April 2003 Archives

Sunday came after another badly-slept night. This time I was able to sleep an about hour longer than last night. I went to eat breakfast at McDonalds, as that was the only thing that's open at 9 am Sunday morning. This is not a food blog (I had one, but it's a bit dead right now), but still: I tried the new Chicken Premiere and it's delicious! Try it out, if you like chicken burgers.

I was leaving at about 1 pm, so I didn't have much time for games. One game I couldn't miss was Ricochet Robot. Tanja from Turku is a huge fan of the game, but unfortunately has no locals to play the game with, at least nobody as good as she is. That's why we have always played the game when we've met at various events. As usual, I won the game... Ricochet Robot is a good game for such events, as people can wander in and join the game, as happened this time. William came to look at the game while eating his breakfast yoghurt and suddenly joined in and actually won one piece.

While we were playing Ricochet Robot, I had noticed Ville coming in with a Go board under his arm. I challenged him to a game. I played black, with an even opening. Turned out to be a bad idea: he beat me with about 100 points. Without one huge mistake the difference might have been 20-30 points less, but the outcome was still clear. Anyway, it was good to play Go with such a nice, large stones - my board is such a toy.

I haven't played Puerto Rico that much after last years massive 30+ games. I was thus quite eager to play it, when Stefu suggested it. We played a five player game, which I ruled. I think my opponents were in general less experienced than I was and I was able to get a good Factory operation going. Some lucky trades generated a good start - after I bought my Factory, I still had seven gold left. The rest of it was easy and I felt nice and secure about my victory.

Last new game for the weekend was Members Only. Phil was eager to introduce the game to me, so we played a game. It's a nice betting game, but it left me cold. At least with five players, there's not enough control. I like luck-based games, but this one didn't work for me. It's decent, I'd rank it as seven, but not better than that.

The very last game I played was Samurai. Olli wanted to try it out, so I teached him the rules and played two games with him. I hadn't played it before with just two players and it was pleasantly different experience. The complicated scoring gets a lot less complicated - get two majorities and you win. There's no reason to play any further when one of the players gets at least two sets of four tokens. In both games, it was me. That was quite a pleasant experience, and Samurai is definitely a game I'd like to own.

So, how was it all? I'm quite satisfied with the event. However, the highlight of the weekend still was seeing Johanna at the Tampere railway station! Coming home was a Good Thing after the weekend. I'm growing old or something, but I just don't like sleeping badly and eating too little. People were generally quite nice, it was a pleasure to meet Tommy, Phil and Stefu again and the mandatory idiots didn't bother me that much (all gamers aren't simply wonderful people, I've come to notice that).

I didn't get to play Mare Nostrum or Svea Rike, but then again, I got to play enough good games and the weekend in general was fun. I guess I'll just have to go there next year again...

After about six hours of mediocre sleep and an hours walk in early morning Helsinki before the doors opened, the Saturday games started. After some quick two-players (Lost Cities and Flowerpower), we played the New England Phil had bought Friday.

I studied the rules quickly and teached the others. It took a while to digest but I think it's a very logical and clean set of rules and it was very easy to learn just by reading the rules.

The components of the game look quite nice (with the exception of very cheap-looking plastic coins), with big cards and tiles. The game is an interesting bidding and tile placement game. There's some tight maneuvering, as the board is quite small. I like the bidding system a lot: players choose numbers from 1-10, one for each. The number indicates the order of buying stuff (numbers in descending order, so 10 starts) and the price. So, if you want to be the first, you can always take the ten, but it'll cost you. In practise, most of time we used just numbers from one to four, the whole 10-point scale seems like a bit of an overkill.

Still, New England was a fun game. I played another game of it later that evening. I lost the first game by one coin (coins are used as a tiebreakers, so I lost by the smallest amount possible) and the second game I would've won if I hadn't made a very silly mistake on the last round. I got a feeling that it's not unusual, the games might often be that close. New England didn't jump on my must-buy list, but I wish someone in our board game club would buy it so I could play it more often.

Then Tommy suggested something quite strange: Kill Doctor Lucky, which I haven't played in three years. It was about time! Especially as I was able to finish off the good doctor. Fun, but I'm not surprised why I haven't played the game more often. The idea is nice and the game can be fun, but repeat value is limited.

