The Tao of Gaming

Updating my original thoughts.

I've now played 7 Games of WotR (only 1 as Sauron). I lost my last three games, so what do I know? Some thoughts anyway.

As the Free Peoples, I'm not sure if the right idea is to race at all costs and just concede the military. I suspect it is, but it's pretty boring. I tried a more balanced strategy (planning on splitting for Aragorn and to place several companions in key strongholds) and it's certainly more interesting. The "Crown Aragorn on Turn 1" strategy, which I've just heard of, sounds interesting. You'll probably get the dice you spend back (instead of waiting for T4 or so to crown him), and you'll probably cost Sauron a turn or two for a stronghold.

I hope that the expansion brings the NW portion of the map into play. In my single game as evil, I lost the Witch King early, and suddenly found myself scrambling. Using massive muster cards (+ Saruman) I could make a credible threat to take two of Rivendale, Lorien and The Gray Havens. However, the marching time is just brutal. I've seen a fair number of games where the Erebor falls (sometimes early, if the hordes from the east muster).

I suspect that the game is tilted towards good, despite my recent losses. Cruel Weather + Nazgul Search each force the fellowship to waste a turn, but it takes a bit of luck to get both and put a reasonable number of red special tiles into the bag.

The real problem with War of the Rings is that after 2 (or three or four) hours, the resolution often depends merely on a tile draw or two. In my one game as Sauron, I basically conceded that I wouldn't get to 10 points, and we just played out the fellowship's journey through mordor. It saved us 30 minutes (or more), but it was all tile dependant. Now, if the game had been closer, we would have played out and it would have depended on a tile draw and perhaps a battle.

However, I'd still rather play this than most of the new Euros or other games that I consider more balanced or better designed. Fun beats sterility of design.

I just added Coldfoot, who I discovered during one of my random technorati searches. Are there any other gaming sites I should be reading or linking?

June 10th, 2000.

I first played this as a proto-type Spring of 1999. It was called Citadelles (in French). But, the French company that was due to publish it stalled and now Hans-im-Gluck has beaten them to the punch. In short, Citadels is a fine little game with a novel concept.

You are trying to build up seven buildings, and you change occupations from turn to turn. I'm not sure exactly what the theme is, I just play. The game has two phases, during the first the players pick their occupation, and in the second each character takes it's turn.

There are 8 occupations. In a six player game, all of them get shuffled and then one gets randomly set aside (out of the game that turn). Then the player who was King last turn gets to pick one and passes the rest of the deck to his right. Each player chooses which card they want, the last player getting a choice of two. In a seven player game, the last player gets his choice of the leftover card or the card that was thrown out. With less players, more cards are set aside (some of them face up).

After each player has selected, the King calls out the characters in order. When he calls a character, that player takes their turn. During a players turn the player can:

1. Draw two gold or two buildings (keeping one and discarding the other),

2. Build a building,

3. Use his characters special power (at any time).

As you can imagine, the special powers form the heart of the game. Here they are (in order).

• The Assassin names one character (not player), that character is dead and doesn't get a turn!

• The Thief names a character (not player), except the character the assassin killed, or the assassin (professional courtesy, or just healthy respect, I guess). At the beginning of that characters turn, the thief gets all of their money!

• The Wizard can switch hands (of building cards) with any other player or can discard some building and redraw an equal number.

• The King gets first pick next turn, and gets bonus gold for each "Royal" Building he has.

• The Architect gets two extra building cards, and can build up the 3 buildings a turn ... if he can pay for it.

• The Bishop gets extra gold from "Religious" buildings and is immune to the Soldier.

• The Merchant gets an extra gold for each "Trade" Building he has, and an extra gold just for being the merchant.

• The soldier gets an extra gold for each "Military" Building he has, and can destroy one building a turn (except one of the Bishop's buildings or the buildings of a player who has completed enough to end the game).

