Christmas Traditions

This time of year is always rife with traditions at my house. I’m descended from Scandinavian and German stock, so we tend to make a big deal out of Christmas, particularly Christmas eve when we would exchange presents as a family. I’ve always been a fan of boardgames, so I would often get games as presents. However, on Christmas morning we would all get up and open a few more presents from “Santa” in our stocking. Next to each of our stockings (there were four of us kids) would be one last present, a brand new boardgame! That’s four new games entering into our family’s game closet every year. As THE child in the family who was into gaming (I was in charge of “games and refreshments” whenever we had an official family meeting), new games were a big deal. Having most of our important traditions and activities happen on Christmas eve left the entire Christmas day for me to try to con my brothers, sisters, and parents into playing a game. We’d get all four new games onto the table at some point during the day, and sometimes even a few repeats. While I’ve loved boardgames as long as I can remember, I attribute some of that lasting appeal to the annual appearance of a new game from “Santa”.

One of my fondest Christmas game memories is the year we journeyed out to Montana to do some downhill skiing over Christmas break. My mother packed the large-box Milton Bradley Axis and Allies in the back of our van just so we could unwrap it on the traditional Christmas morning. As it was a bit expensive, it took the place of both my brother’s and my own games for that year. I didn’t mind at all, and my older brother seemed to put up with it. We played through two entire games before we headed out on the trip home. Losing a day of skiing or playing a huge boardgame with lots of little army pieces? – no question in my mind which is the right choice.

I’ve since grown, as has my family. The Christmas morning game tradition at my folks’ house still lives on, although it is now one per family rather than per kid. With my son only 1 year old, I’m anxious to start some game-related traditions of my own but I suppose that may have to wait at least another year. He’s too busy playing the “hide in wrapping paper game” or “chase dad through the cardboard jungle” game.

In fact, my own little future gamer is the main reason I’ve been so silent lately. Returning back to school this fall after staying at home with my son for a year severely cut into my spare time and I’m afraid my posting regularity suffered. It’s great to see the blog going out on such a high note with so many insightful writers coming back one last time for a grand hurrah. I came to Gone Gaming as a blogger later on in its lifetime, but I enjoyed my brief run. Thanks for reading and see you around the net!

Gaming Saturation

If you had asked me a few years ago if it were possible, I would have denied it but I now think I'm reaching a saturation level for my boardgaming habits. Sure, I'd love large chunks of time to devote to some more plays of a few longer games (Die Macher, Here I Stand, Twilight Imperium 3 or Revised Axis and Allies anyone?) but I'm finally at a point in my life where I can honestly say I don't feel like I have time I'd rather trade in for more boardgaming.

This is a combination of several factors, the major factor being the formation of a local biweekly boardgame club. It's been running for over a year now and every other Monday evening I get a good three hours of gaming in with a group of 8 to 12 regulars. Keeping my schedule clear on that one night a week has done wonders to satisfy my boardgaming needs. (On the off Mondays a smaller group has been playing an ongoing role-playing game, which also helps to satisfy my gaming needs.) In addition to biweekly play, I have a quarterly full day of gaming at a friend's house about an hour away. This is great for getting in games that just don't make it to the table in the biweekly gatherings. Finally, now that school is back in session I have a weekly boardgaming club that I sponsor. On the one hand, this is great as I get to play even more games, but we're somewhat limited on time - our meetings only last about 90 minutes or so. This means most 60-90 minute games only get played halfway through the first time before its time to pack them up. Future plays can sometimes squeek in an entire game in time alloted.

Will all this scheduled game playing, going back to work full time, and a happy little 1 year old running around to watch out for, I find myself pretty darn busy. Sure, boardgaming is darn fun, but I'm running out of things that I'd give up in order to get more gaming in.

Now, life isn't exactly all rose-colored glasses, there are a few things I'd change, if possible. First, it is all the shorter games I've been playing. Due to limited time constraints, I don't get in as many long-term, deep-thought games as I'd sometimes like. I've played a lot of medium-weight (some would call lightweight) games lately, To Court the King, Ca$h n Gun$, and Owner's Choice being some of my favorites at the moment. While I haven't yet tired of To Court the King, Owner's Choice may need to rest for a few weeks before I pick it up again (I've now got the most games played of Owner's Choice over on the BGG...) The preponderance of lighterweight games comes from needing to grow new players at the high school game club as well as my desire to make sure all the gamers at our biweekly meetings are getting in games they enjoy. Thus, I've been making a bit more of an effort lately to accomodate people by playing lighter games that are more effective at drawing in less hardcore players.

However, on the whole, playing "too many" lightweight games is a happy problem to have. I'd take too many games over too few any day of the week (or month or year). Meanwhile, most of the players I play with are slowly getting the feel of more and more complexity and I can start bringing out the bigger guns at our weekly school boardgame club.

Balancing a game

I recently misread a post over on BoardGameNews on the game called Age of Discovery. I thought the writer was talking about Age of Empires III: The Age of Discovery, but it turns out Age of Discovery is a different game (although with enough similar terms to make me confused.)

In any case, the point of the article was about game balance and it got me thinking. There are clearly some games that have victory conditions that could have been better balanced. I can't believe this is a design choice when one of a few simple possibilities could have been added to the mix to better balance the game.

While that makes a fine discussion in itself, there are a few ways in which a game can be balanced but make me wonder if the game balancing mechanism is more of a cop-out rather than a well thought-out and thoroughly playtested mechanic. I'm talking here about Auctions, natural "pick on the leader" player balancing, and risk management. I'm sure everyone has their own opinion on these, as do I, but whether you like or dislike them I think an argument could be made that they are one of the simplest ways to balance a game that might otherwise have some problems in it. On the one hand, any of these could be added to a poorly balanced game to make it slightly better, but I wonder if some so-so games that incorporate these mechanisms might have made it to the "next level" had the designer found some additional ways to tune their game to rely less on these balancing options.

Lets take them in order. Auctions are found in so many games, and while I enjoy an auction game as much as the next guy I also think some are rather a cop-out when it comes to game balancing. As long as everyone gets a somewhat fair shot at whatever is being bid on it is difficult for an auction based game to become imbalanced. If there is a really juicy, powerful item to be bid on, players can simply bid it up high to make sure things balance out (can you say "Jester in Princes of Florence" - I knew you could....) The main drawback for this style of play balancing is that players simply must know and understand the value of what they're bidding on. Thus, a decent auction game is really only at its best after at least three or four games. Another example is the simple game No Thanks! I really enjoy the game as it is quick to teach and still has some decent decision-making going on. What players are really doing during the game is a sort of reverse auction by bidding on NOT taking cards. The first teaching game I play with people always acts quite strange as some players overvalue the chips and others undervalue the cards. But after two or three games most people settle quickly into a very similar valuation to cards and chips. The fun remains in the game due to its push your luck nature and the fact that it plays fast so taking a risk here or there doesn't doom a player to another hour of painful loss before the game can end.

Expanding upon the auction mechanism for game-balancing is when a designer leaves it up to the players to continue to balance the game as it plays out. Basically, requiring players to "bash the leader" or at least the perceived leader. While nearly every game has some mechanisms that allow players to interact some have very few and limited mechanisms while others have many and encourage lots of player interaction. One extreme might be Goa or other games of its ilk that are sometimes considered “multiplayer solitaire” (although I love Goa.) While the other extreme would be a wargame like Risk where nearly everyone can pick on one person exclusively if they so choose. In a poorly “balanced” game, player interactions can overcome a single player’s advantages but it always leaves a bad taste in my mouth to have to gang up on a person simply to take them out because they had a lucky draw or lucky starting position. Also, having players do your “dirty work” in balancing a game can make the game last a long time as each successive leader is beaten back into the pack until someone sneaks in a win. This can be fun, but since it often rewards the sneakiest or best fast-talker in the group, it can be annoying for others. (To keep my conscience clear I will admit I tend to be one of the better fast-talkers at most of my gaming tables… however, I like it best when I can claim superior play in addition to “good negotiation”.)