Then came some good games I don't own and thus haven't played that much: Royal Turf, Fabrik der Träume and Adel Verpflichtet. Horse racing was fun, but not as much as last time (which was the first time I played it). It's probably a good thing I don't own Royal Turf - I'm not sure how long it's appeal would last. My second game of Fabrik was a bit better than the previous (which was, by the way, in FinDipCon IV a year ago), I had a better grasp of what I should be doing. I even managed to make the worst movie (featuring the good old Reiner Knizia as a guest star). I'm still not thrilled by the game play, but I like the mechanism of distributing the payments to other players.

I could've listed Acquire on the previous list, but I received my copy today. Once again, I came last. I just don't get it! I don't know what I should be doing in the game to win it. Despite that it was fun, I like trying to figure it out. One day I'll get it, and then I'll be a happier man.

The most important game of the weekend, I suppose, was the mandatory Die Macher. Phil and Olli (from Tampere) were anxious to try it out. Tommy and Markus (who won the game in Helcon six months ago) joined. As usual, I took the charge of PDS. It was an exciting match. Markus won, as usual, and Tommy was close second, I think, losing only with few points. Tommy played his best game I've ever witnessed, but the circumstances were against him. Phil and I were in the middle, Phil won me with few points and Olli was far behind. It was an exciting game and another reminder that Die Macher is one of the very best games ever. Phil thought it's a bit fidgety, but I think it's almost perfect the way it is. Once again we were pretty fast. The first round took about 50 minutes, but we were still finished in about 3,5 hours.

Evening was closed with a game of Ohne Furcht und Adel, which I haven't been playing much since 2001, when I played a ton of it at the board game club. It was another refreshing moment, and our four player game went quite swiftly. We were joined by the friendly Frenchman William Attia, who was a pleasure to play games with.

I'm back from FinDipCon! It was a splendid weekend of games, even though I'm getting a bit tired of con environment. I guess I just appreciate good food and good sleep too much... Eating too little and randomly and not sleeping well (I slept a grand total of about 12 hours of mediocre sleep during the weekend, and that's not enough for me) is not my thing.

But the games! Diplomacy tournament was surprisingly small, only two boards on every round. Three players came from Sweden, one from France. The winner was Vesa Virri, the chairman of the Finnish Diplomacy Association.

My weekend started with a fast game of Web of Power which I won. I planned to participate in the tournament, but missed it. It was a bit of a failure anyway. Then I met Phil Schwarzmann, who I've been e-mailing with lately. He turned out to be a decent guy and also caused that I spent the whole weekend speaking English. Which is, of course, good practise but I think around Saturday I began thinking in English... Many times Finnish players were speaking English to each other even though Phil wasn't even near.

Phil and Tommy introduced me to Capitol, which was quite an interesting experience. I enjoyed the game, but wasn't thrilled about it. I'd rate it 8 - good, but not worth buying. I'll play it any time, without a doubt. I liked the bits and the board. I'm going to Rome in just few weeks and it was fun to look for the locations on the map.

Flowerpower was the game I played most during the weekend. Tommy introduced it to me and beat me in it twice - he boasts he hasn't lost a single game. Flowerpower is a game I could actually consider buying: it plays fast, has an appropriate luck/skill balance, looks pretty and is fun. And don't be fooled by the flowers - this game can get a bit cruel, too.

I had few quite close situations during the weekend. Our game of Taj Mahal was definitely the high point of excitement. I was a bit left behind in the early game and I had given up the hope of winning the game. Around round seven or so I started collecting orange cards, hoping to score big time with them in the end. Before the last round I had a dozen. But, I also had managed to build a five-area chain of temples on one side of the last area and one temple on the other side. I decided to use my orange cards, as winning two temples would make it possible for me to score seven points, and thus if I could do it with less than seven cards, I would benefit. Well, that did happen. But that's not all: using only about four or five cards I actually won four temples, scoring a whopping 19 points on the last round (my total score was 44). I came second and lost by only two points! That was surprising and exciting!

After three games I think Taj Mahal is a brilliant game. The Poker mechanic is excellent. It's a bit complicated game at the first, but should make sense after playing it for a while. It's another Knizia masterpiece I highly recommend to just about anyone.

