On Cheating

The act of cheating is one that comes with a variety of assumed consequences depending on the scenario.  In the relationship sphere, the consequences are dire and generally keep most intelligent people from even considering the act.  In gaming, too, cheating is generally regards as taboo, unless the game specifically allows it (Thank you Munchkin).  There are also scenarios in games where a participant either through annoyance or ignorance makes cheating so tempting that the gamers who notice may not fully condone the act, they do understand.  In realm of new year resolutions however, cheating is often regards as an inevitability.  The only question is how long will they last before willpower fails them.

Fortunately I have not had to resort to this yet, although I can say that it has been close.  There was the discussion on whether playing the iOS version of Exploding Kittens with other people in the room counted (no), or whether the afternoon spent online playing 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons with the group back stateside counted (also no).  I am taking as an early warning sign that the gap between my log entries seems to be increasing.  I will endeavor in the future to keep no more than 2-3 days between posts.

Now, for the last week of games.

Game report day 22 - Coin Age
Perhaps the most micro of the microgames in the modern era, Coin Age fits quite a lot of fun into a small package.  The game itself is a pretty basic area control game.  The more territories you control, the more points you get.  The coin mechanic that has smaller coins being able to take over larger coins makes things marginally more complicated.  The fact that endgame is triggered when all territories are occupied is a strategic component as well.  I used to be able to carry this around and play with pocket change as the designer intended.  Now it is more difficult as I have to keep a selection of American coins around just for the purpose of this game.  Aussie coins just don't work right.  While I still have the cardboard coins that shipped with the game, I never use them.  I get far more enjoyment using real coins, even if I have to keep special ones around just for this game.

Game report day 23 - Viticulture plus Tuscany
Viticulture, along with the Tuscany expansion, remains one of my favorite worker placement games.  The theme is fantastic, the mechanics smooth, and the play consistently enjoyable, regardless on the player count.  I have played everything from solo games up to full Meetup tables of six.

When Tuscany was released, it was the designer's intent to have players add the additional content modules slowly and incrementally.  I was like may players that played along, and then just got impatient and added the set of 6-7 modules that have proven to be the most popular.  My standby setup now includes the following: Mamas and Papas, New Visitors, Advanced Visitors, Extended Board, Properties, Structures, and Patronage.  Leading up to this last play, I decided to go crazy.  Basically I wanted to add everything that I could that made any sort of sense.  As such, I added the special workers (Professore and Oracle came up) and the Formaggio Tier 3 expansion.  Mafia was still left out as it really does not make any sense with two players.

What followed was a seriously epic game.  My wife took advantage of early structures and visitors to take a 10 point lead.  My engine was slower to get going, but ultimately proved more profitable.  The addition of cheese production did garner a noticeable amount of points, though if memory serves, I likely would have won anyway.  Final score 35 to 21.

Game report day 24 - Labyrinth the Card Game
Pocket version of the Ravensburger classic.  Despite the fact that tiles do not slide around to shift the maze, the feel is very similar.  In this version the maze shifts as tiles are picked up and replaced.  When a player plays a tile, he checks to see if a treasure on the played tile connects with a treasure on the field.  If it does, and the player can demonstrate the path, the destination tile is picked up and scored.  Play continues until the draw pile is exhausted.  I won a close game by one tile.

Game report day 25 - Tsuro and Qwirkle
Tsuro is another game that can be added to the list of games for which my eldest son needs no coaching.  Three of us played an enjoyable game, with my son strategically dispatching both mom and dad.  Definitely no more kid gloves against this boy.

When Qwirkle came out, there was understandably more coaching.  With this one there are just too many things to look at for the 8 year old brain to process.  In the initial play, he rarely played more than one or two tiles at a time, and usually on the first location he saw.  Perhaps after a few more plays he will get to see some of the possibilities.  My wife on the other hand, spent much of the game annoyed as I had one tile turns getting one Qwirkle after another.  Needless to say, I won handily.

Game report day 26 - Australia Map Game
Happy Australia Day!  This city knows how to party!  This public holiday was spent watching a fantastic international parade followed by some decent food, classic cars, good music, and an excellent fireworks show.  In the middle of all of this was a Designer Faire.  One of the stalls housed an artist that had created a simple roll and move game highlighting the interesting locations throughout Australia.  While the game itself was pretty simple, the execution was beautiful.  The board was screen printed on canvas and the game tokens were etched and printed on to nice hardwood discs.  The playing pieces were even sized correctly for the spots on the game board

(something an irritating number of professional publishers mess up).  The whole family got a round in while we were waiting for the fireworks to begin.  Fun had by all.  And I won again.

Game report day 27 - Pagoda
I am getting increasingly attached to this wonderful little two player game.  I wavered more than a little before picking this one up at PAX AUS and I am glad that I let the impulse win out.  This particular round the cards were not nice to me.  I always seemed to be one card short on any given turn to be able to accomplish anything useful and establish a lead.  As it was the game was close until the very end. We each had topped one pagoda and were consistently within a point or two of each other.  Then I drew a had full of cards that I could do nothing with.  This was the opportunity my wife needed to open a small lead and end the game.  Well played.

Kinda makes me wish I had cheated...  ;)

On Confusion and Delay

Anyone who has had young children in the last 20 years or so will recognize the titular phrase and immediately start expecting something involving trains.

Patience, grashopper.  For the moment I am going to be slightly more literal.

