February 2005 Archives

I wrote a review of Pirate's Cove (in Finnish; review number 92!).

I like Pirate's Cove. I like the fancy bits (I think it's one of the prettiest games I've ever seen), the theme is great and the game is simply a blast to play.

However, I'm still rating it as 7. The game's main elements don't completely agree with me. There's double guessing and bluffing and lots of random chaos. I'm not allergic to dice and they certainly make the battles exciting, but still...

In the end I guess it all comes down on whether one likes games as an intellectual challenge or a way to spend good time with friends. Pirate's Cove is an excellent game for a social gamer. There's fun action, possibilities of role-playing, fairly simple rules, gorgeous looks... However, while the game can be fun, but as more serious gamer, I'm missing something.

Games like this are also very dependant on the people you play then with. I wouldn't probably like the game that much with strangers. For me Pirate's Cove is a fun diversion maybe once a year, played using someone else's copy. I guess that means I should probably get around and sell my copy...

I've been busy writing reviews. I have already 91 reviews on my web site - I hear the 100 review mark calling my name already. That'll take some time, but soon, soon I'll be there.

I'm not going to write long reviews of these games now; I'll just summarize my thoughts shortly. Links are to Finnish reviews.

Höhlengrölen is very unknown (I think it has about six ratings in Geek) and, unfortunately, it's not a gem in hiding. However, it is an entertaining little Rummy game with a funny stone age music theme,so it's not completely without merit. Average, but fun. I wrote more about when I played year ago.

Queen's Necklace is very much like other Faidutti games: there's something clever about it, but the whole of it just doesn't click. I tried the online version a while ago and wrote a preview back then. I kind of like the game (I ended up giving it three stars out of five, something like 7 on the Geek scale), but haven't played it at all. It just doesn't attract me enough.

Samurai, in the other hand, is a very good game and one of Knizia's best games. I like it a lot - it's full of tension, always very exciting and gripping. I haven't played it much, though, but that's mostly because of its limited availability (I don't have it, it rarely appears in our board game club). It's certainly a game I'd recommend to all gamers, if only for the interesting scoring system.

I wrote a Finnish translation of Don. Enjoy.

I noticed the exchange variant in the rules - has anybody given it a go? Is it any good?

A typical subject for discussion is how many times a reviewer should play a game before reviewing it? I know I've lowered my standards as I've written more and more reviews and I've even written reviews based on one play of the game (and even part of one play, as was the case with Time Control).

I think Brian Bankler has it right in his review of Amun-Re: The dedicated reviewer owes it to the reader to have glanced at the game for several seconds, and possibly even learned the rules. Shannon Appelcline echoes the thought in the interview by Tom Vasel, where he says he's happy with one play.

Of course, that takes experience. Playing lots of different games gives a reviewer the confidence needed to make assesments of the games based on few playings. It's not how much you play the game, it's how many other games you've tried that matters. It also varies by game. Some games I find very easy to evaluate after just game or two (those are usually broken or simple games). More complicated games, where the game experience varies more (for example depending on the number of players or the strategies chosen by the players) need more time.

Fortunately I do online reviews, where I can go back and alter the review and the grade I gave, if my experience changes. This has happened a lot. Mostly I've downgraded my ratings, as I've tried more games and found some games I used to like to be rather ho-hum. For example, I used to like Faidutti's games more before, but further experience has shown that his design style doesn't fit my current taste well.

(By the way, Brian's Amun-Re review is excellent and pretty close to how I feel about the game - and really, The Tao of Gaming is one of the very best blogs about board games right now)

I'm churning out review after review... This time I did Flowerpower.

Flowerpower is a relaxing little game in the Kosmos two-player range. Designed by relatively unknown authors Peter Haluszka and Angelika Fassauer, Flowerpower is often mentioned as a good couples game.

It certainly has some good qualities: it's a two-player game, easy to learn, easy to teach and fun to play. The flowery theme - the game's nothing but flowers - certainly stands out from most games and might attract some ladies (or gentlemen) to try the game.

And why not - they'll probably be pleased with the smoothness of the game. Those seeking fierce competition need not apply. Flowerpower is an easy-going game and mostly solitaire. Players lay their two by one flower tiles on their side of the board. There's a neutral strip in the middle of the board where both players can play, increasing interaction and players can also plant two patches of weeds to the other player's side, spoiling their plans.