A final style of balancing a game (that I’ll be covering) is introducing an element of risk. (No, not the game.) While some players hate risk (and tend to call it “luck”) in their games, I am not adverse to at least some semblance of risk in my games. An example of this type of balancing could be done by comparing Puerto Rico to Age of Empires III. In both games, the end-game has upgrades (buildings in PR, capitol upgrades in AoE3) that help players score additional points in the endgame. In Puerto Rico the buildings are known from the game start and are available to the first player who can purchase them. While a couple of the buildings are usually slightly better than others, they are all quite comparable in the number of victory points they grant. In contrast, Age of Empires III has several capitol upgrades at the end of the game that add victory points but not all of those upgrades are going to be available in every game. Additionally, players have to vie for placement when trying to purchase them, they aren’t simply available to the first player who can afford them. They pop into existence (if at all) when the third age of the game begins. Thus, strategies that rely heavily on capitol upgrades (like most of the money-making strategies) may not always get the upgrades they need (or want). Just which upgrades become available may determine the game. So, while I think some of the money-making strategies are the strongest ones in the game, they also rely on getting good capitol upgrades and thus are more likely to suffer the whims of fate in the last few rounds. Thus, what some might call (me) “stronger” strategies are leveled out somewhat because they become slightly riskier. Push your luck types of games could be put in a similar category. Pursuing riskier strategies can provide larger payoffs, but are also more likely to fail in a big way. While I would have a hard time accepting a large effect of this type in a longer (an hour or two) game, it is perfectly acceptable in a shorter game.

How about you, are there ways you feel that games can be balanced (ie. The various strategies/cards/abilities) more than they are? Are there no-brainer styles of game balance (like just letting players take care of it themselves) that you find overused?

Lightweight and feeling good...

After a hiatus of far too long, I’m back and pushing my thoughts out there to the blog-reading community. After enjoying a visit to GenCon and then writing profusely about it it is time to wind down and collect my boardgaming thoughts. One such thought has centered around lightweight, fast-playing games. I do enjoy stretching my gaming muscles in longer games that take an hour or more to develop and finish, but I find a significant fraction of my gaming time revolving around gaming with relatively lightweight gamers. Thus, I have turned an eye toward finding a selection of favorite lightweight games.

In my book, a lightweight game needs to play fast. If I’m going to commit a chunk of time to a game I expect to get some nice, deep thinking about it. This is my main objection to Cosmic Encounter - it is great in theory and I love the “festive” nature of the game, but far too often the game can drag on past its initial welcome. If the game is going to have shifting fortunes and a significant element of chance I prefer it to land in the 30 to 45 minute mark so that a truly poor string of luck does not drag out for extended periods. However, I often find nonrandom, pure abstracts to be a bit too dry for my taste, so there has to be some sort of balance between luck and strategy.

Two games I came across at GenCon seem to meet both of my criteria: To Court the King published by Rio Grande Games and Owners Choice by Z-Man Games. They have a fair bit of luck (they both revolve around rolling dice), are simple to explain so that the game can start right away, take about 45 minutes or less to play, but still contain a decent number of opportunities for strategic decisions.

To Court the King can best be described as Yahtzee on steroids. Players roll dice in order to match the values displayed on cards set in the middle of the table. Starting out with only three dice, players can hope to roll a pair to get the Farmer card, granting an extra die in future rolls. Rolling three of a kind gets players a different card with different powers. As the more powerful cards require players to roll dice that add up to a total of 20 or more pips or roll five of a kind, players must therefore slowly progress up the dice “technology tree” gaining more powers and/or dice at the conclusion of each turn. When someone finally rolls seven of a kind, they win the King card and triggers the final round of rolling. In a sort of roll-off, each player uses the powers of all their cards one last time to roll the most of a kind on their dice. My favorite part of the game is in the various powers granted by the cards. Some focus on giving a player additional dice to roll, while others grant special powers to manipulate the numbers on the dice. Thus, there are two extremes in strategy, a sort of gather up all the dice you can muster strategy or one where players gain a few dice but have many special powers to manipulate them as needed. The decisions tend to be entirely tactical, trying to optimize the result of each series of rolls, this is increased for players who obtain several of the special power cards, creating a kind of miniature puzzle every time a turn comes around. In my game at GenCon I was able to claim the King card using several special powers on my cards. However, in the final dice-off I just missed claiming victory and had to settle for third place right behind an opponent who had focused more on claiming as many dice as possible. (For the record I think I had seven 4’s to his seven 5’s or some such thing even though I only had eight dice to roll and he had around eleven or twelve). As mentioned, the game can be explained and quickly started without too much preparation, an important consideration when trying to coax noncommittal boardgamers into a game. At a running time of around 45 minutes it strikes a nice balance of strategy, luck, and depth.

Owner’s Choice in contrast, is a very lightweight economic game. There is a central board and a single pawn is moved around the outside track one time and then the game is over. Players invest in one or more stocks (there are four types) with the highest shareholder of each company declared president. The president holds onto a special colored die representing the fate of that company. On their turn, each player moves the pawn from one to three spaces forward (their choice). It will typically land on a space matching the color of one of the four companies. If, for example, it is placed on red, then the president of red must pay $50 to the middle of the board and then roll the red die. The red company then suffers the result, which is typically a good thing. Each company has strengths and weaknesses, depending on the distribution of results on that color die. The green company slowly increases in price or pays out frequent dividends, the yellow company has very high variability, going greatly up or down in price, the red company tends to go up in price but might force the president to increase the price of a different color stock, and the blue company can increase but can also allow the president to cause other company stocks to fall. If a president doesn’t wish to pay $50 (or can’t) he or she must roll the black die. In most cases, this drops the stock in price one or two levels and awards the president with all the cash previously paid to the center of the board. After the pawn moves once around the outside of the board, the game ends. Since the board is not that large, a game can be played in 20 minutes or less, although typical games average more like 30 minutes. Since games rely on the vagaries of the roll of the dice, Owner’s Choice plays differently every game. While the dice are set up to favor net increases in the long haul, I have also witnessed games where nearly all the stocks fell in price and if a player had not bought any stock the entire game, they would have come out in a comfortable second place. I am still not sure if the luck of the game is overpowering, it definitely can be in any single game, but there seems to be enough room for strategic decisions so that good decisions will tend to be rewarded over the long-term course of several games. One friend remarked that he enjoyed the chaos aspect of the game as players are encouraged to make strategic, long-term decisions to mitigate the luck of the dice rather than what is found in many other games - tactical decisions responding to the luck of the dice.

While I currently slightly favor To Court the King over Owner’s Choice I am willing and eager to continue to bring either one to the gaming table. They’re not my first choice when I have an hour or more to kill and dedicated gamers to play with, but for my frequent bouts of gaming with more laid-back players, a quick game or three of a lighter weight game with meaningful choices is still a good deal.

A couple of new ones...

Well, not much to say this week, I've got vacation hanging over my head so am rushing around to put that together.

I'll be seeing some nieces and nephews, they're all still fairly young so I think I'll just bring along Igloo Pop and No Thanks! as they can fit quite a range of players as well as a decent range of numbers of players.

I've manage to game quite a bit in the past two weeks, just a little above normal and that is mostly due to my recent aquisition of Age of Empires III: The Age of Discovery by Tropical Games. That is a long name, but the game deserves it. As I'm sure other people might have mentioned elsewhere, there aren't a lot of new mechanics to be seen here, but they are all well-oiled and work together to make a very nice game. My favorite style of game, in fact. Lots of agonizing choices where there are several good things you want to do but not enough resources to pull them all off. It seems like a fairly quick game but does tend to pull in at around two hours, and not the one hour I keep thinking it takes... To top it off, the game has a nice snowball (or engine building or "garden-tending") style to it so everyone's strategies tend to pay off in greater and greater amounts as the game goes on... I've played it 3 or 4 times in the past week and will be playing it some more in the future, I'm sure.

The other game I've been playing is the Stonehenge game anthology put out by Titanic Games. This is a set of pieces for five players consisting of a deck of cards, a circular track on a playing board, some round colored tokens, and some colored bar-shaped tokens. Then five "big-name" designers all developed a game for this set of pieces. Purchasers are, of course, also encouraged to try to design their own games - something I'm glad to see encouraged as I think it will help foster some nice creativity in younger minds and possibly swell the ranks of game designers in general. (More games for me to play, possibly.) In any case, I enjoyed most of the games I tried in Stonehenge. They all tended to take about 45 minutes to an hour to play and had a nice amount of gameplay contained in that short period of time. I wouldn't have wanted the games to go much longer as they weren't as deep as most games that aren't "anthologies", but for 60 minutes they were a very nice treat. In fact, in one evening I played five games of Stonehenge. Two games each of the first and third game in the instruction manual (each game takes up 2 pages of instructions so they aren't that complex) and then one game of the set.

