Gaming Session: The State of the Wolf

We tried out 51st State for the first time tonight, it was packaged as a typical American game: small print, incoherent rule book, a bit tedious. It took awhile to really understand the game and the flow. It is essentially a card game set in a post-apocalyptic world on the east coast. Each player is a group of survivors trying to establish the 51st state out of the ruins. Each card you can raid for spoils (immediate benefit), negotiate a contract to earn a benefit each turn, or build it as a location to send workers to it for resources and skills. Many decisions to make, and each group has its own advantage. There is a card auction each turn, collection of resources, playing of cards/locations as actions and then totaling victory points. The game was longer than it should have been, but ended up good. I would play it again.

A bunch of people showed up so played Werewolf, and the games seemed to go really good and were lots of fun with 15 people. I was Moderator for both games as we had newbies, but that's fun too. We closed out the night pulling out a cool game from last year, Last Will. That's the game where you try to spent all your money, who goes broke first and the furthest in debt wins. I had an advantage playing with new players, but they caught on quickly. I was able to stay with them and actually used a farm property (I usually avoid/am scared of properties as they remain an asset too long). In the end I was able to pull out the win by just two pounds (its played in old England).

Ratings (Fun/Strategic/Interaction):

51st State: 6~8~4

Werewolf: 5~5~8

Last Will: 7~8~7

Battles with the Brother

 It has been awhile since I have been able to play games with my brother Randy, I would like to more often as we approach games in a similar way and it is always fun. We got to dig into some decent two player games that I have not been able to get on the table, so I was stoked to do so. The first one that I have been dying to play but pretty much would only play it with Randy due to the historical nuances to it (he is a history buff), is A Few Acres of Snow. It is actually fairly simple to play, a card driven war game, but each side has their own unique set of cards, units and even abilities. I played the British and Randy the French. As the French he had better alliances with the Native Indians and income from fur trade, while I started with more money and cities with abilities. Once he started raiding my towns I went into defensive mode, fortifying my positions and cutting off his paths. We only had three city sieges in the whole game, and none were successful. As this game has a deck-building component, I spent energy thinning my deck and upgrading my towns until I won in a whimpy way by camping and protecting. It is a pretty cool game, although not much variety, but I would play it again.

We also played the Civil War game Battle Cry, and just set up the first simple scenario. It is also card driven, but more limited in your choices. I made a rash bold move with my artillery and Cavalry at the beginning of the game that cost me both of them, and was on the run from there. I battled back with some hit & run tactics, but ended up having 4 flag bearers on the run and it was just a matter of time before Randy picked them off for the victory. The picture below shows my stupid artillery charge in blue on the right that led to defeat:

We also got in a game of Jab:Realtime Boxing, but I had the clear advantage of having played before. It seems I can only win that game when I play someone older than me.

Gaming Session: Another visit to the Village

 Tonight we got to play Village, a great game I haven't been able to play that often. I again went for the points by building wagons and traveling, but could not overcome the points I missed by not selling at the market that Nate concentrated on. There are many good choices to make in this game, but the coolest part are the generations of your family that pass away and trying to get them into the Village chronicle instead of the unknown graves.

Gaming Session: Protecting Odin's Palace

I think one of the coolest co-op games to arrive in the past few years is Yggdrasil. Of course its cool to me as it centers on Norse mythology and the great tree that connects all of the 9 realms together. In this cooperative you each play one of the Norse gods who collectively are trying to keep the evil forces (Loki, Fenrir, Hel, etc.) from breaking through the walls of Asgard and into Odin's palace. To do so on your turn you have a few actions to visit the various realms to recruit Elves from Niflheim and dead warriors from Valhalla, slay frost giants, move the Valkyrie, enhance your weapons, etc. all in order to push back the individual monsters from advancing. The mechanics utilize the mythology well, and it is a tense game. I played Heimdall (guardian of the bifrost bridge) and wasted my special ability to recruit warriors by making horrible rolls. I really cost my team, and it came down to me trying to slay a frost giant that would complete a rune set that would enable us to push back 3 enemies . . . and I again blew the roll for reinforcements. AAAHHHH! I think I have only defeated this game once, but I must say we did play on a higher difficulty level than usual. Fun.

