I have an apology to make.
I spent so much time in the last post ranting that I neglected to make mention of the really interesting happenings. On the advice of some friendly locals met via my son's school, we went exploring down to the St. Kilda Twilight Market. The visit had some urgency as this was to be the final iteration of the market for the summer.
The primary target at this market (or any market as far as I am concerned) was the food stands. As I have a tendancy to be indecisive, we just tried to get a little bit of everything. We passed by the Spanish paella tent (wife not big into shellfish) and picked up some charcoal roasted chicken skewers as an appetizer. Then it was off to the Argentine BBQ tent, where I ordered the mix platter consisting of chicken wings, beef ribs, mild chorizo, and a salad, all slathered in a fresh chimichurri sauce. Moving on from that to the Nepalese tent for more grilled marinated chicken and finally stopping at the Tex-Mex tent for chicken mole and bbq pork tacos.
YUM.
The rest of the market was rather interesting as well. It has been a while since I have seen that quantity of tye-dye, dreds, and various other hippie-isms all in one place. I am sure that had there been a little less wind that the place would have had a more herbal aura.
All told it was another pleasant trek out into the ocean-side community that we have found ourselves in, enjoying mild temperatures, beaches with soft sand, and no waves that threaten to kill you if you aren't looking.
Fast forward a week or so and you have another major event in the sporting extravaganza that is Melbourne, the Australia Grand Prix and the beginning of the Formula 1 racing season.
I would like to reiterate that this is Formula 1 racing. Real racing, as opposed to that anachronism pretending to be modern racing called NASCAR.
On a whim we decide to take the whole crew to the races on Saturday, knowing full well that the main event was the next day. Besides being markedly cheaper, we also knew the crowds would be quite a bit smaller and thus the experience for all more pleasant.
In general it was indeed a pleasant experience. We got to see a parade Ferraris, vintage race cars, and a shortened GT race that started with a five car pileup consisting almost entirely of Lamborghinis. Then we nearly had our eardrums ruptured by a race of V8 supercars (my eldest son's favorite), and then again shortly thereafter by a aerial demonstration by the RAAF. Finally we got to the highlight of the day (for me at least) the F1 Qualifiers. I honestly can't say that I got a lot out of the race. I have not paid close attention to F1 in nearly 15 years, back when Michael Schumacher was the only name you really needed to know because he was the only one winning anything.
At the end if the day I was extremely grateful that the event was within short walking distance of the apartment. It makes listening to racing from down tim dusk for four days straight worth it.
Now on to the Game play updates. Thank God for Boardgamegeek.com for giving me a method for keeping track of plays. Especially when I get lazy and go too long between blog posts.
Game Report Day 64 - Entropy
Now having played this game a few times, and probably more importantly with my wife having a few plays under her belt, plays of this neat little card game are starting to make more sense. One thing I can say that is that I am not entirely certain that this should be classified as a two player game. One of the key mechanisms in the game is the action selection mechanic, and the doublethink that comes from the very real possibility of choosing the same action as someone else, resulting in a clash where the affected players do nothing for that turn. In a two player game. this just does not happen very often and I think it detracts from the flavor of the game. I don't mean to say that the game is unpleasant with two players. It is just a very different game. And a very short one to boot. Jury still out on this one.
Game Report Day 65 - Lift Off: Get Me Off This Planet!
I had the opportunity to participate in a playtest of some new Lift Off points in this game a few weeks ago. For whatever reason, I never got around to getting the new material printed and ready for play. I may yet if sufficiently motivated. Either way, it does not change the fact that this is a fun game, and one that I think I need to introduce to my elder son. With some help, he should be able to get the planning and resource management concepts. We (wife and I) also got to play with some content that I had not yet used, most notably the Stargate lift off point. This point allows for the possibility of evacuating a lot of Alieneeples at once, but only if the randomness of the stargate die is kind to you. Needless to say, it was not kind to either of us. I ended up winning mostly because I gave up and executed my backup plan a just a little faster.