We (the four, then five of us) all liked the first game a sort of area control game, and enjoyed the third - based around bidding for stones to collect sets of like colors. The last game we played, was supposed to be a wargame but was more like another area control. It was interesting but I think it was limited by the small deck size. I think that struck the heart of the limiting factor of this sort of anthology. Since all the parts are set out ahead of time, you can't customize things to "fix" problems as they arise. I wonder if the wargame would play better if it had just a bit more time to develop - thus needing slightly more cards. Then again, I guess our group could tinker with it ourselves, that's what the anthology is trying to promote in the first place.

Bottom line: I've got to finish vacation preparations so that's all for today. But if you're looking for a "bottom line" on the Stonehenge anthology, I give it a pretty big thumbs up. There are at least 2 if not 3 quality games there that can be played in a medium-short period of time and be quite enjoyable (strategic/not just a time waster). That is a somewhat rare category and with a couple varieties of game to choose from in one box, that's a pretty good deal.

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.

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”.

Cities, Curses, and Churches

Last weekend I had the chance to participate at a friend’s “Game-a-thon”, a day of open gaming at his house where folks drop in when they can. I was able to stay for a few hours and had my choice of playing in a game of Shogun (the new version of Wallenstein) or playing several shorter games. I chose to play some shorter games, as I thought I would have more fun, and it would give me an opportunity to play with some folks I don’t get to play with as often.

First up was Saint Petersburg (Rio Grande Games). I enjoy this game immensely, although have been a tad burned out on it as I get to play it against the computer frequently using the freeware computer program (check out the WestPark Gamers web site to download it). The computer AI is not too bad, and I only win four player games about 1/3 of the time. I got lucky in the first Noble round, picking up the 18-cost noble that provided a steady income of 6 rubles and 3 victory points from then on out. Things continued to fall into place for me and I outpaced the rest of the group by about 20 or so points. The game ended very quickly with all the blue buildings coming out before people had very many nobles. I took advantage of the observatory to pick up a couple of extra nobles during the blue building rounds, and made sure to hold a noble upgrade or two in my hand even though I knew I wouldn’t be able to put them down until late in the game. All in all, I think my computer playing experience served me well, although I will also admit that I had some nice opportunities fall in my lap. If you haven’t played the game, I highly recommend it. It contains a strong “build-up” element requiring players to initially focus on income and then transition to victory points later in the game. At the same time it also offers a few distinct ways of obtaining victory points (focusing on buildings or nobles or a mixture of both). All this is combined in a quick-playing (roughly an hour) game that is simple to explain to new players (takes about 10minutes or less to get up and playing.) I highly recommend St. Petersburg to help casual boardgamers make the leap into the build-up or “snowball” style of boardgames.

The second game we played is a new one by Asmodee, Wicked Witches Way. It is a very lightweight game where players are all witches and are trying to win a race. The first player to finish the race earns a few bonus points while all the other witches gain points proportional to how close they are to the finish. However, winning the race is only part of the points, players can gain special cards that give bonus points at the end of the game (for having performed acrobatics during the race.) The game revolves around rolling a set of 9 dice in a cool little book-shaped box. Players examine the dice rolled which display various orange or black symbols. When a player is ready, they shut the box and then lay down their spell cards. Players have spell cards that match the symbols on the dice. The object is to play either one or more symbols that match the orange symbols showing on the dice or one or more symbols that match the black symbols on the dice. If a symbol appears as both an orange and a black, it should not be played. Once the book is shut (hiding the dice), players can take their time playing their cards. The book is then opened and players check their spell cards. Players move their witches forward one space for each correct symbol they match. If they make a mistake (by playing symbols that appeared as both orange and black, or a symbol that didn’t appear at all) then they don’t get to move. The player who closed the book gets to score their turn first, but if they make a mistake, they go back 2 spaces. To add some spice into the game, if a player manages to play ALL the correct orange or ALL the correct black dice, it is a “perfect spell” and a bonus is earned (as long as you are not the first-place witch). Matching all the orange dice gets you bonus 2 spaces on the track, and matching all the black dice lets you draw a special card for each die matched. These special cards give players one-time abilities such as replacing a card just before scoring them, earning additional time to reopen the book before having to lay down cards. These cards also contain the acrobatics bonus point cards, which earn a player points at the end of the game. As mentioned, the witch in first place does not get the bonus. At the end of each round, the witch(es) leading the race have a curse token placed next to them. They are then ineligible to earn any bonuses for matching all the orange or black dice. This is a handy little “hold back the leader” aspect of the game, but it is so strong that trying to always be in second place is often an important strategy.

Even though it was my first play of the game (we were all trying it for the first time), I managed to get out front and stay out front for most of the race. Unfortunately, that meant I earned very few of the perfect spell bonuses – especially the cool spell card ones for black dice. The race was a tight one with three of the four of us crossing the finish line in the last turn. Surprisingly, the only player to NOT finish the race had a stack of nice bonus point cards and won the game, presumably having performed very cool acrobatics on his broomstick along the way. Despite my loss, I enjoyed the game immensely and we clearly laughed much more at this game than any other played that day. It is a fun, lighthearted game fun for those who like games with quick-pattern matching and a tad bit of memorization. There is even room for a bit of strategy (like trying to mess with other player’s plans by closing the book early, etc…) I didn’t like the pick-on-the-leader aspect of the curse token. I felt it was too strong a penalty, but it was probably my own fault for remaining in the lead for so long… I fear it might lead to extreme “game-y” style of play where players purposely lose points in order to try to stay behind the leader and pick up extra black cards…

My third and final game (while the other players were still on their first game of Shogun…) was Pillars of the Earth (Mayfair Games). I had not played it before but had heard good things (as well as bad). I won’t describe the game in detail here, but I managed to take second place in my first play of the game (two of the other three players had played before). I would have taken first place, but the last turn I drew the “give all players one metal cube” event card and the first place player still had a need for another metal cube while I already had all I wanted. I made a mistake or two early in the game in buying too many masons early, but eventually did OK with purchases and pawn placement. We all started out very gold heavy and then three of us quickly ran low, while the fourth player had plenty of gold to spend, but never got a pawn drawn in the early rounds of bag-drawing. I have heard people complain about the vagrancies of the bag-drawing, but I think the whole idea of gold hoarding is designed to counter just sort a situation. If you save up some gold you can then pay when your pawn is drawn early to get some good things and/or craftsmen. If you have gold but aren’t drawn in the early pawn draws, then you can afford to spend gold to purchase one of the craftsmen available in the worker assignment phase. Sure, you may need to maneuver to go first in a round to get a chance at buying a craftsman, but that shouldn’t be too hard to recognize in advance in the mid-game. All in all, I felt the pawn-drawing mechanism was fairly balanced and didn’t need too many more tweaks. I felt the pawn-drawing pain in the last round, holding a “free pawn placement” card but not getting drawn until late in the round. However, it didn’t set me back much, as I mentioned before. I’m looking forward to trying this game again some day to work on further evaluations.

All in all, I had a good day of gaming, 3 games in about 4 hours. Meanwhile, my other friends managed to finish their game of Shogun in just under 4 hours. While I’d love to try a game of Shogun some time, I think I made the right choice.

Taking it like a Viking

I got a chance to play Fire and Axe (by Asmodee) the other day and had a good time. Now, I’m not one to eschew a luck factor in my shorter-length games, but I had heard that this one might have a bit too much luck for some folks’ taste. Some have gone as far as suggesting a few house rules to help mitigate poor rolls. In particular, when trying to raid a village a die is rolled up to 3 times in succession in order to loot the village or town. Rolling pooly and losing three crewmembers by failing all three rolls can be a frustrating situation, especially if the probability of success was high. One suggestion to correct this is to add a +1 for each successive roll. Since it was my first game, I wasn’t ready to adjust the rules quite so much, but thought perhaps the last roll (of 3) could get a +1 just as a thank-you-for-playing parting gift…

We got into the game and started playing and one of my opponent’s proceeded to begin failing a raid. After two missed rolls, I pointed out the house rule that I thought might help his situation (adding +1 to the last roll). He quickly pointed out that this is a game about Vikings and no stinking Viking worth his pelts would be caught dead with a wimpy sort of rule like that. He was going to “take it like a Viking” and didn’t need any special accommodations. He rolled (and failed if you’re curious – adding +1 wouldn’t have helped anyway) and that was the end of that possible house rule.

