Thanksgiving week was actually pretty good to me in terms of new games.
Grand Austria Hotel (new to me) - This is exactly the kind of game I’m predisposed to like. For a game where you “only” get 14 turns, you can put together some truly impressive cascading chains of card plays. Could move up to being a game I love.
7 Wonders: Duel (new to me) - Played a friend’s copy… clever. The drafting mechanism allows plays that force your opponent to give you key cards. I probably don’t need my own copy (unless Anthony wants to play it), but I would play it again.
Karuba (new to me) - The box self-describes this as an ‘addictive’ game, which I thought was a bit of silly marketing. But I played this two nights this week, and both times everyone wanted to play a second game immediately.
Ra - Sometimes, you pull the lever on the Egyptian slot machine and good things happen. Good things like three pharaohs on the last pull of the first age.
Food Chain Magnate - After three plays I keep encountering more unique scenarios, which is good... this time I missed the $100 milestone by inches, which started a butterfly effect that lost me the game.
Fearsome Floors - I don’t like to hold onto games that I haven’t played in 2+ years, so this saved Fearsome Floors from the auction pile. Unfortunately the game itself had a pretty anticlimactic finish.
Quartermaster General - One of my favorites from the past year, and the Axis even won after shattering Moscow (Romanians! in Moscow!) and controlling the expanse of Eurasia. High five to Raithnor, who started his winning streak on Team Axis with me.
Castles of Mad King Ludwig - This took a surprisingly long time to set up and play with the expansion, but the expansion itself is fine. Just not the leap that Suburbia to Suburbia Inc was.
I really need to sit down and write a recap of the games I played at BGG.CON. Or recap the whole damn convention here. My short review is: Pence, I don't know how you're not going to this convention. At the rate you digest new hotness euros, it was created for you.
I might have to make room for it in the con schedule... I counted up the new-to-me games I played this year and I nearly hit 120 with a month to go. (Although a lot of those were older, like Fresh Fish and Wizard)
I picked up a copy of The Bloody Inn yesterday! I can already tell this game is going to have some varied strategies and really difficult decisions to make, even though I've only played the solo variant twice.
From the GeekNights episode I listened to on the way in, Scott mentioned wanting to go to Essen. Has anyone actually done this? I've considered it in the past as well, and have heard mixed things. I'm torn, myself. I can guarantee I wouldn't enjoy the Essen show as much as nearly any other con, but I sure as hell would love a vacation in Germany, so why not see Essen for a day?
The gist of Essen, from what I can tell, is this: A gigantic and incredibly crowded series of expo halls, where most people are coming for one day and doing the majority of their board game shopping for the year. Booths have some tables, but they are there for quick demos of games to help close a sale. There is no actual playing of games aside from this, until the show closes at dinner time. Then, it's people playing games all over the hotels and restaurants.
There's some footage from Essen in the documentary The Next Great American Game. Matt has it right, plus there are bouncy castles for the kids. For most Americans, it appears to be buy stuff con - you can get some games that won't come out for months in the US (or will never come out in the US), although you can also wait for specialty online retailers to get those games and buy them a few weeks after the fair (Funagain games will import Essen games).
I'll have to watch those TAR vlogs at some point, as they probably give a good perspective on the show.
Everytime I see her, though, I can't get this memory out of my head from when I was working the PAX South library and she gave me incredible attitude over not having a game or some crap.
Over the last couple of weeks, I have played more board games than I usually do unless there is something specific going in. I ended up playing a couple of my games that haven't hit the table before, and a few that I had played before. I wrote down all of my games that aren't strictly 2 player games and put them into a box. Whenever we are playing games and can't decide what to play, we pull a name from the box and learn it. Everyone gets 3 chances to turn down a game they have played before, and 2 opportunities to put a game back into the box after playing it. We are also allowing a unanimous vote to put games that we really enjoyed back into the box to be played later.
New games to hit the table: Five Tribes: You bid for turn order, and on your turn, you displace a group of meeples, Mancala style, onto other tiles, and then pick up all meeples of the same color on the last tile you landed on (and you must end with a same colored meeple). If you empty the square, and it isn't claimed, you put a camel on it and it scores points at the end of the game. Each type of meeple (White, Yellow, Blue, Green, Red) Each tile has an ability (they repeat on different tiles), that you either must use (Palace and Palm tree placement) or may choose to use (go to market, buy a djinn). The game plays until either someone has placed their last camel (9 in 3-4 players, 12 in 2 players) or if there are no legal moves on the board. Either way, all players will have equal turns and then the game is scored. Djinns give you either in game effects (that you sacrifice specific meeples for), or an end game bonus of making something more valuable. I really enjoy this game, and it is fairly fast paced. I ended up getting the expansion after playing the game, and it is really fun as well, adding a few new tiles and a new meeple type/effect (artisans). The game only ends up lasting a couple more rounds with the expansion.