Game Report Day 66 - Asphodel
This is another game that, as far as I am concerned, should not really be a two player game. Since the size of the playing field itself is determined by the number of players, there is just not enough game there when you start with just two. I really need to get this on the table at a Tuesday night Meetup.
Game Report Day 67 - Tiny Epic Galaxies
Every gamer will be able to relate multiple tales of games lost for the sole reason that "the dice hate me". Some people have a generalized and persistent antagonistic relationship with dice. These are people that are often nominated to GM tabletop RPGs. Why, you ask? Because it is fun to walk away with the dragon's treasure hoard because the GM critical fumbled six rolls in a row, that's why.
This is one of the more commonplace versions of the story. I lost the game in spectacular fashion to my wife simply because I could not come up with dice results that were even remotely useful. Unfortunately the game has only one set of dice, so I can't put the offending items in time-out and play with replacements. Sometimes you have to show the dice who is boss.
Game Report Day 68 - Viticulture w/ Tuscany
Another fully booked Tuesday Meetup and, per the organizer's request, I brought another six player game. With the previous weeks tied up with Evolution play testing, I had not brought Viticulture in a while and I figured it was due for an appearance. The table for six filled up predictably quickly with some new and some slightly less-than-new players and a rousing game ensued. I was more than a little worried when, due to a particular combination of cards, nearly the entire table had their full compliment of six workers at year two, putting myself and one other player at a potentially severe disadvantage. Fortunately I was able to be unusually efficient with my actions on subsequent turns and kept within striking range of the points leaders, until the last year when I was able to end the game and win just before everyone else got their points engines to peak production. When someone noted that I won mostly due to experience, I disagreed, pointing out that while experience may have helped a little, this was in fact the first six player game of Viticulture that I had won in quite some time. Win or lose, fun was indeed had by all.
Game Report Day 69 - Uno
Sometimes after a busy day all players want to do something that requires nearly no brain activity.
We played UNO. Nuf said.
Game Report Day 70 - Castle Panic
Since my wife and I were able to give our brains a break on the previous night, we both felt like we could put a little more energy into play. But not too much.
So out comes one of the co-ops. When both players are working towards the same goal, neither individual has to think as hard, right?
Well, perhaps we should have thought a little harder on this one, or perhaps it was another occasion where fate was just looking askance in our direction. Needless to say what started out to be a promising game turned against us very quickly and the orc hordes destroyed our castle in spectacular fashion.
Game Report Day 71 - In a Pickle
This is one of those unfortunate games that I don't play often because I generally consider it to be a party game. While it does play very well as a party game is technically can be played by two to similar amusing effect. Fortunately this one had not yet been put away and was still sitting under the bedside table. The wife suggested it mostly because she was dissatisfied with the outcome of the previous session (read she lost badly). Unfortunately, the outcome of this session was not all that different, and in many ways probably worse. While I think both of us had more useless cards than should ever be allowed, I had just enough to come out of it with a 5-1 win.
Game Report Day 72 - Cribbage
Despite the math and counting and probability involved with playing this game well, there is something fundamentally relaxing about playing classic card games. This is why I firmly believe that there are some classic games that everyone should know and play.
It probably helps when I win.
Game Report Day 73 - Sleeping Queens
This is one of the vast library of Gamewright card game titles. In this game you are presented with a field of Sleeping (face down) Queens of varying point value. Your goal is to collect King cards to wake up a queen of your choice. First to 5 queens or 50 points wins. There are other mechanisms like stealing queens and sleeping potions and cards to counter both of those, but in general your goal is to run through the draw pile as fast as you can to get King to wake Queens. It is all about draw probability. Today probability was not in my favor and I lost in grand fashion.
