Games for after school programs

This is something I'm putting together for the Out of School Hours Care program at Biggie's school ...

Games for Out of School Hours Care programs are typically played often and are taught child-to-child, rather than adult-to-child. They should ideally be able to be played by a relatively large group (there is less need for two player games when there are plenty of willing opponents) and by children of varying ages, and must be able to cope with the loss of a player, for example when a child is collected from OSHC.

As these games are typically played at the end of the day, when children are tired, it is important that they be fun, not too complicated and as far as possible not involve direct conflict between players. Pragmatic considerations suggest that they should not be broken by the loss of one or several game pieces.

Some games that would make a great start to your OSHC game cupboard:

• Apples to Apples Junior


• Blink


• Blokus


• Carcassonne


• Catch the Match


• Dancing Eggs


• Diamant (Incan Gold)


• Halli Galli


• Make ‘n’ Break


• Scattergories


• Sherlock


• TransAmerica

As children become used to playing with and looking after games, you can add more – and possibly games that need a little more care. Through the Desert, Dawn Under and – for older children – Shadows over Camelot or Cleopatra and the Society of Architects would make excellent choices as your game library matures, as well as any number of card games (look for titles like King’s Breakfast and Mamma Mia).

The most important thing that you can do to keep your games intact is to teach children to "count them out and count them in". This can be an issue when parents are collecting them, especially if they have appointments to keep or other children to collect, so any complex games should be started early and finished early, or kept for game club or a family game night.

Roman Puzzle and Game Perceptions

I want to start off by offering a puzzle, and I'll do my best to offer a new one every two weeks.

I've been looking at the names of games, and I've noticed that a lot have Roman numerals in them. If you multiply all of the numerals found in a game's name, you get yet another number. If I were to throw in the length of the name and the amount of Roman numerals, you get a puzzle.

For example, if you take the clue "FIVE-LETTER GAME, 2 NUMBERS, and 1000" you would get FLUXX.

First you figure out which two roman numerals when multiplied equal 1000. This could be:

M (1000) and I (1),
C (100) and X (10),
CC (200) and V (5),
L (50) and XX (20),
etc.

If you went with the last pair, then you would throw in the remaining two letters (U and F) to get FLUXX. The hidden numbers will always be separated by at least one non-roman numeral. Also, two-digit roman numerals won't be split up (in the above example, the answer wouldn't split up the two X's).

Now here's the puzzle:

EIGHT-LETTER GAME, 3 NUMBERS, and 4,950,000.

What's the game?

So I'm managing World Games of Montana, a Missoula game store. In the past year and a half, I've spent a lot of time in the game store for fun, just playing around and occasionally helping lost souls find a decent game. But my time as a "game store regular" in no way prepared me for the loads of the people I've encountered in the last few weeks as manager.

Don’t misunderstand me, though. People are nice. People don't typically come into a game store in a foul mood (though I haven't been here for Christmas). I like working here and talking with customers about products I enjoy. But some of the things I hear make me want to open a head or two to find out what exactly their gerbil is up to.

Let me spare you stories of the usual "You mean it's like Monopoly?" after I've just spent 10 minutes explaining Puerto Rico or the plethora of tales about that humble mother, aunt, or grandmother with an overly intelligent child, grandchild, niece or nephew (Oh, your child is a genius? Well, may I recommend Dread Pirate?). Gamers get that kind of stuff even when they don't work in a retail gaming shop.

I have two stories in mind, both of which I have yet to really figure out but which inspired this blog:

The first. A woman came in with her little boy, probably elementary school age. The boy was attracted to all the war games like Attack!, Memoir '44, and Axis & Allies. As he was picking up the last one, the mother grabbed it, put it back, and said, "No games about war. There's enough war in the world." Then she asked if we had any chess clubs the boy could attend.

The second. A woman came in and asked if we had Guillotine for her little boy (he had already played it and liked it). I said that we were out but that perhaps he might enjoy another light game like Bang! I explained the rules, and she cut me off, saying that it sounded too violent.

Both of these incidents left me without comment, literally sucked me dry of the ability to reply. What do I say? What can I say? Their minds were already decided, a kind of thin-sliced instant opinion that Malcolm Gladwell describes in his book "Blink!" but different because of the lack of true experience.

The perception of a game is a sort of all-enduring phenomenon. I'm imagining that there were some internal monologues from the above situations going something like this: "Chess is chess. I don't know the rules, but I put it on a pedestal because that's what intelligent people do." or "My child likes a game called Guillotine. I haven't actually taken the time to look at the game or internalize that it's about cutting off people's heads. My child likes it, so it must be wholesome and completely different than a game about shooting people." No one can break these mind sets. It takes personal experience, a certain amount of time for people to cope with the internal dissonance of their opposing thoughts, and then -voila!- they're cured. Some of the time, anyway.

You simply can't get away from the idea that with some of these public game perceptions come game stereotypes and groupings. I actually use these mindsets to help people decide which game to buy. If I tell them that Settlers of Catan is like a slightly more complicated Monopoly with family appeal, they'll be more likely to at least look at it, maybe buy. If I don't use comparisons, customers will often volunteer comparisons with the best their mental game libraries have to offer:

Go? Is that like Pente?

BuyWord? Is that like Boggle?

Puerto Rico? Is that like Candyland?

Well, maybe that last one is a big fat phony (that is, it never happened), but people do tend to shove new games into very distinct mental compartments. That's how chess can cease to be a war game and is instead a good mental exercise and sign of healthy intelligence. That's how Guillotine can cease to be a game about the bloody French Revolution and is instead a fun, wholesome game that children like and enjoy. I've been telling people for years that Candyland is all about tooth decay and gingivitis, but they never listen.

I'm just grateful to Klaus Teuber and his Settlers of Catan for slowly changing the public perception of games. He and Settlers have made it much easier for me to do my job. I don't think I could take the daily grind if everyone's reference point was Monopoly and Boggle. With his game working wonders on Americans, I believe there will be a day when people will ask if Power Grid is like Settlers of Catan. Not quite right, of course, but definitely headed in the right direction.

