It's reaching the end of the year, and the traditional time for a geek to look at what games they played and reminisce. But rather than talk about what I played lots this year - I'm going to talk about what I didn't play. And my regrets.
Invariably (In my life), the shorter games get pulled out more. There was a year when I must have played Circus Flocati almost 20 times. Why? Because we'd always play it while waiting for everyone else to show up. We might have only finished the game 10 times, but it appeared on the table constantly. So at this time of year, when I lament what I didn't play, it's always the long difficult games. On with the show.
Roads and Boats
A perennial favorite of at least one group I play with, R&B got a ton of play for awhile, and has now declined to a measly one time in 2007. There's still the possibility of play left I think - but one or two, what's the difference there? There was a time when we picked scenarios purely based on not having played them yet. I'm sure there's one or two unplayed ones left...
18xx
This was the year of 1825. It got two plays, along with one Isle of Wight. No 1830, and I missed a chance to try 18CTC at Kublacon because I was working. Sigh. Work interfering with games? Foolishness! We talk constantly about trying to play more often, but 18xx doesn't make it out for evenings most of the time, even though there are several games that play in under 4 hours. So it gets relegated to weekend gaming, and hence more infrequent.
Magic Realm
Two measly plays. Two! More if you would count realmspeak or solo dithering, but I don't. I went to bgg.con with the avowed intention of getting in a game, even going so far as to bring my custom set, but I got distracted by the shiny and new, or the shiny and old.
That crazy Fan game
Speaking of bgg.con, this game makes the list purely because I failed entirely to ever knock the stupid little post off the wooden box. More practice at throwing fans is obviously needed. One play not enough (Though seeing how the game had like 5 copies made, and I don't own one, I doubt that will happen).
Great Battles of History
Well, taking the GBH series as a whole, I've actually played a fair bit. Multiple sessions of Alexander and Samurai, plus one-and-a-half sessions of Alesia. Alesia I don't need to play again, but I'm always up for another Alexander or Samurai game, and we never did get around to reading the rules for RAN (the 2nd half of samurai that was released this year). Overall this is probably the wargame series that I regret not playing more, though Flying Colors is always a contender as well.
Lords of the...
Phil Eklunds "Lords" series were finally attempted by myself this year (along with American Megafauna, and just recently Origins..) I find myself fully enamored of Phil's games, although they are not the easiest to comprehend. Multiple plays of Lords of the Spanish Main left me with nothing but a taste for more. I have yet to attempt either of the two earlier games (mostly due to component issues), but I am sad that I didn't get a chance to play more. The Lords series demands repeat play, not only because you need to learn how the game works, but also because you need to learn how to tweak the base rules to fit the play styles of your local group. To be blunt, the "big deck" problem rears it's ugly head, and for the group of war/euro gamers that I usually play with, a more normalized randomization is needed. That last sentence probably leaves you shaking your head in wonderment, but trust me, it makes sense. One of these days I'll write more about it. For now, trust me that I wish I had played these games more often.
So there's the short list. Of all the rest, the only other game that I feel regret is for poor unloved-in-2007 Fairy Tale. The game is short, I enjoy it immensely, and I used to play it quite a bit. In 2007? One lonely time. Ah well. So many games. I'm sure I'll come back to it.
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Showing posts with label Roads and Boats. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Roads and Boats. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Monday, May 21, 2007
Heads down, heads up.
I finished a game of Through the Ages recently, and in the post-game debriefing, one of the players said that they thought that they were done with the game because TtA was too much of a 'heads down' game. Where time seems to spin and warp, resulting in a feeling of disconnection - not only with the outside world, but also with the other players.1
At first I was taken aback - you mean that's a bad thing? But the longer 2 I thought about it, the more I can see where he was coming from. If a game draws you into your personal planning too much - it can cease being a game and become more like a puzzle - at which point the non-puzzle inclined will enjoy the game less.
A common complaint about some of the longer, more detailed games is the propensity for solitare play. Not outright solitare, but an odd mutated form of solitare where interaction with the other players occurs, but ultimately doesn't have as much an impact on your play as your own strategy and long-term planning.
A game I highly enjoy - Roads and Boats, epitomizes part of this complaint. There is plenty of interaction in Roads and Boats 3, but ultimately your own optimization of routes, deliveries, and production will have a greater effect on the final standings than interplayer decisions and contests.
Back over to TtA 4, this game also relies on personal optimization and decisionmaking - with a small bit of player-smacking to keep players honest. Ultimately this reliance on personal optimization does create a game that encourages 'heads down' play.
So we have 'heads down' play.