The Friday evening was then finished with a five-player game of Wildlife. I've now played the game with four, five and six players and have won the game every time. I think it's best with four or five, with six the downtime becomes a bit of a problem but I still don't think Wildlife is that bad. I've seen worse offenders.

My collection grew by two games today, when I picked up Mare Nostrum and Acquire from the post office. Both were donated by Puolenkuun pelit as a payment for using my board game articles at their web site. Thanks to them!

Mare Nostrum looks quite cool, I just haven't been able to try it out yet. A big bonus for including nice, big ziploc bags with the game! Being the cheap bastard I am, I switched them for smaller ones and keep the big ones for later use. I'm definitely looking forward to playing the game as soon as possible.

I'm off to FinDipCon this afternoon. I'll try to write something as soon as I can next week. I'll also be taking my camera with me, so pictures can be expected.

What I'm looking for? Games of Wildlife, Taj Mahal, Die Macher, Svea Rike... We'll see, it should be fun no matter what I end up playing.

I played a game of Go on KGS. It was a very interesting game, which I - to my surprise - won. I even submitted to the Go Teaching Ladder to be reviewed. It'll be interesting. So, now I'm 25k? in KGS. I still would love to get rid of the question mark...

The sgf file of the game is available, if you're interested to see how I did. Comments about the game are welcome...

New pictures available: Union Pacific and Wildlife. Enjoy!

A reminder for those in Finland next weekend: it's FinDipCon time! This year the event is held in Helsinki and features the fifth Finnish Diplomacy championship, a Blood Bowl tournament and other minor tournaments - I'm going to participate in the Web of Power tournament. And of course, lots of other games will be played during the weekend!

I'm definitely looking forward to it and I urge everyone else to come there, too. It'll be fun, I'll promise you!

Finnish gamers might want to check out the Lahti-based game store Puolenkuun pelit. Their website has nice, bright colours and perhaps a bit annoying design, but they do have some good board games in stock (however, I don't know about their level of service; I'd guess it's decent, at least they seem to have some expertise on games) and interesting plans to develop their site. Those plans include adding game reviews and translations written by yours truly, so my writings get a bit bigger audience. That's nice, and their generosity as well, as they've promised to give me some games to compensate for my efforts... Splendid.

I participated in an interesting meeting last Tuesday. It was the first meeting of a informal study group of game studies, organised by few friendly staff members of the university's Hypermedia Laboratory. The group will meet few times this Spring and then continue next Autumn, perhaps in a more formal fashion, too.

The first meeting was basically discussion about what the group should do. Academical-ish discussion, introductory talks, analysis of games and articles got support. Many people are interested in computer games (the emphasis of the game studies in Tampere University is in digital games), but many are role players or otherwise interested in diverse forms of games.

Actually, I already promised to give a talk about board game renaissance for the next meeting, which is 8.5. - that'll be interesting.

We had another pleasant meeting of the Board game club last Sunday. A typical crowd of about 15-20 people visited during the several hours of gaming. At the best we had three games played simultaneously.

As expected, I played Sunda to Sahul - five games, actually. Four of those games were played in a row with the same four players. I might say it was well received, really... At least one player was really excited about it. We even tried the more advanced rules, using tribes. After one game, we decided that tribes might be better with a limit of three tokens, at least in the no turns game. Also, I think tribes is the most complicated advanced rule to use in the fast game - I'd like to try the turns game with all advanced rules. I won all five games, but in one game, my margin of victory was only two points. That's terrifying.

The only new game I played was Mamma Mia!, another inventive card game by Uwe Rosenberg (of the Bohnanza fame). It was actually quite clever: first players stack pizza ingredients and pizza cards, then after the draw pile is exhausted, comes the second part: players start to resolve the pizzas. The played card pile is played in the same order as it was constructed and when pizza comes up, ingredients are counted. If there are enough, the pizza can be made. Ingredients used for that pizza are removed and the player who did the pizza scores it. Whoever makes most pizzas during the three rounds, wins. It's a clever game - not a classic masterpiece like Bohnanza, but a fun and quick game. Some memory, some luck, in a fairly good doses.