The Finnish Connection

Things have been slow around the Weisbeck house, game-wise anyway, so no flashes of writing inspiration have struck. Luckily for you, I’ve found a stand-in so you don’t have to go away hungry for something game-related to read today. Mikko Karvonen, who is known by the username Gargoyle on the Geek, is from Turku, Finland and is my GeekBuddy because we share a love for games that let you make creative moves like El Grande, Stephenson’s Rocket and Blue Moon City. I was interested to hear about the gaming community in other parts of the world and Mikko kindly agreed to tell us about Finland and hopefully will return whenever the muse strikes again.
~~~~~~~

A while ago Mary asked me if I’d be interested in becoming a regular visiting blogger in Gone Gaming. The invitation was a huge surprise, to say the least, and a great honour, and I’m lousy enough at saying ’no’ even in far less flattering circumstances, so how could I have refused?

So, for now, you’ll be stuck with me every few weeks or so.

As can be expected on Gone Gaming, I’ll be writing about my personal thoughts, views and rants about the world of boardgames. But I’ll also try to offer a view to a bit different culture of playing than most of the other writers here by exploring the various aspects of boardgaming here in Finland.

Yes, Finland. The country of 5 million people, sometimes known as the land of sauna, sisu and Sibelius, midnight sun, polar bears and huge tracts of snow. Okay, I lied about the polar bears, but we do have all the other stuff. And we also have an emerging boardgaming culture finding its place alongside all the other geekish stuff. So this time I thought I’d offer you an overview on what the boardgaming scene currently looks like around here.

If there is one thing to know about Finnish people it’s that we love our organised societies. If three or more Finns find out that they share a common interest or ideology, they are likely to set up a society for it. We also love to arrange world championships in all sorts of things like cellphone throwing, wife carrying and swamp football (that’s soccer for you guys on the other side of the pond). But I digress.

So… given that we are Finns, we naturally have Finnish Boardgaming Society (http://www.lautapeliseura.fi/). It was founded couple years ago to actively promote boardgaming and offer the players chances to meet new people and try out new games. So far, the active members have done a great job with the society. It has several local branches that organise weekly gaming evenings open for anyone interested, a nice library of games, good contacts to Finnish game publishers and importers and an active forum of it’s own. The Society also runs a few conventions every year, including at least one that is getting so popular that they are careful not to advertise it to make sure that the crowd does not get too big.

In addition to Finnish Boardgaming Society, there are also lots of local clubs and societies. Many of them have originally been RPG-societies, that have, often after Settlers of Catan, started to branch out in boardgames. This is also true with Tyrmä (that’s Dungeon or Prison in English), the roleplaying and boardgaming society of the Turku University, in which I have been active myself for several years. We have about 40 members, a library of some 70-80 games, a day of gaming once in a fortnight with both RPGs and boardgames and a devoted boardgaming evening once a month.

Of other local societies the most notable one is Otaniemen RoolipeliClubi, or ORC, who game twice a week. Their most important claim for fame however is starting the gaming convention Ropecon back in the 1994. It has a long time ago become a completely separate entity with an independent society (here we go with societies again!) running it, but kicking off the show that has grown up to be the biggest Scandinavian and one of the biggest European gaming conventions around is not a mean task. Especially since Ropecon has been declared ”One of the best gaming conventions ever” by many Guests of Honour, including mister Bruno Faidutti (http://www.faidutti.com/index.php?Module=divers&id=440), who I think you might have heard of.

Originally Ropecon included RPGs, CCGs and miniatures, but as the years have passed, it has welcomed all sorts of geeks, including renaissance faire -folk and anime-lovers. So the boardgames have found their place there as well. For several years they were sort of an extra amusement with few tables reserved for gaming, but after Finnish Boardgaming Society was founded, they got quickly involved and got the boardgaming a completely separate room. This year it was already very popular: you’d have to utilise some non-euclidian talents to find a space to play during the peak hours. This was partly due to the large selection of loanable games and volunteers constantly available to explain the rules of the games you were unfamiliar with. This year was also the first time one of the Guests of Honour in Ropecon (there are usually three every year) was related to boardgaming as Bruno Faidutti agreed to honour us with his presence. All of this speaks volumes about the updraft the boardgaming is having in Finland.

Of course, the rising popularity is also helped by the strong support of the local game companies. There are few companies publishing boardgames in Finnish and two of them are focusing on German-style offerings. The most prominent one is Lautapelit.fi, which is also the only Finnish store devoted to selling boardgames (and CCGs, but we’ll cut them some slack, right?). They are doing a great job supporting the hobby by a good website, nice enough selection of games and friendly and knowledgeable customer service.

During the last two or three years Lautapelit.fi and other companies have started to translate and publish German-style games in Finnish. The selection has been very good: the list of already published and upcoming games include Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne, Ticket to Ride, Samurai, Tempus, Nacht der Magier, Mykerinos, Bohnanza, Himalaya, Puerto Rico, Doom, Einfach Genial and Hey, That’s My Fish! I’m not sure how well each of the games have been received, but at least the usual suspects, Carcassonne and Ticket to Ride (Menolippu in finnish), have seemed to find their audience. Especially Carcassonne keeps popping up in random conversations about boardgames with non-gamers. So far the most sold game every Christmas season seems to be Winnie the Pooh -themed edition of Kimble, which is the Finnish version of Trouble, but maybe that’ll change at some point. Probably not, though.

Of other companies, also Fantasiapelit deserves a mention. They’ve been THE Finnish supplier of all things geeky for over 20 years now and have always had a good selection (actually in many cases the best I’ve seen in any country in Europe!) of RPGs, CCGs, miniatures, comics, fantasy and scifi books, stuffed toys... you name it. They have also always devoted a part of their inventory to boardgames. At first, it was mostly wargames and random Avalon Hill and SJG-stuff, but when the German-styled games started to trickle out, they were quick to catch on. Nowadays their main store has an impressive shelf full of boardgames very close to the entrance, so it’s clearly an important part of their business as well. With six other stores in smaller cities and a webstore, they are certainly making their part in getting the boardgames in the hands of anyone interested.

Together these two stores take pretty good care of the needs of the local gamers. Their selection differs somewhat, so checking both stores ­– and the couple decent online stores we have – allows us to get our hands on practically all common and many of the bit more uncommon games. In my personal collection, the only games I’ve had to go to other countries for are Waldschattenspiel, Edel, Stein & Reich, some Heroscape expansions, Pizza Box Football, Battleground: Fantasy Warfare and, perhaps most surprisingly, Diamant. For smaller publishers’ games we usually have to shop either in English or German online stores, but I guess that’s often the situation in other countries too.

However, despite the rather good selection locally, many of the most active boardgame enthusiastics tend to buy most of their games from German online stores, for one big reason: prices. The taxation in Finland is very high, so everything costs here a bit more than it does elsewhere. When you combine that to the usual lower prices of online stores compared to the traditional ones, the difference can get pretty big. While I personally buy all the games I can from the local shops, I can understand why many others choose otherwise. Still, it always feels a bit stupid to read about Americans complaining about high prices, when many things can cost 1,5-2 times as much around here!

For non-gamers the available selection of games changes a lot depending on the season. Before christmas a vast range of products can be found in all big department stores. They include all the usual stuff like Trivial Pursuit, Monopoly and various children’s games and party games, but thanks to the new wave of translated German games, some new recruits were seen on the shelves last year. Carcassonne, Settlers of Catan, Around the World in 80 Days, Ticket to Ride, Alhambra, Niagara and Karibia were all prominently displayed and locating Doom, Metro, Blokus Duo and Einfach Genial was also possible without too much trouble. On the other hand, during non-holiday season, only Carcassonne seems to have secured it’s place in the inventory of most department stores.

So, all in all, boardgaming as a hobby has a pretty strong foothold in Finland. There is also a lot of potential for its growth as many features in Finnish culture, like long, dark winter nights and our love for our summer cottages, offer a lot of opportunities for boardgames to root in. But there is also a long way to go, which was painfully proven in the recent Game of the Year -selection by our national toy association when many great and potentially non-gamer-compatible games were trumped by a game that is basicly a glorified Tic-Tac-Toe (http://www.nelostuote.fi/suomi/fp.php?id=suomi/2006/pentago).

Mikko Karvonen

Board Game Magic

"Board games."

I paused with my quill above a fresh sheet of parchment. Did I just hear that right?

"Excuse me," I said, nervously. "Did you ... did you just say 'board games'? Because I heard 'board games'. Ha ha! Ha?"

Edwin Greenwood looked up over his wire-rimmed spectacles. "Yes. Board games."

This was not what I was expecting to hear. I had come to the ramshackle cottage of the land's greatest wizard, Edwin Greenwood, as I do the evening of every first of the lunar month. I look forward to these visits with great enthusiasm. Usually, I come away with reams of parchment scribbled with notes about great magic swords, forgotten books of powerful lore, or little known medicinal or magical secrets regarding rare plants or minerals.

Tonight, we sat in his crowded one room cottage, heady smells wafting from his cookfire and experiment tables, little automatons racing or squawking noisily in corners and under tables, and the glow of the fire and two lit braziers casting shadows over mounds of papers, tubes, and instruments of all sorts. My host was sitting across from me, his head hovering over a bowl of stew, his eyes looking up over his glasses. He didn't seem to understand my confusion.

"Well," I began, "board games. Well. I'm sure that, uh, board games might be a nice topic for some Sunday afternoon in the park, maybe with children, but I was hoping for something a little more, uh, ... you know?" I finished, waving my hands.

"Something a little more, ... you know?" he waved his hands, mockingly, and with a smile. "Board games a little too ... childish for you?" His face grew more serious.

"Then you should know this. The greatest wizards of this generation, past generations, and future generations, if my divinations are anything to go by, devoted a lot of time to board games. All types of games, every shape and size. There's a whole lot more to board games, and indeed card games, than just winning a few rubles from the local knucklehead down at Soot's Bar. You know." And he waved his hands again.

"Very well," I said, resigned. "Tell me about board games."

And so he began.

It seems that board games have been used since time immemorial for all sorts of arcane purposes, from divination to planning wars, from locating rare material components to increasing the intellect. Rumor also holds that each board game holds the unique key to unlocking some secret of the universe. The more board games one plays and masters, the more privy you are to some universal secret. No one has been able to tell exactly what this secret is, just yet, but the greatest wizards have been working on it for generations.

"Furthermore," he said, as I prompted him to get to the good stuff, "it is no coincidence that the greatest wizards were also great board games players. In fact, when a test of wizardry could not be performed for whatever reason, simple hierarchy could be established through the playing of a few simple games. Inevitably, the winner was also the better wizard."

Edwin went on for some time about historical facts, board game heraldry, demonic symbolism, and so on, which I won't bore you with. I will skip to the parts that I had come for: board game magical items.

Books

A Google of Games

