Author: matt

The first couple of times I attended the Origins Game Fair, I found the experience very enjoyable. The exhibit hall was packed with people, games, sights, and sounds. I was relatively new to gaming and everywhere I looked was something to be experienced. I can remember getting a demo of Bonaparte at Marengo from Bowen Simmons himself. I’m not a miniature gamer but I held the giant layouts in the miniatures room with great respect. Such effort put into the art of the landscapes. The detail was amazing.

Fast forward a few years and I can’t bring myself to purchase more than a $5 day pass and spending a few hours walking around the exhibit hall. GAMA seems to have derailed the gaming train for me. Many vendors were conspicuously missing from the exhibit hall (or tucked away in an area and not prominently displayed e.g. Rio Grande Games, no Queen?!) Mayfair took up a huge quadruple (at least) section in the middle of the hall and there were so many people packed into their play area I couldn’t have gotten a demo of Automobile had I tried. I ended up standing next to a table where it was being demoed just for a chance to see it in person.

GAMA’s website and gauntlet of passes, badges, ribbons, and events is mind numbingly complex (and costly) and to make matters worse, this years events seemed spread out over large portions of the convention center. I wasn’t willing to purchase a Board Room Ribbon given that I would have first had to pay for a full day pass but I never saw a sign that directed me to where the board room was located even if I were interested! Was this one convention or a bunch of mini-cons going on?

The open gaming room was gigantic, much larger than needed, and the number of empty tables gave the impression that the convention was lightly attended. There were enough empty tables to host numerous wedding receptions in there!

The number of games for sale and the number of games being demoed in the exhibit hall, seemed very limited this year when compared to previous years. I buy most of my games from online vendors where I can save drastically more than splurge buying in person so I can only assume I’m part of the problem.

I don’t regret spending my $5 (plus $5 parking at the arena) but the money I lost by not working the afternoon (I’m self-employed) wasn’t worth it. Next year I’ll be attended only after work, if at all, or I’ll just organize a game night at my own house with some close friends and get my game on in the privacy of my own home. With the rise of readily available online information from sites like BGG and handfuls of online vendors selling games at cut-throat prices, conventions that focus on the commercial aspects of gaming may be a thing of the past. Cons that focus on the act of gaming itself e.g. BGG.con, WBC, GoF, GeekWay, etc. are seeing steady increases in numbers. BGG.con sold out in 5 days and that was almost a year ago!

Sorry GAMA, but you’d be lucky to find a shark to jump over; they’ve already left for other waters.

Macao defies clean classification. Other full-bodied designs feel cluttered but Macao’s myriad of mechanics (action point allowance, card drafting, network building, pick-up & deliver, dice dice rolling, cube allocation, etc.) work for me.

Players take on the role of 17th century adventurers in the Portuguese port city of Macao on the southern coast of China. Each player is tasked with collecting, you guessed it, the most prestige points. In my opinion, the theme adds nothing to the game and can be ignored. Did real 17th century adventurers really vie for prestige points?

Macao lasts 12 rounds with 3 phases: cards, dice, and actions. In the card phase, the appropriate pair of cards for the round (dealt randomly and placed in the 12 slots around the board) are laid out and an appropriate number of building/person cards are placed face up. A “tribute” value is calculated for use during the action phase and depending on the number of players, some cards may be discarded. Then, in order of the furthest token along the “wall” and working backwards, players must take a card of their choice and place it on their own player mat in one of the free spots. There is a penalty if you don’t have a free spot but you must still take a card.

The drafted cards require the player to pay the appropriate number of cubes in the appropriate colors before the card can be put into play (activated) and removed from the mat opening up a slot for subsequent drafting. Once a card has been activated, the special ability on the card can be used once during each “action” phase. At the end of the game, unactivated cards count against the player.