Confusion and delay seem to be the preferred modus operandi lately at work.  What makes it even more so is that the confusion and delay comes from a fear of confusion.  The operations people have such a morbid fear of the unknown that they can't possibly move forward with anything that has not been documented in triplicate, tested at least twice, deployed, rolled-back, and otherwise spoon fed to them from a silver platter.  I have never seen a more risk averse bunch of technical people in my life.

In my professional career I have now experienced both ends of the operational spectrum.  A tech shop full of cowboys is fun for a while, but is ultimately erratic to the point of being irritating.  The other extreme is, of course, the shop full of risk averse semi-trained monkeys.  Comfortable, predictable, but changes direction slower than the Titanic and takes far longer than you think it should to get something useful accomplished.  Try to push it faster, disaster ensues.

At this point I have done what I can to avert the disaster.  Now I just have to sit back and accept the fact that disasters can also be entertaining to one who has job security.

Now to the trains.

My oldest son recently turned 8.  One of the activities for his birthday involved a trek out to a local miniature railway yard.  The Altona Miniature Railway is a hobby club of train enthusiasts who build and maintain garden scale miniature railway engines and track.  I have generally found it fascinating how trains can have an enduring ability to turn people of any age into little kids.  Watching the club members drive and direct their trains around the tracks was no different than watching little boys huddled over a model train set. This is an experience I hope to someday get more of, as I have the beginnings of a model train set and hope to be able to spend some quality time with the boys getting it to be something spectacular.

***Some may have noticed how I gave up and dropped all pretense of gender neutrality about halfway though the previous paragraph.  Part of me wants to take the rest of it out.  So far my last little rant for the day.  Gender stereotypes exist for a reason, folks.  It is because, in general, they are true.  While my wife and I have presented a nearly identical set of toys and media to both my sons and my daughter, the differences in toy preference and behavior is as amazing as it is predictable.  While my daughter still gets excited about cars and trains, the boys are orders of magnitude more so.

The moral of this story?  While you should not force children into a pre-defined mold, you should also not be upset or surprised when the mold fits.

Now I believe I have a few days of gaming to catch up on.

Game report day 17: Yardmaster Express
When the original Yardmaster game went through Kickstarter, it was obvious that it was going to be a short, solid filler game.  Each game takes 20 minutes at the high end.  Then the same designer proposed a shorter, lighter game along the same lines.  The thought amongst the backers and reviewers was the same.  How do you take an already short game and make it shorter, without being uninteresting?  Well, they pulled it off.  Yardmaster Express is a fun little drafting game that plays in about 5 minutes.  As with its longer namesake, the goal is to build a length of cargo cars, with each join having a number or color in common.  In the Express version, you draw a card, add it to your hand, choose one card to add to your train, then pass the remaining cards to the next player.  For a short game with limited decisions, this can get pretty intense and quite a lot of fun.  Every time I get this out, we end up playing multiple rounds.

Game report day 18: Stationmaster
What can I say.  I have a lot of train games.  I blame the aforementioned children.

This particular train game is a Mayfair title from 2004.  In this card game you are not only building a train of various types of cars, but you are populating that train with a secret number of passengers.  The secret aspect of the passengers gives a bit of a bluff game feel to this game.  While all players have the same passengers to assign to trains, how they do it is secret, and and definitely have a huge impact on scoring.  There is also the possibility of tricking (or forcing) your opponent to put passengers on what amounts to a negative value train.  High class passengers apparently don't like sharing a train with cargo cards full of fish.

Game report day 19: Tiny Epic Galaxies and Tiny Epic Kingdoms

It was Tuesday once again and there was the usual morning decision of what I was going to haul to the meetup.  This particular Tuesday I was in no mood to carry a lot, given that the high temp was supposed to be north of 30C.  So I packed up the Tiny Epics.  After the initial experience of playing Tiny Epic Galaxies with my wife, I wanted to see what a full five player experience was like.  I also wanted to see how the Superweapon add-on played.  Both were as excellent as I had hoped.  The players trickled in but eventually we got a full table of five.  After a full explanation to four newbies, we got started.  Predictably enough, the game was much slower with five players simply because there were more cards to read.  If I had one complaint, the planet cards should be bigger.  With five players at a large table, it is rather difficult for players on the fringes to read the critical text.  It was a close game with the top three players separated by just a few points.  I did manage to pull out the win, but just barely.
Following that game, most of the players dispersed, but two returned for a game of Tiny Epic Kingdoms.  The first installment in the Tiny Epic series is a reasonably typical 4x game (expand, explore, exploit, exterminate).  This round it was the Merfolk vs. Centaurs vs. The Order of Gamelyn.  This was a close game too.  The Centaurs quickly learned that war is an expensive proposition and not always a good idea, even if you do win.  The Order (me) learned that they need to do a much better job of actually using all of their available magic abilities.  Then, just maybe, they would not have lost to the silly tower-building Merfolk in a tiebreaker.  Grrr.

Game report day 20: Zombie Dice
One of the wonderful things about Steve Jackson Games in general is that you don't have to think very hard to play.  Zombies don't have brains, they eat brains.  On this particular evening, both my wife and I were tired zombies ourselves, so the game seemed appropriate.  That and it kept the streak alive.  Two rounds were played and I lost both in spectacular fashion.  In particular Santa Claus was good to her and less so to me.  Neither of us chose to step onto the School Bus of shotgun wielding children. (I love that image)

Game report day 21 - Yardmaster Express and Dragon Kings

If any one game has convinced my wife that my now eight year old does not need help on most simple games, this is it.  He and I played two rounds this evening, splitting victories.  The first game he definitely recognized and took advantage of a mistake I made.  Definitely not helping this goon on Yardmaster strategy ever again.