This Grimoire is covered in a dull black cloth and contains no markings of any sort on the cover. It was created by the legendary wizard Sidicus Saxon. It was last seen two hundred years ago in the village of Kaliforn, and carried by a hooded dwarf-like creature passing through on a pony. It was only a fortuitous gust of wind that blowing a pack covering open that permitted a glimpse of the book. Anduin Grishold saw the book, but before he could ask any questions, the creature had hastily snapped the pack closed and ridden away at great haste.

The Google of Games is said to weight about 5 pounds and radiates a soft glow if Detect Magic is cast on it. When the proper command word is spoken, the book may be opened and laid out on the table. Any game board desired is replicated on the pages in three dimensions, and at the side of the board will be small containers containing the pieces necessary to play the game. This is said to work not only for existing games, but also for game prototypes in progress. Thus it is highly valued by wizards, as it speeds up the game design process by a factor of d4+1 days +1/game level.

The game cannot be closed until the pieces are put properly away, at which point it refolds down into the ordinary book like appearance that it usually takes.

Manual of the Playings

This legendary book was created by Gategy Stramer, a wizard from the land of Nicha. It is about three or four hundred years old. The book is covered with two wooden covers (of bamboo color), back and front, and engraved with a 19x19 grid-like pattern in silver on each side. Its whereabouts are unknown.

When the command word is spoken and a game is named, opening the book will reveal notes on strategy for the named game. Anyone studying the notes for d6+1 hours will gain expert level proficiency in the named game.

If the book is opened without the proper command word, the book will contain Explosive Ruins doing 6d6 damage, after which the book disappears to locations unknown.

Mirrorbook

This devious artifact was created only fifty years ago by Steal Neverson, a wizard-assassin. However, it has already gained a certain infamy. Apparently the cover of the book appears to be an ordinary book to anyone but its owner, covered in black leather and inscribed with some sort of Elvish writings. The book contains some fanciful story about fiery wheeled shoes and focaccias.

To its owner, however, the cover of the book works as a mirror. The rumors are that Steal would place the book somewhere in the room and then arrange to be seated somewhere across the table from the book, thus affording him secret knowledge of his opponent's card holdings.

The book radiates strong Chaos if detected.

The Games Grimoire

This simple titled spellbook has a dark purple cloth cover and is bound with iron clasps with golden ruins. It is used by my colleague Lannan Moon, a witch of high character. In addition to holding six first-level, three second-level, and one each fourth, fifth, and sixth-level spells (roll randomly to determine which spells appear), the book is known to contain these unique spells:

Tamper With Fate
Transmutation
Level: Wiz 2
Components: V
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 50ft
Target: One game
Duration: 10 minutes per caster level
Saving Throw: Special
Spell Resistance: Special

This spell causes luck rolls made in a game to be extremely lucky for the caster. All rolls are 50% more likely to be beneficial, while opponent's rolls are 50% less likely to be beneficial. Any opponents or bystanders who are given reason to question your lucky streak can make a ST vs Will at -2. If they fail, they will not be suspicious.

Enchant Dice
Transmutation
Level: Wiz 4
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 hour
Range: touch
Target: One pair of dice/level of caster
Duration: 1 week + 1 week/level of caster
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: N/A

This spell enchants one or more pairs of dice to be lucky or unlucky, as the caster desires. The dice are more likely than usual (20-50% in a given game) to roll better than average numbers for their owner. The unusual nature of the enchanted dice cannot be detected by any non-magical means. A rogue employing a magical device has only a 10% chance per level greater than the caster of being able to detect the nature of the enchantment. The material component for this spell is a small file.

Lesser Playtesting
Divination
Level: Wiz 5
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 hour
Range: 10ft
Target: One game
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: N/A

This spell allows the caster to determine exactly what is necessary to complete a game design, and how to fix any problems in the design. If the caster follows the instructions learned from the casting of this spell (a task that takes 1d4 days to complete), the resulting game will be a good game for the local game market. The material components are the game prototype, ten pieces of parchment, quill, ink (valued at 25 GP), and a wastepaper basket. The parchment and ink are used up in the casting of the spell.

Greater Playtesting
Divination
Level: Wiz 6
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 hour
Range: 10ft
Target: One game
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: N/A

This spell is the same as the fifth level spell Lesser Playtesting, except that the instructions take 2d4 days to complete and the resulting game will be a great game for the global game market. The material components are the game prototype, twenty pieces of parchment, quill, ink (valued at 50 GP), and a wastepaper basket. The parchment and ink are used up in the casting of the spell.

Magic Items

Boxnard's Blessed Dice: A pair of these dice will throw whatever numbers the owner desires. Approximately 1% of these dice are cursed and will throw the worst result possible whenever they are thrown.

Ocre's Cursed Dice of Gambling: The owner of a pair of these dice has a compulsion for gambling at any available opportunity. The dice start off throwing 10-20% greater than average results but gradually slip (over th course of d6+6 rolls) into throwing 10-20% less than average results for the owner. Whenever the owner tries to throw dice, these dice will leap into his hands, regardless of where they are physically kept.

Dentrill's Deck: This deck of cards will magically shuffle and deal itself fairly for all players. It is embossed on its back with Dentrill's guarantee of fairness. With a word, the deck collects itself and is restored to its box.

Boxnard's Deck: This deck is indistinguishable from Dentrill's Deck, but the owner is telepathically aware of the location of all cards at all times.

Devil's Deck: This deck is indistinguishable from Dentrill's Deck, but the owner is given misinformation about the location of cards. Furthermore, the other players immediately suspect the owner of cheating.

Boxnard's Chess board: This wondrous item plays against the owner automatically as a player with INT 18. Other Boxnard games are rumored to be available, as well as versions with higher intelligence.

Boxnard's Duplicating Game Board: This item is always found with two pawns, one black and one white. If one person sets up the game board on a level surface and holds one of the pawns, while a second person holds the other pawn and plays a game, all movements on the second person's board are reflected on the first's. Furthermore, the first person can communicate to the second with somatic movements as to which pieces to play next. The effective range between the pawns is up to ten miles.

Yehuda

Any familiarity between the characters in this story and the stories of Elminster by Ed Greenwood are entirely not coincidental.

Our babies have come home

No the girls haven't been away, Daughter the Younger has never spent the night away from us, I am actually talking about the fact that the games we had on exhibit at the Melbourne Museum have come back home after a month. We have really missed some of them! Now if both the girls went away for a day or two we would miss them too and probably say the same thing.

Some of them weren't really missed that much, in fact a couple of them haven't even been played yet, but with many of them not having them in the house for a whole month we were definitely starting to miss them. For me this was especially the case for some of the games that were set up on display, but we couldn't touch them or play them. This was particularly so with Power Grid and Age of Steam since the expansions were sitting at home to be looked at and touched but we couldn't play them because the base game was at the museum.

This will go into a GeekList one day, but here is what we had on display, starting form the entrance of the exhibit and walking around through it.

Blokus (which was on a fair dinkum shop display stand which was lent to us by the Australian distributors),

Big display cabinet
Set up: Dicke Luft in der Gruft, Die Nacht die Magier, Plus & Minus, Frank's Zoo
Boxed: Mammia Mia, Gargon, Coloretto, Gang of Four, 6 Nimmt!, Wallenstein, Vinci, Ra, Princes of Florence, Puerto Rico, Saint Petersberg, Brittania, Civilization, Tigris & Euphrates, Goa, Turn & Taxis, Attika and Amun-Re.

Big Display Case One - Games that are good to look at
Set up: Power Grid and Big City.

Big Display Case Two - The Train Games
Set Up: Union Pacific and Age of Steam
Boxed: Ticket to Ride, 1830, Lunar Rails, The London Game

Big Display Case Three - Settlers
Set Up: Settlers of Catan
Boxed: Settlers of Catan the Card Game, Seafarers of Catan, Cities and Knights of Catan, The Starfarers fo Catan, Settlers of the Stone Age and Die Siedler von Nürnberg

Small Display Case - Pretty games
Set Up: Tier auf Tier, Sheer Panic and Hameln (pieces only)

On the Wall:
Sunda to Sahul and Shadows Over Camelot

The Hameln pieces were very kindly supplied to us by Fragor Games when we mentioned to them that we were displaying Shear Panic at the museum (we pre-ordered Shear Panic last year and managed to pre-order Hameln whilst there were still some left). Gordon and Fraser also lent us their Shear Panic sign which we put up behind the display case.

Since a reasonable percentage of our games were now under lock and key this reduced what we had left for demonstration purposes. We would like to thank Caterpillar Games, Ventura Games, Divide By Zero and Even Toys and Games for supply or lending us demonstration copies.

We ran demonstration sessions from 11-3 every Saturday and Sunday and also on Tuesdays and Thursdays for the last two weeks, which coincided with Victorian school holidays, a total of twelve sessions in all. A very big thanks to those who came in to help with the demonstrations sessions. Take a bow Kim, Vince, Doug, Gregor, Diana, Duncan, Francis, Giles, Kylie, Richard, Daughter the Elder, Daughter the Younger and Justine.

The games that we demonstrated, in the order the I wrote them down, were:
Make 'n Break, Blink, Carcassonne, Catch the Match, Halli Galli, I Have..., Apples to Apples, Apples to Apple Junior, Pick Picknic, Itchy & Scratchy, The Same Game, Settlers of Catan, Ticket to Ride, Sequence, Piggy Back, Spooky Stairs, Trans America, Othello, Sunda to Sahul, Cartegena, Gang of Four, Guillotine, Sherlock, Marrakesh, Tier Auf Tier, Number Chase and Snorta.

Teaching games at the museum was very different to other places we have taught games. At home, you know your audience and you pretty much have all the time you want. At a games club it is generally pretty much the same, plus you are usually teaching gamers. At the games night we ran at Daughter the Elder's school we didn't know how involved with games people were, but at least we knew they had chosen to come to a games night and we had quite a few hours of their time. At the museum some people were just doing the rounds and weren't interested in stopping, some people could stay a few minutes, some for a while and some for an hour or more. The level of games knowledge varied from which-one-is-Monopoly? to some people who had a few of the games on display or demo. The experience with games was very wide too, ranging from school aged children who didn't have any idea of taking turns and playing cards face up to others that could jump straight into games with minimal explanation. It reinforced to me that exposure to games really helps children learn games in general and also, depending on the game, things like mathematical skills etc. They also just pick up new games much more quickly too. I was quite surprised to see that Daughter the Younger had watched a few games of Marrakesh at home and at the museum and knew how to play it, without having been actively involved in a game or being taught it.

Sinice most of the people were just passing through and most of the people interested in playing were children the games that got the most play were children's games and/or games that can be explained in a few minutes. Some of the most popular included Make 'n Break, Spooky Stairs, Blink, Catch the Match, Tier auf Tier, Snorta and Piggy Back. A friend of ours who works in a games shop told us that the Australian distributor for Make'n Break was out of stock - very unwise, I believe that could have set up a pallet load outside the museum and sold them all without any problem at all. I think that the museum shop also missed an opportunity by not stocking any of the games that we were demonstrating.

I am sure that Daughter the Younger will be most peeved the next time we go to the museum and she doesn't get to play games for four straight hours!