In the dice phase, the six differently colored dice are rolled and each player chooses two dice and picks cubes of the matching color and in the same numbers as pips on the selected die. The cubes are placed in the segment of their personal windrose that matches the number of cubes (e.g. if you chose 5 purple cubes, they’re placed next to segment 5 of your wind rose.) In this way, most cubes won’t be used until several turns later when the windrose is rotated to point at them.

Every player rotates their windrose one segment clockwise and the cubes indicated by the arrow are now available for the subsequent action phase.

The action phase is taken by each player in turn order (again the farthest along the wall and working backwards). Players use the cubes for this turn and can, in most cases, execute an action as many times as allowed. The allowable actions are: move your boat, take control of a city segment, activate cards, use the action of (tap) a previously activated card, deliver collected goods by moving a boat into a harbor, buy points using the current round’s tribute track value, and move forward on the wall (affecting turn order). The more activated cards you have the more complex your turn can become while you try to weave in those actions in-between other actions to maximize what you can accomplish.

My first play of Macao was tedious. The rules overview drug on for far too long for what seemed to be a rather straightforward game. It took too many turns to get to the meat of the game, and worst of all, the last 3-5 turns drug horribly while AP-prone players maximized card play. That said though, I could feel something there. Although tedious, the game stuck in my head for days. That “head stick” is usually my oft ignored subconscious telling my conscious that it needs to relax and take a back seat during another play or two to allow the game’s good bits to shine through.

Quite simply, Macao wouldn’t be the game that it is without the dice/cube-allocation mechanic. The windrose is at times both wonderful and a harsh mistress. Play your cards, or in this case, choose your dice wisely and you can clean up. Choose poorly, and you’re sunk.

I find the card drafting, at times, interesting and integral to play but it’s not my favorite part of the game. Each round tends to slow down a bit as players try to maximize the order of and the actions their “built” cards afford given the cubes available for their turn. Players can plan ahead to some degree but opponent play can affect the choice of actions. The final turn or two can be chock full of cubes as players try to maximize their ability to earn end game points.

I’ve played Macao with all supported numbers of players but I was pleasantly surprised at how well it plays with only two. It’s rare, in my opinion, to have an interactive game involving card drafting, variable turn order, etc. scale down that low. On the other hand it feels like it would work with five as well but I suspect the down time would get inordinately painful. All in all, I like Macao and would recommend it to everyone who likes a meatier game (yet still relatively light in the grand scheme of things) especially if you’re looking for something of its weight that scales down to two. My wife and I have had great fun playing it and she gives it the nod over Egizia.

Firstly, thank you for the concerned emails about my lack of posts. I’m doing fine but struggling to find time to play games and write session reports lately. I had my main “business” machine crash on me but I didn’t lose any data since I keep everything on a remote RAIDed network storage device. However, I’ve taken the opportunity to make the full switch to the Mac environment given that the dead machine was the last Windows-based holdout in an ever increasing Mac-household. Unfortunately, the Windows machine was where I kept the books for my software consulting corporation and my e-photo organization software. As a result of the switch, I’ve been spending a large part of my existence (in addition to the normal work load in everyone’s life with two sports playing kids), getting gaming & family photos organized in new software (some 20,000 images!) and getting my company books back up and going so I can run payroll, etc.

So, yes, it’s been weeks (months!) since my last post and you can expect a much slower posting rate in the foreseeable future. However, please stick with me. I’m not out of the hobby by a long shot and look forward to getting back into the swing of things.

I’ve waited to review Egizia until playing with only two. Lisa and I had a chance to play and here are a few comments on one of my favorite games.

Egizia is a “worker placement” game for 2-4 players with an estimated time of about 75 minutes. The player with the most victory points wins. The theme sets the game in ancient Egypt but it’s a bit thin. In each of the five rounds, players take turns placing ships along the Nile and taking the action afforded by the position, or taking the action on the card dealt each round to that position. In general, there can be only one ship per position and a nifty mechanic forces players to place subsequent ships downstream of their own previously placed ships. Think Caylus but all workers must be placed starting from the castle and progressing towards the end of the road.