Penny Press: This game was the co-winner of the first Table Top Deathmatch (along with Discount Salmon). I finally got it to the table. You run a newspaper from turn of the century New York and have to publish new stories. Story tiles are added to the board via Story cards, which tell you the type of story, and which categories (War, Crime, Politics, New York, and Human Interest) that get tiles. On your turn, you place one or of your 5 reporter meeples onto a story to cover it. You can also reassign your reporters, or recall them. You can also choose to go to press, which involves picking up the tiles that you have more meeples on, or are tied and placing them on your front page (a 3x4 grid) Any opponent meeples that are on those stories go back to their owners and gain "scoop" points (usually one or 2 points). You then rearrange your stories on your player mat to cover as many of the squares as possible (there are a couple of other restrictions). Each square has a negative point value that subtracts from your page score if it is left uncovered. You score points for the values of your stories. After there have been a set number of news papers published (4th one for a player in a 3 player game) each other player gets one more action to assign a reporter, and then go to press to score again. It was really fun, and fast paced, and I will play it again.
I also played Chez Geek for the first (and last) time.
I finally got around to opening up my copy of Among the Stars: Revival, my copy of Among the Star thought it was tasty and delicious. I also found the missing cube from the original set. So now I have about 60 clear cubes the size of stand d6s that I could use for... something.
Technically the game could go up to 8 people now, but that would seem kinda ridiculous.
Three Knizia games this week, up from one last week. I won’t call it a trend, but it’s interesting enough to point out. I also didn’t play Food Chain Magnate this week, but I did watch others play a learning game, which was still quite satisfying.
Steam Time (new to me) - Another Rudiger Dorn game from this year, albeit a very different one from Karuba. Solid game, worth another play at least. Also joins “Planet Steam”, “Steam Park”, and “Age of Steam” in the constellation of games that are easy to misidentify.
Tigris & Euphrates - I’m beginning to realize I have never turned down a game of Tigris & Euphrates, and can’t imagine doing so.
Amun-Re (new to me) - Played twice in one day, and it struck me as brilliant even through a cocktail of painkillers and cough drops. The art from the upcoming reprint looks… not good, although old copies are still relatively inexpensive secondhand...
Res Publica - I still like Res Publica, even though “it has problems” (as Scott put it). And… I don’t disagree.
Wizard - I find the chaos to fun ratio in Wizard similar to Res Publica, but you can finish a game of Res Publica much faster. Apples and oranges, of course.
Eggs of Ostrich - Only one bag broke, clearly we didn't try hard enough.
Fresh Fish - If the final stalls had been arranged in a different order, I had a real shot at winning.
Amon Re is real rough among 5 skilled players. But, it starts to come down to power card economy. Not AS strongly as it did at the party, since players bid according to possible power card outcomes (for themselves and others), but it's still there.
Remember: you can't tell from someone's hand how many power cards they have. Only counting each one they draw/play will give you that. In high level play, I've seen people hold on to useless power cards just to trick other players into outbidding them for the wrong province.
So I'm shopping around for card games that never got domestic releases (like I do) when I find out Friedemann Friese's Foppen has a Japanese publisher... who only released it as uncut card sheets (distributed as an insert in a magazine).
But the art...!
I also discovered "Wizard Extreme" is just a renamed Die Sieben Siegel, with amazing Wizard art.
Ehhh... never been a fan of "- of the month clubs", for every random thing you like there may be 11 months of things... I really don't like.
It's the same reason I'm not a fan of Lootcrates, not big on giving myself random junk. Gifts are another matter, since I'll appreciate the thought put into them.
I've been ok with Humble Bundle Monthly, so far the games each month are games I planned on buying (eventually) and any games I have had have been great gifts for people!
After looking up that Japanese copy of Foppen, I asked my friend Dan (a graphic designer) how difficult it would be to die cut several sheets of cards. We went back and forth and concluded it's a pain in the ass, much easier to get source files and send them to a service with access to a die already. Foppen has a simple, asymmetric deck: 2-10, 2-14, 2-16, and 2-20 in four different suits, plus four 1s that are all four suits.