Game Report Day 74 - Match the Penguins
Another day, another Gamewright card game. This one involves more skill and a lot less luck. The goal here is to slowly expose penguin cards. These penguins have sever traits, shirt color, blanket color, sunglasses color, lei color, etc. If only one trait matches, you call that trait out and pick up cards. If two traits match, point them out and collect a card. If all traits match collect cards. The trick is making sure you see everything that is there. There were a number of occasions that I was in the middle of noticing matching traits, when my wife repeatedly beat me to the fact that all traits on the cards matched. There is probably a brain study somewhere in there that could be done. Anyhow, because on this night my wife was significantly more observant than I, she won.
Game Report Day 75 - Pillars of the Earth, Between Two Cities
At the Tuesday Meetups, I often find myself in the position of teacher. I do not mind this, as I used to do exactly that as a profession, and also because it allows me to get more of my games onto the table.
The previous week one of the other Meetup regulars asked if I would be willing to teach a game of Pillars of the Earth. As this is another of the worker placement games that I very much enjoy, I was quick to accept. There was also the advantage of there being a library copy of the game, so I did not have to lug mine in. The interest in this particular game for the requesting player was in that she had read and enjoyed the namesake book. I informed her that other than recognizing some of the referenced names, knowing the book gave no advantage in the game, quickly following up with the fact that I thought it was an awesome game anyway.
The game is played in two stages. First players bid on resources that are eventually used to generate victory points. Then players place workers (termed master builders) on various action spaces that, through various methods, make your generation of victory points from resources more efficient. Over the course of the six rounds, the cathedral from the book is built. At the end, the player with the high victory point total wins.
The original requester came out on top, with me very close behind. In typical euro fashion, it came down to the very end. Riveting game and fun had by all. The one thing that I will do if I am in the mood to play again on Meetup night is bring my Stonemaier treasure chest resources, just to make a pretty game that much cooler.
Game Report Day 76 - Cribbage
Same reason as before. Sometimes you just need something relaxing, but just that tiny bit stimulating and competitive.
Game Report Day 77 - Monopoly Deal
Some time ago Hasbro game out with card game version of some of their classic mass market games. Monopoly Deal is one of those. It is wonderfully portable, short, and in the eyes of most gamers a far superior game compared to its namesake. The goal is roughly the same. You are collecting sets of colored properties. Fortunately you don't have to buy them, just draw them. There are a health number of wild cards to help you out as well. It is not quite so easy as that, as your opponent can, with various action cards, charge you rent and if you don't have sufficient cash on hand, you may be forced to sell property, decreasing your chances of winning.
Unfortunately for my wife, on this occasion, dude to the luck of the draw, she had no chance of winning. I had the required three property sets before she had one. Still a fun game.
Game Report Day 78 - Tsuro
The Game of the Path. Most times when I play this game I follow a pretty specific strategy. Stay out of everyone's way and stay on the edges of the play field as much as possible. More often than not, I lose doing this, so I thought I would be a little more random and a little more aggressive.
While it may not be a good idea to kill off a strategy based on one play, the initial results were not good. I lost even faster.
Game Report Day 79 - Khet, Eye of Horus Beam Splitter Expansion, Khet 3D Tower of Kadesh
Khet is one of my favorite two player games. It is basically chess with lasers. Who wouldn't like that, right? Unfortunately this game was also the source of one of my greatest gaming regrets. There were two expansions to the base game. The first introduced beam splitters. The second added a third dimension with a tower, potentially bouncing the laser up onto a secondary platform. I had neglected to purchase this second expansion when it was in print, and in years since it has been extremely difficult to find at a reasonable price, if at all.
A few weeks ago, while browsing on Ebay, I found one. In ages past it was still priced at more that I would have paid, but this time I just pulled the trigger. Today it finally arrived. As expected it takes this wonderful abstract game and makes it look even more majestic.
After the initial play with my wife, she says "you took lasers and made my brain a puddle". She tries to say that she is not great at abstract games, but I know that there are a couple where she routinely wins. Either way in this case my strategy was pretty clever. Make some obvious complicated moves that were not really going to amount to much to trick her into making the win much easier. It would have been even MORE clever if I had planned it that way..
Good games played , and one more grail ticked off the wish list. All told, not a bad day.