With many worker placement games there is a “feed the people” phase. Following that, players quarry bricks from their constructed quarries (cards). Three locations on the Nile allow players to “build” in three areas: Sphinx, graves & obelisk, and temple & pyramid. Building requires the use of quarried bricks and a number of helpers. Your ship placement can allow you to grow your helper count (permanently increasing your “feed the people” costs). Building grants you victory points as well as cards which establish end-game victory points if the depicted goal is met.

I found Egizia a very fun game. With all different numbers of players there is a lot of tension when placing your ships along the Nile. Some of the cards are very desirable (quarries, wheat to feed your people, one-time use cards, permanent cards, etc.) but since you can only place one ship per turn you must choose wisely as subsequent players might (and will most likely) take positions that you also wanted.

Lisa found Macao a better and “meatier” game for two but even after 8-10 plays, I still find Egizia worth reaching for.

My wife got me a copy of Hotel Samoa for Christmas and I’ve finally been able to get it to the table enough times to write a bit about it. Players represent hotel chain operators vying to attract tourists to stay in their hotel. Those that attract the best tourists, for the best room price, for the most efficient amount of time, in the most enhanced hotel will earn the most money and will therefore win. The game was designed by Kristian Roald Amundsen Østby and supports 3-6 players with a playing time listed at 45 minutes (our games lasted much longer).

Twelve large placards depicting four countries, are randomized and placed in a line in the center of the table (each group of four nationalities has a little number depicting which group it belongs to 1, 2, or 3 and each group of four tiles is randomized). Each player chooses a hotel chain and receives a hotel placard, a deck of cards matching the hotel chain and some starting money.

Starting at one end of the twelve nationality placards, the game lasts twelve rounds with each round focusing on the tourists depicted on the placard. Each round tourists of the specific nationality depart (leave the hotels) and new tourists arrive to be housed in the hotels. At the beginning of each round, an action card is flipped up that depicts in the left hand column, the number of players, and in the right, the number of tourist groups and number of tourists in each group that have arrived in that round. The card (depicted on the left hand side of the image) shows that for 6 players, two groups of tourists will arrive: 1 group of size 5 and another of size 2. Tourists (the little round discs with the matching flag/suitcase) are selected in the appropriate numbers, grouped as specified by the card, turned face up (flag down), and an appropriate number of “build” tiles are flipped up (shown to the right of the “action” card above).

Each round, players select a card from their personal deck, place it face down in front of them and when all are ready, the cards are flipped up for all to see. Each card is divided horizontally with the top half representing a “build” cost, and the bottom representing a “room” cost. Starting with the player who played the highest “build” card and passing to the lowest build card, players are offered the option of purchasing one of the “build” tiles flipped up for the round. If they pass, the player with the nearest lower “bid” is offered a tile of their choice. Build tiles represent upgrades to the hotels (e.g. pools, extra rooms, suites) as well as special tiles that let players deviate from the standard rules in some way when they discard the tile (kick out tourists, swap cards, etc.). After the build tiles are purchased, players resolve the room costs in reverse order lowest to highest. The room cost is the amount of money the hotel is charging for a room (one tourist per room) and when players are offered the chance, they can choose to take as many tourists from any one group and place them in empty rooms in their hotel and receive the money from the tourist. This is the only way to make money in the game.

Of course, there’s a tight balance with knowing how many tourist to house in your hotel and of what nationality they should be given that the tourists don’t leave the hotel until the appropriate plane arrives bringing that nationality back to the island. Fill up your hotel too quickly and you may be stuck for awhile until an appropriate plane arrives. If you’ve used your card to either buy a build tile or house tourists, you don’t get to use it again. If you didn’t get a chance to use your card or you chose to pass, you get to pick the card up and use it on a subsequent turn. Every player is given a special card that is always picked up when played: the “pass” card (shown on the lower left.) When played, the player cannot buy a build tile or house any tourists this round but they do get to kick out two tourists from the hotel.