We got nice comments from lots of the people who stopped to play and very good feedback from a lot of the museum staff too. We also received this email a few days ago "Just a note to say thanks for playing games at the melbourne museum over the holidays.My children had a great time and it inspired us to spend a bit more time together.I was able to locate 3 of the games at my local Games World , Catch the Match,Blink and Apples to Apples. As I said to the girl there I would never have bought them if I had not played them so thanks for the incentive. Great concept and I think all games stores should have some of these great mind using games out to play."

It was a busy, busy month, but well worth it. Now to find some spare time now that the babies have come home...

The Joy of Shopping

First, a reminder that at Charcon (the first game convention in Charleston, West Virginia), on Saturday, October 7, at noon, I plan to run A Game of Thrones mini-tournament. Fantasy Flight Games has generously donated a copy of the Storm of Swords expansion as a prize for the game. You can sign up for this competition by e-mailing the Charcon gnomes at events@charcon.org. Find out more information on CharCon at www.Charcon.org.

And now, today’s blog…


I once read a New York Times article in which the female writer claimed that she enjoyed the computer hack-and-slash game Diablo because it was all about shopping. She explained what she meant, but because I also had played the game (along with my wife) I already had experienced the joy of Diablo shopping. While it was fun to wade into tombs and dungeons and battle varieties of monsters, often the most satisfying part of the game was when I returned to town with my loot. After selling unwanted magic items and weapons, it was off to see what the various specialists offered in the way of armor, weapons, and magic items. I was particularly fond of magic items that sucked life or mana from enemies, and it was a happy day when I could upgrade my vampiric weapons.

Shopping is one of my favorite game mechanisms. Many of my most beloved games include shopping, and some of the most highly-rated games of all time (like Puerto Rico) have a shopping component to them.

Let me define what I mean by shopping so there’s no confusion. Shopping is the ability to pick and choose among weapons, defenses, tools, or special abilities within a game, and acquire them for some kind of price. Shopping is almost never about acquiring victory points (or at least not primarily about acquiring victory points). It is about obtaining the tools of victory.

In Arkham Horror, players can have their characters literally go shopping at the stores and magic shops of the haunted city. Players usually get a choice of three item cards; if the player can afford one, he can buy it for a price. There is a certain luck-of-the-draw with this mechanism, but usually at least one item is useful even if it isn’t exactly what the player was hoping to get. Characters can improve most of their abilities by acquiring the right weapon, tool, vehicle, or magic item.

I’ve only played Fantasy Flight’s Descent once, but I believe it includes shopping experiences that roughly mirror Diablo’s. After ransacking a dungeon, the player-character can teleport back to town, sell his swag, and then go shopping.

But a game doesn’t have to feature individual characters to include shopping. Shopping for buildings is a vital part of Puerto Rico, the economic development game. Each of the buildings gives a player a special ability that affects one of the phases of the game. These buildings also are worth victory points, but it’s the special abilities that make them so desirable. I particularly like the quarry--a building that decreases the price of buildings when I shop for them. And the construction hut is a building that makes it easier to shop for quarries. I’ve noticed that some of the items I most like to buy are the ones that help me with shopping.

What is the appeal of shopping? I think it is the seductiveness of improving one’s abilities coupled with the idea that you may be getting an advantage unavailable to other players. And both of these ideas are linked with the Western belief that happiness and fulfillment can be obtained from consumer spending. In real life, linking happiness with consumer goods can be a path straight to credit card hell. But within the game world, shopping may indeed be the path to salvation. Or at least, victory.

Are there certain guidelines for adding the shopping mechanism to a game that make it especially enjoyable? I think there are.

Items must have a cost. Parents have long noticed that children value a toy more if they’ve had to work and save for it. The same principle applies to shopping in games. It’s hard to value something that’s free. For some reason, I enjoy an object more if I get it by shopping and paying for it--rather than getting it assigned to me by a random event card.

Players must have a choice. Shopping in Arkham Horror would not be as satisfying if a player was given only one item to look at when visiting a store. To buy or not to buy is not nearly as agonizing as deciding between three different potentially useful items.

Items should be in limited supply. Even if the game contains dozens of items for sale, few of them should be identical. Scarcity adds value to items. And some items (legendary magic items, for example) should be unique. (In fact, we so expect legendary items to be unique that it can become funny when they aren’t. I’m thinking of the scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail when King Arthur arrives at the French castle and asks if they know anything about the location of the Holy Grail. The Frenchman played by John Cleese replies with something like: “Yes, we have two of them”).

Maybe my favorite shopping game is Martin Wallace’s Struggle of Empires. There are a couple of dozen improvement tiles available in SoE, and it can be very hard deciding which to acquire. Army Training makes your armies tougher. But Banking allows you to raise funds without getting stuck with so many of the dreaded Unrest markers. And logistics…

Well, you get the idea. My mouth waters just thinking about all the ways I could turn my empire into a lean, mean, fund-raising-without-unrest machine. The idea that I am getting special abilities that the other players aren’t is just so enticing.

There is even a strategy I read about on Boardgamegeek based on the improvement tiles. The general idea is too spend the first half of the game trying to snatch up as many tiles as possible. Once your empire is as strong as Popeye after a spinach banquet, you can conquer your way to victory with ease.

Sounded good to me. So I tried it. I ended up spending two-thirds of the game getting the improvement tiles, and by the end of the game there wasn’t an army in Europe that could defeat me. Unfortunately, I had waited too long before beginning the conquering part of the strategy. Other players had racked up so many points that I couldn’t catch up with them unless the game went into overtime. Which it can’t.

I know what I did wrong, but I suspect that the next time I play I could easily make the same mistake. The lure of the improvement tiles may be too strong to resist. So if you want an easy-to-defeat opponent, join me for a game of Struggle of Empires. While you’re conquering, I’ll be shopping.

IP, Morality, and the Gaming Industry

IP. Intellectual Property. It's theoretically what encourages creators to create, but here's a dirty little secret: it generally (and I speak for the United States here, but there's an increasing amount of conformity throughout the world) doesn't protect games.

You see, there's two types of IP of general interest to most publishers: copyright and trademark. And, as we'll see neither of them protects what's actually the core of a good game design.

(And before I get going, let me carefully note, I'm not a lawyer, but I have been working with this sort of stuff for a while.)

An Overview of IP

Copyright is the most general type of IP. It covers ideas that have been made substantial and concrete. The idea itself isn't copyrighted, but the specific way in which it's made real is. So, in The Settlers of Catan, the rulebook is copyrighted as are the artwork on the components and on the box. In other forms of media, entire short stories, novels, songs, and movies fall under copyright.

Copyright is really easy to get. Theoretically it magically appears as soon as you write/draw/create something. You can register it if you want, but that's mainly so that you can sue for damages.

Trademark is a sort of marketing protection. It most frequently covers a product name and/or a specific logo in which that name is used, but it can also cover other unique elements that distinguish your product. UPS, for example, has trademarked the color brown for package delivery. Other companies have trademarked things as weird as the specific shape of a box. When you look at trademark violations there's a core question of "Would this cause confusion with the trademarked item?" So, The Settlers of Catan logo and probably name is a trademark in certain areas of entertainment.

Everyone can mark something as a trademark, but to have a legal basis for suits you really need to register it, and that's a labyrinthine process that keeps lawyers and suits in Washington in a job. However, once you've done it a few times it gets easier.

You'll note in these discussions that we've missed a crucial element of game design: the actual game mechanics. They're not covered by copyright, because that only covers the concrete, which is to say the explanation of the mechanics in the rulebook, not the abstract mechanis themselves. Likewise, trademark clearly doesn't cover them.

And there's another type of IP to fill the gap: patents. Patents cover inventions that are new and original, and this is where game mechanics could fit in. The problem? The process to get them is even more complex and convoluted than what's needed to file a trademark. Rigorous and technical documents must be filed, and it can (and does) take years for a patent to be accepted or denied. Even then the patent office (in the US at least) is a hotbed of massive incompetence; they regularly give out incorrect patents, and so having a patent doesn't actually mean anything until it's defended in court.

Patents & Games

As a result of all of this, patents almost never get filed for games. Among other things, it's just too expensive.

I'm aware of the occasional aberration. Wizards of the Coast, for example, was granted a patent for certain aspects of CCG play after they released Magic: The Gathering. However, the rest of the CCG industry thought so little of the patent that Wizards wasn't really able to enforce it--but word is that it gave them the leverage necessary to pull down the Pokemon license when it came to the US.

Very small publishers patent their ideas sometimes too, but it's usually a sign of inexperience and a lack of understanding of the industry. The phrase "Patent Pending" on a gamebox is generally enough to get me to put it back on the shelf.

And, honestly, it's a good thing that patents aren't widely used in the game industry. Because, as I alluded to above, the whole system is utterly and totally broken and corrupt. If there was enough money in the tabletop gaming field to support patent work, someone would have patented "resources depicted as cards", someone else would have patented "the once-around auction as a game system", and a third person would have patented "rolling dice to generate a random event", and the whole Eurogames industry would have come to a grinding and total halt.

However, the lack of patents in the industry, and more generally the lack of anything actually protecting game mechanics, does cause problems in the industry.

Duplicating Games

The most loathsome result of this that I've seen is Covenant Communication's game Search, Play and Ponder, which is an exact copy (mechanically) of Looney Lab's Aquarius. This story was chronicled by Andrew Looney a couple of years ago in Wunderland. In short: the folks at CC took Looney's game, commissioned new art and rewrote the rules, but it's otherwise exactly the same, down to the card counts.

Looney wrote in a rant, "Intellectual property theft has been committed against myself". And, although that's clearly morally correct, legally it wasn't. I'm fairly certain the Looneys never filed a patent on Aquarius' mechanics, and the folks at Covenant Communications changed everything they were legally required to.

There's a good ending to that story: when the Looneys confronted Covenant Communications, the offenders offered to destroy their stock of the game. In the Looneys' last posting on the subject, they were trying to negotiate a license instead.

Much more insidious is an Italian game called Vive L'empereur. All reports seem to indicate that it uses Richard Borg's "Commands & Colors" mechanics, but places it in the Napoleonic wars. The publisher simply says that they "stand by their product" and makes no apologies for co-opting Borg's work. Unfortunately, it's probably entirely undercut Borg's ability to ever design a Napoleonic C&C game for the European market.

And, he has no options because of the bad integration of IP laws & games.

Barbarossa & Cluzzle

Which brings us, finally, to what got me started on this article: Klaus Teuber's Barbarossa and Dominic Crapuchettes' Cluzzle two similar games that on the other hand show that this sort of issue isn't black and white.

In Teuber's game each player make clay models, but they can't make them too good or too bad. If they're easy the player will lose points when they're guessed, and if they're hard they'll never get guessed (costing the player the opportunity to get points).

Players get points when their puzzles are guessed (as long as they're not guessed too early) and when they guess other puzzles.