There's little tension and excitement. Weeds can be used for nasty effects, but it's equally easy to play nice. Flowerpower has relaxed atmosphere and I've certainly enjoyed the game every time I've played it. It's a bit mild, as you basically draw a tile and place a tile until the board is full, but then again, skill plays some effect and you must think a bit about your moves.

While Flowerpower is far from being the best game in the Kosmos series or one of the best two-player games, it certainly is fun to play and I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a pleasant and relaxing little two-player number.

Another review I wrote: Einfach Genial aka Ingenious aka Mensa Connections.

Einfach Genial is a clever game by master Knizia. It's an abstract game, a rare thing from Knizia whose games are often fairly thinly themed, but still have at least some theme. Some have questioned if Einfach Genial would've won the Spiel des Jahres if it had a theme. Don't know, but it's a pretty good game nonetheless. Even Reiner Knizia himself has cited it as one of his favourites (in a Gamewire interview).

Einfach Genial is about laying hexagonal tiles on a board. The tiles look neat, but the board is grey and boring. Each tile consists of two hexagons, which both have one of the six colours (colours have also unique symbols, so colourblind players don't have a problem). Points are scored, when hexagons are placed near other hexagons of the same colour. Each colour scores separately. The final result is determined by the weakest colour, as in Tigris & Euphrates.

Einfach Genial - Simply ingenious - is a simple and a clever game. The rules are easy to learn, the most complicated bit being the scoring of points. That's easy to teach by giving some concrete examples, explanation alone is probably not enough. Newbies will probably lose few games because they fail to see the value of defensive play - often if you place a high-scoring tile, you'll only create an even higher-scoring position for the next player. It's a subtle game.

The game also scales well. Outer rings of the hexagonal board aren't used with fewer players and there's also a solitaire variant included. According to my limited experience the game is equally fun with different numbers of players. It should also work well with different age groups and both with gamers and non-gamers. All in all, I think Reiner Knizia has created a game with lots of hit potential. Einfach Genial has loads of mass-market appeal and it should please the gamers as well. I can certainly recommend the game to just about anyone.

I wrote a review of Dune (in Finnish).

I haven't played Dune in ages - there's not a mention of it in this blog, for example, and I haven't missed many sessions since I started writing. Usually if I own a game and don't play it, there's a reason.

With Dune, the reasons are obvious. Even though it's far from the heavier war games, it's still 1970's game from Avalon Hill. The game takes hours to finish and pretty much requires five or preferably six players. The game's rules are very convoluted thanks to all the theme-oozing additions and exceptions. That makes the game a pain to teach and hard to play, unless you play often with the same group.

I think the game is basically pretty good, especially for a game of its age. The basic system, based on Cosmic Encounter (players control factions with rule-breaking special powers), is solid and the game is faithful to the books. There's plenty of theme, that's for sure. There are some clever mechanics in action like the battle system and some special powers.

The game is old and fairly hard to get (there's a newer French edition, which might be easier to find) and I don't really recommend it to anybody. Only exception would be those who love the books, have a steady group of six or so gamers who aren't afraid of more complicated games. For those who aren't particularly interested in Dune books but want to play something similar, I recommend A Game of Thrones, which is also a heavy, well-themed game of war, politics and intrigue.

Peter Sarrett writes about bad rules, mentioning Victory & Honor as an example. He's spot on: Victory & Honor has probably the worst rulebook I've ever seen in a good game.

I practically threw the rule book across the room three times while explaining the rules. It took us MUCH longer than it should have to get going. The rule book actually stood in the way of us having a good time. Our initial enthusiasm was much dampened by the time we actually began play. Writing good, clear rules is not easy. Rule books are often one of the last things completed in the production of a game, sometimes going to print without being tested. Bad Idea.

Those reading rec.games.board or rec.games.card might have noticed a thread called truth about church's ambition. It had nothing to do with church, it's in fact about Mike Church and his card game Ambition. For some reason there's a flamewar of sorts going on around the game. Why, I have no idea, but the thread, especially Church's own comments about his game, made me investigate the game.

It's quite interesting, actually. Ambition can be found on the Card Games site, but those aren't the latest rules (the game's new, invented in 2003 and probably still a bit of a work-in-progress). Right now the latest version of the rules can be found at Cardschat.com discussion forum. The game also has a blog, where I guess the final rules will appear one day (Church says at the Cardschat he's working on a final rules document). The Games Journal will, it seems, have an article about the design of the game in the March issue.