The game proceeded on and good and bad luck was had by all. While some people had things roll their way more than others, I decided this was by no means a luck-fest. There was plenty of room in the game for solid strategy and planning. Once it has been played through a few times and people get to know the cards, there might even be occasions for lying low and waiting for particular things to show up. I may be slightly clouded in my judgment, since I ended up winning, but I felt the game was quite fun. I did have my fair share of poor die rolls near the beginning, but had fewer near the end when it was perhaps more important. Rolls I missed early and thought were crucial weren’t as important as ones I rolled well on near the end of the game. This also helped me as I was a smaller threat at the start of the game and was able to catch up rather than trying to continue to fight for the lead.

The game took over two hours to play with four players but should go under two now that we all know the rules. While a tad long, that is an acceptable length for a game that has one’s fortunes tied to the vagaries of dice. Now that I have had a chance to reflect on the game, I have to acknowledge that I don’t mind the luck-factor at all, even without the house rules. One reason is the theme of the game. Sea voyages and plundering villages are risky propositions (as is creating new settlements or trading – all actions that can be performed within the game). Vikings were no strangers to risk, and if I’m going to play a game about Vikings, I don’t mind taking a few chances myself.

Luck and Length

It has been a pretty sparce time for boardgames, the only games I've played recently have been a full game of Die Macher and a dozen or so games of Yspahan against the computer. (Using the recently released computer version with an AI opponent, check out www.west-parkgamers.de . It is designed/programmed by the same folks as the excellent Saint Petersburg PC game, although I feel that the AI is currently a bit weaker than in St. Petersburg... If you go download Yspahan, be sure to also download the English or other appropriate language file as well. It comes in German, English, French, and even Romanian! )

Yspahan looks to be a fun little game. Despite some simple (rather unique) mechanics of rolling dice to determine the number of available actions (of a given type), the game has many options. I immediately gravitated towards the camel-train track towards victory. Buying up that building that gives a card for each token sent to the train is a fun way to earn more cards... and if you can score that train in the 2nd round as well as the 3rd, there are some nice cost-effective points going on... the computer players are clearly going for a build all the buildings route and then compete viciously for filling in the board areas with cubes... both strategies are valid and I like how such a simple game can provide players with such diverse opportunities. My one qualm are the initial two buildings - the one that gives more camels and the one that gives more gold... while I haven't brought myself to try to play without going for them both as early as possible, I suspect ignoring these two buildings early is not a good idea. Hopefully, there might be some strategies that don't include early buildings. I am afraid that there might not be and if that is the case, what is the point of including those buildings in the first place? (ie. if those two buildings were changed somehow there could be an earlier divergence in starting strategies...)

That's all I have to say about Yspahan, time to rant about Die Macher. This is a great game, lots of fun, and piles upon piles of different things one must worry about and try to optimize. Not to mention the whole idea of forming cooperative coalitions... a nice bit of diplomacy thrown in. I'm not even going to rant about the 7 hour playing time... I can afford to put aside most of a day to play a really good game every fewe months or so...

What I'm going to rant on is the huge luck factor in Die Macher. Yes, you heard me right, the luck factor in a 7 hour game... OK, so there isn't a lot of luck in the game, but there is SOME. The biggest luck factor (just about the only one) is in the distribution of position cards among the players and in each region. For example, when the game starts each player has about five (maybe six) position cards and there are ten face-up position cards showing on the game board. Players also have 3 position cards they can use to "swap" out their showing position cards. Well, at the start of the game, I had a match for about two TOTAL showing position cards on the entire board. Meanwhile, there were opponents of mine who had matches with 6 or even more cards showing on the table.

Sure, there are a lot of ways to move one's position cards around, but in a SEVEN HOUR game why oh why is there any reason to START the game with some players with a clear advantage? I understand the fun in having the game be slightly different each time, but if one were willing to give that up, I could imagine making up a starting setup so that each player had the same number of matches of cards showing at the start of the game... I realize that could take a bit longer to set up, but it would ease the problem that I've seen happen in multiple games of Die Macher. (I've been the benefit of a good start as well as hindered... although in this game I did an early gamble that paid off so I actually was in the lead for the first few rounds despite my poor initial matching - this doesn't excuse the game in my opinion as another player might have really messed me up had they tried different strategies...)

My second idea for fixing this intial disparity is to simply set up the game and then let players bid for color selection.... While it adds even more pregame analysis, I think it would even the playing field. Players who like to match things alot can bid highly for certain positions, while others who want to keep their money to spend it on things can bid low and just deal with what they end up with....

OK, that's the first bit of luck-factor I had issue with. Now for the second. That is the long-term manipulation of position cards. There is an extremely limited number of cards (6) to deal with on the national switching board... depending on your house rule, these can get pretty stagnant... I found out that switching out cards early in the game to help my matching was good in the short term, but it meant all the cards left up to trade with were BAD for me in later rounds... I think it is less of a problem of the game, and more of something I have to ponder to take into account in my strategy. What I WILL complain and rant about is the difficulty of changing one's position cards. In the second election, the Anti-social security card was put up on the national election board in the lowest (most points) slot. It appeared in a couple of upcoming elections mid-game but not late in the game. Also there were no pro-social security cards in the exchange pool. As the anti-version was protected by the 3rd or 4th round, there was then no longer any way to remove it. From the second election onward, both myself and one of my opponents cycled our 3-card draw, looking for (among other things) an anti-social security position card. Neither of us ever drew one. If, during the second round (that's about hour 3 of a 7 hour game, mind you) two players decide to try to do something and spend the rest of the game hoping to accomplish it, that's just a bad system...

You may think I hate Die Macher. On the contrary, I like it quite a bit. It is a bit long for my tastes, but I'd still play it. Another point to make is all the above whining really didn't greatly affect my performance. I came in a strong second place after leading for the first half of the game. This shows that the luck factor in Die Macher is not going to overthrow the entire outcome of the game. However, it seems clear to me that there were several variables beyond my control that were significant setbacks I had to overcome. That in itself isn't bad, but other players did not have to overcome those same issues. It makes me wonder how I might have fared if I had (a) finally found an anti-social security card (25 points right there) or (b) had better matches at the start of the game and was able to better conserve resources rather than having to gamble them all on the first round...

I consider my 2nd place finish to come from being distracted by round 6 when I should have worked hard towin round 7 instead. What disappoints me about the game was not the actual effect of the cards, but the feelings of unfairness they generate. Having to start "behind the curve" might be forgivable in a shorter game, but I really don't appreciate feeling a couple steps behind when I'm headed into a nice, long 7 hour game...

I like my idea of an auction for starting position, if I can get folks to try it next time. However, I have yet to find a good house rule (or two) that provides enough flexibility for changing political positions, without dilluting things so much that political positions mean nothing and are changed at the drop of a hat.

A Eurogame Review

Everything on the Internet seems to come in waves. Even before reading Shannon’s recent post about reawakening his interest in role playing games, I had been preparing this post on a game I have that I have become reacquainted with in the past month or two. While it has a lot of American boardgame tendencies, there are a few strong Euro attributes that contribute to making it a gripping title that has eaten into gaming time I might have spent on other boardgames. What game am I referring to? None other than the new edition of that classic Euro-American hybrid game, Dungeons and Dragons (referred to as D&D for the rest of this article.) For those unfamiliar with the game (and there isn’t an entry for it over on BoardGameGeek), it is like a longer, more complex version of Dungeoneer, Return of the Heroes, or Descent. While different than many Eurogames that it predates, there are still a number of mechanics found in popular Euro titles, making it a game that many gamers just might want to check out. If that piques your interest, read on to find a more thorough review.

The Bits:
The first thing a boardgamer will see when opening up a new game are all the fun little bits to play with. Unfortunately, this game has none. What, you say? NO BITS? That’s right, no little wooden cubes, no meeples, nothing is included in the basic package, just three thick rulebooks. THREE! And you thought paging through the rules for BattleLore was a bit much – at least in that case it was a rulebook and a scenario booklet. The last game I played with three rulebooks was Avalon Hill’s Horror at House on the Hill. With no bits to play with, one might expect the game to score a nice fat zero for its components. Thankfully, there are options to solve the component problem. There are so many options, that players are typically expected to provide their own components (similar to the pawns and dice in some of the Cheapass Games productions…) For those willing to spend a little bit of money, players can obtain nice plastic figurines, expandable cardboard maps, and even little cubes to roll. I’ve seen photos of players going all out on designing their own game boards, making model terrain to rival the Deluxe Chest Version of Settlers of Catan. So while the lack of components is initially a big strike against the game, players who like to tinker and customize their own gameboard and pieces will find plenty of things to play with. Die hard Eurogamers can even use little colored wooden cubes along with Meeples to represent the various creatures and figures within the game. Some players use hand painted metal figurines – talk about dedicated game component fans! The last game I played with metal playing pieces was an old game of Monopoly. While many Eurogamers eschew dice, this game has plenty of them. Taking a cue from the French Formula De, there are even many nonstandard dice available. However, in this particular game (unlike Formula De) the dice have a different number on each side. This does make the results more random than a typical Formula De game, but it also easier for new players to estimate the expected outcomes since only one series of numbers have to be averaged. In fact, a good portion of the strategy of this game involves making the decisions so that you can modify die rolls in your favor.