Saturday, March 19, 2016
Thursday, March 3, 2016
On Testing, Risk, and Blame
I have not posted anything in a while, and in true human fashion I am going to make an effort to formulate some plausible excuses. The most obvious, and probably most accurate, is that I have been lazy. Secondarily I have been extremely busy at work of late, although even that has qualifiers. In terms of actual things to do, work has been rather dull. Unfortunately when certain people have less to work on, they start to spend more time looking around and analyzing their situation. This, in a large project on a tight timetable, can be disastrous. Managing this situation can be time consuming and mentally draining.
When people who previously were not looking start looking they find things that are suddenly critical problems that should have been addressed months ago but now are top priority with no time left to actually come up with a productive solution. The lesson to be learned from this? Manage you manager's time carefully. If you let your guard down for even a moment....
Next lesson, either make very good friends with the security administrator, or when that is not possible, have an airtight alibi and several places to hide the body ready.
Final lesson for today, make sure that the people running test regimes for your project actually know what they are doing. For example, make sure they actually know the difference between functional testing and recursion testing. I actually had to explain to test managers today that when testing a file level backup/restore solution, testing restoration of each individual file on the hundred-or-so servers was completely unnecessary, as was testing application functionality after each file restore.
Of course all of this irritation is the product of an organization that unbelievably risk-averse and is terrified at the prospect of the finger of blame being pointed in their direction. Ugh. Grow up people...
Fortunately I have my home, my wife, my children, and my games to help me maintain a level of no-destructive insanity.
Game report day 53 -Trans America
I really need to get this one out more often. Train games in general are a lot of fun. I have never been able to determine why the genre has such a near universal appeal, and in practice is really does not matter. This particular game has been in the gaming news of late as there is supposedly a very, very long awaited reprint in the works. That is good because it is a fantastic little lightweight train game. Even with just my wife and I, it is a lot of fun, although I do prefer it with more people. Things get much crazier and hard to predict as the board geography gets more crowded. In each round of the game, each player as five cities that they need to connect with track. As soon as your rail network connects with another, you can build off of the now combined network. As such deciding when you make that connection can be a very important and strategic choice. I lost the first round, but ended up winning the game by a reasonable margin. Fun had by all.
Game report day 54 - Settlers of Catan, Seafarers of Catan, Traders and Barbarians of Catan, Helpers of Catan, Frenemies of Catan
The Catan franchise has a special place in many gamer's hearts. It is one of those modern classics of the modern era and for many, was the gateway game that got them started into the hobby. While my entrance into the role of hardcore board gamer did not necessarily follow the normal path, I can say that the island of Catan did hold an important role.
The age and popularity of the game does create a few problems. One of these is that game publishers sometimes do silly things with popular games. Sometimes they publish new editions that sport minor changes. Sometimes they produce a library of expansions that purport to make the base game new and more exciting. The Catan franchise has done both. While I don't have all of the expansions, I do have quite a few. When the Tuesday Meetup organizers announced a Catan night, I had a "wonderful" idea. I knew that most of expansion content that I had for Catan had never made it to the table (mostly because the game does not play well at all with two). Since I knew there would be plenty of offerings of plain vanilla Catan at the Meetup, I decided to go in a different direction. I wanted to make the most complicated Catan setup that I could that did not suck.
Here is what I came up with. Starting with the base game, adding in Seafarers (to get more geography and boats), then adding in the Great River from Traders and Barbarians (obstacles and more scoring options), Fishermen from Settlers and Barbarians (more resources and makes settlements on the coast not suck), Helpers of Catan (mini expansion offering limited use special abilities), and Frenemies (offering special benefits to players that are not assholes). For the most part, the layout was random. I did have to make a few adjustments here and there, but not much. The other change was the use of the Event Deck rather than dice. Anyone who has played this game knows how vindictive those red and yellow D6s can be. Using the Event cards gives a little more assurance that probability will hold sway.