The second game of the night was a new one for me, as in it just arrived in the mail today.  This was a game that I tripped over on Kickstarter.  The project intrigued me for a few reasons.  First, the art looked interesting.  I like dragon art, and this looked reasonably well done.  Second it was a short campaign at just a couple weeks.  Third, it claimed to be a complete deck builder game in a 52 card deck of cards.  While I already have a few deck builders in the collection, a more portable one seemed just a little interesting.  Finally, they were predicting delivery of the finished product to backers in less than a month.  This is what really caught my attention.  As anyone with any Kickstarter experience knows, the wait for the final product often takes months, sometimes years, if it ever arrives at all.  Having a project predict delivery in just a few weeks is unheard of.  So I bought two.  This was the option of combining two decks to allow for 3-4 players.  I like to have the option in games if it allows.

The game arrived as predicted, in less than three weeks.

After just one play, I do have some observations and complaints.  In general, this is an interesting, simple, deck builder.  Think Dominion Ultra-light.  The lack of variability in the cards does seem to limit the replay value, but after one game, I think it has more legs than initially thought.  I can see a tightly run game running very fast, allowing very little time to develop strategy.  This means that you will have to play multiple games to try out different paths to victory.  Not a bad thing.  The cards themselves are of decent quality and the artwork is pretty good.  My primary complaint is that I wish there was more of it.  Most of the cards could have been designed with less border and more dragon art.  The other major complaint is the instruction sheet.  This looks like an afterthought as it likely was run off on a black and white laser printer, then folded eight ways and stuffed into the card box.  Was there really not enough room on the card sheets to print off a couple double sided instruction cards.  Or even faded paper that was fixed for the tuck box?  Anyway, this will be worth playing more, and almost certainly will be a permanent resident of my travel game set.

I can stop any time I want to. Really.

I have referred to my gaming activities in the past as an obsession.  In reality that term is probably a little strong for the actual situation.  As my collection has grown I have seen myself become far more particular about which games I will buy or which projects in Kickstarter I will back.  Even with that in mind, I realize that I own and play far more games that the average person and from that vantage point I could be seen as addicted to the hobby.

The terms that are often used seem to come with a level of negative baggage that is unwarranted.  Can one be addicted to a particular activity if there are no, or minimal negative side effects of the activity?  Can one be obsessed if one is still able to function as a regular member of society?  One might use the term dedicated, but even that does not seem to fit in my mind.  Probably the best term that I can come up with right now is committed.  It describes the level of attention to the activity and has just enough historical connotation to justify the level of insanity to which some non-gamers think I must suffer.

Game report day 16: Can't Stop

Today's musings were not exactly random.  When games and entertainment are involved, some people predictably lose all sense of probability and statistics.  This phenomenon is the only reason that institutions like Powerball remain financially viable.  On a smaller (and more responsible) scale there is the class of board games termed "press your luck" games.

One of the oldest of these (setting casino games aside) is a game called Can't Stop, formerly of Parker Brothers.  In this game you roll dice in an effort to claim spots atop columns representing possible outcomes on those dice.  On every roll, you must advance at least one marker.  If you cannot, you bust and lose all progress made that turn.  You can, of course, always stop voluntarily.  Some time ago I purchased an additional add-on to the game called Rollin down the Highway.  This complicates the game slightly, making the path up each column unknown and potentially not straight.  I quite like the additional material.  It makes the game ever so slightly less than just an exercise in probability and taunting of the opponents.  I try not to taunt my wife too much when we play.  She won this round, 3-2.

Now should I stop?

Nah.

On the importance of theme, and the power of suggestion

The importance of theme is something that causes a modicum of disagreement within the gamer community.  Some consider the theme of the game to be mostly superfluous, a nice to have feature.  Many consider a solid, integrated, interesting theme to be essential to all but the most abstract of games.

I fall somewhere in between the two.  While I can appreciate strategy and mechanics on their own, having a solid theme can greatly enhance the enjoyment of the other excellent features of a game.  In addition, a week, pasted on theme can detract from what would otherwise be an interesting game.

I also find game themes useful in the more social aspect of gaming.  When constructing a gaming event, it can be helpful to group games together with similar theme.  This can allow you to create something that binds the overall event together, potentially creating more interest and attracting more players to your endeavor.

In smaller groups, carefully chosen themes or or constructed groups of themes can be used to send (not so) subtle messages to the other player.

Game report - day 15: Munchkin Booty

I could have been less subtle with the suggestion here, but most of those games are in storage.

Munchkin is an oft derided game in the gamer community.  While most own one or more copies of the series, few will admit to playing it anymore.  The reason behind this is in my opinion, twofold.  First, it has been around awhile, and like many familiar names in hobby gaming, is considered passé. Secondly, some serious hobby gamers like to ignore Munchkin (and a lot of Steve Jackson Games in general) as being too silly and random.  Serious gamers sometimes like to flaunt their skill, knowledge, or strategic prowess and try to avoid games that come down to random chance.

