The Tao of Gaming

Dear The Mob,

I know times are tough all around, so I'm offering you a business suggestion. I suggest you offer computer protection. Affordably priced, say $100 a year. But, you protest, "I am just a humble businessman, and am befuddled by computers, as much as the next honest entrepreneur."

I know. I know.

What would I expect for $100? Sympathy. I'd call you up, and say "Mr. Honest Businessman, some bastard of a hacker snuck a virus onto my system, and now I'm getting pop-up ads offering to help me work at home earning a degree in computer art to design advertisements that offer to Make. Her. Ecstatic."

You would reply "That sounds terrible," and listen while I bitch about the 10 hours lost cleaning up my system. Believe me, a sympathetic listener is worth the money.

We will both be shocked and saddened to hear about that young hacker's suicide, via a silenced pistol to his temple. Such a tragedy. No doubt we will commiserate about the troubled state of modern society, leading a troubled young person towards a life of idle crime and destruction, which spiraled inevitably to self-destruction.

Signed, One of many

P.S. For now, I will get my sympathy via Malware-bytes, which will be getting some of my money, assuming that my computer is still working in a month. Technically quite proficient, but not nearly as sociable.

Are you the traitor just doesn't work with more. Too bad, but I think it just has to be considered a failure. The issue is that it's reasonable enough to guess (you often have a 40-50% chance of being wrong), and there's no intermediate revealing of information.

In that vein, we tried Resistance (a print-and-play game similar to werewolf) and it's reasonably fun, but I don't think it has depth to last more than 2-3 games. Still at 10 minutes, that's fine.

I've played the 2nd Race expansion a few times. With goals (which are fine). Nobody's yet comfortable enough with Takeovers, but soon, I imagine. Games are 5+ minutes slower, partially due to the unfamiliarity of the new cards and partially due to adding goals.

Three more games of BSG this week. I was completely sold on the expansion after the first two previews, but I'll admit that the third worries me. 1, 2, 3).

I've started to put together a quasi-hypothetical "Stuff to buy" list. It's been about a year (or more) since I placed an order of more than 1 game. (I only got BSG, the Race Expansions, and Le Havre since last summer, I think). Right now games that intrigue me enough to be on the list are:

• Shadow Hunters (probably a noble failure)
• Snow Tails
• Say Anything
• Dominion + Intrigue
• FITS
• Automobile (makes me nervous, though).
• Masters of Venice (again, nervous)

I keep getting the feeling I'm forgetting something. I could see putting powerboats on the list. Maybe Uruk (if it's available) or even Tales of the Arabian Nights, although I suspect someone else locally will get that.

So, open thread — what belongs on a new order?

Update: Answering comments --

• Endeavour does look intriguing. I had already put that on my watchlist ...
• Tinner's Trail and Founding Fathers not so much
• Don't care enough about Pandemic.
• Alea iacta est — never heard of it, must investigate further.

I have a new XBox and regional Bridge tournament this week.

You can peruse the list at his site. Seeing as how I've only played one of them, I shan't comment.

I've played many more of the Meeple's Choice nominees, but I still couldn't bring myself to vote for three. (I voted for Battlestar Galactica and Cosmic Encounter .... yes, the latter is based on the Eon version. Sue me). I'm tempted to vote for Dominion (played several face to face games this weekend) ...

Update: And Rule #1 of the internet -- Snark begets Snark. (Rule #2 is that snark quality has no genetic component).

• "Settlers of Catan," and
• "Insert gratuitous Nazi reference here."

Courtesy of the Onion's avclub.

I do like the following comment on Cities and Knights:

Hitting upon the excellent idea of removing all the compelling simplicity of the original version, he crafted a game that was just as strategically and tactically challenging, but also ridiculously overcomplicated

I then noticed that the author lives in San Antonio, and complains that nobody here is hardcore enough to play C&K. The mind boggles.

Happy June 1st.

So your discussion question for the weekend is: Given recent history and releases, Tao needs to use his additional spare time playing [BLANK].

I've got some real life happening, so a quick look around the web...

I've been meaning to mention that Linnaeus has some Race strategy articles [1, 2, 3] ...

The inside scoop behind the Wii Fit.

Some free online courses that may be of interest.

A 30 minute game of Dominion online is excruciating.

Chapel, Cellar, Chancellor, Woodcutter, Thief, Spy, Throneroom, Laboratory, Witch Council Chamber. 3 Players.

And then I misclick on what should be the last turn and add 2 more minutes to the game.

"-- Heavenly, Tao, scores 47 points, leaving the opponents no chance. (36:52 min.)"

Felt less divine to me.