Ambition is a trick-taking game. It's a point-trick game and mostly a derivative of Hearts, as far as I can tell. Church's design ideal has been to reduce the effect of card-luck, which is a honorable task. There are certainly some clever ideas in the game that work to reduce that effect. Here's a small overview of the game's features:

- Basic trick-taking, no trumps, normal ordering of the cards from ace (high) to 2 (low).
- However, 2 in the led suit is the highest card if a honor card (A, K, Q or J) of the same suit is played in the trick.
- Hearts, diamonds and spades score points, as do the king of clubs and six of clubs.
- There's Hearts-like passing.

That's all rather basic, though I like the thing with twos. The scoring is where it gets interesting. Collecting points is the goal of the game, but that's not all.

- If player has at least 57 points (of 91 possible), he or she scores a Slam - 36 points.
- Player with the most points (and less than 57 points) gets zero points and a strike.
- Player with 1-10 points gets points scored and a strike, unless he or she already has two strikes.
- Player with zero points scores a Nil and gets 24 points.
- In other cases (11-56 points, someone else gets most points) players score their points.

It sounds more complicated than it is. Game ends, when someone gets three strikes or 10 rounds pass (which is very rare). Player with the three strikes loses regardless of points. Player with the most points after that wins.

Based on reading the rules, I'd say Ambition is a clever game. That's certainly not the only way to reduce card luck (Die Sieben Siegel demonstrates a different approach), but it certainly looks good. Players need to work for different goals depending on their cards and also keep an eye on the other players so they don't end up getting most points (using chips or other visible tokens to count points during hands is probably mandatory).

At the very least Ambition gets on my games to play -list.

I bought myself a Rush Hour puzzle set and all three extra card sets. It was a total impulse purchase, I just thought it would be interesting to try. I've tried Lunar Lockout, another puzzle from the same company and enjoyed that (that one is very much like Ricochet Robot), so I thought Rush Hour might be fun too. The extra card sets offered even more challenge, in case the first problems would be solved soon. They also had neat extra cars to use, which really made them tempting.

I got something quite unexpected out of it. I bought it for me to play, but it was Johanna who really got into it. I'm doing problem number 25 or so, while she's already working on the last problem of the first card set. Last night she could barely concentrate on our regular TV programs and leaped at the puzzle during commercial breaks or other dull moments. Amazing.

I wonder why the whole thing is so heavily marketed as a toy for children. It looks like a toy, sure, but the more challenging problems are actually quite hard. So far Johanna has worked through them fairly easily, but some Expert-level problems have taken a while. I wonder how hard the Grand Master problems of the extra card sets are.

I've been thinking about doing a automatic problem generator to get more problems when we've solved them all. I mean, randomly generating problems should be fairly easy and doing a brute force problem solver (to see if the generated problems can actually be solved) shouldn't be impossible either. But I don't have the luxury of having time to start working on that quite yet... Maybe one day.

Our club meeting yesterday drew a record crowd of 25 gamers. At one point we had five games going on at the same time! That's amazing and I do hope this is a continuing trend and not just a fluke.

Some of the expansion was caused by a group of people interested to try Age of Steam. I bowed out of the game as I got five preregistrations - I have other games to play, I wasn't willing to spend two-three hours playing Age of Steam (considering I've played it twice in two weeks already). It was a good choice, and the all-newbie group survived the game well. They even enjoyed it!

Meanwhile, I got to play Niagara with five players and correct rules. I also noticed my copy was missing some orange jewels - we'll see how eagerly Zoch Verlag replaces lost bits. It was fun, especially as I won (collected five different gems). The game was action-packed and exciting, but perhaps a bit chaotic. It's certainly a brilliant family game, but in a long run there just might be a bit too much chaos for me. Still, right now the game's a keeper because of the beautiful bits and cool river mechanism. The game just hasn't earned a permanent place in my collection yet.

After Niagara we got some fresh blood and split up in two groups. Fluffy group played Cluzzle, while I got four other brave gamers to try Fresh Fish. It was a blast, as usual. One player made a mistake, partly due to my fault, connecting his fish shop to the harbour directly. Of course, the road connection made a huge loop of 30 or so tiles... His game was ruined, while I managed to place my businesses well, scoring merely two points. Nice. Fresh Fish is a brilliant game. However, we had at least one player for whom the game was too hard. I also think Ari and Olli are scarred for life after our previous games...