For those not in the know, Munchkin is a parody card game from Steve Jackson Games that makes fun of pretty much every other adventuring game in history.  The tagline of the game is "Kill the monster, take the treasure, stab your buddy", and that pretty much explains all of it.  There is a lot of "take that" mechanisms in the game (which is another thing serious gamers don't particularly care for).  Munchkin Booty is the pirate themed edition of the franchise.  Where as in the base game you have different races (human, elf, dwarf) and classes (cleric, fighter, wizard), in Munchkin Booty you have accents (French, Dutch, Brit) and classes (pirate, navy, merchant).

Personally I think the whole series is quite fun.  That said, I do have to be careful with whom I play this game.  This is not a game to play with angry people who take deception and changes in loyalty seriously.  Serious gamers can be put off as well if you try to pass it off as something it is not.  However, if you use the available themes wisely and present the game as the fun filler that it is, then fun will be had by all.

That is the point after all.

On the nature of Help

For the most part, in whatever actions people take, they are trying to help.  Sometimes they are trying to help themselves, many times they are trying to help others.  This desire to help is one of the most fundamental and universal features of our being.

Unfortunately there is a universal truth about being helpful that is almost universally forgotten.  Help is almost never successfully delivered without the consent of the recipient.  The entity that you are trying to help must be willing to receive the assistance.

In my case the immovable force that seems to be unwilling to be helped is at work.  Corporate entities are intractable forces that with embedded processes and an idea that holding to process is more important than successful delivery of goals on schedule.

Look, I get that processes are there for a reason, and that without these processes there would be no accountability and without that, everything would eventually fall apart.  My response is this.  These <bleep> processes have not been followed at any point of this project so far, so why the <bleep> is it so critical to hold to your guns now?

The answer to the preceding question is simple.  We are getting close to delivery dates, and everyone knows that things are going to be either delayed or released badly.  As a result, everyone is so busy covering their respective arses that they can't see where they are going, or what they could do to fix it.

Risk avoidance is one thing.  Like anything else, it can be taken too far,

Enough of that .  Game report catch up.

Game report day 11: Fluxx
This is one of the best little filler games out there.  Fluxx is a card game that starts out with one rule: draw one card, play one card.  Then things change.  The cards you play will inevitably change the rules.  Sometimes there are specific actions to take.  Other times the cards you play will change the Goal to win the game.  Everything is in a state of , well, Fluxx.  This game plays just as well with 2-3 players as it does with 8.  And if you get extremely bored with the original Fluxx game, there are a myriad of themed versions such as Zombie, Space, stoner, Eco, Family, Monty Python, and more.

Game report Day 12: Evolution, Settlers of Catan
On to the weekly Tuesday Meetup.  I had brought Evolution the previous two weeks, so I had intended on bringing something different, but then I discovered that there was an important rule that I had missed in the earlier playtesting so I wanted to run one more game with a larger group.  In practice the rule change affected game play about as I expected.  It did indeed speed the overall game up (not necessarily a good thing), and it made recovery of players from an extinction event much faster (definitely a good thing).  I won this game, but I can't brag too much as the other players were new, and not particularly aggressive.
After Evolution was done, the table scattered and I took the opportunity to eat some tasty yum yums.  Shortly after that, a trio of new players wandered into the Meetup.  They were new to the Meetup and to gaming in general, as was indicated by their wandering over to the game shelf and selection of the only game they recognized, Catan.
Some hobby gamers look down on Catan these days regarding it as kind of passe.  The more open minded regard it as one of the great gateway games and a modern classic.  I am of course one of the latter.  At the host's request, I accepted the task of teaching the newbies how to play Catan.  The game went very smoothly and was remarkably close.  I ended up losing, albeit barely.  It was one of those aggravating losses where you know that just one slightly better dice roll, or one different card draw, could have given me the win. Ultimately the important thing is that fun was had by all, and it is likely that the game world just got three new regulars.

Game report Day 13: Tiny Epic Galaxies
This third installment in the Tiny Epic series from Gamelyn Games is something that I have been wanting to get to the table for a while.  This night was the inaugural play with my wife and I.  I will need to play it again with her soon, as she was rather out of it on this evening.  The game itself it pretty fun.  You roll a set of dice that determine what actions you can take, moving ships, gathering resources, advancing tracks, etc.  You goal is to get victory points.  These are primarily acquired by colonizing planets.  In addition, with each planet you successfully colonize, you get access to additional actions and abilities can can accellerate you progress to the final goal.  More to come on this one later.

Game Report Day 14: Moose in the House
This is another Gamewright card game that my wife picked up.  It looked cute and was another game that could be played with the kids.  In addition, this was an opportunity for my son to try and teach me how to play the game.  He made an admirable go of it.  The goal of the game is to keep wandering moose (plural mooses or meese) out of your house.  Complete exclusion is generally not possible, so you need to just do a better job of it than your opponents.  To that end, you get doors to close up open rooms, and moose traps.  You also can use offense as your defense, adding more rooms to your opponents house to defend.  When all the meeses were settled, I ended up winning by tiebreaker.

Now back to work, staring out my level 42 windows, wishing I was somewhere else...  Enjoy all!

On the importance of teamwork

Teamwork is a strange topic when it comes to games.  Most games are by definition competitive.  In addition to the enjoyment we get from playing the game, we are in general playing to win.  Even for the few games that are team-based or cooperative there is still a competitive element.  As players you still want to show off your skill, knowledge, cleverness, or resolve to your fellow players.

