September 2005 Archives

GeekList: Intelligence Report on Subject #M33P135: The Meeples is simply amazing. A must-read, one of the very best geeklists ever.

I just realised it! It's just two weeks to Essen! Exactly two weeks from today, I'll be boarding the plane to Düsseldorf! I haven't been that active in the Geek forum, but I guess I'll be checking out Essen forums to get the last-minute tips and tricks.

Oh, and Mik Svellov said Gruga, my hotel, tends to attract people like Kramer and Knizia. It would be neat to bump into Knizia at the hotel breakfast... Well, at least I can stalk Rick Thornquist. Oh, I'm such a geek...

Stay tuned for a picture of me in my travel gear, just to make it easier for everybody to recognise me.

Now, here's the entry I've been meaning to write for a while now... Which games I'm looking forward to getting from Essen? First let me note that thanks to a deal I've got with Lautapelit.fi, Finland's foremost board game retailer, I have little need to buy stuff I can get later cheaper. That includes Railroad Tycoon, Memoir '44 expansions, Parthenon, Reef Encounter and pretty much anything Rio Grande puts out.

That makes the list a lot shorter, which is nice. After all, I'm only armed with limited funds and a single suitcase. I'm not going to send packages in mail or anything like that. My focus will be on interesting limited releases, stuff I would need to order from Germany.

Indonesia is one of the toughest decisions on the list. It's a Splotter big box game, thus it's probably really good. Besides, it promises more interaction between players than Splotter games have offered before. Then again, how many long games I need? It's also big and expensive. But it's a Splotter game... If I want it, this is the time to get it. Right now I'd say I'll buy this, but I might change my mind. I sure would like to see the latest issue of Counter, which should have an in-depth piece on this one.

Antike from Eggert-Spiele is hot and likely to sell out soon. Just 1000 copies. I have already reserved a copy (mostly because you get four euro discount if you pay in advance). Sounds good: 90-120 minute civilization game, that's always hot. Eggert-Spiele has good credit for me from Neuland.

I already have a home-made KillDog, but I still want Ca$h'n Gun$. It's a fun game that's very useful to have around for parties and non-gamers. There's also limited (500 copies) Collector's edition available in Essen. The Collector's Edition has a bonus shotgun included! A must-have, I'll be sure to pick up my copy on Thursday! I just hope the guns don't show up in airport X-ray...

Havoc sounds interesting and it's unlikely I'll see it in Finland. So, it's something I'll check out and buy if it's any good.

Rick Thornquist has praised Caylus so much that I'll check it out for sure. I've actually met William Attia, the designer, once, he was in Helsinki for FinDipCon IV or so. Seemed like a genuinely nice guy. On my "might buy" list.

JKLM Games' products tend to be, from my experience, nice, but not quite polished enough. This year they have plenty of games available, and I'm definitely intrigued by Third World Debt. The theme sounds quite different. However, here I'm not ready to put in a preorder, even if they promise a 10% discount. I want to see the game first.

Kaivai from Pfifficus Spiele is not in the geek, yet, but sounds interesting. Economics, development... Sounds good. I also like the price tag: 34 euros usually, 25 euros in Essen. I'm definitely checking it out.

Wordwild from Bewitched (aka Andrea Meyer) is a speed word game, which sounds really interesting. However, I'm not so sure, as word games tend to suck unless they're in Finnish. However, if Wordwild is fun, making up Finnish cards is not a huge problem and I'm quite happy to pay for the rules if it's neat. So I guess I'll have to check it out, then? It's not too expensive, either.

Phantom Rummy is promoted as a mixture of Mahjong and Rummy, which sounds interesting (not least because Mahjong is a Rummy game...). It's Japanese, and probably pretty unlikely to appear in Finland. Sounds like simplified Mahjong, says Gamewire, so... Well, I must check it out. The web site (linked from the title, as I'm just entering the game in Geek) has rules, which sound a lot like Mahjong. The web site also refers to the game as Pantom Lummy. Anyway, the rules seem promising.