Buildings cost from 1-5 gold. It costs the Soldier one gold less to destroy a building than it cost to build.

After a turn, you reshuffle the occupation cards and start again. At the end of the game, each building is worth as many points is it's gold cost. Then there are some bonuses:

• A bonus for the first player to finish his/her 7th building,

• A lesser bonus for other players who get 7 buildings built,

• A bonus for each player who has all five types of buildings.

The five types are Religious, Trade, Military, Royal and Special. Special buildings have some text and grant their owner a power. Some of them are just worth bonus VP, some of them give their owner an ability. Sadly, one problem with the game is that the cards all have german text. This is also a problem for the occupations, but the pictures are helpful and you can have translated cheat sheets for them with almost no fuss.

Ah, the pictures. Citadels has some of the best art I've ever seen in a card game. And that includes the art in Collectable Card Games! It is simply beautiful. The art in the french game I saw (the prototype had finished art) was also very good, but seemed to be different. If the different versions do have different art, I may get both. It's that good.

As for Citadels, it's a good game. I have a problem in that I pick the occupation that the assassin keeps killing, which tells me that at least one other player thought I picked well. Actually, the assassin does lead to a bit of disgruntledness, since the victim doesn't get a turn, and that can happen for several turns in a row (I speak from long and painful experience on this one). But the game is still very good. Citadels is part of a growing line of fine psychological games coming across from Europe.

While Citadels did reach ten plays (probably more, since I didn't count any games before it was published), I haven't played in three years! I picked up the english version, since it has an alternate set of characters (and having the cards in English helps introduce the game).

The problem is that the game requires a lot of players to be interesting, and (after playing a few times) the game becomes a bit too long for what it is. We normally play to one less building than the official victory conditions, which helps.

I still recommend this, but not without reservations. As with any game by Bruno Faidutti, people that want a serious game may have issues. This is one of his less chaotic games, but the Assassinations (and thieving) leave a bitter taste when you know that player A was aiming at B, but hit you instead.

I played Keythedral, Ingenious & closed off with two games of Fairy Tale. [I passed on the chance to play Formula De mini since I was tired. My sleep schedule is still out of whack.] I'd never tried Keythedral, I'm not sure how I feel. The random law cards (either help yourself or "Take that") cost me twelve points twice (in a game where the final scores were 62, 61, and two people in the 30s). The law cards are too variable for my tastes (in face, it's my number one pet peeve). Some cards are huge, but others are worth a cube of your choice, which is what they cost to buy. Since you buy them face down, you never know what you are getting.

So if I evalue Keythedral as a light little game, it's OK. But the other mechanisms proclaim "Serious resource management." So, I am inclined to dismiss this. But I'll certainly try one more time (if offered) just to see.

So, what new games have you been playing? Or do you want to see reviewed?

You'll need — A Can't Stop board, and four dice of different colors (I use Black, White, Red & Green).

1. Roll the dice.
2. Split them — If all players still involved in a roll agree on a split, use it. If there is any disagreement, then if B/W & R/G result in a legal play, use that, otherwise go B/R & W/G. Finally B/G & W/R.
3. Advance the markers normally from the bottom of the columns.
4. Each player decides secretly and simultaneously whether to stop. Players who stop mark their advance (from their prior markers).
5. Continue until everyone withdraws or craps out.

I've just described Diamant, except it uses cards. [OK, I've skipped one point.] I played it twice and it's gotten good reviews. But here's the thing -- Suppose that everyone backs out at the appropriate time (when expected value indicates you have more to lose than gain) and you stick out for a few more rolls and get lucky. Now everyone is behind you and has to press their luck. They can't duck out too early, or you'll just end to. So around the time when expected value equals loss again, you can duck out. If they get lucky, it's even. If not, a runaway.

In Diamant, there are only five rolls, so this is pretty bad. The cards mean that things can't go on forever. And the point that I've skipped -- ducking out may actually get you some gems (steps up the column in our game).