Even (or perhaps more importantly) outside of the game, teamwork is essential for die-hard gamers.  It is rare for us to be surrounded by a steady supply of people who are as dedicated to the hobby as we are.  Therefore it is in our best interest to cultivate our own team of gamers so that we can continues to do what we love.

For my own purposes, my wife has been the most important member of that local team, especially as I undergo my year of gaming resolution.  Since I only have a game meetup event to go to once a week, for the remaining six days I rely on my wife and kids for fellow players.  As the oldest of my kids is seven, most of those plays are with my wife.

I have been extremely thankful for the extent to which my wife has embraced this hobby of mine, especially with the quantity of time, money, and storage space that it has grown to occupy.  Even when I suggested this game-a-day resolution, she encouraged it.  Even with many of our plays happening late in the evening after the kinds are in bed, prioritizing gaming over the extra sleep.  Everyone should have this level of support.  Without support, what I am trying to do would be impossible.

Now to catch up on a couple days of play reports.

Game report Day 8 - Mille Bornes
Classic card game and is one of the first titles that my wife and I acquired after we got together.  The name is French for "Thousand Miles", which gives you some indication as to the goal.  Players are trying to accumulate a thousand miles of distance cards for their road trip, all while hitting their opponents with stoplights, speed limits, flat tires, etc.  First person to a thousand miles wins the round,  Depending on a few other factors the round scores points.  The game is won when someone passes 5000 points.  We just played two hands, splitting them one win apiece.

Game Report Day 9 - Dweebies
Gamewright Games has an extensive library of fun, silly looking card games.  This one has a deck of 52 cards consisting of 27 different dweebies.  Each turn a player will play one card from their hand onto the table, forming rows and columns of dweebies.  At any time when identical dweebies appear in the same row or column, the player that played the second dweebie collects the matching pair along with all of the cards in the row or column between the two.  When all cards have been played, you count up the number of collected cards, high number wins.  We played one round.  I won, though not by a lot.  Impressive given how tired my wife must have been, looped up on painkillers after a day of dental work.

Game Report Day 10 - Betrayal at House on the Hill
I just got this one today.  After looking for quite some time, I managed to find a used copy for a price I was willing to pay.  This is a game in a small, but growing category of semi-cooperative games.  In particular it is in a category called traitor games.  This means that everyone playing is on the same team, except one.  That one person is the traitor trying, usually secretly, to make everyone else lose.  Remember how I said that cultivating your local team of game players is important?  Choosing the games you play is one of the important parts of that effort.  I mention this now because this game, and games like it, are games that are not necessarily for every group.  Some players have a tendency to take things like treason and subterfuge personally.  If you have one of these people in your group, you just need to accept this and avoid games that involve deception, saving those games for more diverse meetups.

Fortunately my wife is not one of these people, although a game like Diplomacy might even push her limits.  Unfortunately, Betrayal at House on the Hill is designed for at least three players.  While there is a two player variant on BGG, we decided to include my son instead.  With some help he did fine.  The only thing I was watching out for was the odd chance that he would be the traitor.  If that were the case we would just fudge it.  As it turns out, my wife was the traitor.  She promptly exterminated the heroes, although I was very, very close to winning the game for the heroes.  One die roll just a little better.....

This is one game that will be getting more table time.

Rants and Raves and Games

Before anyone gets the wrong idea, today was actually a pretty good day.  Work was interesting enough that I did not fear falling asleep at my desk, the weather was pleasant, and there was time to play games at the end of it.

When it comes right down to it, the following rants are here because it was, in general, such a slow news day so to speak.  For those who don't care, please feel free to skip down to the game report that will follow my random blithering.

Rant 1 - GMO
I was in the store today and saw a box of brownie mix labeled "No GMO Ingredients".  I almost did not buy it, but it was also the only one there.  I hate this term. I have strongly opposed any effort by anyone to create GMO labeling rules.  Why?  Because they are all pointless.  The first problem is that every domesticated plant and animal on earth is genetically modified.  All of them.  You want non-gm corn, go down to central Mexico and pick yourself some native grass and see how that works for you.  Whether the modification was done in a lab, or in a field, it makes no difference.  Field based genetic selection is just as susceptible to disaster as lab modification, if not more now.  In fact, I would argue that ALL changes made to plants and animals should be done using modern genetic manipulation techniques.  Why?  Precision.  In a lab, with modern markers, you know exactly what genes you are moving around.  In the field, you throw things together and hope you get what you want after enough tries.  These people also really don't like to acknowledge the fact that genetically modified crops are directly responsible for saving more lives worldwide that any other technological development.

What they are really scared of is, of course, Monsanto, Roundup residue, and slimy business practices.  These are valid things to be concerned about.  Make laws to regulate those problems and stop trying to make the public fear something that is not a problem.

Rant 2 - Guns
The NRA just needs to shut up and go away.  So do a lot of people in the anti-gun lobby.  I differ from many of my liberal counterparts in this sense.  If you want to have a big gun, fine.  You want to have a house full of big guns?  Fine.  Automatic weapons?  Fine.  If you are going to do that then you need to have every single one registered, tagged with geo-locators, and submit to periodic inspection to prove that you are capable of using, storing, and maintaining your weapons responsibly.  I have never bought the 2nd Amendment argument that there should be no restrictions.  I have also never bought into the idea that you should not have weapons if you don't have a good practical reason to own them.  As long as you are a registered and proven responsible gun owner, "It's cool and I want one" should be reason enough.