At the other extreme is 'heads up' play - perhaps epitomized by Modern Art - where every playing is constantly engaged with the other players. 5
Heads up play often isn't very contemplative. You don't have time to puzzle out a tricky valuation, or internally debate the relative merits of a temple placed in hex A or hex B. You might think you have time to decide, but often the game, or players won't allow it.
Of course, like life, most games fall halfway in-between the heads up and heads down spectrum. Wolfgang Kramer's action point games reward both personal planning as well as reactionary defense and attack moves against other player's pieces.
Mostly, I think it's important not to confuse the concept of heads up/down with game weight.
Heads down appeals more to puzzlers, and Heads up to players who find the optimization distracting enough to stop them from watching what the other players are doing. This is probably the biggest complaint about a 'solitare' game - that the game causes players to miss what the other players are doing, which takes away from the group dynamic.
I've used heads down and heads up because that's what started me thinking about this spectrum of games. Perhaps a better set of terms would be internal/external.
That is all.
aaron
--
1 I am actually paraphrasing here.
2 Days, almost a week, not seconds. Sometimes I'm not a quick thinker.
3 Enough interaction to foster long term grudges, and frantic wall building and blockading. Roads and Boats must not only undergo labels such as "multi-player solitare", but also can fall squarely into the "let's you and him fight so that I win" camp.
4 Where player interaction is entirely focused on smacking the player with the least military. Which is often the player who is doing best in non-military, point-generating, game winning stuff, but not always.
5 In modern art, tracking not only the current painting up for auction, bidding on said painting, tracking who is bidding on said painting, what people are willing to pay for said painting, and what players have purchased so far this round. Personal strategy loses to groupthink and interplayer reactivity every single time. except for the 'I'm not buying anything strategy'. Which just loses.
Recently played: Himalaya, Drive, Tichu, Starship Troopers, Hansa
At first I was taken aback - you mean that's a bad thing? But the longer 2 I thought about it, the more I can see where he was coming from. If a game draws you into your personal planning too much - it can cease being a game and become more like a puzzle - at which point the non-puzzle inclined will enjoy the game less.
A common complaint about some of the longer, more detailed games is the propensity for solitare play. Not outright solitare, but an odd mutated form of solitare where interaction with the other players occurs, but ultimately doesn't have as much an impact on your play as your own strategy and long-term planning.
A game I highly enjoy - Roads and Boats, epitomizes part of this complaint. There is plenty of interaction in Roads and Boats 3, but ultimately your own optimization of routes, deliveries, and production will have a greater effect on the final standings than interplayer decisions and contests.
Back over to TtA 4, this game also relies on personal optimization and decisionmaking - with a small bit of player-smacking to keep players honest. Ultimately this reliance on personal optimization does create a game that encourages 'heads down' play.
So we have 'heads down' play.
At the other extreme is 'heads up' play - perhaps epitomized by Modern Art - where every playing is constantly engaged with the other players. 5
Heads up play often isn't very contemplative. You don't have time to puzzle out a tricky valuation, or internally debate the relative merits of a temple placed in hex A or hex B. You might think you have time to decide, but often the game, or players won't allow it.
Of course, like life, most games fall halfway in-between the heads up and heads down spectrum. Wolfgang Kramer's action point games reward both personal planning as well as reactionary defense and attack moves against other player's pieces.
Mostly, I think it's important not to confuse the concept of heads up/down with game weight.
Heads down appeals more to puzzlers, and Heads up to players who find the optimization distracting enough to stop them from watching what the other players are doing. This is probably the biggest complaint about a 'solitare' game - that the game causes players to miss what the other players are doing, which takes away from the group dynamic.
I've used heads down and heads up because that's what started me thinking about this spectrum of games. Perhaps a better set of terms would be internal/external.
That is all.
aaron
--
1 I am actually paraphrasing here.
2 Days, almost a week, not seconds. Sometimes I'm not a quick thinker.
3 Enough interaction to foster long term grudges, and frantic wall building and blockading. Roads and Boats must not only undergo labels such as "multi-player solitare", but also can fall squarely into the "let's you and him fight so that I win" camp.
4 Where player interaction is entirely focused on smacking the player with the least military. Which is often the player who is doing best in non-military, point-generating, game winning stuff, but not always.
5 In modern art, tracking not only the current painting up for auction, bidding on said painting, tracking who is bidding on said painting, what people are willing to pay for said painting, and what players have purchased so far this round. Personal strategy loses to groupthink and interplayer reactivity every single time. except for the 'I'm not buying anything strategy'. Which just loses.
Recently played: Himalaya, Drive, Tichu, Starship Troopers, Hansa
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