The Tao of Gaming

I've had more miserable runs of cards for two hours of poker, but not by much.

Another Free Peoples victory. I was playing Sauron. Two recent games have seen the Witch King make an early exit. I think my gaming recover time for War of the Ring has grown, but I'll probably get in one more game. Daniel Karp's beautiful set makes me want to paint me set. Or (on a practical note) find something he desperately wants.

The Worm Dice Game (which I'm not about to type at 5 AM) will probably join my collection (at my expense). And we all get to sing "They call me Dr. Worm ..."

[Last week I added Wurmeln to the They Might Be Giants geeklist as 'Dr. Worm'. Boy did I jump the gun.]

That Geekspeak stuff looks serious. It's just time to admit that I've never listened to any of them. By the way, Derk busted out of the poker tourney on the first hand. Just FYI for anyone going to BGG con.

While playing 7 Ages I completely lost track of time. 4 hours gone in the blink of an eye. A long game, but very little downtime. On the minus side, an exchange:

"The details are on the cheat sheet."

"At 8 pages, it's more of a cheat pamphlet."

I'm going to sleep.

Played two games of War of the Ring. Lost and enjoyed both. I'll play again a few more times while I'm here, since I it's tough to arrange a game at home, while the new Eurogames only take an hour.

I also took Manifest Destiny out for a test drive. When I reviewed Age of Renn, I playtested this years ago, but have no real memories. Our game took too long, but the time should come down. I'm not sure it will come down enough; it's tough to judge from a single game.

Finally, the prototype that I've been playing to death appears to have found a publisher! I can't say anything till it's official, but I'll certainly describe more once the company makes an announcment.

While chatting today, Chris Esko mentioned that a certain game was good, "But not good enough to play back to back." That's a good measure of gaming intensity. Most of the games I play, I don't particularly want to play again in the same day. Many games require weeks (or more). Of course, nobody recovers from terrible games.

Many of the new games I've played here are not games I want to play again in the same day. For new games, that's a sign that the game is average. The great games leave you burning with the desire to correct that one misplay, try that new strategy, beat that high score. Of course, tastes vary -- what I play over and over again, many ignore.

I play Shadowfist over a hundred times a year. I've played Titan (no quick game) fifty times in six months. When Settlers of Catan came out, I played fifty times in three months. Outpost, too. BSW has made it possible for me to play San Juan hundreds of times.

Right now, at the Gathering, I played Struggle of Empires and hope to get in another game. Ditto War of the Ring. I've played around ten new games, and I can play them again ... after a reasonable delay.

For the last three hours (check my timestamp) I've been playing a new prototype. It plays in about twenty minutes, so we played it eight times. The game broke up reluctantly.

I hope it gets published.

Continuing my theme of poorly named posts.

Earlier today (around 2pm) I played Knizia's Tower of Babel. WHile playing, I felt it was a fine game and novel. This falls into the 'constrained deal making' genre, which is pretty rare. Basically each turn someone proposes what to build and players lay out necessary cards and the foreman can take goods or not from each player. If the foreman rejects your offer, you get VPs. Of course, if he accepts it you get something which may eventually convert to VPs. Still, I can't recall anything like it. Sometimes you make an offer hoping it will be rejected.

However, the special action cards feel a bit unbalanced. (Some cards were worth 12 and could have been worth more, one was worth 5, and two were worth less). Once you know all of the cards you can value everything appropriately, but it's a worry.

I also played a 3-player game of Reef Encounter. There are some good ideas there, and it's an abstract game that I wouldn't mind playing again. There is some luck, which helps prevent analysis paralysis, but the luck happens at the end of your turn (tile replenishment). My opponents expressed amazement (and delight) at the speed the game went, I gather that it can drag with a 4th player (or wrong group).

Seeing Rick take all these pictures makes me think I should link to him. Discover if I can successfully dodge his Nikon yet again!

Played In the Shadow of the Emperor this morning. Like Louis XIV, I think there's a good game there. You can find the rules on the Geek page, so I won't go over it. You get victory points through a variety of ways, but one way is to become the elector of a city. But, the interesting twist ... you don't get the points for keeping the electorship. However, since the electors have special powers (and elect the emperor), keeping it has other rewards. Money is used to buy actions, but many actions are limited as to how often they can be bought (via cards available). In addition, your people age and die (unlike tradational influence cubes, that either stay around each turn, or get removed each turn). Lots of systems here, need to play more.

I also played Ubongo, Xa game where you have to tile a space quickly (it's listed as a real-time puzzle on the geek page). Not my type of game.

Played Leapfrog, a quick game of frogs racing to and fro, collecting tadpoles, and trying not to get eaten. It's a quick (10 minute) blind play simultaneous chits and resolve. In the first and third race, you try to be at the front of the line, and in the second race you try to fall to the back (you don't re-order between races). Players who place poorly get tadpoles, and collecting tadpoles sets give points. In the final race, whoever comes in 2nd gets eaten, just for kicks. Not my type of game, but it was fun. Of course, lots of things seem funny at 11pm.

Earlier today I played two games of the new Alea mid-size game Louis XIV. This is an area majority game with each area providing a different resource or power, and set collecting to buy cards that give VPs and other special powers. There's definitely a game here, but there are a lot of rules. For my first game, I constantly kept asking about rules (that had been explained), and in the last turn I mis-remembered and made a play that could not possibly score. Ah well. Still, I played again and the rules are sticking somewhat. We played with a German set, so perhaps reading the English rules will help. Definitely one to try again...

I'm here in sunny Ohio. OK, I have no idea what the weather outside is like. But I'm here. Full reviews later (as in after it's over) but quick thoughts:

I've played Diamant, Around the World in 80 Days and Amazonas once each. All seem like fine games. Diamant would make a fine opener (play with 4-8 while you wait for the stragglers to arrive) as it's quick and easy. The Wife likes it.

80 Days and Amazonas occupy the mid-range of games. 45-60 minutes.

I've played Manilla twice. After my first game I thought I could buy it, after the second I'm not so sure. It's a simple little gambling/auction game that appeals to me, but the game length varies (the second game took much longer than the first).

So far I haven't hit a bad game, but I've only played one game that jumped onto the "most own" list. Sadly (and no great surprise to those who know me), it's one of Tom Lehmann's prototypes.

More news later ...