Besides guessing you can also ask "yes or no" questions and request letters in an answer.

In Crapuchettes' game each player makes a clay model, but they can't make them too good or too bad. If they're easy the player will get just 1 point when they're guessed, and if they're hard they'll never get guessed (costing the player the opportunity get points).

Player get points when their puzzles are guessed and when they guess other puzzles.

Besides guessing you can also ask "yes or no" questions.

Now, there are a lot of differences in the details of gameplay. Barbarossa has fantasy theming and players get to take different actions each turn, depending on where their pieces land on a small board. In Cluzzle there's no actual board, and instead questions are asked in quick-fire 2-minute rounds. Crapuchettes also says that his Cluzzle is really directed at a different audience: it's an easier game with less rules.

Nonetheless when Crapuchettes recently asked me if I'd liked to review some of his games, I told him I wasn't comfortable doing so because of these similarities.

My viewpoint goes something like this:

1. Mechanics aren't generally protected by law.
   
2. But the tabletop gaming industry is a very small one, and it behooves its members to act politely and morally toward each other, because the industry doesn't have the money to file patents or talk to lawyers and we want to encourage our designers to keep designing.
   
3. When two games can be (correctly) summarized as similarly as the two summaries I offer above, that's too close for me.
   

Crapuchettes offered an interesting alternative point of view. He entirely understood the issue of patents & gaming IP, and said that he'd waited until a patent would have expired if Teuber had actually filed one before he released Cluzzle.

(This isn't actually true, by-the-by, but it's close. Teuber released Barbarossa in 1988, while Crapuchettes released Cluzzle in 2004. That's a 16-year difference. Before 1995 the U.S. length of a patent was 17 years after the patent's release, while since 1995 its been 20 years after the patent's filing. Because there is often a 1-3 year gap from filing to release, the two lengths were about the same thing. If Teuber had filed a U.S. patent in 1988 it would have expired somewhere between 2006 and 2008. Crapuchettes says that he thought that patents lasted 15 years at the time that he released Cluzzle.)

Since Crapuchettes actually went to the heart of IP by imagining a world where games could be protected he somewhat side-stepped the whole issue of morality & legality, and instead offered the question how should things be? In other words, when Teuber's theoretical patent expired this year or in a few years from now, would it then be OK for other people to entirely stripmine his game, even moreso than Cluzzle does?

Crapuchettes said the following in one of his emails to me:

"Do you know why patent law exists? It is to benefit the people. Allowing 17 years of exclusivity gets individuals to risk years of their life (as is the case with me) to invent things that are better than what currently exists. Ending that exclusivity and returning the idea to the public domain allows others to build upon these ideas. Why? Because it is in the best interest of people. If things did not return back the public domain, we would not have electricity, we would not have cars, we would not have running water, we would not have plumbing. In short, we would have nothing. We would cease to be a civilization."

He's right, that is the purpose of IP, and it's something I sometimes overlook because of my own strong interest in IP as a creator.

But, on the other hand, I'm still not convinced that it's fair in the gaming field. If Klaus Teuber were a writer, his work would be protected for an absurd amount of time (namely, for about 95 years, which is honestly too long). But, as a game designer instead he only gets 20 years, even if he could file a patent. This difference doesn't strike me as right--that a creative writer gets a lifetime of protection and a creative game designer doesn't because his games are considered "inventions" if they're protected at all. I still think that an industry of the size of tabletop gaming needs to protect its creators even (and especially) when the law doesn't do so adequately.

But I understand Crapuchettes' point, and I can see some validity in putting out similar games that nonetheless aren't direct copies (and Cluzzle isn't) as games age. Even when there's a whole lot of similarity.

It's overall a difficult question, and so I also open it up to you, the readers.

I like games

Yehuda

Second Place for the Win

With a nail-biting, come-from-behind victory today in Caylus, it causes me to pause and reflect upon a common occurrence in Eurogames. Often, the best position to be in is second place. This isn’t true in every case, games with very little player-player interaction such as Puerto Rico can have a run away leader with very little penalty and two-player games are most often played with each player going flat out for the win from the start. As player interaction increases within a game, being the frontrunner as you near the final stretch of the game becomes less and less desirable. As in cycling, the front runner often has to accomplish everything on their own, while those coming along second or later can drift along and try to take advantage of first place while conserving their resources for the last mad dash. In games with moderate player interaction, such as Caylus or Settlers of Catan, being in a reasonable second place as the game enters the endgame is more desirable than being the actual leader. Once the endgame looms on players, they will often cooperate to “bash on the leader”. The thinking is something like this: “Sure, the second place player may be able to win, but I am SURE to lose if I don’t spend an effort to prevent that first place player from winning now. Perhaps something will come up later to take care of the player in second… “ In games with heavy player interaction, such as I’m the Boss or possibly Bohnanza, it is almost a given that the player in first place (or the person perceived to be in first place) will be hindered enough to prevent them from winning the game. Note that I’m trying to avoid the topic of kingmaking – where a player who has no possible chance to win the game but is in a situation to decide which of their opponents can win. I’m trying to focus in on situations where players are, for the most part, still in contention for winning and are willing to cooperate for what is perceived as the “good of the group”.

This entire attitude relies on a few factors. First, the game must have a minimum amount of player-player interaction. If there’s nothing your opponents can do to you, they won’t do it. Second, players need to be going for a game win rather than for an optimal finish. That is not always the same thing (and a topic that would fit well within an entire column.) Players in competition for first will typically be willing to penalize themselves a bit to bash on the leader in the hopes that they will be able to pass by and win. However, a very cautious player may give up the hope of winning and instead conserve all their energy to try to guarantee second place and let their opponents spend resources and effort in taking down the leader. Finally, if the players begin to separate themselves into various “packs” on the scoreboard, individual players may have their hands full fighting for a third or fourth place finish and decide to let the leader or leaders settle their own problems. This is one reason I enjoy face to face gaming far more than online board games. Face to face gaming allows me to read the other player’s attitudes and emotions to help me predict whether they would be more likely to join in on a round of bashing the leader and hoping for the win or whether they would rather hoard their resources and try to guarantee or possibly mildly improve their current position.

Now for the big question, how should this affect your game? Obviously, each game should be analyzed for the possibility of leader-bashing and it should play a part of long-term planning. Any game that has significant player interaction and consumable resources (cards, goods, actions, whatever) that can be stockpiled from round to round are good candidates for the second-place strategy. This is especially true if the stockpiled resources can be kept secret or at least out of sight . During the game, don’t let the leader get too far ahead, but also be aware of your other opponents. If there are only two people vying for first place, you will have a hard time convincing others to help knock down the leader, only to give you the win. Many deep strategy games have resources that are valuable at the start and nearly worthless at the end (money in Puerto Rico for example), and a good player will be able to determine when that value switches over from priceless to useless. Playing for second place can be very similar. An astute player may set themselves up to be in a friendly second place position to lull opponents into a false sense of security, right up to the point when it is time to race ahead for the win. Timing that transition from second to first is very important. Too soon, and you become a target, and too late and you will fail to catch up. Now, I’m not saying that you should pass by good opportunities if they are going to launch you into the lead. But once you are in the lead, you may need to adopt a less risky strategy. In Caylus, for example, it is usually not wise to try to take advantage of those buildings out there in front of the provost when you are in the lead, as nearly every other player will be willing to give up a small amount of resources (cash) to prevent you from advancing further into the lead. Keep in mind that a large part of multiplayer games are the actions of the other players. If you are in the lead, every other player at the board is going to need to pass you by before they can win, making you a juicy target for everyone. If you take the lead in the mid or late midgame, pour it on strong and don’t look back, but also manage your risks wisely and don’t give the other players an opportunity to shoot you in the back.

Musings from the museum

A short but rambling post tonight - mostly because we are now at the museum 4 days a week and I'm short on time.

What we are really noticing is the variety in the people who come through.

Variety in their attitudes to games:

* "Oh, look at all these toys!"
* "No, we don't have time for that stuff."
* "We love games"

Variety in their knowledge of games

* (Fraser swears he heard this) "That must be the new Monopoly" (looking at Power Grid)
* "We have a game called Junior Stratego, from about the 1960s. Was there ever a game called Stratego?"
* "Carcassonne ... we have that at home"
* "Settlers of Catan ... our friends love that game"

Variety in their ability to play games

This is the one I can't distill down to point form. We are seeing at first hand the incredible range of abilities that still constitutes "normal".

Whether it's the 3 year olds who find the matches in Catch the Match before their parents and siblings, or the 7 year olds who stare and stare and find nothing. Or the kids that take one look and decide it's too much like work, and run away.

We've had kids who thought Make 'n' Break and Tier auf Tier were too hard, and others that took to Blink like they'd been playing it for years. Today, we watched a group of six year olds whose maths wasn't up to Halli Galli - and a 10 year old who was in the same boat.

But we've also met the most lovely people and their fantastic kids, and really enjoyed gaming with them.

One family from Biggie's school came in on Thursday - they came to the family game night we ran, and played and enjoyed Ticket to Ride, so they came in specially to see the exhibit. The mother told me yesterday that they have since bought it for themselves and for another family, and some friends of theirs recently told them that they have bought it as well.

Another family came by today and played games - dad, 12 year old daughter and 10 year old autistic & intellectually disabled son. We found that the son enjoyed Make 'n' Break, as well as placing tiles in Carcassonne, while dad and daughter played a whole raft of games with us, including Blink, Apples to Apples and Tier auf Tier, and had a good look at Settlers too. They came back later for a game of Marrakesh, after meeting up with the family's mother as well.

We had a family last week, too, who reminded me of why we were doing the demos - they played games with us for over an hour, and by the end of it the kids were tugging at their parents' sleeves saying "you've played enough". They left the museum and went straight for a games shop to buy some of the games they had played with us.


And then we get home.

"I want to play a game," says Otto. "Actually, I want to play FIVE games."

And five games are played.


-Melissa

Ted Cheatham and the Road to Silk Road

First, a reminder that at Charcon (the first game convention in Charleston, West Virginia), on Saturday, October 7, at noon, I plan to run A Game of Thrones mini-tournament. Fantasy Flight Games has generously donated a copy of the Storm of Swords expansion as a prize for the game. You can sign up for this competition by e-mailing the Charcon gnomes at events@charcon.org. Find out more information on CharCon at www.Charcon.org.

And now, today’s blog…