So, while I enjoy Diamant, I think that the limited amount of time for comeback hampers it. While I won't be buying this, that's more a reflection of the price tag. If this were a $15 game, I'd probably buy it. Also, I'm not in the need of fillers that handle many players.

In my review of Age of Renaissance, I noted that Manifest Destiny would be out soon. Well, now I've played it. In general, I think that they've improved some areas, made others less interesting and left it roughly the same.

The Good:

• Unit grouping -- Everything is done in terms of $5, which means the math is easier. Also, you don't have to optimize how to spend 23 tokens where everythign costs 3-6. You'll rarely have more than 10, and most things cost a token or two. That should save time.
• Breakthroughs -- Some parts of the tech tree are exclusive, the first player to get it is the only player to get it. However, you spend tokens to get rolls, which means a large luck element.
• The Cards -- From what I saw (in a single, four player game), the cards don't have the wild swings that they do in Age of Renaissance. Cards often perform a payout or event, at the player's choice. This leads to more variety (some games, the event will be played, other games it won't).

The Bad:

• The components -- Amazing as may seem, the upgrade to wooden bits sucks. Cardboard handles 'double sided' a lot better than wood. Also, the board isn't mounted. I'd have preferred dumping the wood for nice, usable cardboard and a good board.
• Technology -- Instead of 26 advances, there are 15 (plus the breakthroughs). However, each group must be advanced in order. This simplification seems less interesting.
• Turn Order -- One of the charms was the simultaneous purchase of tokens, which affected turn order. Here turn order is based on card play in the previous round. It's still a decision, but doesn't appear to be agonizing. A major step down.
• No Misery? -- I liked that part. Here misery just costs money.
• General Silliness -- Do you attribute the Growth of America to Circuses? Me neither, but here it's a key technology. Professional Sports allow you to grow quickly? This just sticks in the craw. Next up -- how Hula-hoops won the cold war.

So, while all of the old flaws aren't here, they've found plenty of new ones to put in. I wouldn't mind playing again to see if it's faster (we had a new player who hadn't played AoR before, so it's tough to tell) and to verify the card balance has improved.

But overall, I'm not impressed. Age of Rennaissance captured my attention a decade ago. Manifest Destiny may have very well done the same. But this doesn't feel updated or improved.

Seven Ages surprised me. We agreed to play for an afternoon session and just stop at dinner. The rules took a while (and we didn't cover them all by any stretch), but then the time flew by. I've only played for about four hours; but, as I'm unlikely to play anymore in the next year, figured I'd give a review.

Seven Ages uses a Vinci-like system — each player controls various countries and scores for them; but eventually countries collapse and new empires form. The board shows a map of the world and the various nations units, but the heart of the game is a deck of cards, around 110. Each card has multiple uses, but the main use is an empire.

Each empire has one or more starting locations, starting money (to buy initial armies), technology level (expressed in relation to the countries available) and which ages it is allowed. [The USA can't start in 2000 BC]. And each country has victory conditions. Some empires score points from building cities, or having naval power, control of the most area in a continent (or sub-continent), and the like.

At the end of each turn, every empire scores victory points. During the game, players are limited in the number of empires they can have (seven in a 2-player game, four in 4-player) and there can be at most 15 active empires.

Each player also has 8 action chits, and assigns one chit per empire, and one extra (if they aren't at the maximum allowed). The chits are:

• Produce — Get Money, Buy Troops
• Civilise — Build up cities and leaders, play events
• Manuever — Move and Attack
• Trade & Progress — Exchange cards and technology
• Destiny — Draw back up to 7 cards
• Begin Empire — Start a new empire
• Decline — End an empire
• Wild — Any of the above

You can use your wild to duplicate a tile, at the cost of a VP, or just play it for flexibility. After everyone assigns tiles, then there there are phases (corresponding to the various tiles) where you take the appropriate actions.