That’s basically the game from a high level. Tourists come, tourists go, players “bid” using cards for the ability to upgrade their hotel and bid on housing tourists in hopes of making the most money. There are numerous other rules that keep things spiced up including different kinds of tourist which cause different amounts to be paid (e.g. celebrities, swimmers, rich people, lovers, etc.).

Overall, the game is okay although a bit repetitive. There is interaction between players but the rather mundane tie-breaking mechanism for matching bid cards is a bit prescribed. Each round plays out relatively like the last and there isn’t a lot of thinking that goes in to each play. I’ve played the game with 6 and I don”t recommend it. It played much more fluidly with four and I suspect three would be the most enjoyable. My biggest beef is with the amount of small denomination money provided in the game. Most build cards and room fees require small denominations but we were constantly having to cash in players money in order to cycle small denomination coins back to the bank. Every round crawled while we figured out how to make change…again. I recommend replacing the coins with readily available paper money available or poker chips.

First of all, I need to apologize for the lack of posts lately. I’ve got no excuse other than lack of motivation. I’ve sat down numerous times to write, and really wanted to write, but just didn’t have the motivation to dig in. I’ve felt a hesitance to organize my thoughts in anything remotely coherent and, instead, I’ve gravitating towards some light novel reading, browsing the web, social networking, and your basic time killing/wasting activities of the modern networked couch potato. Sorry about that and I hope to get my groove back. Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on your perspective), I’ve not slowed down buying new games so it’s not like I don’t have some things to talk about.

So, I thought I’d give a shot at describing a recent addition to my collection, Cities. Matt Evett taught me Cities a couple of years ago at my first GLG and I liked it. I’d looked around for a copy but it seemed out of print and somewhat forgotten. The game was originally published in 2008 by Emma Games and was designed by Martyn F. It gained some notoriety by receiving a Spiel des Jahres recommendation in 2009. A couple months ago I saw that Z-Man games was producing the game using the original artwork by Peter Hermans so I placed a copy on my wishlist and let is stew for awhile until I was sure I wanted to get a copy. As luck (bad?) would have it, an evil friend of mine was looking to get enough games for free shipping and asked if I wanted to order a few games so I caved and Cities was on its way before I knew it.

The game, as packaged, allows 1-4 players to compete in gathering the most points placing randomly drawn tiles into a 4×4 square. The game is played solitaire and the most points at the end wins. Add another copy of the game and it scales to 8 cleanly without lengthening play (barring analysis paralysis of course).

The game is completely abstract although there has been a light dusting of theme. All players start with the same set of tiles numbered 1-24, and containing various colored quadrants representing water (blue), parks (green), terraces (red), and attractions (yellow). In addition, each player is given 7 meeples. The lead player shuffles his cards and randomly sets aside 8 tiles. The remaining 16 tiles will form the 4×4 grid by game end. The lead player then draws 3 tiles and calls out the numbers on those tiles. Everybody else pulls the same numbered tiles from their stacks and the everybody places their three tiles on the table in front of them such that only the corners touch. Each player can determine how they would like to orient the tiles. This completes the set up and then the game begins.

Each turn, the lead player draws a tile and calls out the number and all other players find that same numbered tile. Then all players determine how they wish to orient the tile and then place it in their ever growing “city”. At a minimum the tile must touch corners with another tile or be placed fully aligned with one or more tiles. The maximum width of the city is 4 tiles by 4 tiles so this limits growth in all directions. After placing a tile, each player can optionally place one meeple (from the original supply of 7) or move an already placed meeple onto the tile just placed or walk a meeple one tile quadrant to any adjacent tile quadrant.

