December 2004 Archives

As the tradition goes, we played some board games during Christmas. Johanna likes relatively few games, so choosing good games can be tricky. However, this time it was easy. I had just received Karibik which seemed like a good game to play with her. Light and easy rules, some random elements and what's perhaps most important, well-integrated scoring mechanism. Johanna doesn't like artificial scoring systems and point tracks, she prefers scoring systems that makes sense. Scoring in Karibik works that way.

It was a fun game. The rules are simple and the game is quite straightforward to teach. Players bid on ships and highest bidder gets to move the ship. Players aim to assault ports to get treasure chests and then move the chests to their hideouts. Money is scored when a port is assaulted and when a chest is taken home. Ships can interact with each other by stealing, swapping and giving treasure chests. It's all very simple and interactive. It was so good that we played two games in a row (it's also fairly quick, it took us about 20 minutes to play a game and it shouldn't be much more with more players). There's some danger of analysis paralysis when bidding, but it should be made clear that Karibik is a light, fun game.

We had wished for a new copy of Trivial Pursuit and got that. The one we had earlier from Johanna was from 1980's and even the newer one played from 1990's was quite dated, so it was obvious we needed a fresh copy. The new edition is actually quite interesting: in addition of the flashy look and delightfully smaller box, the game has been changed a bit. The board is now smaller and the re-roll squares have been changed to teleport squares. There are also a lot less question cards than in the old version. I think the old one had about eight packs, while the new one has just four. And of course it's still bloody expensive...

Anyway, it was fun to answer some of the newer questions too. The game is faster now, and perhaps even too fast. I didn't like the teleport squares, but changing them to re-roll squares is trivial. While the
early game is faster, the endgame is still slow when players try to hit the center. The questions have also their problems: the range from practically impossible to know (too specific local knowledge or simply areas completely unknown) to simple yes or no guesses. Of course that can be balanced - we immediately toss away impossible questions or give hints to make the really hard questions easier. Despite all these flaws, Trivial Pursuit is still a fun game to play. It's also one of the rare decent party games that can be played in a meaningful way with just two players.

I got a nice packet yesterday. Inside I found two games from Winning Moves, Karibik and TransAmerica and some Kosmos two-player games (Lost Cities and Balloon Cup). What all these games have in common? They are all coming out in Finnish next year and I'm working on the translations.

You know how much I like TransAmerica and I won't keeping that one around any longer than I need to - I guess I'll have to keep the Finnish edition in my collection because it's my translation, but the German game must go after I'm done with the translation. Either I sell it or donate it to Lautapeliseura.

Karibik, in the other hand, looks more interesting. It has nice bits, but the game mechanics rely a lot on outguessing your opponents. I'm guessing I'll like it, but not immensely. Then again, it could be new Viva il Re! ie. filler I'll like a lot but nobody else doesn't meaning it'll fade into obscurity.

Anyway, when you add the stuff Lautapelit.fi is doing - right now Ticket to Ride and maybe more - next year looks like it could be even better than this year. Quite neat.

Also included in the package was my first corporate Christmas gift ever. Cool.

I wrote a review of Four Dragons (and Dia de los Muertos). It's the first review I've written with my new game review content management system I built to make writing reviews easier.

As you might already know, Four Dragons is a reincarnation of Frank Branham's self-published Dia de los Muertos. The rules have been edited a bit (nothing major) and there's a new theme with gorgeous new card art (not that the old was bad). I'm a bit sad to see the days of the dead theme gone, but the new Chinese folklore theme is good as well.

Four Dragons is a twisted little point trick game, where players try to win tricks with rain and earth cards - thus making the rain fall on dry earth. Each pair of rain and earth is a point and the partnership with more points after three hands wins the game. So far it's quite simple and straightforward.

The trickery starts with the cards. The distribution is odd. There are four colours, which are not identical. Well, three are, but then there's black. In each trick, players can play only one card of each colour, except black, which is always allowed. That's a good way to restrict what your opponents can do. The cards run from zero to ten, with highest cards beating smaller cards. Several cards have special abilities like ask (you get to ask a question from one of the players about their hand), swap (swap cards with your partner) or kill 10 (the card nullifies one 10 played by an opponent).

Learning the card distribution could be tricky, but fortunately the game has player aids. Pity there's only two of them in English and German - why couldn't they have four double-sided cards in English and German? Anyway, you won't need those for long, because the card effects aren't that hard to remember.

The tactics are interesting. Four Dragons is not that simple, because winning empty tricks is rather pointless. When fighting for the good tricks, there aren't that many high cards that can't be blocked in some way. Playing well takes some thought. The card set is small, giving good opportunities for card counters - except all used cards are displayed face up, sorted neatly. End of a hand is a kind of puzzle, where it's often possible to figure out a good strategy given the cards that are left in the game.

I wouldn't recommend Four Dragons to just anybody. First, it's strictly four player game. There's rules for three players with a dummy player, but that's unsatisfying. Second, the learning curve can be a bit steep. Prepare to be confused in your first game. It gets easier after a while, but in the end it's not the easiest trick-taking game to figure out. Many will be satisfied by something lighter and less confusing. For fans of convoluted trick-taking games, however, Four Dragons is a must.