I wanted some fluff after that, so I got some guys to play Karibik with me. Three players went looting and pirating, and I came dead last. I'm useless in the game. I didn't enjoy it much, either - it's a fun game if I play it with Johanna, but too chaotic with more players and simply not much fun. A decent family game, again, but nothing I'd enjoy a lot, really.

To finish off the fairly short session, I played a game of Kahuna. Was it my explanation or my experience, but I gave my opponent a solid beating (I won 7-0 or something like that). I like the game more, but would still like to play more to make up my mind. Is the game totally boring (beating newbies is easy, playing against good player is boring and stale) or exciting and fun, that remains a mystery to me.

I've achieved something: I have an ÜberGeekBadge. Super neat! You can admire my excellence at my profile page. You'll also see that I've been generous. Creating the Geek Supporter badge was a brilliant idea in the first place and adding the year made it even better. Now the badge will become outdated unless one drops the cash every year.

But hey, I'll keep on paying. It's such a brilliant site, one of the most important for me. Doing a yearly donation isn't bad, especially as the dollar is still relatively cheap.

There's a new Finnish review of Domaine posted on my website.

Domaine is a reworking of Teuber's earlier Löwenherz (and published under that name in Germany). I've tried both and I think Domaine is an excellent work and much better game than it's predecessor.

The game's about medieval lords, fighting over the lands while the king is gone. Players form domaines, areas circled with walls (or the borders of the board) that contain their castle. Points are scored according to the forests and villages in the domaines.

When the game begins, there are only the players' castles on the board - not a single wall. Players must start to lay down walls, creating enclosed regions. While laying walls is important, it's not the only concern the players have. The domaines need defense in form of knights. There's an expansion action that lets players expand their already-formed domaines into enemy territory, if the enemy has fewer knights than the attacker.

All actions are done through an interesting card system. Each card offers an action (lay down walls, add a knigh, expand a domaine, force a truce or convert an enemy knight) at some price. If player wants to use a card, the price must be paid. At some point money will run out and players are forced to sell cards instead of playing them. Choosing what to play and what to sell can be difficult - especially as other players will be able to pick up the cards you sell.

There's a lot of conflict in this game. Every time a player reaches out and conquers a bit of land, it comes from someone else's domaine (or a potential domaine). You can't make a move without targeting a player, which is rather untypical in German games. It makes Domaine stand out a bit, making it an interesting exception.

The mechanics were improved a lot from Löwenherz and the look of the game got an update, too. It's colourful, vibrant and almost garish. The plastic castles and knights are detailed, but at the same time look a bit cheap - like something that could come in a Kinder egg. I'd probably prefer something more simple, abstract and wooden. That's a question of taste, of course. It all works and looks pretty good, too, so nothing's really wrong here.

The best thing about Domaine is that it can be played in an hour. That's amazing. It's a game full of excitement, tactical choices (it's certainly more tactical than strategic), tough battles and bloody wars. It's quite unlike other German games and has certainly deserved its place in my collection.

I would certainly recommend Domaine to anyone who's interested in games that feature prominent conflict. That's what it is, and little else. Through that conflict comes a lot of interaction between players and the theme works out well, too. I'd say Domaine has many of the good characteristics of American school of game design, while still retaining a distinctively German feel in the mechanics.

I added a new translation on my website: Carcassonne: The Count. Thanks to Markku Jaatinen for doing the translation!

I've been working on my reviews a lot, recently. You've noticed few new reviews I've written, but even more has been done behind the scenes. I finally finished moving my reviews to a new content management system I built. It's been a tedious process, but now I can meddle with the reviews easily anywhere, using a browser. Writing new stuff is a lot easier now and having all the text in a database makes all sorts of data manipulation possible.

I'm a huge fan of all sorts of systems that facilitate doing websites. Especially if they support multiple authors and make it easier for a community to manage its website. Our new Boardgame Society website is a huge improvement over the old. On the new one, we can assign authors for each page so they can change things they are responsible for. On the old one, all changes had to be done by the webmaster. Thanks for Lasse, who built the system for us for free.

I had some friends over for games. First one to arrive was Antti, another Tampere gamer who I had met in Helsinki, actually - he came to HelCon. We started the festivities with a quick match of Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation. It was a smooth victory for me. Quick exchange of units left both going fairly thin, but I managed to use both Gimli and Merry well. I also did one-for-one exchanges, because that's good for Light - it leaves an empty field for Frodo to sneak through.