After the last tile is placed and the final meeple is placed or moved, everyone evaluates their meeple positions for points and the player with the most points wins. Points are awarded depending on what “level” is played but at a highlevel, you get points for meeples standing on clumps of colors and bonuses for specific adjacent colors. For example, if a meeple was standing on a clump of 5 connected yellow quadrants that had 3 orthogonally adjacent red tiles, then the player would score a total of 8 points. A rock/paper/scissors relationship with adjacent colors and the requirement that a meeple stand in the clump to score any points for the clump makes for some relatively anxious decisions during tile placement. To spice things up a bit, terraces (red) don’t score for clumps but, instead, for what the meeple can see while looking horizontally and vertically scoring for all unbroken green and blue tiles that can be spied before hitting the edge of the city (or of course a quadrant of some other color).

Overall, it’s a very light game and almost qualifies as an activity rather than a game. The nice thing is that it can be played solo if you’re in the mood for such a thing, games are VERY short, and it’s very easy to teach (although what colors means what and how to score can be difficult to remember at first).

Being a non-profit, membership-driven organization, CABS holds an annual meeting to discuss financials, membership drives, the game library, tournaments, special meetings, etc. and of course board gaming. The last few years it’s been held at the Fort Rapids water park south east of Columbus, OH. The Fort Rapids banquet room gives us room to spread out and we need it to support the roughly 225 people that showed up for last night’s meeting. With free pizza and drinks for members and only $5 for non-members, it’s hard not to schedule time to stop in for some games. As if that wasn’t enough, they also raffled off some 125 new games as well and I picked up a copy of Alea Iacta Est. Unfortunately, that’s the third copy of it that I’ve won in the last six months so if anybody wants to trade me something for it, drop me an email or geekmail on BGG 🙂

This year my wife was invited to play some games with two other women, so we went together and played a foursome of Dice Town but then while they played The Speicherstadt I teamed up with Jared and Bill to play Kingsburg.

After Kingsburg, Bob, Bill, Jared, and I played two back-to-back games of 7 Wonders. I plan on a full review of the game but I do like it. It’s fast and supports up to 7 players! And to boot, it’s one of the few games that doesn’t add more time to the clock for every player you add.

At the other end of the table, Lisa played Castle For All Seasons, a worker placement game similar to Stone Age but with a simultaneous action selection from a fixed hand of cards that reminds me of Mission: Red Planet and Kreta.

Bill, had to take off around 11:30pm so Jared, Bob, and I closed the night with 3 rounds of De Bezeten Fles (a.k.a. The Bottle Imp). Damn bottle! 🙂

Broke the shrink on my own copy of Kingsburg and the To Forge A Realm expansion today. I was taught the game at GLG 2010 but thought I’d crack open my Secret Santa’s gifts and read the rules for myself.

I traded away a copy of Red November for a copy of Dice Town: The Indians. I really didn’t like Red November and would have taken a box of dirt for it but as luck would have it, I got an awesome trade offer for a relatively rare expansion to one of my favorite games, Dice Town. The Indians expansion is composed of a single General Store card and a custom die. Not much, granted, but the collector in me really wanted it (only about 100 people claim to own it on BGG) and I thought it might spice up the game a bit. The die is optionally taken by the player that won the best poker hand but can only be taken if they opt out of one of the cards they won that round (the card is out of the game). Then, just before the gold nuggets are paid out for 9’s the following round, the player rolls the die and gets to cough up some chaos depending on which side of the die is face up. There are four options: Shaman’s blessing (2) – Flip one of your own die to a side of your choice, Ambush (2) – Force an opponent to reroll a die of your choosing, Warpath (1) – Put the die on a location preventing it from paying out this round, and Bodyguard (1) – Prevents you from being robbed by the Queens this round. The General store card allows the owning player to steal the Indian die just before the beginning of the following turn.

And….my preordered copy of 7 Wonders arrived today. I’m really looking forward to playing this again after the fun I had playing it at Great Lakes Games 2010.