My recommendation extends to Dia de los Muertos as well. Get whichever you can find, which is probably Four Dragons. The rules are slightly different and I'll recommend playing by the Four Dragons rules as I think they are a bit better.

You can hear me tomorrow (Tuesday, 21th December) in radio. I'm visiting the Radio Tampere morning show around 8 am for a short bit about board games in general. If you're around Tampere, the frequency is 99.9 MHz.

I've been there and done that, but it's always fun.

This Amun-Re session report by Joe Gola is simply the best session report I've ever read. It's just hilarious.

The following is a translation of an ancient Egyptian text found in a crude clay pot buried long, long ago on the banks of the Nile. Carbon dating of the ink on the papyrus indicates that this was written sometime in the neighborhood of August 8, 2004 B.C., possibly at 3:15 in the afternoon...

Johanna was out having a party with her friends, so I took the opportunity and invited my usual posse of Robert, Olli and Ari for some games. We started with Fresh Fish which I had finally picked up earlier today. It sure was a brain-bender! We played twice and in the second game got the rules right. Even then it wasn't in the beginning of the game, but after some discussion about certain corner rules. I think we have it now. We were generally pretty good at spotting the less obvious road placements.

It's a tricky game and I applaud anyone who can study the rules by themselves and play a game correctly without any guidance. From now on it'll be easier, but expect to get things wrong on your first game. And it takes a certain brain configuration to see it, too. I think Olli had some problems seeing the roads, while Ari for example was quite observant.

Anyway, I think it's a fun game. There are exciting situations, lots of fun bowbing - you can really screw the other players with the road placements. Also it wasn't too long - we played two games in an hour and 45 minutes. I really like the game, it's so brilliantly different. I do have some issues with the game. The road rules are tricky and it's certainly a game for limited audience. I'm not sure if I'd like to introduce it in Jyväskylä. It might be good, but I think my mother wouldn't like it (visual stuff like that isn't her forte). Anyway, the player cubes are bit too small and in general the colours are odd. I've got a version with gold cubes, but the paint is wearing off already. Red, gold, green, white and wood is a bad colour combo, too. Where's blue, yellow or black? More contrast! Orange and green coins are horrid, too.

But the game is brilliant, that I must say. Others liked it at least somewhat, but thought it was perhaps even too heavy. Ari was screwed badly, and it probably didn't improve his opinion of the game...

After that we played something lighter. Cluzzle. I got a review copy from Dominic Crapuchettes, which was cool. It was a fun game. Sculpting clay was fun diversion after the mind-boggling Fresh Fish.

I know Cluzzle is a simplified version of Teuber's Barbarossa, but I can't see how Barbarossa could be better than this. Cluzzle has the bare essentials, and nothing else. Barbarossa has all this other stuff, which detracts from the fun sculpting. Sculpting is fun, because you don't have to make a good sculpture. After all, you try to get just one people to guess your sculpture as late as possible. We had a blast. There were some very simple sculptures, that were easy to guess and then some more bizarre ones - how on earth Olli picked up Ari's "art collection" is still beyond my grasp.

Cluzzle is highly recommended for anyone looking for a fun party game. I think it's one of the best I've played in it's simplicity. I wish someone made a Finnish edition.

I wanted to play Four Dragons and that we did. Robert and Olli had played before, and I ended up paired with Ari, who was the newbie. He picked up well. After first hand the game was quite equal, but we got a good two-point lead in the second hand and eventually it came to a point where the victory was secured. We ended up winning 5½ to 3½.

I like it, it's one of my favourite trick-taking games. It's clever, but not too difficult. This time we even remembered all the exchanges. The new edition is fine, the cards look pretty even though I like the old ones, too. The only change they made (earths are all red, while souls were in different colours) doesn't really change the game, only makes it a bit more elegant.

Building time! We ended up playing Fifth Avenue. It was a good game, I like the game more and more. I didn't play much skyscrapers, but got lots of areas and managed to score few times, securing a healthy lead. In the other hand, I had nothing at Central Park. We had an early building stop (I caused it), which was a bit odd. I did build up nice 16-point district with just two skyscrapers. In the end I lost by two points to Ari, thanks to his Central Park properties. One skyscraper there would've made up the difference. It was a fun game and exciting until the very end.

To wrap up the evening, we played DaVinci Code. Olli hadn't tried it. We played twice, Olli wanted an immediate rematch. I had a great first game, I got a nice ending where I dropped everybody else from the game. That was fun. In the second game, I lost to Ari because I made a wrong guess in a 50-50 situation. That happens, but I wasn't even annoyed. It's such a light game, after all, and a perfect end-of-evening filler.

All in all, it was a fun night and it was great fun to try Fresh Fish finally. Cluzzle was fun, too, it's always nice to find such a good new game.

In our boardgame club session back in June, I confused Robert's copy of Fish Eat Fish with Fresh Fish. I noticed my mistake too late and we ended up playing Fish Eat Fish, which turned out to be decent but not interesting.