Played the Gallerist on Thursday. Absolutely beautiful game. Very interesting mechanics and theme but I definitely need to play it again to fully understand it. Not sure how much replayability it will have, but it's definitely a nice heavy euro.
I haven't tried the Gallerist yet... I'd give it a shot, but I wasn't thrilled by Vital's last game (Kanban) so I haven't been seeking it out.
I can't come up with a theme for this week. But I did play more Food Chain Magnate, and Food Chain Magnate has been going the distance this year.
Hawaii (new to me) - Not in-person, but an online game with Anthony, while he's still over on the west coast. Very enjoyable take on worker placement.
Raiders of the North Sea (new to me) - I never know what to expect when someone says "want to try a new worker placement game?". This was actually pretty good! (I would say good /despite/ being a Kickstarter game). Also gets my eternal gratitude for not supporting 5-6 players for no reason.
Food Chain Magnate - If this isn't one of my favorite discoveries of 2015, it's certainly one of the best games RELEASED in 2015. This week's game felt like a real battle of wits, and was both hilarious and enjoyable. Fear the pizza corner.
Among the Stars - With the new Revival expansion. Advisors: cool. Spaceships: meh - though they actually seem very interesting in a 2p game, which is the stated focus of this expansion.
504 (new to me) - We read the rules cold, and that was half the fun. Our game (World 246: The world of restless generals with connections) was not that interesting... but the debriefing where we collectively moved the modules around was very interesting. Try World 642, instead - it sounds much better.
Roll for the Galaxy - I fully armed the 6-dev that wants different colors of dice, and I was quite happy about it.
Comments
Grand Austria Hotel (new to me) - This is exactly the kind of game I’m predisposed to like. For a game where you “only” get 14 turns, you can put together some truly impressive cascading chains of card plays. Could move up to being a game I love.
7 Wonders: Duel (new to me) - Played a friend’s copy… clever. The drafting mechanism allows plays that force your opponent to give you key cards. I probably don’t need my own copy (unless Anthony wants to play it), but I would play it again.
Karuba (new to me) - The box self-describes this as an ‘addictive’ game, which I thought was a bit of silly marketing. But I played this two nights this week, and both times everyone wanted to play a second game immediately.
Ra - Sometimes, you pull the lever on the Egyptian slot machine and good things happen. Good things like three pharaohs on the last pull of the first age.
Food Chain Magnate - After three plays I keep encountering more unique scenarios, which is good... this time I missed the $100 milestone by inches, which started a butterfly effect that lost me the game.
Fearsome Floors - I don’t like to hold onto games that I haven’t played in 2+ years, so this saved Fearsome Floors from the auction pile. Unfortunately the game itself had a pretty anticlimactic finish.
Quartermaster General - One of my favorites from the past year, and the Axis even won after shattering Moscow (Romanians! in Moscow!) and controlling the expanse of Eurasia. High five to Raithnor, who started his winning streak on Team Axis with me.
Ca$h 'n Guns - More Cash, More Guns.
Castles of Mad King Ludwig - This took a surprisingly long time to set up and play with the expansion, but the expansion itself is fine. Just not the leap that Suburbia to Suburbia Inc was.
The gist of Essen, from what I can tell, is this: A gigantic and incredibly crowded series of expo halls, where most people are coming for one day and doing the majority of their board game shopping for the year. Booths have some tables, but they are there for quick demos of games to help close a sale. There is no actual playing of games aside from this, until the show closes at dinner time. Then, it's people playing games all over the hotels and restaurants.
Maybe we should go together. ;^)
Everytime I see her, though, I can't get this memory out of my head from when I was working the PAX South library and she gave me incredible attitude over not having a game or some crap.
New games to hit the table:
Five Tribes: You bid for turn order, and on your turn, you displace a group of meeples, Mancala style, onto other tiles, and then pick up all meeples of the same color on the last tile you landed on (and you must end with a same colored meeple). If you empty the square, and it isn't claimed, you put a camel on it and it scores points at the end of the game. Each type of meeple (White, Yellow, Blue, Green, Red) Each tile has an ability (they repeat on different tiles), that you either must use (Palace and Palm tree placement) or may choose to use (go to market, buy a djinn). The game plays until either someone has placed their last camel (9 in 3-4 players, 12 in 2 players) or if there are no legal moves on the board. Either way, all players will have equal turns and then the game is scored. Djinns give you either in game effects (that you sacrifice specific meeples for), or an end game bonus of making something more valuable.