The Columbus Area Boardgaming Society (CABS), besides meeting several times each month, sponsors a special After Turkey Day board gaming event. Lisa and I had attended the CABS 2009 After Turkey Day event and were looking forward to it again this year. We arrived around 11:30 and spent roughly 12 hours playing games in a packed house. At the peak, there were probably 125 people crammed in the event room playing games shoulder to shoulder at the tables. While walking to the car, Lisa said she couldn’t believe we spent 12 hours playing games. She went on to say that when you play games like that with friends it just goes so fast! Pretty much sums it for me too. This year was a special 48 straight hours of games running from 6am Friday morning to 6am Sunday morning but unfortunately we could only attend for those 12 hours. Maybe next year!

We played two games of Aquädukt. This was my first time at this nice little, family-style, tile laying game. Players are trying to lay down tiles and make sure they “get watered” from the canals built from one of the five wells that get placed in the game. The game goes very fast and can be over before you know it and, surprisingly, has a relatively high degree of cut-throat take that built into the mechanics. Nice filler.

I finally was able to crack the shrink on my Rattus: The Pied Piper Expansion and we took in a game playing with a few of the expansion cards. We chose to randomize the new cards with the old cards choosing one at random from each “class”. Those potion tiles sure come in handy!

I, unfortunately, forgot to take a picture but I did get to introduce a couple of new players to Dice Town. This game has become my go-to game for family fun. It’s easy to learn, easy to teach, and most people really enjoy the rattling of the dice and the excitement of revealing your rolls. It has just the right mix of take that with the stealing of cards, bribing the sheriff, and the offensive General Store cards. Fun stuff in a fast-paced game.

We played three or four rounds of No Thanks!, a great little card game from way back in 2004. I’d recently picked up a copy as a filler for light game gatherings and this game really fits the bill. Another great game where you can play as many or as few games as you like depending on the time you have to fill. An amazing feat for a few cards and some plastic chips.

I taught The Speicherstadt to four other players and we had a ball working through the meeple bidding and the cube shipping. Money is so tight in the game and I got creamed by the lack of fireman when the fires hit. Great game!

Next up was Lost Cities: The Board Game. Lisa and I had, in the past, played the heck out of our copy of Lost Cities the card game but I was happy to be taught the board game version. I was very pleasantly surprised. The added treasure hunting, “steps”, and point tokens that you find along the various paths add a bit more strategic depth to what had become a relatively mechanical card game. It seems harder to get stuck in this game but there are still those moments when you’ve got to make some big decisions about how many numbers to skip when moving your explorer along the path. I wouldn’t mind owning a copy for a nice family game.

Next up was Bacchus’ Banquet a weird card drafting game of deduction. Each player represents a secretly held identity and is driving to collect cards in kind appropriate to their hidden role. A player with initiative grabs three cards from the ring of cards on the table, keeps one, discards one, and gives the third to one of the players. This “gift” can be rejected (without looking at it) by passing it to another player. This continues until someone accepts the card or it makes its way back to the originating player who must accept it. Each player has 10 points of “waistline” in which to meet their goal of eating food and drinking wine and most cards cause an increase in the level before hitting 10 and becoming incapacitated. Many cards cause your level indicator to be reduced or grow and the numerous “bad” cards and other “special” cards keep it interesting. I didn’t like the game very much though. If nobody passes you a card you’re pretty much sitting there doing nothing. The only way to get initiative is to accept a gift so there was a fair amount of down time (for me any way). Our group had a lot of issues with the ambiguous text on many of the specialty cards and one-time use hidden special card everybody gets at the beginning of the game. I’m always up for learning a new game and I’m glad I got to play it though.

To close the night, Lisa and I got in another game of The Speicherstadt, this time with three. I’ve played twice with five and once with three and I suspect that four is the sweet spot. The game is very different with three than with five, three feeling a bit prescribed and five a bit chaotic. However, it’s definitely fun without that feeling of it breaking down at the edges like many games.

Well, another Turkey Day down and a lot of games and fun packed into a surprisingly short day. What’s funny, is we gamed with pretty much the same group the entire time and there’s no reason we couldn’t have that same gaming day experience several times a year. All it takes would be some organization and taking time from our ridiculously busy lives. We should take some time off to smell the roses, or cardboard as the case may be.