Bits Score: 0 out of 10(there aren’t any in the standard game), however, there is a Basic Game available that provides you with several plastic figures, shortened rules, and a set of funny dice like you might find in Formula De. Using these bits (or your own acquired elsewhere) increases the score dramatically.

Gameplay: 7 out of 10 (primarily due to game length)
Even a quick glance through the rules shows how this game is similar to other popular Euro titles. Like many wargames, there are two sides to the game. All but one player create an alternate persona to represent themselves within the game. These alternate personas are called Player Characters (or PCs). There is a lot of flexibility here, but players should take care not to overlap their specialties too much, because the remaining player (referred to as the “Dungeon Master”) gets to control almost everything else within the game. At first glance, this seems very unfair for the PCs. There is very little within the game to make up for the DM’s strong initial starting position. However, after much play testing it seems that the PCs win the game more often than not, so perhaps their superior numbers are enough to win the day. In some respects it is like Shadows over Camelot, where most of the players conspire to defeat the game while one player works against them. However, in D&D, the “traitor” (the DM) is known at the outset, and is given a number of advantages to make up for that fact.

The theme of the game revolves around a fantasy setting (like Lord of the Rings) with the players typically playing the forces of good and the DM playing the bad guys. The DM plays a sort of “defense”, setting up traps and obstacles for the players while the players go on “offense” trying to find and overcome these challenges. Over time, the players get more powerful, providing a nice sense of accomplishment. Unfortunately, so do the obstacles used by the DM player. In fact, in a glaring oversight, not only do the rules fail to provide proper victory conditions, they don’t even provide game-ending conditions! As a result, many games of D&D can drag on and on. Players typically agree to a set time limit and play until it is reached. Often, a group will then meet again a week or two later and pick up where they left off, making sure the game length of D&D easily exceeds even a highly negotiated game of Die Macher. With such a long playing time, the game severely limits other games making it to the table. As a result, it gets a solid couple of strikes against it in the scoring.

To help Eurogamers decide if it might be something they want to try, I thought I’d make a short list of all the pros and cons of the game.

The Bad
The rulebook(s) – when was the last time you had three hardbound rulebooks for a single game? In an interesting twist, only the DM player has to read up on two of them, so gamers who don’t like to read rules should stick to the PC team.
The bits – as mentioned, there are no bits included in the standard game. There isn’t even a game board! The general availability of quality substitutes (even metal bits!) keeps the game from flopping.
No Auctions! – can you even have a boardgame without some form of an auction in it? (There aren’t any trains either, but PCs can simulate them by starting up trading caravans)
Analysis paralysis – typically, each player gets two action points in a turn keeping things very constrained. However, there are a plethora of options to spend your action points on (like moving, fighting, casting spells, etc…), causing some AP prone players to simply shut down.
Unbalanced Teams – Despite the very good record of the PC team, the GM team simply has too many advantages to make a fair game.
The Traitor Factor – In addition to the DM team, sometimes there is a secret traitor within the PC team as well. While that works great in Shadows over Camelot, as there is already an opposing team in D&D, adding in a secret traitor creates a third team in the mix and can quickly complicate the entire situation.

The Good
Expansions – some players love to have options in their games (witness the variety of ways to play Settlers of Catan). There are multiple ways to expand the D&D game including new rulebooks as well as many new game boards. For game tinkerers, it is probably the game best able to handle additional house rules. In fact, most gamers have at least one or two house rules they prefer to play by…
Cooperation – the game screams for good cooperation with the PC team. As the DM team has most of the advantages, the PC team has to work hard together to make sure they survive
Heavy Player Interaction – Goa haters take note, there aren’t any auctions and player interaction is high. Despite a high degree of cooperation, players are also competing for limited resources, constantly being forced to find ways to evenly distribute advantages and rewards so that they can improve their teams effectiveness.
Role Selection – As in Cosmic Encounter (or to a lesser extent, Puerto Rico) players each take on a role selection that will tend to dictate their strengths and weaknesses. This makes the game different every time and can often keep players interested as they can all focus on their strengths without getting in each other’s way.
No Player Elimination – While player elimination can occur, the rules have provisions to reverse said elimination, or the player who lost their character can simply take on a new position within the team and keep on playing.
Snowball Effect – as in some of the best Eurogames, D&D has a snowball effect so that players gain more and more power and abilities as the game progresses. Fans of empire building and snowball effect games (like Puerto Rico, Settlers of Catan, Through the Ages, and the like) will find many similarities here.
Multiple Victory Conditions – Actually, there are no set victory conditions, players are free to decide for themselves what victory conditions they want to strive for. Players can try to gain the most influence in the palace (like Succession or El Grande), try to rack up the most money (like Modern Art) or even try their hand at more unique victory conditions like building their own castle (a la Caylus).

Final Analysis:
Overall, I can only recommend the game to fans of more American style boardgames, or at least Euro-American hybrids rather than straight up Eurogamers. With their love of a 90 minute cap on a game, D&D just won’t be brought to the table that often. Sure, there are a lot of popular Euro mechanisms present (money management, role selection, cooperative team play, multiple victory paths, a modified action point system, I’ve even seen goods delivery occur) but those are probably not enough to pull in the Euro-snoot crowd. For those who welcome a little variety in their gaming and are not adverse to trying something a bit more detailed and long-term, the rewards can be great. After all, it is the only kingdom-building game that I’ve seen that starts a player out with a single, unskilled worker.

Thoughts on Princes of Florence

I was recently lucky enough to get in my first game of the popular The Princes of Florence boardgame. It has a lot going for it and, like all really good games, consumed all my waking thoughts for several hours after it finished.

For those unfamiliar with the game, there are seven turns during the game, with each turn having an auction phase and then an action phase where each player gets to perform two actions. This is very similar to another game I enjoy, Goa. The object of the game is to play profession cards (like “Bell Maker” or “Alchemist”) which then produce a Work which gives a player a combination of money and victory points. When a Work is played (as one of a player’s two actions), that work provides an amount of money and/or points depending on what that player has built up in and around their villa. The theme here is that the players are trying to attract the best talent by building and acquiring buildings, landscape, and “Freedoms” (freedom of opinion, religion, and travel, all of which supposedly inspire various artisans to more impressive works.) So, if I play the Bell Maker, I would earn a better work if I had the Workshop, a local forest, and if I had freedom of religion. Having only some of those items makes the value of the card less. There are also some wildcard items that help improve every work. Jesters provide two work points to any played Work, and the number of played AND unplayed profession cards held by a player also add one work point each. I guess the thinking here is that artisans like to work together, and they’re easily amused by jesters…

Buildings and freedoms can be purchased using cash during one of a player’s two actions per turn, but landscape tiles (3 different types) and jesters can only be bought at auction. (Remember there are only 7 turns in the entire game, so there are only so many jesters and landscape tiles to go around.) Auctions are even more tight because there are three more things that can be bought: builders (which reduce building costs), recruitment cards (which you exchange with any played profession card so you can get the same “work” made – and also count as profession cards in your hand to give +1 to your work score), and Prestige cards. Prestige cards are like special little mission cards that give you bonus points at the end of the game if you fulfill the mission (like most landscape, most jesters, one of each freedom, etc…)

Along with the seven auctions, players have 2 actions per turn and must use those 14 total actions wisely. Building a building, buying a freedom, and playing a profession to create a work all take an action. Players can also buy a bonus card, these cards are similar to theme to the prestige cards, but are played with a profession card to increase the value of a work. Typical bonus cards might give a +1 bonus for each building, +2 for each large building, +1 for each profession card in your hand, etc…) A final action is the purchase of more profession cards. Most players will want to play a work nearly every round, so that limits your available actions to something more like 8. If you are thinking to yourself that this is a very “tight” game if you only get 7 auctions and about 8 non-work-creating actions, you are only hitting the tip of the iceburg.