The basic idea reminds me of Puerto Rico-like roles, each empire you control can do this or that, and your empires tend to get in each other's way via roles (and sometimes on the board).

The combat subsystem appears interesting, but we didn't have any large combats. The trade system is delightful. You exchange a card with another nation. Each card (among other things) has a value from 0-7, with higher cards having better values. Whoever gave the highest card wins and moves up on the progress track, a technology chart and timer. Each empire also moves up the progess track for free once a turn, unless you are in the dark ages (which happen from time to time).

I'm skimming a lot. I don't even know all of the rules. Our 'cheat sheet' was an 8 page pamphlet, and it only covered the high points. This is not a game for the faint of heart. It's a full day or weekend game. I think that the ideal way to play would be set it up, play a few hours, and then play a turn or two every session.

However, our initial play flew by. We played 5 turns in 4 hours (including about 45 minutes of rules). The first few turns are going to be faster, since you can only found one empire a turn. Already by T5 I was considering disbanding my earliest empire, which lagged in scoring.

At the four hour mark, I did start to flag. I wouldn't want to play an 8- or 12-hour session of this straight through; but that's true of most games.

I have dabbled with monster games, mainly coming away saying "Never Again!" I'd play Seven Ages again, if the right situation came up. The basic rules aren't bad (I looked up a rule or two during the game), the cards having multiple uses idea (empire / artifact / event / number) is a proven winner, and the game can play as long or short as you like. In fact, I suspect that the time doesn't vary whether you play with 2 or 7. (If anything, 7 may play faster since each player would only have 2 nations to deal with. Juggling four nations takes thought).

Seven Ages is a game I'm unlikely to play again without a concerted effort; but it's the only monster game I've ever considered giving a second chance.

Upon arrival in Columbus, I walked into the main room, said a few Hellos, and then played Manila. It didn't take long, maybe an hour including the rules. I played a few other games, then introduced it to some others that night. My second game dragged on and wore out it's welcome. I'm not sure which is the real Manila. I suspect a little of both.

Manila boils down to a gambling game with an auction. Each turn, three ships bring goods into the harbor. Each ship starts on a space from 0 to 5. The players go around the table three times, and can buy a job each time. You can be a shiphand, and get part of the money if that ship arrives. Some jobs man the docks -- you get paid if a ship lands. Other jobs man the repair shops -- you get paid if ships don't make it. The pirate can loot ships that fall just short of the harbor. The harbormaster can move the ships around a bit. The insurance agent gets money up front, but pays for repairs. In total, there are 11 spaces for jobs, plus the sailors on the ships.

After each round of buying jobs, a die is thrown for each ship and it moves that many spaces. After three rounds, you handle the payouts, and any goods that made it in safely move up in value. That matters because each player has shares in various goods.

Between each round you have an auction for harbormaster. The harbormaster gets to set up the ships and may purchase a share.

Once one (or more) of the goods reaches the top value of the chart (which means it's ship arrives five times), you sell the shares and most money wins.

Manila has problems -- players who don't score early have to take riskier jobs to catch up, and wind up out of the running early. Also, as we discovered, game length varies greatly depending on the player's strategies and plain old ornery luck. I like this game at 30 minutes, and loath it at 75. I'd prefer the variant where you start each good marker one space higher, which shortens the game. And while the components are nice, I don't really believe it deserves the elaborate components. Funagain lists this puppy at $35, and I want something meatier for that amount. They haven't quite put lipstick on the pig, but it's close.

Overall, a filler I'd play a few more times, and won't be buying.

Alfred wrote:

I'll admit it. I love games, I love playing games, I love hanging out with gamers, luminaries or not, but what really gets me going about the GoF is the prize table. I mean: Free games! Well, sort of. Different games, anyway.

Of course, the prize table isn't free -- everyone donates prizes. It's like mandatory trading. But I've realized for several years that it takes advantage of one quirk of human nature, and mitigates against another.