With more of a group that gathered we played an intense gane of Shadow Hunters that came down to a Shadow & a Hunter facing off in the end. The Hunter won (my team) so it was all good. We followed that with some Danish 21 and then a few good rounds of Werewolf (I moderated them).

Gaming Session: Pandemic outbreaks!

For game night we still have the co-op bug, so we went back to oe of the best, Pandemic. Beautiful mechanics, true co-op play as everyone is needed. We tried it on medium with three of us and decent roles. We had most of it maintained, had cured two diseases and had just cured a third when we got bit by multiple outbreaks that put us over the limit and we lost. Still carries a tense feel to it and challenge that makes me want to play again.

8 outbreaks did us in as we were about to win.

We had a good crowd so we overcame our death by disease with a bit of lycanthrope with Werewolf. That was actually tense too, as the game came down to the wire.

Design Competitions!

This time of year I get all itchy to sharpen some of my prototype designs to enter into design competitions with the hopes of doing well and be noticed by a publisher. The highest boardgame design competition (the Academy award in the business) is held in Germany by the Hippodice club. I entered once a few years ago, but never made it to the next round where you actually send your prototype for them to playtest. This year I entered the rules and picture of Nisse, and it was accepted for playtesting! So now I had to drop $50 to send my complete prototype to Europe for evaluation, but the game looks good. I mounted the game onto a nice folding chipboard surface with my latest modifications and sent it away. They will playtest it for a few months, and they'll invite the best ten or so designs for the finals. Here's hoping!









A more local contest I enter every year is the ION award for the SaltCon copetition in Utah. I sent in my latest version of SPLAT!, this one mounted on thick chipboard that was a pain to cut, but I like the final look. I am hoping this will live up to its billing as Caleb told me in a dream that this was an "award-winning design."

Gaming Session: Forbidden Glory

 

 I have been wanting to play Glory to Rome for quite a while, I purchased it back in August in a little gameshop when I was in Capinteria for a conference. They have a new edition out that is really nice, but I got the old edition with cartoon graphics. GTR has gained quite a popular following even though it was cheaply produced, and is supposed to have great strategic gameplay. In a word it is fun. We almost got all the rules right, but even then we were able to see the deep strategy and possibilities in this game. It is a simple card game where you are trying to rebuild Rome using order cards that have multiple uses, and you must decide what they will be used for: as a role to take actions, as a building to build, as materials to add to a building, as a client to give more actions, or as victory points in your vault. When used as buildings, once completed they gave you extra abilities to then use. Lots of variety and lots of decisions, how I like it.

 

The group was also craving a cooperative game, so we also played Forbidden Island, a lite version of Pandemic. It still has the genius mechanic of re-stacking cards on a pile to effect similar areas in the game, this time to remove tiles from a sinking island that you must retrieve 4 treasures from and escape by helicopter before you go down with it. Each player has a different role selected at the beginning so that you need to work together and maximize talents to win the game. We won with only a few dicey moments, but we were only playing on the beginner level. It was still fun and gave me a taste to want to play Pandemic again.

 


There were again quite a few people so we also played a few rounds of Ultimate Werewolf. It worked pretty well this time, I was of course the moderator and on our second game it whittled all the way down to two people and the werewolves won.

Gaming Session: Gifts of the Nisse

For game night the others were willing to playtest one of my games, so I broke out Nisse as I have recently been thinking I want to complete it and submit it to a company or enter it into a contest. I had made some final changes since I last playtested it at Strategicon, and we went for a full game with 5 players, not just certain segments. Some of my additions for this playtest:
1. Introduced the Flex token that could be used to play on another player's task.
2. Set a threshold of 10 tasks that need to be completed overall each turn for the farmer to be happy. His happiness then determined if conditions were drawn the next turn to placed on the players/nisse.
3. Used the player boards again to count tokens earned, and purchases could only be made off of earned tokens.
4. Porridge was earned only if all your tasks were completed, had placed at least one on all your tasks, and had a majority on at least one task.