The final verdict from the players? Totally Awesome! All had played the base game before and all found the extra content very interesting. While it did take significantly longer to finish, everyone had an excellent time and said that they would love to play the combo again.
Game report day 55 - Cribbage
After all of the complication the night before, it was refreshing to return to an older classic. I know people for whom the evening game of cribbage is almost a ritual. I generally don't play cribbage with these people as I tend to lose often and badly. As with many of the ancient classics, easy to learn, takes a long time to master.
Game report day 56 - Fortress
Going from a very old card game to a brand new one. I came across a Kickstarted recently that was pitching the development of 4-5 new card and dice game for a measly eight bucks. Since I am generally all about new games for cheap, I was in. A few weeks later, the pdf rules for the new games were delivered. The first my wife and I tried was Fortress. This one has a simple mechanic, but the strategy involved is deep. Players first draw a hand of cards slowly contracting their Fortress. Ideally, you have face cards in the middle protected by lower value cards on either side. Then you attack the other player's hand with your defensive cards trying to capture some face cards. Using cards for attack makes their defense value known, so choosing what to use is not something done lightly. This is one that will take some more plays to really develop strategy.
Game report day 57 - Dice Wars
The next night we tried the dice game. The rules sheet included a small playing field. The object of Dice Wars is to knock down your opponent's live points, indicated using a D20. This is done using D6 pawns, which are rolled. The value rolled indicates both its power and how far it can move. The tricky part is that the pawn MUST move its full value. The only thing you can control is its starting point. This forces the player to look ahead and see where his opponent's pawns are likely to be. If you consistently land in gaps (as I did) you can knock down their life points in fairly short order. Like the previous entry, this will take some more plays to be sure, but I think this is a keeper.
Game report day 58 - Wombat Rescue
The fifth player bits that I ordered (that I should have ordered during the Kickstarter campaign but missed - grr) arrived recently and we had convenient time where my wife and eldest son could sit down and maneuver pooping wombats. The game went much much smoother this time, as one would expect with players that all understood and remembered the rules. We also added in the boulder obstacles to make the field a little more interesting. Even with the extra obstacles, everyone seemed to be able to get around the board to where they needed to go with little effort. The winning strategy (mine, of course) seemed to be doing your best to have an unobstructed return path in the middle of the board. The extra player abilities did not factor as highly in as I would have expected. I think there was a memory from the first game thinking the single use powers were exhausted too early. Anyhow, fun still had by all.
Game report day 59 - Iota
Iota is a miniature card version of an abstract that I really enjoy, Qwirkle. Iota makes things a little more complex by giving each tile three traits (instead of two) and making each tile unique. For the sake of sanity there are 3 wild cards as well. Aside from that, the game plays exactly the same. You create lines of cards, where each element in the line mush all match or all differ. Points are scored for each line added to, and double points are scored for making sets of four. Towards the end of the game I drew two if three wild cards and was able to use them to great effect. I still lost, but without the lucky draws, I would have lost in spectacular fashion.
Game report day 60 - In A Pickle
Another Gamewright title I need to get out more often. I had not played it in a while because for some reason I thought it needed at least three players, and I was sure my elder son was not quite ready. I can safely say now that I was incorrect on both points. The point of the game is build a chain of items that either fit inside (smaller that) or surround/contain (larger than) the neighboring item. For example Lake->Planet->Galaxy->Universe. When a chain of four is formed, each player can try and top the largest card with something larger yet with the last successful player claiming the pile. First to claim 4-5 piles wins. What is fun about this game is the bickering that can happen. The rules clearly state that each card need only relate to its neighbor and that the idea of containment need not be physical. It can be metaphorical. For example, the universe can contained my a dictionary. It is a word after all. Lots of fun for such a simple mechanic, but then again that is usually what makes good social/party games.
Game report day 61 - Evolution: Climate with Flight Expansion
More play testing at the Tuesday Meetup. I was able to get two rounds in with two completely different groups. This time I also made the decision to add the Flight expansion into the mix. During the alpha round of testing, there was a great deal of discussion/complaining about the omission of Flight. The designer's reasoning was to start simple and get the Climate pieces fleshed out a bit on their own before needing to test in combination with the complexity offered by Flight. I can't say I agree with him, but his game, his approach.