I also played Ra and actually won the game for the first time. Way cool. My second game of Löwenherz was a lot more brutal (and much more interesting) than the first. I tried to finish my areas quickly, so I could start expanding. I had a nice region with six knights and I could expand quite freely. However, I did not win. It's interesting how the game was very equal, all players within four points when the deck was in D cards or so, but in the end the scores were spread about 20 points.

I also played a game of Union Pacific. It was fun, again, even though I made a small mistake when making up the share deck. Because of that, the game lasted a bit longer than it should have. It didn't spoil the game, however, it was good fun even though I did not win.

Board game club meeting is today. I'm looking forward to play Union Pacific, Princes of Florence and Sunda to Sahul. We'll see... Session report will appear next week.

I've added some pictures of Sunda to Sahul and Bakari I took Friday. As usual, the captions are in Finnish but there aren't even many.

I had a nice weekend, when it comes to games. First game I played Friday was an old favourite, Battle Line. It's always a blast, and I actually managed to win half of the six games I played during the weekend.

But that wasn't the main attraction. I desperately wanted to play Sunda to Sahul. I introduced it and it did pique interest, as I had expected. I first had my mother and Ismo play a game of basic game with no turns without me and then I joined them for three more games - all of which I won very easily. So it's definitely a game where unexperienced player has no chance against a veteran.

However, that didn't seem to matter. My mother and Ismo were enjoying the game, even though they were not nearly fast enough to compete with me. I like the shortness of the game: it took 20 minutes for them to play and a maximum of ten minutes when I played. Perhaps I should try the turns game next time to see if that offers a bit more balanced environment, but I'd guess the game wouldn't be as much fun and it just might drag on a bit. Still, great fun this time. We played another two games to finish the Saturday evening, and I won those too.

Another, perhaps even bigger success was Sticheln. It took them a while to figure out how to play, though. The first game we played, I got 45 points while Ismo had -16 and my mother got 3... Well, they wanted to play another game immediately (which is always a good sign) and Ismo won that, so the learning curve isn't long. We played next evening another game, in which only one of us got negative points once. All of the games took about 9-10 minutes per hand. Sticheln is a great game, it's definitely one of my favourite card games.

Third interesting game was Bakari, the Finnish Game of the Year 2002. I knew it wasn't quite complicated or really interesting after reading the rules, but I was still quite curious to try it. It turns out I was right: there's not much in it. The strategy is almost obvious and the game is a bit dry. Alcatraz has similar feel and is, in my opinion, somewhat better.

Yes, I've grown old. Very old. I went to play Bingo last Saturday. My mother has started to play Bingo occasionally and she lured me with her and her partner, as we had an hour to waste before he had to leave for a trip. And guess what: it was actually fun!

Of course, Bingo is a game of pure luck. Well, luck and perception and some quick reacting, too, but there's really nothing you can do maximise your chances except to put more money in it. But it didn't take long before I was charmed by the voice reading out the numbers, waiting for the right ones to appear.

I actually won some, too. First I got just few lines - that only pays 2 euros worth of Bingo coins, which pays one more round of line game (that's where you try to get first one line, then two lines and so on until finally you try to get a full five lines). Then I won big: I got five lines with only 61 numbers called. If you get five lines in that Bingo hall with only 56 numbers called, you'll win at least a part of 520 euros. As that doesn't happen every day, they give out other prizes: the best score of the day, which is more than 56 numbers, gets 180 euros and the second best gets 52 euros. My 61 numbers was the second best score of the day. So, I got 4 euro prize for doing that and a chance to get 52 euros, if nobody else would beat my score.

Well, that made the rest of the day a bit more exciting. It was early, so there was about four hours of time left for someone to beat me. However, nobody did and when the hall closed at three, I was 52 euros richer. Of course they don't give out money, but Bingo money or purchase cards, but I sold those to my mother to get some cash. Which was nice.

I think I just might go do that again someday... Hopefully my beginner's luck will stay.

Hi, I'm back from having a great weekend in Jyväskylä. I've got things to tell, about Sunda to Sahul and Bingo, but that'll have to wait for a day or two, I'm a bit busy with school work right now.

I'm heading home this weekend to see my parents - and of course, to play games with them (well, at least with my mother and her partner). I was planning to teach them Go - my mother plays Chess occasionally, I'd like to see what she thinks about Go.