Quite a list! We'll see how it turns out...

I met some guys last Saturday for a small session of games. I'll be missing the next two board game club sessions for various reasons (mostly Essen), so it was good to get some games going.

We started with Turbo Taxi, as we were one player short. Well, the missing player joined us after the first round, but he jumped right in and we finished the game. Now Turbo Taxi is one of those speed games, where players are faced with a mental task that needs to completed ASAP. Here the deal is to create a 3x3 road network, given four locations to connect and a specific piece to put in the center.

As the case usually is, a quick player will dominate the game. I thought I was good, and it turned out I am, but Olli M. was even better. In the end he got seven rounds, I won twice and Ville and Petri didn't get any. It turned out Ville had been one piece short the whole game, so that may have hindered his performance, but it was pretty obvious who's the best. I was constantly about 30 seconds behind Olli.

Turbo Taxi is fun, but to be really great, it needs players of equal skill level. Therefore I expect I won't be playing it a lot, but we'll see how it goes down in the board game club. At least it's fast.

Then it was time for Louis XIV, this year's DSP winner. Last time we played we had to rush through the game and the rules in 60-70 minutes. This time we spent 90 minutes actually playing the game. More waiting, but probably much more enjoyable experience.

I had played before, as had Olli. Ville and Petri were clearly on a lower level of understanding... There's a learning curve. Petri commented that he figured out the game, pretty much, in the end of the third round or so. That's nice. He did pretty well, kind of, as he scored seven missions. I had just five and Olli might have had only four, maybe five. Despite the difference, the game was actually very close: 45-44-42-41.

What's more important, it was Olli who won the game. He had least missions, but he had the most coat-of-arms. He got the mission that provided him one every round and went for them, collecting as much of them as he could. As a result, he got four or so bonus coat-of-arms in the end. Not bad. I lost, but it was so close... And that bugs me a bit, just a bit. With slightly different mix of coat-of-arms, I could've been third or so. But, no, it's not a big deal - it just turns out that way and that's it. I'm not going for some variant rule, at least at this point and I think I'll probably sell the game rather than play it enough to need variants.

I don't know - it's a pretty good game, and the DSP win isn't wrong or anything (I mean, the competition hasn't been that tough this year), but... Well, I do like the tactics of the game, how you can plan your turn in advance and then do just small changes in your plans while the turns progress (which means I could play the game pretty fast, if others were up to it - that way I could actually enjoy the game more, if it really was a 60-minute game or even faster).

However, it's a fairly complicated game, in a messy way. Hard to learn and the bias against difficult games comes up again. I mean, Louis XIV would probably be a good game, if it was played enough. I'm not sure if I see that happening... The way the game should survive the phase where you have to play it with newbies and suffer that learning curve and explaining the slightly messy rules, so you can get to the point where everybody knows the rules and the game and plays fast and the game is real good fun, it's just too hard when there are games that are more fun right away (and they too can be deep games).

It's a bit of a shame, but I'm not going to get sobby over it. I'll have my fun with Louis XIV and sell it then, eventually. I'm probably not selling it at Helcon (if there's a Helcon) this year, but maybe at some point next year. There are too many games to worry too much about a single game.

Then, Modern Art. I used this one in the advertising and at least Petri was eager to try it for the first time. We set off selling art, and this time I knew exactly what I would do. I've really figured out the game, and I really enjoy playing it. I guess here lies a lesson I could learn and which could apply to Louis XIV as well, but hey... that's different.

Anyway, I did well, too. 547 is a decent score, but unfortunately Ville had 556. Olli scored 439, while Petri got 343. Modern Art is well-known for the fact that a newbie can mess the game by bidding too much - well, here something to that extent happened. I'm not saying the game was spoiled or anything, but I think few paintings went for a price that was a bit too much. I got the profits on one or two such cases, so I guess I shouldn't complain. After all, Modern Art is a tricky game, learning to price the paintings right takes some time.