I never expected to know a real game designer. But Ted Cheatham, the heart of the Appalachian Gamers Club, is seeing his first published game debut this week. Silk Road is medium-weight game based on the famous medieval trading route that ran from the Near East to China. I decided to ask Ted for an interview and see what the real story was behind the creation of this wheeling and dealing masterpiece.

KRIS: Ted, I know you’re a major history buff, and so I assume that Silk Road was inspired by books about this legendary trading route.

TED: Absolutely. The idea came to me after reading the Stephen Ambrose book “One Hump or Two: The Silk Road and Camels of Glory.” Plus, Through the Desert had just been nominated for the Speil des Jahres, and Knizia was making boatloads of dough.

KRIS: Yes, I see how that could inspire you. So how did the various game mechanisms evolve?

TED: Well, from my research I learned that about 1240 A.D., Arab caravan masters began storing goods in three-foot wooden cubes. Turns out, storage cubes are the perfect shape for loading onto camels. And within fifty years after the introduction of cubes, they started color-coding them according to what kind of good was stored in them. Helped a lot during inventory.

KRIS: Of course. So that’s what inspired you to use little wooden cubes as goods in the game.

TED: No. I stole that idea from Age of Steam. But once I learned that there had been real caravan cubes, I felt a lot better about it. And I insisted that the game cubes be exactly 1/123 the size of the real-world cubes.

KRIS: What’s the significance of that number?

TED: It’s the size of the game cubes.

KRIS: Er…Yes.

TED: It’s also fascinating that real caravans used an auction to determine which cities to visit.

KRIS: And so you imported that mechanism into the game.

TED: Well, I really started out with a piece of cardboard and a plastic arrow spinner. But some of the playtesters suggested an auction might be cool. Luckily, that turned out to be a perfectly authentic mechanism.

KRIS: So how did Bruno Faidutti become involved with the game?

TED: I was having a few problems with an early prototype. And I wrote to Bruno, mentioned that I was a fan, and asked for suggestions. I happened to have written to him at exactly the right moment. Bruno had just broken up with Ashley Judd, and he needed a new project to take his mind off things.

KRIS: And what are the advantages of working with Bruno?

TED: Bruno is an exemplary game designer. He tightened up the game, clarified the rules, simplified the scoring system, and provided a lot of great suggestions about the graphic elements. Plus, I got to meet Scarlet Johansson.

KRIS: Wow. How cool is that. So was the game always called Silk Road?

TED: No. The game went through a lot of name changes, as we experimented with different prototypes, and even different themes. At one time or another it was called Chic Sheiks, Humpty the Happy Camel, Corduroy Road, Union Pacific 2 (don’t ask), and Hey! That’s my Cube! I even experimented with a prototype based on the legendary Turkish pastry caravans. That one was called Through the Dessert.

KRIS: So let’s get to the question that everyone really wants answered. Will Silk Road have more plastic camels than Through the Desert?

TED: Are you sure that’s the question people really want answered?

KRIS: Pretty sure.

TED: I mean, Zev at Z-Man thinks people really want a fast-paced, resource-trading game that plays in under an hour.

KRIS: Plastic camels. Got any?

TED: The initial ratings on Boardgamegeek have been very positive. I’m pleased that almost everyone who’s played the game so far has ranked--

KRIS: So there’s no camels?

TED: Who cares if there’s camels! It’s a great game. With or without them.

KRIS: My guess is there’s no camels. Too bad. People loved ‘em in Through the Desert.

TED: Sure. This from the guy who prefers Railroad Tycoon to Age of Steam.

KRIS: What’s that supposed to mean?

TED: Face it. You prefer toys over substance. You can’t handle tough games. You love the second-raters.

KRIS: You’re crazy.

TED: Mister Go-Broke-On-Turn-Three. We had to bend the rules just to keep you in the game.

KRIS: Age of Steam has that tiny dark little board. It’s depressing.

TED: Bet you think Roger Moore was the best James Bond.

KRIS: No, I don’t. But that parachute scene at the beginning of Moonraker is the best action sequence in the whole damn series. You gotta give him that. Why are we talking about this?

TED: You’re threatened by Sean Connery’s virility.

KRIS: Well, at least I didn’t design a caravan game with a great big hulking camel smack in the middle of the cover—and then forgot to put camels in the game.

TED: Bet you like Kevin Costner more than Harrison Ford.

KRIS: Boy, I’m glad you didn’t design Axis and Allies. Open the box and--wow! No planes or tanks or ships. But there’s five hundred wooden cubes! Johnny’s really gonna have fun playing Rommel this Christmas.

TED: Bet you like Rene Zellweger more than Nicole Kidman. You’re drawn to the second rate. You feel at home there.

KRIS: What is this pathetic obsession with movie stars? Did you put them in Silk Road? The winner gets to add Nicole Kidman to his harem. The losers get eaten by Rene Zellweger.

TED: That’s it. Railroad Tycoon is going on the prize table. From now on, it’s Age of Steam or nothing, baby.

KRIS: For the last time: are there plastic camels or not?

TED: Buy the game and find out.

KRIS: Fine. Be that way.

TED: Fine. I will.

KRIS: Fine.

TED: Fine.

KRIS: If Roger Moore had designed Silk Road, there’d be plastic camels.

(Interview resumes two days later)

KRIS: Will we be seeing more games from you in the coming years?

TED: I hope so. I’ve got several prototypes in the works. One that is coming along is based on the annual Amish grain harvest competition. I call that one Sheaf Encounter.

KRIS: Of course.

TED: And I’m putting my parental experience to use in my latest prototype. Each player is a parent with three demanding kids. The parent who can satisfy the greatest number of childish demands by the end of the game is the winner. Right now it’s called Whine Handler.

KRIS: I can relate. Now, what about these rumors that you’ve got a secret project in the works?

TED: I can’t say too much about that. But it isn’t a secret that a certain high-profile rock group wants to do a remake of the classic animated Beatles’ movie Yellow Submarine. The movie studio sees lots of merchandising potential, and they’ve asked me to put together a game.

KRIS: And what’s that one called?

TED: U2 Boat.

Introductions

Howdy and hello to everyone reading this. This is my first entry for Gone Gaming, and I thank Coldfoot for inviting me to contribute to this blog. It’s hard to imagine that I could contribute anything useful, certainly no handy quotable lines, but I hope to have some fun writing and to occasionally mix in all that good fuzzy crap that makes my partner Annie drag me to chick flicks.

About my name, it’s officially "Smatt." Some people aren’t comfortable saying this. Sounds a little to close to "smack" and "splat." Some folks hesitate, certain that they just heard me say "Matt" and that their ears are playing tricks on them. At this point, I must say that I usually decline to correct them. I have better things to do with my time than correct almost every single person who crosses my path. If they do happen to pick up the subtle ‘s,’ they will often say things like "That is an interesting name" or "Very unusual." You will never hear people say that to someone named "Moustapha" or "Ilya," probably for fear of getting their asses kicked, but for some reason, they don’t hesitate to say that to someone named "Smatt." Such is life.

Smatt is a derivative of Steven Matthew. I picked it up in the Peace Corps from a clever Yaley named Marc Hoffman. I liked it; other people liked it; it stuck. Here I am today.

So what makes me qualified to write for Gone Gaming? Well, I suppose that at the core of the reason is that I like games (I love Annie; I like games - this is a very important distinction, and while slip-ups have been known to happen, a night on the couch is a gentle reminder of the subtlety of our blessed language). I like games so much in fact that I started making up my own puzzles for GAMES magazine in 2003. I didn’t like their policy of buying all rights, so I started freelancing to Knucklebones soon after. In the meantime, I got a puzzle on NPR’s Weekend Edition with Will Shortz (Name a bestselling non-fiction author with 7 letters in the first name and 7 in the last; drop the first three letters of the last name to get a bestselling fiction author, 7 letters in the first name and 4 in the last. Who are these authors?) and bothered our local paper the Missoulian about having game reviews and exclusive letterboxing clues for their readers. The Missoulian bit, and I’ve been writing game reviews ever since (I did the letterboxing clues for over a year. They were popular with a core group of people who were disappointed that I ended it. Now I just do the game reviews.) I am in the middle of something with Games Quarterly as well, but it’s too early to know where that is heading. And finally, I am the new store manager of World Games of Montana in Missoula, MT. It’s a lovely place, and if you’re in the neighborhood, come and see us.

The last new game I’ve played several times is "Bagh Chal" (or "Bagha Chal"), also known as "Tigers and Goats." It’s played on the lines/intersections of a four by four grid, though the board has a few diagonals thrown in for good measure. This is a two-player game in which each player chooses a side to play, either tigers or goats. The tiger player’s goal is to eat five goats by jumping them along any straight line if there is an empty intersection just beyond the goat (like in checkers). The goat player’s goal is to subdue the tigers; that is give the tiger player no legal jumping moves. The opening board has four tigers, one in each of the corners of the board. The goat player places his/her twenty goats one by one onto the board. The goat player may only place his/her goats onto the board during this time; he may not move a goat to save it. The tiger player may move and eat at will. Once all the goats have been placed, the player who meets his/her objective wins the game.

This game was oddly entertaining. I played four times, twice as the goats and twice as the tigers. I won three out of the four times. Playing both sides amounts to tricky abstract logic, but I prefer being the goat player. The game is definitely worth your time, and if you’re reading this blog, then you most definitely already have the pieces to play the game. If not, then think about finding a paper and pen for the board and twenty pennies for the goats and four nickels for the tigers. It’s still played today, so it might even help bridge the culture gap if you’re ever in Nepal or the surrounding area.

To sum up: first blog, named Smatt, possibly qualified, likes Tigers and Goats. I suppose I could have just said that to begin with.

Until next time gamers...

Smatt

Speaking of Hand Management...

as I was last time if you were paying attention, I’ve been playing San Juan with my husband lately. This is a perfect example of the tension and tough decisions that a hand management card game should offer. It has a large variety of buildings, each with their own ability to help you, combined with the need to discard some of those wonderful buildings as payment to build. This means that every time you play, you’re going to be faced with a unique challenge.

I find this game discloses the greedy nature in myself as I want to build almost all the buildings in my hand and am loathe to use any of them for building payment. This leaves my brain spinning in place in the early game while I bite my lip trying to say goodbye to a beloved building in favor of another building.

If you’ve played this game a lot, which I have not, you may have what you consider to be a perfect strategy, your perfect combination of buildings, but acquiring those cards isn’t a simple matter. This is also part of the fun of a good hand-management game since you inevitably must deal with whatever you are given and make your decisions accordingly.

In the last game I played, I was dealt good cards for mid-game play but they’re tough ones to build at the beginning—4, 5, and 6 card buildings. I had to pass on 2 consecutive building rounds, once because I had nothing I could build and the second time because it would have meant using every other card in my hand (and they were very nice cards which I had grown attached to J ). My formidable opponent, on the other hand, had 1 and 2 card buildings and I began to feel that I was in some serious trouble.

I finally made the sacrifice and said goodbye to a couple of my lovelies in order to build a tobacco production building but I was still 2 buildings behind. With the help of his buildings, I was never able to build when Richard couldn’t so stayed 2 buildings behind him the whole game. I thought I was doomed but in the end I won by one point.

This demonstrates another characteristic of a very good hand management game (or any game for that matter), the ability for anyone to win even if it looks like they’re behind. This is probably one of the biggest flaws in games like Monopoly and Risk, the inability to catch up and feel that you have a chance to win.

All of this brain-twisting goodness is wrapped up in a game that is simple to set up and teach, and plays in 45-60 minutes. If you’re looking for other good choices that fit into this niche that uses cards for more multiple purposes, try Oltremare or FrachtExpress (or its alternate version, Hellrail--Third Perdition).
~~~~~~~
To game, perchance to laugh.