Other games in my bags include Lost Cities, Battle Line, Canal Grande, Sticheln, Vom Kap bis Kairo and, of course, Sunda to Sahul. Lots of 2-player games, as I expect to have many opportunities for those.

I'll let you know how it all went in the beginning of the next week. See you then!

1. Sunda to Sahul (-)
2. Sticheln (2)
3. Go (4)
4. Union Pacific (3)
5. Bohnanza (-)
6. Löwenherz (-)
7. Tichu (1)
8. Mahjong (6)
9. Wildlife (8)
10. Taj Mahal (5)

I've been quite anxious to play Sunda to Sahul lately and finally, after one canceled attempt last week, I was able. After finishing the morning session of Der Wahnvorstellung, I met Ville and Laura at the Klubi, which has became the standard location for these spontaneous game meetings.

So, we started with Sunda. Ville came a bit later than Laura, so we had time to play a two-player game and after that two games with all three of us playing. This time I completely skipped the turns game. That turned out to be a wise choice, as the no turns game is much more interesting and exciting. Not to mention faster: all three games were over in max 15 minutes.

I completely ruled all three games. It's like Ricochet Robot - (almost) all-skill game which requires quick thinking. Novices just can't beat experienced pattern matchers. But I think no turns game is still more interesting, even with unequal players. It's more fun and a better learning experience to play, say, four games of no turns instead of one slow turns game.

We played with the basic rules (well, theoretically we had water rights, but that didn't make a difference), which were enough. I'd like to try the other rules, too, but even the basic rules make a good game if played simultaneously.

Then it was time for another great gaming experience, when I completely beat Laura and Ville in Sticheln. Another case of experience in action. I took points in every trick, eventually winning the game with about 30 points. But Laura and Ville seemed to figure it out while the game progressed. I'm not that much experienced, really, after just five games.

So, another pleasant gaming experience. Now, I'm back to playing Der Wahnvorstellung!

A new issue of The Games Journal is out. This time, because of some technical problems, there are no articles, just a game, puzzle, letters and four reviews. So, it's not quite as good as it usually is, but I do think it's great that they published even something. Hopefully the next few issues will be a bit thicker...

Sorry for the lack of updates. Last Friday I got this new game, which I've been playing almost non-stop since. It's called Die Wahnvorstellung. I can't do the typical 'Geek link, as it's not yet listed there - it's so new. The edition I have is hand made by the designer, but I hear he is currently working on a deal with either Hans im Glück or Alea. It's designed by this new designer called Jürgen Lüge - you probably haven't heard of him, but you sure will!

So, I got this game from German friends of mine, who told me it's the best board game ever, period. I first thought that was just hype, but after four days and about 30 or so games of it (and it isn't a short game, it takes about two hours to finish after you've learned it!), I think I can agree.

Die Wahnvorstellung's mechanics are so cool. I thought Die Macher was a great mixture of the best mechanics in German games, but this one is even better. There's auctions, action points, roles, area control, exploration... Almost anything you could want, and it works like charm. All the mechanics are connected very smoothly and the game is surprisingly easy to learn. It's not an easy filler, sure, but there's the same clean logicalness in it as one can find in Die Macher. It's easy to understand how it works.

But the difficult part is in the strategies... make no mistake, Die Wahnvorstellung is a deep game. Deeper than Puerto Rico, deeper than Euphrat & Tigris. You'll learn the initial strategies during the first game, but understanding all the finer details takes a lot more time. After the 30 games I've played I've found out some quite clever tactics and tricks, but I still haven't figured out even an almost optimal strategy. So there's lots of replay potential. It also might mean Die Wahnvorstellung isn't that good a game for casual players. But it can be played on a more casual level, I just don't think it'll do justice for this great game.

What about the theme, then? Well, it's actually quite well done for a German game. Die Wahnvorstellung is about ancient history: players are great lords in the ancient Assyria. It's a battle for prestige and status, and the players have lots of options in their hands. The designer-made version is of course more functional than beautiful, but I've seen some pictures of the stuff Franz Vohwinkel has done for the game. They're just early drafts, but if the final product is anything like that, it's going to be pretty!

But this is all I have time to write now - I must go continue playing the game! I'll write a more detailed review later, with a better explanation of the rules and all, but now I just want to keep on playing. My friends are starting a game without me if I don't stop writing this, and I don't want that to happen!