I've upped my rating to eight, and it just might hit nine with further play. I can't help it: it's such a good game. The auctions are just so sweet... All the different problems you have. How to price the fixed price auctions correctly? How much to offer? How low margin is reasonable? Do I really want to give this much money to the auctioneer for this low a profit? It's an interesting game, definitely.

To finish our afternoon, we played two rounds of Geschenkt. It's still fun, though I wonder if Essen will bring another small and fun card game. However, I'd still predict more life for Geschenkt.

Shannon Appelcline writes about The Problem with Colors in Gone Gaming. It's a wonderfully geeky article, quite analytical concerning an issue that's at the same time really important and really small. I mean, in the grand scale of things, what does a colour of a board game piece matter?

The answer is "a lot", of course, if you ask from a boardgamer. Me, I'm a red guy. It's got to be red. I've noticed the competition for red Shannon mentions - it comes up every time Tommy and I meet at the table. I tend to give the reds to him without a fight if we're at his house, otherwise it's the law of the jungle.

There are few exceptions to the red rule. Die Macher: blue, I'm always blue. PSD is such a charming party (it's the former official party of the DDR). Industrial Waste: Mute Records, which I think is yellow. And of course Ticket to Ride and all the other games that have a yucky tone of red.

After a big silence on the game review front, I wrote two reviews yesterday. The second one was Dvonn.

Dvonn is neat, like most of the GIPF series. Well, at least Zèrtz and Yinsh. The games are close to perfection, when it comes to modern abstract board games: the rules are simple, yet the games are deep. They look elegant and play pretty fast.

In Dvonn, players jump with their pieces, forming larger and larger stacks. Stacks of pieces are controlled by the player, whose piece is on top. A stack jumps as many steps as there are pieces in it, so sooner or later it will have no room to jump. A stack can only jump on top of another piece or stack. A second limitation is the location of red Dvonn pieces, which control the life: once a stack is disconnected from a red piece, it is gone.

Moving is obligatory. Game ends, when there are no more moves left. In the end, players compare their stacks and the player with most pieces wins the game. It's all over in 20-30 minutes.

Dvonn's finer features include the shrinking board, which immobilizes the stacks as they grow taller. A sure way to lose the game is to bind all your pieces to large stacks, while your opponent has lots of loose pieces, able to move and conquer your stacks. Since the game end when both players can't move, you can end up in a situation where you're unable to move, but your opponent can do whatever she wants.

The game begins with a layout phase, where players first put down the red pieces and then, one by one, their own pieces. When you first play the game, it's probably something you do quickly, just to get it over with. However, I do believe that when you gain experience, the layout phase gains significance. Since you can only move the pieces on the edges of the board, the layout phase controls how you gain control of your own pieces, thus it is very important.

Dvonn is a fine game. It's only flaw is the lack of simple handicap system. However, I think it's more forgiving than Zèrtz. Zértz has certain tricks and tactics that you need to know to be competitive. Dvonn is probably more fun when playing against more experienced player than Zèrtz, where a skill gap can ruin the game a bit.

I've written a review of Gone Fishing!, in Finnish as usual. I like the game, though it's clearly best suited for kids and families. For gamer, its appeal is definitely smaller. There's too much guessing and probably not enough bluffing and strategies for a serious gamer.

However, I like the game: it's pretty, it's exciting, it's fun. I'm definitely keeping my copy, because I think this could be a fun game to play with kids, if I ever have any.

I wrote a review to Geek six months ago, and that's still valid, with the disclaimer I posted there today.

Isn't it funny, when Brian Bankler describes what he sees as the fundamental flaw in Taj Mahal in his article Worst Poker variant ever, he actually describes the very thing I find so attractive in the game?

It's exactly the mechanic where you lose the cards, whether you win the pot or not that makes the betting so exciting. It's like the dollar auction - you simply have to top the bid, while you know you shouldn't. Everybody else gets to have a good time, of course.

Well, to be honest, I do see his point and understand why he doesn't like the game. I do, however, and for the same reason he hates it.