Mary

FAQ for English version of Bridge

I am pleased to announce that a new English edition of the Wolfgang Kramer game "Bridge" (the original German name is "Sehnen Sich Metallsache Die Einen Körper Des Wassers Kreuzt") will be printed by Missouri River Games and should be available sometime next spring.

It has new box cover art and a few rule changes. I managed to obtain a copy of the FAQ that was created based on comments and questions from the playtesters. Here it is:

Differences between German and English editions

Q: What are the main differences between the English and German editions of the game?

A: The German edition has been simplified for the new English edition. The English edition should play in about 1 to 2 hours, where the German edition took up to 4 hours. We managed this by reducing the number of points needed to win and eliminating some of the time consuming mechanics, as well as streamlining the rules somewhat. I think English speaking fans will enjoy the new edition.

We eliminated the German advanced version of the game, as it was too complicated for most players; the basic German version is now the advanced English version. In the new basic English version, instead of an auction in phase 1, you draw five contracts from a deck of contracts, select one, and return the rest to the bottom of the deck.

We added the two and three player rules that were inadvertently left out in the German instructions. And we removed special bids such as "double" and "redouble", as these were confusing for most players.

Q: What are the two and three player rules?

A: For three players, you remove the "Club" nation from the game and play with only the three other nations. After the auction, the two non-winning auctioners play to prevent the winner from completing his political votes. As there's no partner, no hand is laid down.

The two player game is the same as for three players, except that the minimum bid starts at "3/Clubs ascendant" in the advanced version (remove all 1 and 2 level contracts from the contract deck in the basic version). When it is time for the third player to play a political leader, turn over leaders from the third player's hand until a legal card is revealed. If the third player has no legal leaders to play, the first card that was turned up is played.

Q: Was the game originally designed for two and three players?

A: The designer indicates that the game was originally designed for exactly four players, but that the German publisher insisted on adding two and three player rules for marketing reasons. Unfortunately, while they added the range of the number of players to the box, the rules themselves didn't manage to get into the box due to technical reasons. We found a copy of the rules shredded and buried in the designer's back yard under a Jerusalem cactus plant, and we restored them as the publisher tells us the designer really wanted.

Q: What happened to the "marker token" in the English version?

A: The "marker token" was only used in the advanced version of the game in the German edition. Since the German advanced version of the game was not included in the English edition, the token was not needed.

Q: What were the rules of the "marker token"?

A: The "marker token" was used in the advanced version of the German edition. The "marker token" was used to mark the location of the marker token. Whenever the marker token moved to a new location, you moved the marker token to the new location in order to mark the new location of the marker token.

Auction questions

Q: It seems that the first player has an advantage in the auction. Is there any way to balance this advantage?

A: The first player's advantage is not seen to be overly strong. Players are encouraged to rotate starting player in each voting year in order to offset any advantage the starting player may have.

Q: Can I continue to bid if I have already passed?

A: Yes, you may rejoin the bidding after passing.

Q: Can I name more than one ascendant nation at a time, for instance, "Four/clubs and spades?"

A: No, only one ascendant nation can be named at a time.

Q: Can I bid more than 7 / less than 1 in the bidding?

A: No, you can only bid between 1 and 7.