Everything about this game screams limited resources. Players start with a good wad of cash (enough to last three turns even if you bid large sums during the auction), but soon they will find that they are running low. Since a played work card provides either cash or victory points (usually a combination of the two – player’s choice) using less cash means scoring more points. Secondly, there is the aforementioned very limited number of actions a player can perform during the game. With only 7 auctions and 8 to 10 “free” actions to play with, players have got to make every decision count. To make matters worse, there is not enough of everything to go around. There are only 6 of each of most of the auction items. So, only 6 jesters, 6 builders, 6 forests, etc… to go around. In a five player game, that means competition for each of those items will be pretty tight. Note that two strategies include multiple jesters or multiple builders so they can be particularly highly coveted. There are 3 types of freedoms and always one less of each freedom than there are players, so some of those are purchased rather fast. While less of an issue for 3 or 4 players, in a five player game, even the profession cards (and thus the recruitment cards as well) tend to run out after a round or two. This is very significant, since playing profession cards is the primary way to score points and the only way to earn more cash.

As if all this competition for resources isn’t enough, every player has to manage one more resource, space. Each player has a playing mat with space on it for placing their purchased buildings and landmarks. They come in Tetris-type pieces of varying sizes and shapes. Nothing can ever be destroyed or moved on your mat, so placing your purchases wisely is very important. Buildings, in particular, are tricky as they tend to be rather large, and no two buildings can touch, except at the corners. However, buying a second builder allows a player to place buildings touching each other. (As buildings give 3 victory points per built building, one strategy is to get three builders which gives a player the ability to place adjacent buildings and makes their cost for free.)

While I’ve only played the game once, it has already gripped my imagination. The many, many constraints in the game make playing it a very tense proposition for me. Also, since there is a large auction portion to the game, it is best when players have experienced it once or twice before to be sure the prices are held up to a reasonable level and no one is getting a total “steal” for a given item. I can’t help but compare it to the boardgame Goa, which also has auctions and then somewhat interaction-less player actions. I find the theme and mechanisms of Princes of Florence to be drier and more abstract, with a slightly less “rich” tree of options to specialize in or explore, but I think Princes of Florence will play in a slightly shorter amount of time. Clearly there is a build-up of power throughout the game, and there are several distinct strategies to exploit in the race to win – both are qualities that I seek in a more meaty game. I highly recommend fans of Goa to seek this one out and give it a try.

For those curious few, yes I did win my first game and that may have clouded my current perceptions, but there are a lot of things here that hit home as elements I like in my games. My winning strategy for the evening was really a diverse one, where I simply tried to buy whatever I could during the auction at bargain-basement prices. Thus, I spent a lot less effort on replenishing my cash on hand and was able to instead constantly cash in my works for victory points. Surprisingly, the game was close at the very end, with one player (using the jester strategy) starting very, very far behind but closing quite fast at the end. The prestige cards help to make the final scoring interesting as no one knows the real final scores until they’re revealed.

GenCon Trade Day

As a teacher, I’m always on the lookout for games that could possibly be used in class. Unfortunately, I’m a high school science teacher, which significantly reduces the possibilities. If I were a social studies teacher, I could look to card-driven historical games which are in a mini renaissance at the moment with games like Here I Stand and Twilight Struggle having significant historical content. (In fact, the historical event cards made my wife a fan of the area control/light wargame Twilight Struggle. One of the upper level teachers in my building has a home-brewed World War II game that is played over several weeks as part of a modern history class. I believe this is the same instructor who does a class-wide simulation of the oil rush along with barons and shady dealing.

So, without wars and historical events to bring a game into my classroom, I settle for those games in my collection that either encourage logic and reasoning or have a decent level of science-related theme. Logic games are quite popular, the two most common styles come as puzzle-type games like Rocochet Robot and Fearsome Floors or deduction games like Zendo and Mystery of the Abbey. Of these, I think I enjoy the pure logic/deduction rulemaking found in Zendo the best. If I taught Biology, I might be able to justify bringing in a few of my biologically themed boardgames like Evo or Wildlife.

It seems that most games with a biological theme tend to take advantage of the species evolution style of play. Evo, Wildlife, and my favorite Primordial Soup all have players trying to grow and diversify a race of creatures by reproducing as well as granting new species abilities. However, there are a few gems that stand alone with strong biological themes without the evolution aspect. Of these, the most notable is probably Reef Encounter. I consider my copy of the game the cornerstone of my collection. I paid a pretty penny to get it imported from Essen, so I have a “nonstandard” edition, but the theme simply shouts style and uniqueness. When I tell people I have a game that involves players growing and invading each other’s coral reefs via polyps and guardian shrimp, they smile and nod benignly. That one statement is enough to explain that YES, I have a lot of weird games.

All this educational game discussion brings me to the title of my post. I recently received a press release from Gencon announcing Gen Con Trade Day. What is it, you ask? It is a special day set aside for “game industry” people. While I’m sure retailers and game companies will appreciate the additional assistance they will be given for getting their jobs done, a third segment of the day will be targeted at librarians and educators. This is quite exciting to me, and I hope that fellow educators will be able to take advantage of it. While there isn’t much information to go on, so far, I will do my best to try to attend, if only to see what direction the future holds. I expect the main challenge will be to convince teachers and other educators to actually attend the event. From what I read on the internet, there seems to be quite a number of teacher-types who enjoy boardgaming as a hobby. I’m sure many of them will show as a part of their GenCon experience, but here’s hoping we can get some additional folks onboard who would otherwise never see any part of GenCon. I, for one, promise not to scare any of them off by dressing as my favorite Meeple.

The Holy Grail of Solitaire Gaming

(Apologies for the late post. I couldn't connect to upload in the airport. I can claim its still Wednesday in the time zone where this was written!)

I’ve been traveling a lot lately and, ever hopeful, I bring along a game or two “just in case” I rustle up a few people to play a game. Unfortunately, I’ve spent most of my time in hotel rooms monkeying around on my computer or reading fiction, with no gaming opponent in sight. I came to the realization that what I really needed was a good solitaire game. However, after analyzing the situation further I understood that what I was truly looking for probably didn’t exist. While there are some solitaire games that will satisfy my gaming itch, the aspects of boardgames that excite me the most just don’t translate over to solitaire play. The simple explanation lies in the joy of interacting with friends and acquaintances. A solitaire game just can’t provide the fun of hanging out with friends, and it can’t provide the challenge of playing against a creative, responsive human opponent. To further complicate things, I pride myself on being a rather persuasive gamer, which gives me a slight edge in games requiring direct player-player interaction and adding to my enjoyment of them. Ignoring the glaring lack of human interaction, there has to be some sort of optimal solitaire game. Here is a small attempt to qualify what that Holy Grail of solo gaming might include.

I always claim that I enjoy games because it gives me an opportunity to analyze a set of rules and try to put together an optimal strategy. If that were wholly true, a solitaire game would be just fine. It could contain a set of rules and I would simply do my best to “solve the puzzle” as it were. Unfortunately, I’ve never been much of a puzzle-lover and comparing a boardgame to a puzzle makes it far less attractive to me. Clearly, a solitaire game needs a random element for it to be satisfying. If the entire game is laid out in advance, the game can be completely “solved” using a single method and there is no room for responding to the game itself. Too much randomness will also doom a game. Planning and developing a strategy is a very satisfying experience, one that just won’t happen in a game where chaos reigns at every turn. Solo Yahtzee is not for me, so an optimal solitaire game must employ some randomness to force the player to respond to situations, but not so much that it eliminates any possible forward planning.

Closely linked to small amounts of randomness are multiple paths to victory. Having multiple victory paths allow players to specialize in one or more areas. Hopefully, they are trading strength in one area for corresponding weakness in others. Thus, the random events will affect the overall play of the game. One player may favor the generalist route to a cautious victory, while another may prefer a riskier specialist strategy leaving open the greater possibility of failure. While multiple victory paths will definitely increase a game’s complexity, it doesn’t preclude solitaire play. Increasing the complexity of a solitaire game is possible, but it does make balancing all the other game aspects that much more difficult.

Another aspect of games I enjoy is the snowball effect. I compare it to tending a garden, where you put in work and effort and slowly enjoy more and more of the fruits of your labor. Many Eurogames have this element. Similar to a well written story, a game can reach a frenetic climax can occur in the end game as players finish up their strategy. Again, nothing precludes a solitaire game from including a snowball effect, but balancing a system of rules to stand up to the rigors of intelligent players is a challenge. Unless everything is rigorously developed and playtested, a snowball design can end up flawed due to an overlooked rule.