Olli joined us, but we were still waiting for a fourth player before the main games, so I introduced the guys to For Sale. Three rounds of bidding fun ensued. This time it was my turn to lose to a tie-breaker, but I did manage to win one round. I tried different approaches and found out that sometimes it's just a best idea not to start bidding at all. However, that tends to let the other players get good cards for cheap. The game's not easy, but that's the beauty of it.

To warm up for the train theme we played a game of Mogul. We had huge point swings - I though Antti had won, when he got a very good sale, but then I managed to both catch him and get a 26-point lead over him! Amazing! He did run out of money, which eventually dropped him out of the race. It was fun, I like the game, but it's obvious the game needs more than three players.

Our fourth player cancelled, so we had to play Age of Steam all by ourselves. Instead of the basic map we played Ireland, but that's all fine with me. It's not the best map with newbies (Antti was interested but hadn't been able to buy the game yet and Olli had played once a too long time ago), but hey - I need to win sometimes.

I did win, with a healthy margin, too. It's all about long multilink routes, which the other guys didn't have. I had six link engine and did few six-link routes, too. It was interesting how the map was divided: Olli started in the south, Antti grabbed north and I got the middle. I blazed through Ireland and except for the end, everybody pretty much stayed in their segments. Mine was the best.

I think the Irish map is perhaps a bit too big for three players, unless the players get vicious. With more experienced players three-player Ireland is probably much better. Next time I'll try the Southern England map, especially as I heard words of encouragement regarding it's suitability for just four players.

Olli requested St. Petersburg, which is of course always fine with me. Antti got the newbie treatment, as can be seen in the final results: Antti 92, Olli 138, me 142. He invested in buildings (I didn't tutor him too much, thinking it'd be better if he learned from his mistakes instead of having me tell him what to do) and fell behind in the worker race and in the aristocrat collecting. Olli had less investment in aristocrats than me, but collected lots of points with the Czar and some buildings. I got 11 or so aristocrats, but Olli had eight and I wouldn't have won, except I had 70 rubles in the end. Which was nice.

I'm still a bit on the fence with the whole Aristocrat issue. In this game I obviously spent too much effort on them - it was fun, tossing money around, but collecting over 10 of them is just pointless. Should've put that money in buildings to get more points. While the Aristocrats are important, in the other hand focusing on them alone is not enough. It's a tough call, but I'm not doing any fixing yet.

Olli left after the St. Pete, but Antti stayed - eager to play Memoir '44, as I found out. I didn't even have time to list my alternatives, he just grabbed the first one. He has the game, but little opportunities to play it (ie. like me). We played two scenarios, Operation Cobra and Montélimar. I played Axis in both matches. Both scenarios were interesting. Despite the historical Allied win, Cobra was a 5-1 victory for me. There we had a nice combination of good luck for me and bad luck for Antti. In Montélimar the luck balanced and while I got a good start, Antti caught up and won the game. Good match, never mind the results.

After that it was time to call quits. Next game event in next weekend's board game club. I'll probably play some Age of Steam, which is nice... and all the other games I have on my list, but we'll see about that.

I wrote a review of Age of Steam (in Finnish).

Age of Steam is probably my favourite heavier game right now. As the name betrays, it's about the golden age of steam engines, the most romantic and glorified period of rail transport. A slightly boring theme, perhaps, as laying railway tracks across the map of the USA has little excitement anymore after so many games on the topic, but hey, it works.

Martin Wallace is an expert on rail games. One game stands out from his ludography: Volldampf is a predecessor for Age of Steam. I haven't tried it, but I'm told it's basically a lighter and simplified version of the same game.

If I had to sum Age of Steam up with just one word, it'd be challenging. Learning the rules is a challenge: Age of Steam isn't a game that can be learned just before you start playing for the first game. Someone needs to study the rules well and then teach other. It's much easier to teach than to learn from the rules.

It is also challenging game to play well. The money management is tight, so tight that it'll often take several turns before players make profit. Even then they're not making profit for themselves, but the share owners: players start the game with no money. All money comes from investors, who want return for their investment.