Rant 3 - Health Care
Denying anyone health care because of lack of money should be illegal everywhere.  Forcing someone into financial hardship or bankruptcy over medical expenses should also be illegal.  Eventually the USA should have a single payor system.  That said, I recognize that wholesale dismantling of the insurance industry as it now exists would be a disaster and probable counter-productive.  What the insurance industry should be doing now is preparing for the end of business as they know it.  Start the restructure and wind down gently so the millions of people employed in the industry can transition.  Every other dying industry (tobacco and coal for example) should do the same.

Rant 4 - Politics
Donald Trump is insane.  Completely bat-shit crazy.  He is also the best friend the Democrats could have. As entertaining as the political circus is going to be for the next 10 months, I am glad I will be watching it from another country.

OK.  I am done now.  You can open your eyes again.  I will try not to do this too often.

Game Report Day 7 - Yardmaster

I have quite a few train themed games.  There are a lot of them out there.  If you are a gamer with children, boys in particular, you will end up with more than a few train games to appeal to them.  Yardmaster itself is a game that I picked up for a couple reasons.  First because I knew the theme would appeal to the kids.  Second because the game itself is beautiful.  As a player, you are the Yardmaster of a train yard.  You are sorting cargo into cars that you then attach to your train in the sorting yard to earn points.  At its heart this is a simple set collection game.  But with the addition of bonus cards, exchange rates, and a few other nuances, this is something that can keep a table full of adults as well as kids interested.  It was just the wife and I tonight, and tonight she came out the victor. (SEE?!  It does happen on occasion..)

On Craftsmanship, Diplomacy, and Evolution

Some time ago I backed an interesting, non-game related Kickstarter.  This was a group of old school woodworkers that were trying to make a business out of crafting high quality accessories for men.  My reward for backing the company arrived today.  It came later than I had hoped, but I think you will agree that it was worth the wait.

The company is 1906 Gents and their philosophy is "Stand for Generations to Come".  The idea being that they want to make heirloom quality items around which memories are built.

Unfortunately the picture I took does not do the brush justice.  I highly recommend checking out their website.

As for diplomacy, I spent a fair amount of time on that today at work.  When one has spent any time in the corporate world, you quickly realize that the same situation or problem needs to be couched in different ways, depending on one's audience.  Managers get less detail and more careful hand holding than do technical engineers.  One also must take into account in the audience is a member of your group, or a member of another (potentially competing) group where agendas may be different.

All told, it was a successful endeavor today.  I got both my group and another group to agree to do things the way I think is best, as opposed to the over-complicated mess that they usually do.  Less work, less bureaucracy, I win.

Game Report Day 6:

A significant portion of my game collection was purchased second-hand at less than retail prices.  Even while we were living there, I came to appreciate that the Greater Portland Metro was one of the great meccas of board game thrifting.  I knew that my prospects down under were not going to be as good.  I did not expect them to be this bad.  Patience does however eventually yield fruit.  My wife on her wanderings did find one interesting item at a Salvo Store (Salvation Army for the non-Aussies).

Knights of Charlemagne is a newer (2006) printing of a reasonably old Reiner Knizia classic.  For those of you who don't know that name, look it up.  If you are anything resembling a serious hobby gamer, this is a name you should know.  Knizia is one of, if not the most prolific game designer in the modern age.  His stock in trade is taking simple mathematical concepts, and turning them into fascinating little games.  Lost Cities is one of his best known and most popular games.  In this game, players assign knights to cities and estates.  The player with the most knights on a city or estate at the end of the game collects the points.  The catch is that not all tiles are worth the same number of points. If you over commit to one area, you can very easily lose the entire game.  I like this one quite a lot, especially with three players.  It forces you to look in multiple directions and make contingency plans.  The first game was a relatively close one with me winning, my son close behind, and my wife in third.

After that, whilst trying to get the other two children to avoid tearing up the apartment, we decided to play another quick game of Minecraft Card Game.  This was our closest game yet, with my son coming out on top.  My wife and I were, as she put it, tied for loser.  She then informed my son that he would no longer be getting any coaching in that game from her.  I wish she had figured that out sooner.  I would have won that game.

Evolution is a game that I have been talking about a lot lately, mostly owing to the active playtesting that I am doing.  In my perusal of the game forums on BGG, I came across a reference to a rule that was unfamiliar to me.  This was more than a little disturbing.  I have played the game a lot, and taught it to a log of people.  The thought that I had taught and played the game incorrectly was unpleasant to say the least.  Upon further reflection I reminded myself that everyone that I had played with recently still had fun, so I did not ruin anyone's day with my mistake.  Even so, I now want to make sure I get around to the people that I had previously introduced to Evolution and play again, correctly this time.

The rule that I missed seems minor, but I believe it will in practice have a significant impact on game play.  One of the drivers in the game are Trait Cards designating traits that can be then assigned to species making them more powerful, more durable, etc.  Each player has a limited number of these cards at any one time, so great care is typically taken in deciding how they are best used.  Inevitably, some species go extinct, and the traits that were assigned to that species get discarded.  This is where I wend wrong.  My original reading said that this was all that happened.  If you were unlucky enough to have a species die with 3-4 trait cards, those cards were just gone.  It turns out that players get some compensation for highly evolved species that go extinct in that they draw a new card for each trait that was assigned.  Having cards being more plentiful is going to speed up the game (not necessarily a good thing, with the new expansion it is too fast already), but it will open up a lot more strategic options.