Now if I tell you that I asked for Fresh Fish from Lautapelit.fi and I didn't get what I wanted, you can probably guess which game they sent me. So I'm not the only one to make that mistake!

It's been a while, but here I am, contemplating an order from Germany. I get free games every month, but I want Geschenkt now, not later. I'm also intrigued by Mogul and Die Sieben Siegel. Of course, buying few small games from Germany just isn't worth it, so I'll have to buff the order up a bit.

So, if you're a) interested to buy stuff from Adam Spielt soon or b) want a copy of Geschenkt for a moderate price of eight or so euros (plus shipping in Finland, if you're not from Tampere), let me know.

Update 12/14/04: I asked few people who weren't interested in ordering anything, so I picked the option b. In few weeks (Christmas season will probably slow down mail delivery somewhat) I should have several extra copies of Geschenkt. Anybody interested?

I'm determined to learn Dvonn. Therefore I dug out some strategy guides. There are some basic tips and Alan Kwan's glossary, both at Project Gipf site. There's also Joe Gola's very detailed session report at the Geek. I sure hope these help me improve my game. If I played more of two-player games, Dvonn would be on my shopping list - right now I'm happy with Little Golem.

I met Olli today at 9 am to try my brand new copy of Kahuna. I'm doing a translation of it, it's going to be one of a bunch of Kosmos two-player games Marektoy is publishing at some point next year. Of course I needed to get some hands on experience of the game!

I like it. Fighting for the archipelago is fun and somewhat tricky. The cards allow for lots of possibilities - it seems to be a rare situation where a card is useless. I did end up discarding one card during the game, and I did realize the situations where not taking a card might be a good thing.

The score? After my last turn before the first scoring, I was leading 4-2 in Kahuna stones. However, Olli had a turn and he promptly reduced it to 3-3 tie. No points. In the second phase, my game started falling apart: Olli attacked me while I couldn't do much against his island network. At the second scoring, Olli was leading 7-4. Since that scored him two game points, I would need to reverse that to gain a victory. So, I wasn't surprised when I lost the game 3-0 in the end.

It was fun, trying to work out the best attacks, but in the last phase the game was already quite locked up. Achieving anything was very hard and took lots of cards. If that remains so, my appreciation of the game will definitely go down. Right now, I'm still learning the game. Oh, and the play time could certainly go down: our game took almost 45 minutes. A bit too much, I think.

I was wondering what to grab this month from Lautapelit.fi. I had little idea, until I reached F in the list of games and noticed they had Fresh Fish. When it came out (from Plenary), I wanted to get it, but at the time Safe Haven didn't have it and ordering from USA was (and is) too expensive. Then I just forgot about it - until now, that is.

I've spent lot of time recently researching the game. I've basically read everything about it I could find at Geek - not much - and googled for it. That didn't produce much either, so I guess I'll just have to wait until I have the game and get to play it. I tried Chris Brooks' Fresh Fish program, but that's a small comfort as it doesn't include AI players. Well, at least I have a rather solid idea on how the expropriation of roads works. It doesn't sound like a difficult concept, really, the rules are quite logical.

Yesterday I watched a bit of a documentary about Garry Kasparov and how he lost a match to IBM's Deep Blue. As the story goes, Deep Blue pulled an untypical move in the second game, causing Kasparov to lose. After that, he lost his concentration and failed to win the match. Kasparov, naturally, accused IBM of cheating, using human intervention. I'm not going into all that, except I don't understand why Kasparov had such a strict idea of how a computer plays. He's not a Chess program designer, after all.

However, it's the implications of the match that are of interest. For example, Kasparov's loss inspired Omar Syed to create a game called Arimaa (Arimaa at BoardGameGeek). Arimaa was intentionally designed to be a difficult challenge for a computer to play. The approach is, however, boring: the game's difficulty arises from a very wide space of possible moves, which can't be pruned easily. Free initial setup renders the use of opening libraries impossible. Well, that's pretty much why Go is difficult for computers.

Another question comes up: what's different after Kasparov lost the match? Chess programs have for a long time been able to beat most players. Even Go programs can probably beat most Go players, even if their level is lower. I'm not even sure if Deep Blue's victory is impressive, especially if such high attributes as intelligence are considered. Certainly Deep Blue isn't even nearly as intelligent as Garry Kasparov. It just plays better Chess (and even that might not be true), and that's because playing Chess is it's sole purpose. It was built to play Chess, it wasn't built to be intelligent.

Really, if someone wants to create a computer that would impress me, I have better suggestions. How about really good natural language processing? Something that passes the Turing test? Or to keep it game-related, a computer opponent that could play any game, given the rules and perhaps some records of past games to study strategy from. Now that would be impressive. I wouldn't still be worried about the superiority of humans over computers, though. I'll be worried when the computers learn to procreate without the help of humans...

Another issue of The games Journal is out. Greg Aleknevicus continues his series on basic strategy, this time covering long-term planning. I was somewhat disappointed by this article, it felt somewhat trivial. I found the previous article in the series (covering strategies of trading) much more interesting and useful.

In the other hand, Sarah Samuelson's article Why I Prize My Copy of Volle Hütte was absolutely charming.