August 2002 Archives

I thought I wasn't quite that crazy to count the happiness product of my games played, but it turns out I was. Of course, I count all the games I play. I have also graded every game on a scale of 1-10. Now the obvious step is to count which game has produced most enjoyment: multiply the games played with the grade.

However, that favours short games. So, add the time spent playing the games! So if you count the minutes spent playing the games and then multiply with the grade (normalized, that is grade-5 to make it 0-centered), you get the happiness product. It's Joe Huber's idea, from Spielfrieks list.

I first thought it was a crazy idea. But few days ago, a message by Joe explaining the system made me realize that is not true. Of course I won't have to count the minutes spent playing. It's more than enough to estimate the average playing times of the games and use that. So, I added the necessary formulas to my good old Excel table and here's what I found out:

I've gotten most happiness from Puerto Rico. I've played it nine times, it's grade is 9 and I estimate the games have taken 1½ hours on average. That produces a happiness product of 54.00. The close second is Mahjong (7 games, grade 10, 1½ hours per game) with a score of 52.50.

One game of Britannia, which I like (grade 9) and which is long (I estimated four hours) produces 16.00 happiness. Sixteen games of Zèrtz (grade 9, 15 minutes per game) has the same happiness product. Is that true? Probably not, but close enough.

This is completely crazy thing to count, but at the same time quite interesting. And worry not for my sanity - I'm not too serious about these figures, not at all... really...

I confess - I just love ziploc bags. Today I re-bagged my Puerto Rico, inspired by a post to rec.games.board I saw. Now I have 55 colonists in one bag and a 4-player bag and a 5-player bag. Both have 20 colonists, one Prospector, a ship (7 and 8) and victory points (20 and 22). So, if I play with three - no changes. If I play with four, I add one bag and if I play with five, I add both bags.

This adds some extra trouble when putting the game away, but I think it saves enough time when setting up the game (after all, I want to get to play soon) to be worth it.

I also put all the extra colonists and the blank building to another bag and hid that bag under the plastic tray. Out of sight, out of mind. I also switched some bags to smaller ones, so everything would be as tight as possible. Then I found a new home for thusly spared larger bags - I had my Africa tiles in two smaller bags, now I could put them all in one, larger bag.

I bought a bag of 100 (I think) small ziploc bags - I used them all, now I'm going through my second bag. I just love them, can't help it. I hate to see bits and pieces floating around the box, or all bits and pieces in one, large bag. All the trouble sorting the pieces, that's so frustrating.

One day, I'll write (or rant) here about my another obsession, plastic sleeves for the cards... Meanwhile, you can read my letter to the editor from The Games Journal, December 2001.

You won't see me writing about computer games often; I don't play them much and when I play, it's usually just to kill time. Of course, there's no better way to kill time than to play Civilization (or Alpha Centauri) - oops, there goes another six hours...

During the last few years, I've only bought two computer games. First one, I think it was in January this year or so, was Four Winds Mah Jong version 1.x. Second one, just last week, was Four Winds Mah Jong version 2.0. What I hear you say? You see there a pattern, do you?

I can't help it - it's the best computer game I've played in a while. Mah Jong itself is one of my favourite games and Four Winds is perhaps the best computer version of it. It's easy to use and the new version knows the rules to over 20 versions of the game - and if it doesn't know your version, you can always create a custom rule set. It's shareware, and what's best, it's Finnish. So it was really obvious to buy it instead of seeking out a pirate copy.

If you're into Mah Jong and especially if you think you can't play it often enough (maybe your friends are a bit boring or something), do yourself a favour and get Four Winds. You won't regret it!

And if you don't know what Mah Jong is, find out. Finnish readers are advised to check out Kejimajiangmi web site for very good and well explained rule set, English-speaking readers (and Finns too, after reading KJMJM rules), should check out Tom Sloper's Mah-Jongg page.

Bob Rossney has analysed the various elements of Die Macher and compiled a nice table of them. Nice, and shows well that Die Macher isn't the most simple game there is. Now I should be managing all that to my advantage to succeed!

For Finnish users, there's a new review at my web site: Zèrtz.