While Warfrog isn't the biggest and most well-funded games publisher, they've done a good job on the game. The most important parts, that is tracks and the board both look good and work well. The art is fairly minimalistic, but I like it and it's very functional. Player aid charts and the rule book are more shabbily done. Ok, but nothing exceptional. The rule book has some errors, which complicate learning the game a bit.

Turns start with a turn order auction, which has double significance. Turn order can be important, but the auction is also about getting roles or actions, which grant special benefits that can be quite critical even.

Players then build track using the track tiles. It's swift and fun. Map has cities and towns - players try to connect cities. Towns have two purposes: connecting through them increases the number of links in players' connections (which is important) and they can be urbanized into new cities, creating a map, that's little different every time the game is played.

Routes are created by shipping coloured cubes across the board. Cubes and cities are colour-coded and cubes need to reach a city of the same colour. That's hard, as the distances can be either too long or too short. Long connections (number of links is critical, not the length of the track) are profitable, but players must first develop the necessary train engine technology.

There are also quite limited amount of cubes to be shipped. Once a cube ships, it's not automatically replaced with a new cube. Therefore it can be quite crucial to either be first in the turn order or pick the first move -action, because otherwise someone else might steal the cube.

Doing shipments doesn't bring in money - instead players get income levels, which are better, as players cash in their income every turn. Using a connection from A to B adds one income to the player who owns the connection. There's no obligation to use one's own tracks, but of course that's always the best option. However, sometimes it can be useful to move a cube through one of your opponents' connections so you can reap the benefits of a long connection.

Of course, to balance the income, there are costs. Players must hand out the money to the shareholders, who want their share, whether the company makes profit or not. And don't imagine you could buy your shares back - who wants to sell a profitable share? Engine level costs, too. If you have enough money, the tax collector gets interested, too, and might start cutting into your income.

Goods production is the only lucky break in the game. There's a table for cubes that appear on the cities. Which cities get new stuff is up to the dice. There's predictability and a dash of unpredictability, a good mix. Players can choose a production action to add more cubes on the table to cities of their choice.

Game lasts a fixed number of rounds. In the final tally, players reduct the number of issued shares from their income, triple that and add the number of their tracks. Highest total wins.

Age of Steam is a challenging game, but avoiding bankruptcy isn't that hard. The costs and incomes are fairly obvious, so it's all about doing a simple calculation on each turn to see if there's a need to issue more shares or not.

There's a definite learning curve, but newbies usually start figuring out the game during their first play. Next time they'll know better. However, newbies rarely win Age of Steam, because there are only limited ways to stop a leader and thus the best player usually wins (and not the best player who was hosed the least).

The game has one problem, though - that of limited availability. The first run was 3000 copies. There's a new edition of the same size, but when that runs out, it remains to be seen if there's a third edition coming. I'd say buy, if you come across and are at all interested. This is a game that's easy to sell, if need be.

Age of Steam gets a high recommendation from me. It's something all gamers with an interest for challenging games should try. There are lots of interesting challenges involved: analyzing the map, balancing the accounts, bidding... There's a lot to learn, yet it's still fun and not too work-like.

I wrote a review of Cults Across America (in Finnish).

Cults Across America is a light wargame with a Cthulhu theme. Players lead cults, trying to conquer USA. The theme is fun, which is typical for a design this American.

First thing you'll notice: the game's ugly. The thin cardboard board looks very amateurish and the pieces are cardboard counters. Oldfashioned, but in a light and funny game like this, plastic figures would be great. Of course, Atlas Games isn't Hasbro, so I guess it can be forgiven.

The mechanics of the game are simple. Players move their armies and roll dice for battles. Cards cause random events and add chaos and fun to the game. That's all a bit boring, but basically ok, until you figure out what's really wrong with the game.

The realisation comes when you've played for few hours and realise the game isn't any closer to end and it'll take few more hours to finish. Well, there's a bit of a exaggeration in that, but still - Cults Across America takes ages, especially considering how light and chaotic it is. It's just not ok for a game like this to last so long.

If I'm going to play a long game, it'll better be a great dramatic ride, full of tough decisions and bitter struggles. If a long game is chaotic fluff where luck of event card draw can swing fortunes around, it's just pointless. Pointless!

And thus I've come to a conclusion: Cults Across America is all right, if you like Cthulhu mythos (and who doesn't!), don't mind very long games and consider playing a chaotic fluff game a pastime worth few hours of your already too short life. All the others, pass this one.