The first game went pretty smooth. Some of players were a little slow to pick up that flow of the rounds, but that is to be expected. The climate hovered on the warm side, diving cold on the last round. Had the game run one round longer there would have been a game altering mass extinction as a result. AS it was some people had the cards to capitalize off the abundance of food better than others. The one that had the best combos was the clear winner.
The second game was drastically different. First of all, the climate was a much bigger and deadlier factor. While the general discussion around the table indicated that there was agreement to push the climate cooler, a couple players secretly actively worked against that to their great benefit. The climate track was pushed all the way to its hottest limit, killing off nearly the whole table save the ones that saw it coming and were able to prepare. It was a brutal, lower scoring game, but also a lot of fun. Also I managed to win a six player game, albeit by a single point.
Game report day 62 - Gin Rummy
As seems to be typical for Wednesday nights, neither my wife not I were in the mood for anything complex. I had a deck of cards on the side table and suggested Gin Rummy. After hearing my wife say that she did not know how to play, I settled on my choice and proceeded with filling this essential gap in my wife's grey matter.
As with most classic card games, there are more variations than most people care to keep track of. This is why I recommend that every serious gamer with any interest in the classics (which by the way should be all serious gamers) needs to have a copy of the Book of Hoyle. This way you will be sure to have access to all of the "official" variations. The one that I chose was the most basic that I could remember (both my Hoyle books are in storage). Gin is the game of drawing cards to create a ten card hand of sets and runs. The player that does so first lays down his hand and scores points depending on his opponent's failure to do the same. It is the most basic of set collection games, and one that is good to come back to on occasion. We played a few hands, not really keeping score, but having fun anyway.
Game report day 63 - Gobblet!
Let last few times I played this was with my son. As I could not remember ever actually playing the game with my wife, I pulled it off the shelf for a quick game after an evening of playing Game Report Catch-up. It was a close battle, with both of us nearly taking the win a few times. I eventually worked her into a corner and pulled out the win. For a game that is basically Tic-Tac-Toe on steroids, this is a lot of fun.
When people who previously were not looking start looking they find things that are suddenly critical problems that should have been addressed months ago but now are top priority with no time left to actually come up with a productive solution. The lesson to be learned from this? Manage you manager's time carefully. If you let your guard down for even a moment....
Next lesson, either make very good friends with the security administrator, or when that is not possible, have an airtight alibi and several places to hide the body ready.
Final lesson for today, make sure that the people running test regimes for your project actually know what they are doing. For example, make sure they actually know the difference between functional testing and recursion testing. I actually had to explain to test managers today that when testing a file level backup/restore solution, testing restoration of each individual file on the hundred-or-so servers was completely unnecessary, as was testing application functionality after each file restore.
Of course all of this irritation is the product of an organization that unbelievably risk-averse and is terrified at the prospect of the finger of blame being pointed in their direction. Ugh. Grow up people...
Fortunately I have my home, my wife, my children, and my games to help me maintain a level of no-destructive insanity.
Game report day 53 -Trans America
I really need to get this one out more often. Train games in general are a lot of fun. I have never been able to determine why the genre has such a near universal appeal, and in practice is really does not matter. This particular game has been in the gaming news of late as there is supposedly a very, very long awaited reprint in the works. That is good because it is a fantastic little lightweight train game. Even with just my wife and I, it is a lot of fun, although I do prefer it with more people. Things get much crazier and hard to predict as the board geography gets more crowded. In each round of the game, each player as five cities that they need to connect with track. As soon as your rail network connects with another, you can build off of the now combined network. As such deciding when you make that connection can be a very important and strategic choice. I lost the first round, but ended up winning the game by a reasonable margin. Fun had by all.
