirely interchangeable and can actually be mixed together with a sixth edition expansion to allow for play by up to ten players. Chessex has been promising an eighth edition for something like a decade. The latest claim is that it'll be out this July, which I'll believe when I see. Since it's full color it would be well-worth waiting for the new game ... if you actually believed that Chessex was ever going to put it out.

Puzzles - Games

Wanderings and Musings on Games, Puzzles and Teamwork

My small game group was lightly attended last night¹ because three of us are in the last throes of planning a two day puzzle race. I'm not one of the three, though I have been conscripted to help with the actual event this weekend². The last member of the group is wisely uninvolved.

Puzzles and games are closely linked. Some games are obviously based around puzzles, and at a certain point even puzzles morph into games. The SF bay area has a fairly large puzzle-loving community - and a fairly large boardgame community - but the two communities are largely separate. Sure, there are a couple people who cross over here and there, but as a rule the groups don't often mix.

It probably comes down to time. The puzzle races or puzzle nights that the die hard puzzlers enjoy suck up time just like a marathon session of 18xx. The upcoming race³ will take the whole weekend for the 15+ teams of players. Teams will be 4-6 puzzlers each, which brings me to what might be the biggest distinction between the communities of gamers and puzzlers - teamwork.

Puzzle races/nights⁴ are solved by teams of puzzlers working both cooperatively and independently. Some gamers cry foul when a game promotes cooperation or teamwork - but for a puzzle team, it's all part of the hobby. The closest games to a puzzle race would be cooperative games like Shadows over Camelot (without a traitor) or Reiner's Lord of the Rings⁵. But these games are often derided as being exercises in group think, or boring because the game is 'led' by one or two experienced players. This seems to be a fairly important distinction between the two communities. Puzzlers enjoy working cooperatively, while gamers have a tendency to want to work solo.

Within the teamwork of a puzzle team, or a game of LoTR, there is plenty of opportunity for individual choice and achievement, which keeps the game or puzzle experience fresh. Ultimately, a good team game should require discussion and group choice, but also enforce personal decisions. This seems to result in rules that feel clunky - like the "no showing anyone your cards" or "No mentioning cards specifically" rules that Shadows and LoTR have. I'm not sure how necessary these rules are, but I presume that playtesting must have shown some need for them⁷.

Obviously, puzzle races and cooperative games aren't for every gamer - just like Ticket to Ride isn't the best option for a dedicated crossword solver, but it's very interesting to see just how much, and how little, the two communities intermingle.

aaron

--
¹ I subscribe to the theory that a small game group should number 5 people. Many many games are playable at five. When someone is missing then you can play the four player games and even two missing people provide you with an opportunity to play Logistico or On the Undergound. And on the odd occasion when a regular wants to bring someone new to the party, then there are a number of games that play six. All in all, five is a nice happy number.

²Pleading "small business owner" is surprisingly useful. I'd be more happy about its effectiveness if it wasn't so true.

³ Gratuitous information link here.

⁴ Also called treasure hunts.

⁵ Which we finally won again Sunday night after at least a two year streak of failures. Woo Hoo! <sup>6

6</sup> Three hobbits out of Five Alive at the end (the other two died only three spaces from Mount Doom). Friends and Foes used. Sauron at 15.

⁷ Yes, I know I'm presuming a lot.

Recently played: Canal Grande, Caylus, ChiZo Rising, Fjords, Lord of the Rings

School Games Night the second

As forewarned by Melissa last week, we held another Family Games Night at Daughter the Elder’s School on Friday. We had twenty-five adults and thirty-five children. This year in terms of adults explaining games there was just Melissa and myself as well as contributions from Daughter the Elder. You can read about last year’s session here.

This year we were scheduled from 4:30 pm until 7:30 pm, which was actually ended up being 8:30 pm. It was also designed to be a fund raiser via our friendly internet games shop in that the school will get 10% of any orders.


We took most of the games that we intended to take, although one or two have been eaten by our house. There were two specific requests, Settlers of Catan and Fish Eat Fish.

The parents and children who came brought some of their own games, which were all played.
Ticket to Ride - Märklin Edition
Chess
Fish East Fish
Monopoly
Trivial Pursuit - Junior
Popomatic Sorry or Ludo

These are the games we ended up bringing, including a couple of demo copies from our FIGS.
Ticket to Ride Always popular with the parents.
Von 0 auf 100
Perpetual Commotion
Make ‘n Break
Spooky Stairs sans expansion.
Cartagena
Marrakesh
M is for Mouse
Carcassonne
Apples to Apples Junior!
Halli Galli
Catch the Match
TransAmerica
Dancing Eggs
Incan Gold played as Diamant, i.e. without the artifacts
Gulo Gulo
Piggy Back
Sherlock
Pick Picknic
Fish Eat Fish
The Same Game

All the above were played, these were the lonely ones
Settlers of Catan
Finstere Flure
Gopher It!

There were some stand out popular games for the night.

I started a session of Von 0 auf 100 very early on and it was played most of the night, quite often with children teaching other children how to play. It’s a lovely little racing and bluffing game. Another Haba gem.