One possible route to a solitaire game is by taking a well-loved game and developing a set of rules for opponents to follow. While this can be done, I wouldn’t want to include such a thing in my search for the Grail of solitaire play. At its simplest level, the imaginary opponent will either be playing randomly (and thus requiring a handicap for the human player) or it will have a complex behavior that might as well be played by a computer. I enjoy playing boardgames against the computer as much as the next guy, but it isn’t the focus of my search. Alternatively, if an opponent strategy is simple enough to not require a computer to manage it, the human player will essentially be playing against the solitaire ruleset and not the game itself. (Imagine a game of Goa against an imaginary opponent. If each tile was assigned a set value, a human player could then just try to pick up any tiles undervalued by the imaginary player’s ruleset. The game would be more an optimization of the non-player’s decision tree rather than a true game of Goa.)

Surprisingly, there is a small subset of games that comes close to my ideal solo game. Many of the games with a strong role-playing flavor either play well or can be adapted into being decent solitaire play. For example, with a few adaptations to deal with (ignore) inter-player combat, the World of Warcraft Boardgame can be played solo as a race against the event deck. Arkham Horror also makes a decent solo game. Although I haven’t tried it, I assume Lord of the Rings might be playable solitaire, but I think it would lose a bit without inter-character assistance. Leaning even more towards the role playing side of things, the old choose-your-own adventure style books that included game rules (basically role playing modules designed for solo play) worked well for a few (but not too many) plays. Each of these games have a good balance of overall thematic objectives, but also include short term random encounters or events requiring appropriate response by the player. As the characters progress through the game, they typically gain new abilities – a limited snowball effect. Role-playing style games are not for everyone, but they currently remain as the best fit for my ideal solitaire game.

When all is said and done, the best gaming moments are shared with friends. If solitaire gaming isn’t yet up to my hopeful ideals I guess I’ll fall back on solitaire “games” of unpacking and reading the rules for a new game, reading up on game-related news and discussion online, and planning my next boardgame gathering.

San Juan? - No Thanks!

I had the pleasure of spending a good portion of the past week, hanging out with old college buddies in sunny Puerto Rico. Not one to miss a gaming opportunity, I brought along a few games to show off.

San Juan – How could I pass this one up? Puerto Rico is too big to bring on a plane, and would have been a bit much to spring on my non-gaming friends.

No Thanks – This is my go-to game for non-gamers, its small size makes it nice and portable.

Bang! - I brought Bang! and its expansion, Dodge City as I thought the theme would work well with our group of five.


In the end, No Thanks was the big winner, being played at least seven or more times, stirring up much discussion. We got in one play of San Juan which went over “OK”, and Bang! never made it to the table.

I’ll start with San Juan, as I have less to say about it. While I find it a fun little game, I think it doesn’t do the great game of Puerto Rico justice. There is still a significant luck of the draw on how the cards are distributed. While an experienced player can sometimes overcome it, it is harder for newer players to know how to compensate. For example, I had no production buildings in hand, even after choosing the councilor phase twice (well the second time I got a second indigo plant). However, I did manage to get the aqueduct and market stall early in the game so was able to eventually sell both indigo plants on a regular basis. I find the aqueduct and market cards to be far too powerful. Players that get both, can always earn two good and sell them both, without having to even choose either role. This adds up over the course of the game, making it difficult for any player who does not have one. This is probably mitigated in a two player game, as more cards are available, but in a four player game one player is guaranteed to not have each card. In our game, I started behind due to a lack of production buildings but was able to catch up in the late game. One of the biggest surprises of the game for me was that the only other gamer present often hit minor bouts of analysis paralysis. I think it may have been BECAUSE he had played Puerto Rico before, and he was reading more into San Juan than was actually there. I realized after I had won, I perhaps should have tried to play so as to give someone else the win (and increase the chance it would be played again) but I rarely see these guys so it probably doesn’t matter in the long run.

No Thanks!, however, was fairly successful. After a minor amount of foot-dragging everyone started playing and caught on quick. It is always interesting to watch people learn the game and develop strategies for playing. As all these players were college chums, they are very smart (I went to a nerd college) and were quickly analyzing the relevant aspects of the game to try to develop a winning strategy.

The development of play went through stages that I now consider quite common in people learning the game. Initially, the playing chips were undervalued and everyone tended to let the cards load up on chips. A twenty five card might get ten chips on it and still be considered nearly equivalent to a fifteen. After just a single play, everyone saw the value of chips and began to plan out their needs for the whole game. A significant portion of good-natured threats to screw each other over was also present, preventing anyone from running an unwanted card (to all but one player) too many times around the table. One player was fascinated by the value of chips and was trying to assign value to them, hoping to be able to assign an optimal expected value for a given situation. If chips have a certain value, then a chip/card combination could be set that would always be a good decision – similar to betting tables for Video Poker or Blackjack that show the optimal decision for each situation. As everyone soon learns, however, in No Thanks! the value of a chip fluctuates during a game. At the start of the game, they are more valuable, as they can prevent one from taking a bad card later. At the end of the game, they simply have the negative one point value and that’s it. If nothing else, I was surprised at how quickly everyone developed from beginning players to very good strategists. What typically takes many plays to develop was found and adopted within just a few. By the end of the first night, everyone was balancing card and chip values fairly well, and the cards were almost always picked up off the table right when everyone else was “about to pick them up”. Even the endgame was vicious as we all kept track of our chip needs, devaluing them as the deck wore down. (One of the biggest faults I see in somewhat experienced players is how they fail to devalue chips in the last few rounds. Putting a chip on a 5 card is a totally valid move if there aren’t many cards left in the deck.)

With everyone playing in such an efficient manner, I was once again struck by the elegance of the game mechanics. Sure, there is a huge amount of luck involved due to the 9 cards removed from the game, but there are also some very nice balancing mechanics to prevent one player’s strategy from dominating. One good strategy is to take a reasonably high card early, and then hope for more to come up in the sequence, sending them around each time they appear to glean even more chips from one’s opponents. However, this strategy is self-limiting as players will eventually run out of chips – you can’t milk a dry cow. This can be even more significant, if players are valuing the chips differently. If you have only a few chips, it may just be worth it to take a fairly high valued card to be back in chip-flush territory again. This can be even more worthwhile if by taking the card you break another player’s sequence. Thus, if there are a few chip-scarce players around, sending a sequence-joining card around the table can be a risky proposition. I even came across a new strategy to consider. While the idea of “not running out of chips” is fairly straightforward, I did observer the power of having a single chip left. If you have no chips, you have to take whatever comes up. Having even a single chip, can mean you cycle a bad card one more time around, making sure that you aren’t forced to take a card several times in a row. While it may be obvious to some, I realized that the difference between one chip and no chips is significant enough to modify some of my choices as I get close to running out of chips. Being the great universal game that it is, No Thanks played an even larger role in our evening relaxations… since it comes with a small baggie of chips we conveniently used them in several games of poker.

Gaming by the Numbers

As I write this, I’m reminded of the scene in Dead Poet’s Society where the teacher mocks the analysis of poetry using numbers and a graph to represent a poem’s quality. However, as I played a game of Louis XIV last night, I was struck by the idea of trying to analyze a game using a numerical scale for a number of different axes. I was contemplating that Louis XIV is not confrontational, and thus not of interest to several players in our club as they are very much into confrontation. As I thought about other games I realized I might be able to rank games onto a scale of 1 to 10 (or -5 to +5, whatever) to signify how much direct player confrontation occurs. I use the word confrontation, as cooperative games like Lord of the Rings allow some player interaction, but it isn’t one player trying to take advantage of another. Cooperative games of this nature would surely fall on the far end of the confrontation scale. Zero sum games where anytime one player wins another loses, like wargames, would then be on the high end of the scale (10). I’m sure the topic would be great fodder for gamer discussion on just how confrontational a game might be. I’m sure this is not a new discussion at all, but was got me interested enough to write about it is the idea of looking for additional game properties that might also be laid out on an axis (1 to 10) to further categorize games. If such a system could be constructed, gamers could figure out what their preferences are, and then try to match them to games that closely fit their style. If a player has no preference for a particular axis (say, they think confrontation is fine, but they don’t need it to have fun) then they could just ignore that axis when trying to match a good game in “game space”. Here is a half-hearted attempt to try to quantify independent attributes about a game. This attempt to analyze games is not to weed out the stinker games from the good, but to compare solid designs to each other to match an individual player’s likes and dislikes. Games with rules universally regarded as unplayable should be considered “broken” and not placed on the chart at all.