I noticed from Tao of Games that The Sumo Counter Hall of Fame voting is on. You'll have until 31st of October to vote, which games should make it to the prestigious Hall of Fame. I think the current list is a pretty impressive selection of quality board games, and even if Brian disagrees with the nominees now, I think there are few games in there worthy of the honour.

Alfred's Best of Blogosphere continues, and I made the list! I'm flattered! I've come across most of the entries he picked, and I think he's made some good choices this week, as well (even excluding me).

Iain wrote about role-playing games for boardgamers, looking for a role-playing game that would satisfy the needs of a modern Euro boardgamer. He got some suggestions, but I have some as well. This was originally an e-mail to Iain, but as it grew, it became a blog entry. Whee.

Anyway, over two years ago I declared that my roleplaying games were over. That doesn't stop me from getting interested in hot new games!

I've been particularly tempted by two new indie role-playing games. First one is Paul Czege's My Life with Master. In this game, the players are minions of a beastly master - think Dracula and his minions, Dr. Frankenstein and Igor, Saruman and Grima.. or even Santa Claus looking for world domination using his elves.

Players are forced to do all sorts of evil acts, just because the master commands them. In the end, the master will fall - the villagers will come with their torches and pitchforks - and what happens to the player characters depends on their stats (which are Self-Loathing, Weariness and Love). They might survive, they might be killed, they might commit suicide after their master is gone.

The game has very rigid rules, which remind me of nothing else I've seen. Players tell the story, mostly: GM gives them a task, players roleplay what happens. A die-roll is made to see if the player manages to resist the command (if he or she wants to!) - it's all quite narrative-centric. The rigid structure actually gives me hope: this is something that actually could be played.

Greg Costikyan writes about the game in his blog (My Life with Master), that's a pretty good introduction to the game.

He has an interesting point, too: consider photography and painting. When photography came up, painters had to turn to abstract art, because photography is simply so much better for exact, lifelike images of real-world things. It's probably a big simplification, but here's the main point:

In this case, I wonder whether the advent of MMGs, which do a pretty good (far from ideal, but not bad) job of satisfying the same jones as classic RPGs--with really pretty graphics, albeit much inferior storytelling--is forcing tabletop RPG designers away from the classic RPG style and toward styles that reward real storytelling, which nothing digital (despite Chris Crawford's best efforts) can provide as tenth as well as a skilled GM.

The other game - Dust Devils - is set in dark-ish Western setting. Player characters, a mixed bunch of archetypes, are driven by their Devils. The game's main point is basically this, as the website says: "There comes a time when you got to shoot or give up the gun." The characters are continuously driven towards that point, towards break-down.

The mechanics here are interesting. Conflict is resolved by playing Poker hands. Best hand wins, but highest card narrates the turn of the events. I like this, as it reduces the load on the GM - there's no need to come up with a complicated adventure, just make up a setting and the players will tell the story.

That hits the nail on the head, at least when it comes to me. I don't like roleplaying because it's hugely time-ineffective. I don't want to plan in advance, I want quick fun - that's, of course, where board games are vastly superior.

However, I do like the storytelling involved in roleplaying games, so perhaps these kind of games would be key to having fun with roleplaying games. Dust Devils is good for one-shots, MLwM generally takes one to three sessions to finish. That's good, too, as I simply have no time for campaigns.

Why these two? After all, there's a ton of interesting indie stuff out there. These have won prestigious awards (MLwM bagged the mysterious Diana Jones award), but for me the key is that both have been published in Finnish. Imagine that! MLwM has sold, what, 600 or so copies in English and still someone has the guts to do a Finnish translation. Talk about niche products!

Both are available as pretty cheap PDF editions, too, which is nice. For reviews, check RPGnet (review of My Life with Master, review of Dust Devils).

Sorry 'bout the rambling, but I'm quite excited about these games and probably going to get them both at some point. Just supporting Arkkikivi, the Finnish publisher, is worth the money, even if I never play the games.