One of the happy gnomes (nisse)!

I thought the test went well, with a few issues regarding the use of the Flex token and resolving Jul (Christmas) at the end, but overall it was smooth with quite a few different strategies. There were some fun, tense moments and everyone was involved, and they gave me some great feedback. I feel confident that something good is there at the core of this game and that it is worth continuing to pursue.

Family Games - Get a Clue!

Sarah had been playing with our edition of Clue most of the afternoon so we played it as our activity for family night. Jonathan was not in a good mood so we had a hard time convincing him to play, but he grudgingly agreed finally. He loves Xbox and computer games, so of course a boardgame is much more tedious for him and he rarely has the patience though he does have good gaming skills. So we began and most of us were into it except for Jonathan but he made a few notes. We went around on the first turn and some got to make some accusations to narrow it down, but on my turn (going last) I only rolled enough to move but not enter a room to make a guess. Jonathan was still not into the game, but on his second turn he put in a guess for the room, suspect and weapon. And he nailed it! HE WON BEFORE I GOT MY SECOND TURN OR WAS EVEN ABLE TO ENTER A ROOM! Hannah was stunned with mouth open as Jonathan just got up and walked away. I think he gleefully enjoyed that, but was even more happy that he didn't havce to play that long.
(As a side note, that is probably a reason why I don't like that game as much, but will still play it. I prefer and recommend Mystery Express for a murder mystery deduction game.)

Gaming Session: another Level

 Josh got there early so we dove into the next level of Level7, level 3. This scenario has you trying to trying to pit the guards against the Hybrid aliens, so that when the Hybrids work them over there are leftover uniforms you need to collect to get to the next level. They just can't be too bloody or you cannot wear them! You cannot attack the guards yourselves either, so it was a real cat and mouse game of getting close, but not too close. I ended up getting too close and did not survive, but my endeavors enabled Josh to survive and escape with the uniforms. That's OK, but I don't think I want to be sacrificed every time so others will live!


 

With others there we also played Bang! which is a pretty cool western shoot-up game. What happened to me in this game is one of the reasons it is not a favorite, I actually only got a few turns and didn't really get to do much. There is too much luck of the draw in this card game.

Gaming Session: Dreams of Splat!

So this week my son Caleb came to me in a dream and said, "Dad, I have an award-winning design" and proceeded to explain a game concept to me. The game was about a board with paths, and some type of hunter moved along the paths eliminating subjects. When I awoke the concept quickly evolved to a person stomping around a room killing cockroaches, and Splat! was born. I made the game in about a day and actually playtested it tonight for game night. A variable tile set-up created pathways with nodes for the cockroaches to follow, and every player had a number of cockroaches. The hunter, or "big shoe" was played by each player on a rotating basis, and each player would play a card from 1-5 each turn representing the number of movement spaces they could move the shoe or their cockroaches. You got a point for each cockroach you smashed and collected, and you get points for how many of your cockroaches survive. I haven't got the end game completely figured out, but there is a ball that can be kicked by the shoe to also turn over some cockroaches to make them easy prey. It was kind of fun to play it, we'll see where it goes.

We also played Tobago tonight, that game is never a bad time. I finally played some of the reverse side boards which made for an even better experience. I would say that Tobago is easily in my top 25, it has strategy, replay value, is not long nor difficult to learn. And you make really cool grinding noises whenever you rotate the idols on the island.

Gaming Session: Leaders & Cities

Tonight in limited time we played 7 Wonders for the first time with both the Leaders and Cities expansion. It did make the game a bit longer, but not too much. I had played with Leaders before and liked the concept, but it at times was more of a distraction to fit the leaders into your strategy. This was the first time I played with Cities and I loved it. The new black cards added much more variety to the game, and the addition of debt and peace tokens added another layer of strategy that I consider very welcome. I felt more in control with the ability to do things that affected my opponents more. I had a decent score of 78, but we all got squashed by Josh who earned 85 points just by Science alone. It makes me more eager to play 7 Wonders again.