Behavioural economics has shown that people like what they have. If Game X and Game Y are equal in value, but I own X and you own Y, we'll probably be hesitant to trade. We value what we own.

But people like to show off and one-up each other. While conspicous consumption is a sin, the prize table has been a significant beneficiary. People compete to deliver good prizes to the table, and often donate significantly better than they'll receive. Not everyone, but enough. Add in the gambling aspect, and you have a good recipe. If everyone simply traded, much less would change hands. But as it is, it's quite fun.

Neuland is a strange duck. Or goose, since it is similar to Roads & Boats (where each player starts with a goose). Players building up a country, gaining victory points for completing tasks. This is an full information abstract, with two twists:

1. Players do not own the buildings. If you build a smithy, anyone can use it.
2. The action point/turn order sequence.

The first part is straight out of Roads & Boats (at least, that's what I hear. I've never played). Once you plop something down on the board, it's communal. A player's pieces on the board represent goods. So, a pawn in a lumberyard represent lumber. If you move that pawn from the lumberyard to the papermill, it's paper. There are a few tokens to indicate distinctions (a smelter may refine iron, silver or charcoal), but basically the location tells all.

Each building can only hold one good, though. So if you use a smelter, nobody else can use it until your next turn. At the beginning of your turn, all of your pawns get placed on their side, and only stand back up if they progress. If they don't, then they are removed ... at the beginning of your next turn. So you can block, but not indefinitely.

The other twist is the clock. The player who has used the fewest actions goes next, with all of the players marching around a circular track. A large, El Grande-ish turn pawn marks the current player. Each 'step' a good takes on the board costs an action. The player cannot end on another player or make a full lap, but is otherwise free to take as many or few actions as desired. Then the timing pawn moves around to the next pawn. Player order is very fluid. Sometimes you want to take a quick turn, othertimes you may want to spend the full compliment of actions. Careful planning can let you take a quick turn, block one player, then go again before any of the other players.

You can find the full rules on the geek.

My one (and only) game took about two hours with the rules, which wasn't bad. I really wanted to play this, because I've always wanted to try Roads and Boats or Antiquity, and Neuland apparently represents the distilled essence of those two.

If that's the case, I'm happy to have tackled the shorter game first. Neuland isn't bad, but I'm not burning to play again. When it's not your turn, you can walk away from the board. If several people play before your next turn, planning is quite difficult. It's Java, Tikal and Mexico with a more interesting action point system. Given that I don't care for the other three, the fact that I'm lukewarm shouldn't come as a shock.

A good game, but not my style.

Days of Wonder had a demonstration set for Shadows Over Camelot. As you can imagine, it was in constant use. I got to play one game.

The players take the role of the Knights of the Round Table (and Arthur) and go on quests to secure Camelot and win and lose as a group (ala Knizia's Lord of the Rings). The catch is that one of the players will probably be a traitor (cards are dealt to indicate loyalty).

The mechanics of the game are unimportant, beyond that. I like the basic idea. Werewolf is very popular these days, but I don't care for it because there's not much of a system, just social dynamics. [There is, I suppose, a game there. Just not one that interests me.] Camelot has a game system that's more interesting. On each turn a player must take a bad action (lose a life, draw a bad event, or add a siege engine to Camelot) and then gets to take a turn. If that's all it had, I wouldn't give this a second look.

Players can communicate, but may not show cards or give detailed information about their hand (card titles, values, etc). Sometimes cards are played face down (as are discards). So the traitor has some leeway. Initially, each of the knights has a power (that is often hard for other players to verify is being used 'correctly'). The loyal Knights need to ferrett out the traitor (or lose VP) and the traitor wants to get enough VP to win (via false accusations and failed quests) or simply over-run Camelot.