I really enjoy this game, and it is fairly fast paced. I ended up getting the expansion after playing the game, and it is really fun as well, adding a few new tiles and a new meeple type/effect (artisans). The game only ends up lasting a couple more rounds with the expansion.
Penny Press: This game was the co-winner of the first Table Top Deathmatch (along with Discount Salmon). I finally got it to the table. You run a newspaper from turn of the century New York and have to publish new stories. Story tiles are added to the board via Story cards, which tell you the type of story, and which categories (War, Crime, Politics, New York, and Human Interest) that get tiles. On your turn, you place one or of your 5 reporter meeples onto a story to cover it. You can also reassign your reporters, or recall them. You can also choose to go to press, which involves picking up the tiles that you have more meeples on, or are tied and placing them on your front page (a 3x4 grid) Any opponent meeples that are on those stories go back to their owners and gain "scoop" points (usually one or 2 points). You then rearrange your stories on your player mat to cover as many of the squares as possible (there are a couple of other restrictions). Each square has a negative point value that subtracts from your page score if it is left uncovered. You score points for the values of your stories. After there have been a set number of news papers published (4th one for a player in a 3 player game) each other player gets one more action to assign a reporter, and then go to press to score again. It was really fun, and fast paced, and I will play it again.
I also played Chez Geek for the first (and last) time.
Technically the game could go up to 8 people now, but that would seem kinda ridiculous.
Steam Time (new to me) - Another Rudiger Dorn game from this year, albeit a very different one from Karuba. Solid game, worth another play at least. Also joins “Planet Steam”, “Steam Park”, and “Age of Steam” in the constellation of games that are easy to misidentify.
Tigris & Euphrates - I’m beginning to realize I have never turned down a game of Tigris & Euphrates, and can’t imagine doing so.
Amun-Re (new to me) - Played twice in one day, and it struck me as brilliant even through a cocktail of painkillers and cough drops. The art from the upcoming reprint looks… not good, although old copies are still relatively inexpensive secondhand...
Res Publica - I still like Res Publica, even though “it has problems” (as Scott put it). And… I don’t disagree.
Wizard - I find the chaos to fun ratio in Wizard similar to Res Publica, but you can finish a game of Res Publica much faster. Apples and oranges, of course.
Eggs of Ostrich - Only one bag broke, clearly we didn't try hard enough.
Fresh Fish - If the final stalls had been arranged in a different order, I had a real shot at winning.
Remember: you can't tell from someone's hand how many power cards they have. Only counting each one they draw/play will give you that. In high level play, I've seen people hold on to useless power cards just to trick other players into outbidding them for the wrong province.
But the art...!
I also discovered "Wizard Extreme" is just a renamed Die Sieben Siegel, with amazing Wizard art.
It's the same reason I'm not a fan of Lootcrates, not big on giving myself random junk. Gifts are another matter, since I'll appreciate the thought put into them.
A few hours later he sends me these:
I can't come up with a theme for this week. But I did play more Food Chain Magnate, and Food Chain Magnate has been going the distance this year.
Hawaii (new to me) - Not in-person, but an online game with Anthony, while he's still over on the west coast. Very enjoyable take on worker placement.
Raiders of the North Sea (new to me) - I never know what to expect when someone says "want to try a new worker placement game?". This was actually pretty good! (I would say good /despite/ being a Kickstarter game). Also gets my eternal gratitude for not supporting 5-6 players for no reason.
Food Chain Magnate - If this isn't one of my favorite discoveries of 2015, it's certainly one of the best games RELEASED in 2015. This week's game felt like a real battle of wits, and was both hilarious and enjoyable. Fear the pizza corner.
Among the Stars - With the new Revival expansion. Advisors: cool. Spaceships: meh - though they actually seem very interesting in a 2p game, which is the stated focus of this expansion.
504 (new to me) - We read the rules cold, and that was half the fun. Our game (World 246: The world of restless generals with connections) was not that interesting... but the debriefing where we collectively moved the modules around was very interesting. Try World 642, instead - it sounds much better.
Roll for the Galaxy - I fully armed the 6-dev that wants different colors of dice, and I was quite happy about it.