I've played about 50 games of Zèrtz during this summer, both PBeM and with a real set. I love it! It's quick to play so you can play lots of it. The rules are easy to learn but there's just right amount of stuff to learn - it isn't intimidating like Chess or Go are, but isn't too simple either.

The game looks very good, if you like elegant black and white minimalism. It is a very elegant game overall. Try it, if you like solving puzzles, because that's what playing Zèrtz is - solving a puzzle each turn to figure out the best way to sacrifice the marbles you're trying to collect to get a better results than your opponent.

So, if you're looking for a good two-player game and aren't afraid of abstract games (and even if you are), try Zèrtz. It's the best of the GIPF series, as far as I'm concerned. I still haven't figured out Gipf and Tamsk was boring - but that's perhaps because I played it PBeM. I won't judge Tamsk until I've tried it for real.

Well, anyway, Zèrtz is a very good game. Try it out. If you play at Richard's PBeM Server, I'm msaari there. Challenge me - all challenges in both Zertz and Zertz+11 are taken.

If I had to define the theme of this summer, it's been abstract gaming. I was looking for something to do with my e-mail as I was constantly connected at work. Well, I found PBEM games.

I've played many games now on Richard's PBeM Server. The interface is quite nice and the games have been fun. It's just hard to get the right balance... There's the one guy, who responded very fast while he was awake, so from eight when I came to work until about ten, I would be playing my moves constantly. Then there's these once a week -players.

Most people never say a word, but I've had some conversations too. That's always nice, no-nonsense "won't say a word" gaming is a bit boring. But in the other hand, it's less trouble, you can play your moves quite quickly.

I've played many different games. Soccolot, Phutball, Y, Hexade, Hexbo, Tanbo, Gipf, Tamsk have all been minor interests. Most of these I didn't like much... Tamsk is nice, but probably much better offline.

But then are The Two. Zèrtz and Go. I've played about 30-40 games of Zèrtz and perhaps ten games of Go. I've had good opponents in both. Mike, a friendly high-school teacher and one of his students, Shawn, have both played many games of Zèrtz with me while Chris has been a wonderful tutor when I've taken my first steps towards understanding Go (a goal for a lifetime).

There are lots of different games available on the server (standard games like Chess, different Asian variations of it, Backgammon, some card games, Go, Othello, Scramble, many many games) to try out. You can probably find opponents for most of them - there's a mailing list of the users where you can request opponents.

I don't remember when I first got interested about Die Macher. It's appreciated a lot in some circles, at least. For example, its ID number in the Boardgamegeek database is 1, it was the first game ever to be entered there. Don't know if that's a token of appreciation, I'd like to think it is. It's always been on their top-10 lists, too.

How can it be? It's a monster game, or closest thing to a monster game the German game market has produced. Game time is from three to six hours; teaching the rules for the first time takes usually an hour or so. The theme is ever so compelling: the exciting German elections. Politics, and not even domestic! How can I be interested in that?

Well, I can. First of all, it's been ranked highly - it must be a good game. The mechanics look interesting, complex and deep, while being logical and clear. Despite the long length, there seems to be little downtime - you're constantly engaged in planning your tactics. That just seems like a promise of some good gaming entertainment to me.

Unfortunately, the game's a bit difficult to get. The first edition was merely 500 copies. The second edition was larger, but was published in 1997 and is currently out of print. There are only few places on the Net where you can buy it. Fortunately, Spielenet has it. So, I've got my copy heading my way, thanks to Tommy and his credit card. Tommy, being as fanatic as I am, ordered a copy for himself too, of course.

So, I'm very interested to see how's it like. The copy should arrive this week, Tommy should return from his vacation at the end of this week and then I'll just have to figure out a cheap way to get the game from Tommy to me...

Hi!

I've always (well, at least since I saw a TV documentary about Justin Hall) wanted to have an online diary or something. I even started one, but buried the project almost immediately.

Now, I've started again, thanks to lots of media attention to blogs. I wanna try too! So, I installed Movable Type and here we go. However, instead of documenting my whole life - which is not that interesting - I've decided to focus my blog completely to my favourite hobby, games.

So that's what you'll get here, games. Board games, card games, online games, some computer games, perhaps role playing games every once in a while.