Game report day 54 - Settlers of Catan, Seafarers of Catan, Traders and Barbarians of Catan, Helpers of Catan, Frenemies of Catan
The Catan franchise has a special place in many gamer's hearts. It is one of those modern classics of the modern era and for many, was the gateway game that got them started into the hobby. While my entrance into the role of hardcore board gamer did not necessarily follow the normal path, I can say that the island of Catan did hold an important role.
The age and popularity of the game does create a few problems. One of these is that game publishers sometimes do silly things with popular games. Sometimes they publish new editions that sport minor changes. Sometimes they produce a library of expansions that purport to make the base game new and more exciting. The Catan franchise has done both. While I don't have all of the expansions, I do have quite a few. When the Tuesday Meetup organizers announced a Catan night, I had a "wonderful" idea. I knew that most of expansion content that I had for Catan had never made it to the table (mostly because the game does not play well at all with two). Since I knew there would be plenty of offerings of plain vanilla Catan at the Meetup, I decided to go in a different direction. I wanted to make the most complicated Catan setup that I could that did not suck.
Here is what I came up with. Starting with the base game, adding in Seafarers (to get more geography and boats), then adding in the Great River from Traders and Barbarians (obstacles and more scoring options), Fishermen from Settlers and Barbarians (more resources and makes settlements on the coast not suck), Helpers of Catan (mini expansion offering limited use special abilities), and Frenemies (offering special benefits to players that are not assholes). For the most part, the layout was random. I did have to make a few adjustments here and there, but not much. The other change was the use of the Event Deck rather than dice. Anyone who has played this game knows how vindictive those red and yellow D6s can be. Using the Event cards gives a little more assurance that probability will hold sway.
The final verdict from the players? Totally Awesome! All had played the base game before and all found the extra content very interesting. While it did take significantly longer to finish, everyone had an excellent time and said that they would love to play the combo again.
Game report day 55 - Cribbage
After all of the complication the night before, it was refreshing to return to an older classic. I know people for whom the evening game of cribbage is almost a ritual. I generally don't play cribbage with these people as I tend to lose often and badly. As with many of the ancient classics, easy to learn, takes a long time to master.
Game report day 56 - Fortress
Going from a very old card game to a brand new one. I came across a Kickstarted recently that was pitching the development of 4-5 new card and dice game for a measly eight bucks. Since I am generally all about new games for cheap, I was in. A few weeks later, the pdf rules for the new games were delivered. The first my wife and I tried was Fortress. This one has a simple mechanic, but the strategy involved is deep. Players first draw a hand of cards slowly contracting their Fortress. Ideally, you have face cards in the middle protected by lower value cards on either side. Then you attack the other player's hand with your defensive cards trying to capture some face cards. Using cards for attack makes their defense value known, so choosing what to use is not something done lightly. This is one that will take some more plays to really develop strategy.
Game report day 57 - Dice Wars
The next night we tried the dice game. The rules sheet included a small playing field. The object of Dice Wars is to knock down your opponent's live points, indicated using a D20. This is done using D6 pawns, which are rolled. The value rolled indicates both its power and how far it can move. The tricky part is that the pawn MUST move its full value. The only thing you can control is its starting point. This forces the player to look ahead and see where his opponent's pawns are likely to be. If you consistently land in gaps (as I did) you can knock down their life points in fairly short order. Like the previous entry, this will take some more plays to be sure, but I think this is a keeper.
Game report day 58 - Wombat Rescue
The fifth player bits that I ordered (that I should have ordered during the Kickstarter campaign but missed - grr) arrived recently and we had convenient time where my wife and eldest son could sit down and maneuver pooping wombats. The game went much much smoother this time, as one would expect with players that all understood and remembered the rules. We also added in the boulder obstacles to make the field a little more interesting. Even with the extra obstacles, everyone seemed to be able to get around the board to where they needed to go with little effort. The winning strategy (mine, of course) seemed to be doing your best to have an unobstructed return path in the middle of the board. The extra player abilities did not factor as highly in as I would have expected. I think there was a memory from the first game thinking the single use powers were exhausted too early. Anyhow, fun still had by all.