Make ‘n Break is always popular and rightly so, it is fun and easy to learn and play.

Spooky Stairs got a lot of table time too. The cute little ghost and magnet head meeples probably help, but it an excellent variation on a roll and move game.

Piggy Back is another excellent variation on a role and move game. With hitching ride on the back of other players and a balancing mechanism to reduce the chance of runaway lucky leaders.

Apples to Apples Junior! a good one for parents and children together. The Junior edition is good for primary school children and for people outside the US it also has the advantage of being more global.

Catch the Match is realistically just a pattern matching game, but it has been designed very well and captivates both adults and children without fail.

TransAmerica Ticket to Ride may not catch the attention of the children and these games nights, but TransAmerica does.

Dancing Eggs was played a lot at night, including occasionally in a very non-standard manner with eggs flying across the room!

Fish Eat Fish is too abstract for Melissa, that or her reaction to fish may be subconsciously put her off. I like this, but she doesn’t. It was being played most of the night. It required explanation, and got a few glazed looks during the explanation but after a few turns it would invariably click with the players and they became quite enthused (both parents and children).

I still think that the more helpers the merrier is the case for this sort of event. It is billed as a Family Games Night to get the children along. I suspect an alternate way of getting games into the homes might be to run a Parent’s Family Games night, where you can teach the parents various games without the distraction of marauding children. This has its logistical difficulties, including babysitting and just how many parents would come to such an event, but it is an idea bubbling around in the back of my mind to possibly try out one day.

This post is dedicated to the memory of the red Ticket to Ride train that was sucked up by a vacuum cleaner and the card from another game that was grabbed by the baby, it was bent back into shape, but I don’t think it will ever be quite the same. They gave their best in service to games.

Mmm meeples taste like …

Facets of Empires

So what can I say about Age of Empires III that you haven’t read elsewhere?

The Appalachian Gamers had a six-player game of Age of Empires III last night. This was my second game; I played a two-player game with Ted Cheatham to learn the rules (Good thing, too; I got so many rules wrong that we quit in mid-game and started over).

It might be nice just to be different and say that our group didn’t like the game, but that would be a lie. We must join the chorus of praise that has greeted the arrival of Age of Empires. There may even be one or two members of our group who will buy copies of the game for themselves.

So what observations can I make about Age of Empires III?

1) The three in the title sounds silly when it is the first edition of the game. Yes, I know it is borrowing the title of a computer game, but the title requires an explanation for anyone who doesn’t follow computer games.

2) Dave Gilligan observed that missionary position jokes will probably become as obligatory in Age of Empires as “I’ve got wood for sheep” jokes are in Catan. I believe he’s right. Good to know there is a new game that can release our inner ninth graders.

3) Age of Empires seems to me to be a sister game of Martin Wallace’s Struggle of Empires. This is hardly surprising. After Warfrog published Struggle of Empires, Glenn Drover became such a fan of the game that he arranged for Eagle Games to take over publication of the game. Mr. Drover then made sure that Conquest of the Empire, Eagle Games’ reprint of the old Roman Empire game, had a set of Martin Wallace-style rules based on the Struggle of Empires rules. So it is only natural that Glenn Drover has grafted a Caylus-style worker placement mechanism and a set-collection mechanism onto the Struggle of Empires model to create Age of Empires.

What interests me the most is that although Age of Empires is about the same level of complexity as Struggle of Empires, it seems easier to learn than the earlier game. There are a couple of reasons for this.

Both Age of Empires and Struggle of Empires have special ability tiles, but these tiles seem much more digestible in Age of Empires. In Glenn Drover’s game, players only see five tiles every turn, and the explanation of how these tiles work is usually clear and simple. In Struggle of Empires, players have the option of purchasing all the tiles from the very first turn, and how all these tiles work often requires a complex explanation. The number and complexity of these tiles is one large reason why Struggle of Empires seems to have an unusually steep learning curve.

Age of Empires may actually have a wider variety of sub-systems in the game than Struggle of Empires, but most of these mechanisms will seem familiar to experienced Euro-gamers. Anyone who has played Caylus or Pillars of the Earth will recognize the worker-placement mechanism at the heart of the Age of Empires. The trade goods set-collection mechanism will also be an old friend to many gamers. Together these mechanisms may add more complexity to Age of Empires than the detailed combat rules do to Struggle of Empires, but a whole collection of simple sub-systems may actually seem less complex than one mechanism that contains a lot of detail that needs to be memorized.

In short, Age of Empires seems more user-friendly than Struggle of Empires without actually being less complex.

The flip side of this observation is that if you like Age of Empires, then there is a good chance you will like Struggle of Empires. The only exception might be if the battle and war mechanism is the one aspect of Age of Empires that you don’t like. Struggle of Empires is less Euro and more wargame than Age of Empires, and Euro-gamers who have a low tolerance for combat will not like the Martin Wallace game.

Although the first and last games mentioned in this sentence had different designers, I will probably think of Struggle of Empires, Conquest of the Empire, and Age of Empires as an empire trilogy.

Unless of course Mr. Wallace or Mr. Drover want to make them into a quartet.