I want to play Knights again, probably several more times. Our initial game was weird in that the traitor made a good (perhaps great) opening move; but the loyalists effectively won the game before it paid off. I've heard of other games where the traitor got a touch lucky and then won handily. I suspect the balance is off, but the traitor/loyal mechanic is one worth exploring.

Cooperative (or semi-cooperative) games are tough to design, so I'm encouraged by the attempt. I don't know if this will stand up to repeated plays, though and worry that the random determination of characters and loyalties greatly influence how hard the game is to win, which would prevent balancing variants. I'd like to try the game "Gunboat" style, where communications are severly limited. That would probably be much harder for the loyalists, since the traitor does not need to communicate with other players. Interestingly, that would probably make it like Bang! with unbalanced sides.

So I'm unsure if it's a good game yet, but it's captured my interest.

Like many Geeks, I keep a journal of what I play. But I do it with scratch paper. But others keep detailed records and a product is born!

There was also a coffee cup on the prize table that said "I ship 3 Coffee for 4VP" and showed a few barrels. You can order via Cafepress, if so inclined.

Tajmahalfred had a Gathering of One over the last week, where he played a bunch of games solo. An interesting series.

I play solo games, too. [Not as often now that I have kids.] This gets derided (often from people who spend hours playing computer games), but it gives me time to figure out a system without wasting other people's time, and I'm interested in game systems. In grad school, I'd solo Titan or 18xx ... games I had just learned when my opponents had dozens of games. That seems better for all involved. They spent less time "crushing the newbie." And it's more interesting than watching TV (especially when you don't happen to have one).

Apart from reading how things play solo, it's nice to see a positive action. I see some snide comments (on the geek and elsewhere) about the nature of the Gathering. But, I've gone to plenty of other private weekend-long events, and organized a few. You get a bunch of gamers for a weekend, rent a hotel room. Off-season weekend rooms for hotels can usually be had for a song if you get a few people to stay at the hotel. Or someone with a big house (and patient family) can host. These events are charming for a few reasons:

• Because the host knows almost everyone (or someone vouches for them), you get good people.
• People tend to be on better behaviour when they aren't 'anonymous' to the crowd.
• At 15 people or so, you can have 3-4 games going on, helping to ensure that everyone can find something they can tolerate, if not their favoritest game ever.
• If held with regularity, they form an extended group of friends.
• They are nicer for Significant Others to attend.

It's always a nice bonus to get to play new games, which will probably happen if the people have different tastes and purchasing habits.

It helps to have a mass of gamers, and I have been lucky to have a good community everywhere I've been. But if you form it and get good people, good times follow.

My overall thought -- Eh

I've been playing European games for a long time, and my tastes (over the last several years) have moved back towards longer games. It seems to me that most of the new games had a 'been there, done that' feel to them. They weren't bad, but I felt no strong desire to play them again at the Gathering. These games included In the Shadow of the Emperor, Amazonas, Australia, Leapfrog, Tower of Babel, Ticket to Ride Europe, and Ubongo. Full details are available elsewhere. Which isn't to say that I won't play again. I'll probably give most of them another shot. It all comes down to the time constraints.

The Gathering allows me to play long games, new games, or chat with friends. In this equation, short new games lose. I can play them in a few weeks (when they hit the streets) at a weekly gaming session. But even playing 3 hour games proves problematic. And I can't catch up with non-locals anywhere else.

Given that these games appear to be 'variations on a theme,' I felt no pressing need to play them again. They weren't bad. They weren't great. Eh.

I played Louis XIV twice, and I think that it may have been the hit of the show. But I don't know. Partially people played it because there were multiple copies available (and then Jay brought some from Rio Grande's new printing). It was new and easy to get into a game. By contrast, there was only a single copy of Heckmeck (and Shadows over Camelot). So Louis gave the appearance of being the hit. Ditto In the Shadow of the Emperor.

But I don't think there was a hit this year. I'm confident that there was no Puerto Rico or Settlers. There are lots of good games, but no game will stand head and shoulders above the crowd, and I suspect we won't be playing many of them three years down the line.