Q: The rules say "Leaders in the ascendant nation beat any leader in any other nation." Does that mean that in "no trump" leaders from any nation not lead beat any leader from the nation that is lead? In other words, is "No trump" considered a nation?

A: No, "No trump" is not a nation. No trump means that no nations are ascendant, not that all are.

Q: Can I bid the same ascendant nation as another player?

A: Yes, at a higher number of votes promised.

Q: Is the first person who mentioned the ascendant nation the auction winner, or the first person in the team who won the auction? I'm confused!

A: In the German edition, the auction winner was determined as follows: consider only the team containing the person who made the last bid in the auction. The first person of that team who mentioned the ascendant nation named in the last bid was the auction winner.

In the English version, we simplified this overly complex rule: the last bidder is now the auction winner.

Q: Can I bid Clubs as the ascendant nation if I have no Club leaders in my hand?

A: Yes, you do not need to hold any leaders of the nation that you name as ascendant.

Q: What happens if a player accidentally bids lower than he is permitted in the auction?

A: The player's bid is considered to be the minimum number permitted for the named ascendant nation.

Voting questions

Q: Do I have to play my highest leader in the current issue?

A: No, you may play any leader for the current issue. If you do not have any national leaders for that issue, you may play any leader from any other nation, although your leader played does not count (exception: a leader from an ascendant nation).

Q: Do I have to play a leader on each vote?

A: Yes, you must play a leader, even if it does not help you.

Q: What happens if an issue is being voted on, and two people play leaders of the ascendant nation?

A: The highest leader in the ascendant nation wins the vote.

Q: Do you keep your leaders after playing them, or are they discarded?

A: The leaders are discarded after playing.

Miscellaneous Questions

Q: What changes have been made to scoring?

A: The German edition used a complex table driven scoring mechanism. The English edition's scoring has been greatly simplified:

You get 10, 30, 60, ... points for a bid of 1, 2, 3, ... So a bid of 7 is worth 280 points. Extra votes secured above your promise are +10 points each. If you do not secure the number of votes promised, you forfeit your bonus and your opponents gain 10, 30, 60, ... points for each vote under what you promised.

Ascendant nation bonus:

Clubs---- x 1
Diamonds- x 1.5
Hearts--- x 2
Spades--- x 2.5
No Trumps x 3

This bonus applies to all scoring. Round all scores downwards to the nearest 10 points.

Q: What happens at the end of each round?

A: Move your scoring markers along the scoring track. Then remove the ascendancy token and votes promised token from the board. If no player has yet reached 500 points (1000 in the German edition), redeal the leaders and start a new round.


The publishers wish to thank our extensive team of American playtesters for their many hours of input and comments.

Yehuda

Ways to reduce your life expectancy as a partner

Tichu
o Pass partner a bad card after they call Tichu
o Call Tichu on 975 points
o After failing a Tichu call because the opposition had the Dragon and three aces say to your partner "Oh I thought you had those"
o Play over partner's high card when partner has called Tichu (except if you have the Dog and even then you should think twice)
o Wish for a card that you did not pass
o Wish for a card that you did not pass and lead a seven card straight forcing partner to play the middle seven cards of his nine card straight
o Lead the one when your partner has called Tichu and your right hand opponent has only one card left


Non-Tichu
o Trump partner's Ace, unless you only have trumps left
o Lead a suit when the opposition have already shown that they are void in that suit
o Overtrump partner's trump when trumps have not been led
o Bid a different bidding convention than the one you have agreed on
o Complement the opposition on the card play and offer to swap seats with one of them

Mmm Meeples taste like...

Build Your Own Game Convention (Part 2)

In the interest of promoting my local game convention (and in having a really easy blog today), here is another interview with Travis Reynolds, one of the powers-that-be behind this opportunity for West Virginia gamers (and others) to get together. Charcon starts three weeks from today (Friday, October 6) at the Charleston Civic Center, and will run for two days.

So, Travis, what's been happening since we last talked?

When did we last talk? What day is it? Where am I? Gosh, we have been really, really busy! We have put out our event catalog for public consumption. We have well over 100 games and the list is still growing. It includes a great variety. I have been spending a lot of time working with vendors, sponsors, the program and trying not to forget stuff.

Just this week we had some great developments. We did an interview for a statewide cultural newspaper called The Graffiti. Our article is not only in it this week, but we are the cover story! Plus, after years of treating our bodies like temples, Nick & I have finally been recognized with a full spread centerfold! A boys dream come true...

Another new thing is that we have incorporated. CharCon is now officially part of a non-profit company. The actual company is named West Virginia Hobby Gaming Association. We did that so that we would not be limited to only CharCon. So, CharCon becomes an event hosted by WVHGA and we can host others throught the year. Everyone who pays to be admitted to CharCon will automatically become a member of WVHGA. At this point, that does not mean much, but after CharCon is over, we plan to focus some attention on the organization and its growth.

Are you happy with the numbers of gamers who have pre-registered?

Yes and no. I would have liked to see more than what we have had (we have 13 at the moment). However, I could have easily seen us have a lot less that that. One of the brightest spots regarding pre-registration is having about half of them be from out of state! It’s great to see people from out of the area excited enough about attending to pre-register!

I know you've asked a lot of the big gaming companies for support. What has been the response?

The response has been great. I think I mentioned in the last interview that we spent a large chunk of Origins networking with vendors and game companies. That and lots of emails has paid off. We managed to wrangle support from Steve Jackson Games, Pinnacle Entertainment Group, Twilight Creations, Wizkids, Gale Force Nine, Battlefront, Fantasy Flight Games, The Fiend Foundry and The Evil Empire ©....errr...Wizards of the Coast. Plus, Ted Cheatham has managed to get support from both Rio Grande Games and Z-Man games. So overall they have been very supportive. They gave us lots of stuff we plan to use as both prizes and as items in our Silent Auction.

I've looked at your list of events, and I can see that there will be plenty of spectacular miniature action. And also some collectable card game events. But what about boardgames? What boardgame events can we expect?

Lots! For starters, the Appalachian Gamers will be on hand doing demo's of about 20 different games from both Rio Grande and Z-Man. Also, a variety of Steve Jackson games will be on hand. Plus we have tournaments planned in A Game of Thrones, Silk Road (with the creator even!), Munchkin and Zombies. There are also some other things being discussed that I expect to come together before show time. All in all, a very strong board game presence.

How can gamers sign up for these events?

Two ways: In order to sign up before the show starts, they need to visit www.charcon.org. There, they can get a copy of the Event Catalog, which will show them who, what, when and so on. Next, they will need to pre-register (which will end very soon, so they better hurry!). Then all they have to do is send an email to events@charcon.org and tell us what they want to sign up for.

The other option is to just sign up the day of the show on site.

By the way, I know the con is just two days. But how late will things go? Will they kick gamers out of the Charleston Civic Center at any given time?

Things will go right up until midnight each night. The city requires the Charleston Civic Center to make business shut down at midnight (or so they say), so CharCon will officially close for business at 12. That doesn't mean everyone is out and the doors are closed, it just means things will be shutting down and everyone needs to be getting ready to leave. One of the drawbacks of not being a hotel convention.

Same question as last time: what has been the most frustrating thing about putting together this con? What has been the most rewarding thing?

Lately the most frustrating thing has been dealing with stuff that I not only do not have time for, but shouldn't have to and don't want to deal with. Just petty things that draw my attention away from more important stuff, which only adds to my paranoia that I am forgetting something! I am hoping to reach a point of zen at which I can let all the irrelevant stuff wash over me...

The most rewarding by far was seeing our article on the cover of The Graffiti. We had no idea. It was quite a rush!

And what additional advice would you give to folks who would like to start their own local gaming conventions?

I can't reinforce enough to visit with your local Convention & Visitor's Bureau. Ours has been an invaluable resource. They issued a press release for us just this week and we are already seeing some additional media interest. Also, don't be afraid to ask local businesses and national folks for help. I'm not sure why, but basically none of the big game companies replied to my first email. However, when I sat down to send follow ups almost all of them replied to the second. Just shows that persistence is a key. Keep good notes and maintain a to-do list. Make sure to have very competent people doing the stuff you can't like website and print management.

Thanks Travis.

A GAME OF THONES at Charcon

At Charcon, on Saturday, October 7, at noon, I plan to run A Game of Thrones mini-tournament. Fantasy Flight Games has generously agreed to donate a copy of the Storm of Swords expansion as a prize for the game. Five or six gamers will compete in just one game of A Game of Thrones with the winner taking home the expansion. We will be using some of the expansion elements from A Clash of Kings (ports, fortresses, siege engines), and some of the expansion elements from A Storm of Swords. So if you have any interest in A Game of Thrones this will be an opportunity to win a copy of the new expansion, or at least an opportunity to check out how the new elements work in a full game. As Travis mentioned, you can sign up for this competition by e-mailing the Charcon trolls at events@charcon.org. Then just show up on Saturday and look for the guy with all the A Game of Thrones boxes. Please be on time or we may have to give your spot to someone on the waiting list.

And even if you aren’t interested in A Game of Thrones, stop by and say hello to me on Saturday at Charcon. If I’m not running the tournament, I’ll probably be demo-ing other games.