Options are always a good thing.  Basic rule to game and life success: whenever possible, keep your options open and ready for use.

On Expectations

Expectations are an important part of all facets of human life.  Your expectations shape how you then view the results of your or other's actions.

This has been on my mind quite a lot lately, both in work and in play.  At work, there is a persistent disconnect in the expectations between the operational and design engineers.  A certain amount of this is to be expected in every project.  Two factors in my case make this worse.  This is a mammoth project being run my more than one mammoth organization.  The other problem is that one of those organizations is a government entity.  If it were just the right had not knowing what the left was doing, I could deal with it.  It is more like a monster with a hundred hands, some hands doing nothing, some hands trying to talk, some hands ignoring, and some hands actively telling the others to shut up.

Nothing a couple hour long meetings can't solve, right?

Game Report - Day 5 - Evolution: Climate Expansion Playtesting

Fortunately things are more pleasant in the gaming space.  Tonight is Tuesday Night, which means I was out for my regular board game meetup.  I had posted a comment earlier in the week that I was going to be doing more playtesting for the Evolution: Climate Expansion.  After the positive reception it got last week, I was expecting more of the same.  Unlike last week, I had a full table (more actually, there was a line) waiting to join in the fun.  Teaching the game went just a little faster as half of the players were repeat customers.  In one sense, the two rounds we played this week were exactly as expected.  I had six players this time (five last week) so the game went a full round faster.  Since more of the players were familiar with the game, the final scores were a bit more balanced.

What did surprise me somewhat was the feel of the game.  Every time I have played the new expansion with five or six players, I felt that the game went just a bit too fast.  Just as you were getting into a groove, the game was ending.  When we played the second game of the night, something snapped into place for the players, myself included.  Rather than play the game wishing that it played longer, embrace what it is.  Revel in the short game.  In the second game all of the players were, at some level, more combative.  This was not in the literal sense mind you.  There was not a lot of attacking going on.  Players were taking more risks.  Actions were being taken to push things in a potentially catastrophic direction.  In one case they succeeded spectacularly.  In one case, right before scoring, virtually every species on the table was wiped out.  This was of course decisive as to the winner and a hell of a lot of fun.

On the return to productivity(?) and the classics.

I had to go back to work today, if you call what I do work.  Quite a few people must consider it to be work as I continue to earn a paycheck for doing it.  As for what I do, the best description I have heard recently is that of post-sales support engineer.  My employer has sold the client a series of products, and it is my job to hang around on site with the client operations teams and assist/teach them how to use their new software.  In practice on most days I really don't feel like I do much at all, and believe me, that is exhausting.

Because I acquired much of my game collection by haunting thrift stores, many of the games that I own are lightweight filler games.  For the purposes of completing my game-a-day goal that is helpful, as things like job and children often interfere in the scheduling of longer, more involved games during the week.  For those people who do enjoy games, and for those who do not reside in the game thrifting mecca of the world (being the Pacific NW), there are still ways to learn and play a great variety of interesting and fulfilling games.

Basically what I am getting at here is there are is a basic list of game implements that every gamer worth their salt should own.  Fortunately most of these things are also available for a dollar or two at even the lamest thrift store.

You should have:

• 1-2 complete decks of standard playing cards
• checker/chess board with associated pieces
• a copy of the Complete Book of Hoyle

The third is potentially the difficult one.  If you have internet access (which you do, you are reading this) then all of the information is there.  That said, I encourage you to get your hands on a hard copy of the book.  The older editions are better.  If you inquire in the direction of your grandparents they will likely know what you are talking about, and if you are lucky, have one on a shelf somewhere.

As with any discipline, the art of games and game playing has its category of classics.  These are games whose origins lie in time immemorial.  These are games that many of today's hobby gamers roll their eyes at.  These are games that, in my opinion, you should know how to play.  You may not know how to play well.  Personally, I am a terrible chess player.  I do however myself to be better than average at backgammon.

Aside from playing these games for their own sake, as hobby gamers it is important to recognize the nuances of these classic games and traits that they have passed down to the present in, what many consider to be the Golden Age of Board Games.

Game report Day 4 - Cribbage

Like I said, the classics.  This is one of the great elders of the card game world.  With my wife and I, even after not playing in many months, we picked up the scoring like it was riding a bicycle.  For the uninitiated, learning this one will take a little time, but learn you will and you patience will not go unrewarded.

Update -
At a reader's request, I am adding a note about who won the cribbage game.  Final score was 121-93 in my favor.  This was not necessarily an oversight.  I generally like to keep my thoughts focused on the playing of the game, rather than the winning or losing.  That is not to say I will not mention it from time to time.  It is, in part, to avoid monotony as I do win the grand majority of games played in the household.

On the Beach, and to the Musée

Twas the last day of my holiday vacation and I realized there was an important gap in the family Christmastime activities.  We had not gone to the beach!

Today we rectified this omission.  Of course I am doing this entirely to make the readers in the cold, frozen, or soaking wet portions of the northern hemisphere jealous.  The water at the beach was wonderfully warm, the sand soft, and the air temperature moderate.  Heck, you don't get most ( if any) of those things at an Oregon beach at the height of summer.  The kids had great fun splashing in the waves, playing in the sand, and collecting a myriad of shells.  Fun was had by all, myself included (even as a pasty white computer geek who normally has no business out in the daylight).