Games that struck me as having more novel mechanics were Reef Encounter, Around the World in 80 Days, Neuland, and Shadows of Camelot.

I could be talked into playing almost any of those games again; some of them may actually be worth buying. But they generally weren't worth playing again last week.

Many Euro games take three or four players. Sometimes up to two or five. Few Euros play with six or more. There are many reasons (or at least, there are many theories) as to why this is so, but I think one reason is that the games have a fixed amount of fun.

When Alhambra came out (two years ago), the reaction at the Gathering split — about half loved it, half hated it. It quickly became apparent how many people played often dictated the feeling. More players means less fun.

Usually, it's because you sit around during other players' turns. So the game takes the same amount of time, but you get to do less. The fun dilutes. These are 'fixed fun' games. Diplomacy doesn't dilute. Add or remove a player and you may change the balance (or variant), but each player gets the same amount of time to play.

This isn't a binary "Fixed vs non-fixed" choice; there's an elasticity of fun (as compared to number of players). In Puerto Rico, you lose control with players, but not as badly as Alhambra. Most games are in the middle, and designs that have fixed fun would be well advised to keep to lower limits. Struggle of Empires leans towards the "fixed" column, but mitigates by taking away an action round.

Heckmeck im Bratwurmeck, Knizia's dice game, is a fixed fun game. I played it with four players, and loved it. Basically, you roll dice and keep all dice showing a single number, re-rolling the rest. But you can't keep a number you rolled before. Also, the dice show worms (as well as 1-5), and you need to keep at least one worm (worms are valued at 5). If you have a value higher than the lowest available tile (which run 21-36), you can claim it. If you have the value equal to each player's most recently claimed tile, you steal it. If you crap out and have at least one tile, you return it (and sometimes remove the highest tile from the game). When no unclaimed tiles remain, you score (each tile shows 1-4 worms, which are points).

The reason I mention that it's a fixed fun game is that the box lists 2-7 players. Guess what you get to do when it's not your turn? Nothing. Ok, you get to watch dice tumbling across the table. I'm surprised that anyone who played with six or seven liked the game, but apparently some still thought it was OK. With seven, the game takes an hour (because one of the two 'timers' in the game only functions when I player craps out and has a tile). But with 2-4, the game takes half as long, and each player gets more time with the dice.

I played Heckmeck twice, and will buy a copy (after the move). It's a cute filler, nothing more. But I'd never dream of playing with a crowd.

I'm back, I'm tired. I'll spew random thoughts (about new games and other items) over the next few days, when I've digested everything. [I'm also going to read all of the Gathering Reports to see what I missed. Rick's camera is very nice, by the way]. The summary of games played:

• 7 Ages - 1
• Acquire - 1
• Amazonas - 1
• Around the World in 80 Days - 1
• Australia - 1
• Blokus - 1
• Boomtown - 1
• Can't Stop - 1
• Das Spiel - 1
• Diamant - 1
• Fairy Tale - 3
• Heckmeck um Bratwurmeck - 2
• In the Shadow of the Emperor - 1
• Liar's Dice - 2
• Leapfrog - 1
• Louis XIV - 2
• Manifest Destiny - 1
• Manila - 2
• Mystery Prototype - 38
• Neuland - 1
• Phoenecia - 1
• Poker - 2
• Railroad Dice - 1
• Reef Encounter - 1
• San Juan - 3
• Shadows Over Camelot - 1
• Struggle of Empires - 2
• Ticket to Ride: Europe - 1
• Tower of Babel - 1
• Ubongo - 1
• War of the Ring - 3

Yes, I really did play a (finished) prototype 38 times out of 80 games. I suspect that I played it more than anyone else at the Gathering. To be fair, each game takes 20-40 minutes (most on the low side, unless teaching/learning), so I probably played 15 hours or so.

More thoughts later.