Every now and then you hit a good GeekList... Variants for the Criminally Twisted (or editions that didn't make it to production) is one of those, especially this item:

Slightly Odd Behaviour at House on the Hill: Players scramble about in a mysterious old house while slightly odd things occur, like they discover that two people have the same birthday or a cat sneezes uncontrollably! Once enough slightly odd things have happened, one of the players TURNS and becomes slightly rude / and or mean, and insults one of his or her former team mates, or possibly, even threatens them with a hat pin!

... with Joe Gola's (man, there's a genius) comments:

Maybe what's slightly odd are just the rules inconsistencies.

"Hmm. In order to win this haunt peculiarity I have to simultaneously roll a 2 and 5 on one die. Well, here goes. [breaks wrist.] Ow! Son of a...hey, wait, I did it! Cool! Check out the new dimension."

"No fair using hypercube dice, dude. That's totally against the rules."

"Are you sure?"

"Umm...no."

Amazing issue of The Games Journal this month! Tom Vasel's interview of Greg Aleknevicus has brought in an avalanche of material and I do hope that trend continues.

I wonder what the bloggers will think of Lewis Pulsipher's article The Classical and Romantic Game Playing Styles. I thought it was a nice way to put a rather obvious dichotomy. Articles by Bruno Faidutti (on game design) and Chad Ellis (on game publishing) are excellent, but I think the best one was Boards by Dave Shapiro, where he gives a rather thorough analysis of different types of game boards and the games they beget. Interesting!

Greg's article My Favourite Game Boards probably makes everyone list their favourite game boards, but why not. I'm not that huge fan of Doris Matthäus, really, my best of best artist is Franz Vohwinkel - especially Tikal and Mexica, but also his work for Phalanx games. I also quite like Dawn Under, which is not by Vohwinkel and has a different, cartoonish style.

The reviews were good, too. On Tantrix, I've tried it and it certainly is an entertaining and physically pleasant game.

I wrote a review of Feudo (in Finnish) after just a single game. That always means the game sucks so bad, I don't want to play it again. However, as my opinion seems to be in a minority, I thought writing a review might be a good idea. Or then I'm just fishing for GeekGold in pursuit of a ÜberGeekBadge...

Feudo is a game of battling medieval barons, who fight for the control of a territory. That sounds a lot like Domaine, but the games are quite different. While Domaine is an euro game with higher than typical level of conflict, Feudo is a mix between an euro game and a wargame.

Players control ten units (ranging from lowly but necessary infantry to strong but limited knights) on a map. At first it looks like the aim of the game is to control towns to score victory points (there's a clever system, by the way - the value of a town in victory points is equal to its distance from the invader's castle), but in the end it's the points collected from beating opposing forces that counts.

To move their units, players choose three units every turn with cards representing the units. The selections are done simultaneously before movement. Units are moved one at a time, in order selected by the player in the last position. Moving last is usually better, but battle makes it mandatory to go first.

Getting units to the battlefield is slow. Units move two to five areas each turn, which is not much, especially when you only can move three units. Each player has a town near them and longer travel to the rest of the towns, which makes them almost out of reach. You see, to invade a town, player needs infantry. Knights (who are much faster) are not enough. Moving an infantry unit across the board takes a long time of slow movement and at the same time prevents other units from moving as you have to spend one of your three movement options to keep the infantry moving.

Battle in Feudo is cruel. Imagine the disappointment, when you spend half of the game moving your infantry only to see them die moments before they could've conquered the town they were planning to take. But that's life in Feudo - stronger units kill weaker units without trouble. Attackers can use common strength of several units, while defenders can only seek the protection of forests, villages and towns. Once a unit is gone, it stays gone.

The game lasts for ten turns, during which players forces wither away slowly. There's less and less to the game each turn. That's what bothers me: I want a game to stay exciting, not to wither away by attrition. It's a bit like Chess and Go, you know - I think Chess gets boring as the game progresses, while Go just gets better. Our game took us 95 minutes, which I think is too much. Reduced to one hour most, Feudo would be better. I shudder at the thought of 15- or 20-turn games suggested in the rulebook.

I can now return to Domaine. If I want a game of battling medieval lords, which one I'll take? The one that lasts 90+ minutes or the one that takes 60 minutes? The one that gets boring when players keep losing their units or the one that keeps on getting more exciting? For me, everything Feudo has to offer is already provided by Domaine, in a much superior way.