Confrontation
I’ve already talked a little about this, but this is simply a ranking on how much players are able to get in each other’s way. Pure cooperative games like Vanished Planet would score a 1, while more vicious games like Diplomacy or a wargame would score a 10. Note that some people may find their preferences to lie on the two extremes. While Settlers isn’t very confrontational (say, a 3 or 4), the few times it occurs (via the Robber), may make the game less fun. Thus, a player might be fine with confrontation, as long as it is the expected norm for the game – they don’t like to feel singled out. Games like Can’t Stop or Goa would also be fairly low on the scale with Puerto Rico scoring middle of the road due to strategic role selection. I’m the Boss would be a fine example of a highly confrontational non-wargame.

Chance
A perennial favorite for discussion, clearly the element of chance is anathema to some and a welcome injection of “fun” for others. It is also fairly easy to measure. To judge this, we first have to rule out any effect due to other player’s decisions – just because one opponent plays poorly enough to give a second opponent an advantage doesn’t mean the game contains a chance element. Since this is a “game-y” audience, lets put 1 as a completely random game like CandyLand, while a 10 would be something with no randomness at all – like Caylus. I also want to keep the ranking separate from the player’s ability to mitigate the fickle hand of fate. A game that is pure luck with no way to manage the randomness is probably not a very good game, and could be taken care of with a separate category. For example, Poker is a very random game – if a single hand is played. So, Poker would be a ranked very low on this axis, say a 2, since chance plays a big part of the game moment by moment.

Control
By now all the poker players are up in arms. Hopefully the addition of this category will make you happy. Control represents a player’s ability to control the outcome of events within the game. In the long haul, a poker player can manage their resources, read people’s bluffs and so on… Thus, poker should fall somewhere in the midrange of the control axis. Meanwhile, CandyLand still remains at a measly 1. Other games may score high in the Chance category (having little randomness), but still have very little control. An example would be a multiplayer game where the game situation is always changing so players can only respond tactically to a given situation and it is difficult to plan out any long-term strategy. Citadels may be a good example of a game with only a bit of randomness, as one can’t affect any other player directly but it is still hard for a player to have a high degree of control of the situation.

Theme
Theme often comes up in game discussions, and it clearly affects many players’ opinions of a game. This category can also serve as double-duty, since a game with poor components will also tend to have a poorly executed theme. Some gamers may find less theme acceptable and thus be very fond of abstract games or pasted-on themes, while other gamers find they do enjoy a bit more story behind their game. Pure abstracts might score a 1 or 2 simply because they don’t try to advance a theme. Meanwhile a game with even a pasted-on theme may rank as high as a 4 or even a 5 if it is executed in a nice manner. (Again, sort of adding in components to the mix as I feel quality components can sometimes make up for a drier theme as I will help the theme along if I enjoy the components enough.) Games like Tikal would be medium-high possibly a 6 or 7 as it is a fairly abstract game but the components help to carry the theme forward. Around the World in 80 Days has a pretty good theme and would come in at an 8 or 9. Die Macher is a dry game that still seems to pull off gameplay that does feel as if one is negotiating to win elections – I’d give it at least a 7.

Time to Play
Taken by itself, the length of a game is probably not a great measure of a person’s preferences. Sure, some may prefer to avoid particularly long games while others find a game that is too short really won’t have enough time to develop. However, the length of a game is clearly significant to many players, as reviews will often mention a game to be too long for its content or too short to develop. Taken as just one attribute of a game and then compared with others can make it a valuable measure of a person’s preferences. Perhaps one player is willing to play a game with a great deal of chance, as long as it is short. Similarly, one might prefer a game with a longer duration to have more control, and not be a series of independent exercises in optimization.

I’m sure the list of attributes could go on and on – at some point in the future I may attempt to make a somewhat definitive list. However, I think even the few examples I present may provide food for thought. Remember, each category is not a ranking of better or worse, just different. Some may prefer certain ranges while others prefer another. It would be interesting to gather a pile of data, having players score a set of games according to the above criteria, and then compare the results to ranking on the Geek to see if there are definite trends in opinions about games. The results would probably only reveal things that are already conventional wisdom.

How about you? Think there are any defining attributes that I missed? Is the whole concept impossible? There will always be games that come along with a mechanism that some find intolerable, blind bidding for example. That can’t be properly contained in my rickety scoring structure (although it could affect the games overall Control score). However, putting in additional on/off binary flags for a particular game mechanism (or attribute) seems to be moving further from my ideal dream of each gamer having their own preferred n-dimensional game space.

Spread the Joy

For most of my life, I have been the preeminent “gaming guru” of my social circle. That doesn’t mean I’m the best player, but it does mean I’m the most enthusiastic about games. There are many advantages to being the local guru, as I tend to be the game supplier on any given gaming night I can be sure to bring games that I want to play. This also means I tend to be the game teacher, so have a slight leg up on the competition as I’ve spent more time thinking about a game before it comes to the table for the first time. However, there are some drawbacks. As the designated guru, it falls upon me to find the next interesting game. Now, this isn’t too bad as I enjoy spending some of my time researching new games on the internet and trying to calculate if it is a game that I would enjoy and would be one that could be brought to the table for playing. Any hardcore game fan will realize both of those conditions are necessary for a good game. It doesn’t matter how much I think I will like a game if I won’t be able to ever arrange a time and a place to play it. The biggest drawback comes in as the supplier of boardgames. While it is nice to have a bit more control over what gets played on any given evening, it also means that if I don’t own a game and can’t afford adding it to my collection, I just won’t ever get to play it. This also means I tend to never get to play some of the older classics, as I typically have my eye on the newest and brightest stars on the horizon and don’t have the cash to go back and pick up some of the older “classics”.

With the creation of a regular gaming group over the summer, I have found myself with an excellent opportunity to observe the birth and growth of several new gamers as they enter the fold of full-fledged gaming enthusiasts. After several months of playing games primarily from my collection, the Christmas season hit and a wealth of games has entered into the homes of members of our gaming group. In fact, one has even gone so far as to try to establish a definitive beginner collection of boardgames. You can read his thoughts over at a very well-thought out GeekList at the boardgame geek: Starting Your Game Collection - A Guide for Advanced Newbies . Not only do I now have access to several titles that I have never played before, but I have a real paternal sense of having brought a new gamer into the fold. Introducing folks to boardgaming is always fun for me as it brings me new opponents and thus more opportunities for gaming, but in the case of our fledgling gaming group, I feel as if I got to watch the entire life cycle of a gamer unfold. First there was the wonder and enjoyment of finding out about “these games of ours”, next came a hunger for testing the waters of various new games combined with a desire to give a few select games a really good work-over to explore their depth. We’ve now reached the final stage of acquiring and establishing a game collection so that they can independently propagate the joys of gaming.

Everyone have a virtual cigar, on me!

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Recent games played:

With the second edition/printing of Twilight Struggle by GMT Games I’ve finally had the chance to give the game a try. Surprisingly, it was actually a pretty good hit with my wife. While she is highly intelligent (being a physics professor and all), she is not much of a game fan and typically plays only to spend more time with me (isn’t she so nice). While one might thing a quasi-wargame based on the cold war wouldn’t be the ticket to draw her in, she actually enjoyed the game quite a bit despite falling behind early and never being able to catch up. I attribute this to two main reasons. First, even though she was behind on points, there was always something for her to do. Just because I had more points didn’t mean she wasn’t able to significantly affect positions on the board. In fact, due to the way some of the cards work a player who is behind will often get a greater benefit from card events than if they were ahead. Secondly, the game is highly historical. Both my wife and I enjoy learning just about anything and taking a stroll down recent historical events in the last century was a blast. The rules thankfully have a short paragraph explaining the event(s) associated with each card, giving players a handy resource to learn more about that interesting era.

My only beef with the game comes in the randomness. There are die rolls that can really make or break you, but typically only affect things in the short term and they tend to average out over time. A larger problem was if one player was dealt less valuable cards (values of all 1’s and 2’s with no cards worth 3 or 4) for an entire hand. That meant an entire hand of cards could go by while one player felt rather impotent to significantly change their position on the game board.

On the whole, we both enjoyed the game and look forward to future plays. I am anxious to show it off to the social studies teachers at our local high school where I teach. I can see why the game won several awards last year.