After we got home, ate a wonderful dinner and put the kids to bed, it was time for a trip to the Art Museum.

Game report Day 3: Musée

This is a pretty basic little game that has a lot in common with Rack-O, a classic game that I also enjoy.  Essentially you are populating a gallery with works of art.  Each is numbered.  The only restriction is that you cannot place a higher numbered painting to the left of a lower number within the same gallery (read row).

Points are scored by having paintings of similar them and style grouped together.  Since most of us are not art scholars, the game makes it easy by putting related paintings in color groups.  The downside is that the art itself does not matter much at all to the game itself and is easily ignored.  This is not a major complaint, and the visual effect is beautiful.  I quite like this game and expect to be getting it out again when a lightweight filler game is needed.

Now the real test of the resolution begins.  Will I be able to keep this up after my return to the corporate sausage grinder?  Time will tell.

On Crafting? - Game resolution Day 2

After what turned out to be a very busy day yesterday at the Werribee Open Range Zoo, the intent was to make today a quieter day at home to relax.

Then we remembered that we had not done any grocery shopping in recent memory, so we had to pack up and go restock the food stores.  While most of you readers may (correctly) consider this to be a menial task, for us it is not quite so simple, at least not right now.

Part of the complication is the fact that we have chosen to live in the big city sans automobile.  This means that  any and all travel involves public transit.  Fortunately Melbourne has one of the best transit systems in the world.  I have no complaints about that.  Regardless, it does have an impact on the timetables of a shopping trip.  The larger impact is that it limits the quantity of groceries that one person can be expected to carry on a single trip.  Therefore acquire a reasonable amount of food to feed a family of five, both adults need to go to the store with the aid of two shopping trolleys.  This brings me to the other difficulty, children.  If both of us need to leave the apartment, then we are obligated to bring the progeny along with us.  Unfortunately they are not yet of the advanced ages where we can leave them to their own devices for short periods of time.  Anyone with children will understand that any trip, even a short one, will be significantly longer if it includes three children.

Eventually we return with food in tow and the children still in one piece.  As we contemplate dinner, I am pondering the day's game selection.  My wife's suggestion is to occupy the eldest for a time and play a round of his new game.

Gaming Report Day 2: Minecraft Card Game?

Yes, the question mark is part of the title, though for the life of me I cannot really understand why.  Aside from that minor little annoyance with the game publisher, this is actually a fun little game.  The players have actions that they can take on their turn.  They can either mine resources from piles of resource cards, or they can use previously mined resources to craft items in one of the piles of craft cards earning points.  There is also the option of reserving a craft card, a useful option if one of the other players has made the mistake of telegraphing what they are going to do next. One of my first thoughts when playing this game is that it is a simpler version of King's Forge, a crafting game I also enjoy.  I ended up winning, though not by much.  My son was at most one turn behind.  I can also say (predictably enough) that they game was much more entertaining with three players as opposed to two.  I wonder if my son will think this is fun enough that I am continue to put off buying the real Minecraft game?  One can always hope, I guess.

Happy New Year! and the resolution begins.

Happy New Year Everyone!

Technically I am a day late in this declaration, as it is 2 January 2016 down here. (I apologize for the funny date format.  I have to force myself to use it for work.)

As I related in the inaugural post, I resolve this year to play more game and to get more consistent use out of the breadth of my growing collection.  To that end, I want to play some game every day this year.

So far, I am on track.

Day 1 Gaming report:  No Joke

This play is a significant milestone for me.  Not only is it is beginning of the resolution quest, but this was the first time this particular game copy had been played.  Ever.

This likely does not sound like a big deal to most readers of this chronicle, as most of you know I get and play new games with some regularity.  Allow me to explain.

This copy of No Joke is a first edition printing the game, dated 1941.  I picked this up at an antique mall some time ago and was excited because the game pieces were still in their original wrappings.  This poor game had gone 60+ years with no one to play.

Unfortunately for the game, I consider myself to be a game collector in addition to a game player.  I resisted the urge to break the seal, so to speak.  I held out some hope that, some day, this nearly antique unplayed game would be worth some money.

Well, last night my logical brain caught up and I broke the seal.  (Actually the bands slid right off.  I could make it look unplayed again, at least to the untrained eye.)  Now I wish I had done this sooner.  This is a really fun, lightweight game.

No Joke consists of 36 tongue depressors with a series of three symbols painted on each end: hearts, diamonds, clubs, spades, stars.  In the simplest version of the game, one player starts by laying down a stick.  The next player must then lay a stick with at least one matching symbol.  If they cannot, they draw until they can, or have ten sticks in their hand.  Play of the hand continues until someone lays their last stick.  Scoring happens throughout.  If during play, a run of three of more matching symbols in a row is created and then broken, the last person who placed a stick within the run claims and scores all of the sticks up to the break.  First person to 50 points wins.

Other games I have played lately:  Killer Bunnies and the quest for the Magic Carrot

I have been wanting to get this one one the table with my eldest for a while, mostly because it is almost as goofy as it sounds and I figured he would enjoy it.  I was mostly right.  Killer Bunnies, especially with 2-3 expansions, actually has quite a bit going on.  As such there are a lot of fiddly rules to either keep track of, or constantly reference the rulebook.  There is a lot of "Take That" in the game, which is something that my son really enjoys, especially when aimed at me.  Fortunately I got the last laugh as the magic carrot was, in fact, one of mine.

Now everyone else go be bold and play games!