Since I've had locals asking to play Up Front, I've been updating my "rules rewrite." My rules are here (HTML). I could use some proof-reading, and if someone could translate the part about moving flamethrowers in rule 22.1 to english, that would be nice.

In my last version of the rules I had enough to allow people to play Scenario A with a few Bells and Whistles. I've added all the rules up to Scenario E, including AFVs and Overruns. I may add a few more sections over the holidays...

Update: I was doing this in Word, and the conversion sometimes messed up the "smartquotes." Those weird symbols are quotes.

It seems like it's my sort of thing, and I can order from Lookout games for roughly what Funagain costs.

Thoughts?

Update: OK, I went and read the rules and fired off an email to Lookout games. Assuming they still have any left ...

Played Win Place and Show. Pretty much like I remembered it.

Still tapping my foot impatiently.

Monsterpocalypse? Pretty. Too expensive, but pretty.

Ya'll enjoy Essen, and on an unrelated note, here are some chickens playing scrabble.

Update: Pretty much like I remembered it equals "In theory vaguely interesting, but too long and fiddly."

Am I the only one who dislikes the proliferation of video reviews? I guess so.

I saw Tomb in the store and thought it was a munchkin ripoff (from the tagline). On reading reviews (and watching one, sigh) it sounds better but I'm not buying it.

Played a few games of the Shadows over Camelot expansion, but with the wrong rules. I'll probably get a copy. I haven't seen BSG, but it's up my alley so I'll try it. [I used to watch the show religiously. Hint to network execs -- 18 months between seasons is long enough to kill my desire to watch the show. Even 5 months is normally long enough to make me go "What was I thinking?" I'm looking at you, Sarah Conner Chronicles. Although I know the answer.]

Bruno's preview of Confucius looks intriguing. Ditto Witch's Brew (albeit more chaotic than what I'm used to).

I'm probably the last person (at least, the last game blogger) to know about Le Havre. Actually, it had completely slipped my notice that we're in the "pre-Essen hype" part of the year. Sounds like there will be a few items for me this year, hopefully. On the other hand, the last year has been good for my Friendless stat.

Anyone played Conflict of Heroes yet? Still haven't seen it out.

I've got a game idea (don't we all?) and I think hex-tiles are the way to go. I suppose I could just handcut some from index cards, but does anyone have a good idea for prototyping that. (I'll need to write/draw on the tiles, of course). I may just use playing cards and get a big hex map for now, or I could paste onto cheap poker chips...

"What's in here ... (roots through bag) Titan, Agricola, Das Mullet, Blue Moon"
"What did you say?"

It has been agreed by all that Das Mullet would be a good game. All you aspiring designer take note.

Cardhaus is getting rid of their boardgames. Good prices.

Which is another way to say that I've got nothing at this moment. So, uh, what have you been playing recently?

Chris Farrell has a new post, so back onto the blogroll.

For a minor celebrity, Rich Sommers has pretty good taste in games. On an almost related note, there's the "Brushes with Fame" geeklist.

Time's up gets a deluxe edition. I'm not sold on the "fourth round" (with pantomiming) ... it's a good idea, but difficult. We tried making the 4th round simultaneous. All players on one side close their eyes and the other side poses. That stops any problems with trying to quickly open and close your eyes over 30 seconds. Still didn't quite work.

I do think that the "Titles" (instead of Celebrity names") idea is good, although everyone seems to want to put in a title that is also a name. (I liked "Tom Jones," personally).

I read the three-way discussion with Michael Barnes, Ryan Bretsch, and Eric Martin a few days ago. There was one good point (by Barnes):

That whole “different strokes” approach winds up undermining the whole point of having an opinion, discussing it, and defending it. That’s fine in day-to-day life and that’s how I live in pretty much all respects, but when it comes to opinion-making and criticism that shouldn’t be the de facto defense.

BGG has polls. Now they need to stop having so damn many (A geek-dime fee per poll. You heard it here first).

Thanks to a tip by David, I went to the Container store and got a baseball card holder ... this holds up to 15 card games (sans boxes sometimes), depending on how many decks each game has. So now I can put Kutschfahrt, Vom Kap bis Kairo, Twilight, Flauschentuefel, and whatever in one long (solid) case. I'll probably take Bohnanza, Fairy Tale and a few other games out of their boxes.

Walking through the Container store was ... impressive. Lots of bit boxes, and some very nice stuff. (I didn't find a good way to organize my Strat-o teams, though). A 4x6 Index card file?

David, did you ever post a thread on how you pimped your Agricola set?

Anyway, this has been geeky even by my standards, so I'll stop.