Game report day 59 - Iota
Iota is a miniature card version of an abstract that I really enjoy, Qwirkle. Iota makes things a little more complex by giving each tile three traits (instead of two) and making each tile unique. For the sake of sanity there are 3 wild cards as well. Aside from that, the game plays exactly the same. You create lines of cards, where each element in the line mush all match or all differ. Points are scored for each line added to, and double points are scored for making sets of four. Towards the end of the game I drew two if three wild cards and was able to use them to great effect. I still lost, but without the lucky draws, I would have lost in spectacular fashion.
Game report day 60 - In A Pickle
Another Gamewright title I need to get out more often. I had not played it in a while because for some reason I thought it needed at least three players, and I was sure my elder son was not quite ready. I can safely say now that I was incorrect on both points. The point of the game is build a chain of items that either fit inside (smaller that) or surround/contain (larger than) the neighboring item. For example Lake->Planet->Galaxy->Universe. When a chain of four is formed, each player can try and top the largest card with something larger yet with the last successful player claiming the pile. First to claim 4-5 piles wins. What is fun about this game is the bickering that can happen. The rules clearly state that each card need only relate to its neighbor and that the idea of containment need not be physical. It can be metaphorical. For example, the universe can contained my a dictionary. It is a word after all. Lots of fun for such a simple mechanic, but then again that is usually what makes good social/party games.
Game report day 61 - Evolution: Climate with Flight Expansion
More play testing at the Tuesday Meetup. I was able to get two rounds in with two completely different groups. This time I also made the decision to add the Flight expansion into the mix. During the alpha round of testing, there was a great deal of discussion/complaining about the omission of Flight. The designer's reasoning was to start simple and get the Climate pieces fleshed out a bit on their own before needing to test in combination with the complexity offered by Flight. I can't say I agree with him, but his game, his approach.
The first game went pretty smooth. Some of players were a little slow to pick up that flow of the rounds, but that is to be expected. The climate hovered on the warm side, diving cold on the last round. Had the game run one round longer there would have been a game altering mass extinction as a result. AS it was some people had the cards to capitalize off the abundance of food better than others. The one that had the best combos was the clear winner.
The second game was drastically different. First of all, the climate was a much bigger and deadlier factor. While the general discussion around the table indicated that there was agreement to push the climate cooler, a couple players secretly actively worked against that to their great benefit. The climate track was pushed all the way to its hottest limit, killing off nearly the whole table save the ones that saw it coming and were able to prepare. It was a brutal, lower scoring game, but also a lot of fun. Also I managed to win a six player game, albeit by a single point.
Game report day 62 - Gin Rummy
As seems to be typical for Wednesday nights, neither my wife not I were in the mood for anything complex. I had a deck of cards on the side table and suggested Gin Rummy. After hearing my wife say that she did not know how to play, I settled on my choice and proceeded with filling this essential gap in my wife's grey matter.
As with most classic card games, there are more variations than most people care to keep track of. This is why I recommend that every serious gamer with any interest in the classics (which by the way should be all serious gamers) needs to have a copy of the Book of Hoyle. This way you will be sure to have access to all of the "official" variations. The one that I chose was the most basic that I could remember (both my Hoyle books are in storage). Gin is the game of drawing cards to create a ten card hand of sets and runs. The player that does so first lays down his hand and scores points depending on his opponent's failure to do the same. It is the most basic of set collection games, and one that is good to come back to on occasion. We played a few hands, not really keeping score, but having fun anyway.
Game report day 63 - Gobblet!
Let last few times I played this was with my son. As I could not remember ever actually playing the game with my wife, I pulled it off the shelf for a quick game after an evening of playing Game Report Catch-up. It was a close battle, with both of us nearly taking the win a few times. I eventually worked her into a corner and pulled out the win. For a game that is basically Tic-Tac-Toe on steroids, this is a lot of fun.
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