Board games were mentioned in the TV news today - ok, it was the smallest of the four Finnish main channels, but anyway. They said playing board games was more popular than ever, which is always nice.

Their main point, however, was the new game from Kari Mannerla. Kari Mannerla, as we all know, is the mastermind who came up with Afrikan tähti, the best-selling Finnish boardgame ever (1.6 million copies sold, and it still sells 30,000 copies each year even though practically every Finnish household has it) 55 years ago.

His new game is called Inkan aarre, Treasure of the Incas. It makes one wonder: what has Mannerla created, as he has had 55 years to come up with another brilliant idea. It must be something deep and profound, something spectacular...

Bah. Inkan aarre is a simple re-theming of Afrikan tähti. Instead of Africa, players travel around South America. That's it. It must've taken at least 55 minutes to come up with that idea... The rules are, I understand from the TV spot, exactly the same. Map is different and the components look better.

The newscaster presented this like Inkan aarre was the greatest thing, no, the only thing to happen in the Finnish board game scene since Afrikan tähti. Sure, it's nice that the old man Mannerla gets another game to his ludography (which, now, has two games - pretty good score for 55 years, by all international standards, wouldn't you say!), but to be honest, this is so lame words can't describe it properly.

I got new games today! Turbo Taxi was a must for me, I knew it from the description. After all, I love Ricochet Robot and this one's right at the same league.

Players must assemble a city road network using nine of their twelve pieces (everybody has the same set). There are few limits: the network must connect two taxis to two houses, the road must form a tidy network and the center piece of the 3x3 grid is predetermined. The task is fairly simple, at least judged by two different setups I tried myself, but should be fun to work at under pressure.

Of course, this is a game you either really get or don't get at all. You can see that on Geek ratings, the standard deviation is fairly high 1.48. I'm somewhat afraid I can't play this much (which is what has happened to RIcochet Robot and Sunda to Sahul), but I don't really mind.

The artwork, by the way, features a handsome green-haired guy on the front. Nice detail!

I also got Dvonn. I've never played it live, just at the Little Golem. I'm not at all good at it, but after playing it 50 or so times, I thought I should get it for me. It's one of those games I expect to enjoy after decades, it has that depth and fun in it. What comes to the project, I've also my eyes on Yinsh, which I enjoyed the one time I tried it.

Pünct looks pretty interesting, too, but it's a connection game... I don't really like connection games, after experiencing Twixt and Hex - I can't stand them, they are so.. brutal. No room for mistakes, I can't understand how to play them. They are not fun to play.

Well, I'll be able to try Pünct at Essen, it's certainly on my list of games to try. If it's good, it'll be a part of my Gipf collection and if it isn't, I don't mind; I'm not pursuing a complete Gipf collection anyway.

I've been wanting to write this for a long time now, but with three or so jobs and other commitments, I just haven't had the energy or time. I'll have a lot to say.. But here's for now: Railroad Tycoon is officially really cool.

I'm a fan. Both of Railroad Tycoon, the computer game (I remember a day when my cousin was visiting us and we ended up playing Railroad Tycoon for something like six to eight hours on our Amiga 500) and Age of Steam, which is the game behind Railroad Tycoon.

(No matter how Railroad Tycoon was, I was even more charmed by Transport Tycoon, which had more stuff in it. Now there was a neat game, the only flaw was that it didn't allow speeding up, which meant long, boring sessions waiting for enough money to pile up for you to actually do something.)

I've had my doubts, certainly. For starters, Eagle Games doesn't strike me as a producer of quality boardgames. Sure, they look good and who knows, maybe the games are actually good - but not for me. Most of stuff they've done simply doesn't interest me a bit. Second unknown factor was the dumbing down of the game - would it be too simple?

Now I've seen the pics and read the rules, I can breathe a sigh of relief. It's going to be good, real good. First of all, at least in the pictures, it looks bloody good. While I really like the spartan Age of Steam look, I really do, I don't mind a bit of glitter and plastic.

Then, the new features. The turn auction remains, but much weakened - now the only thing that matters is who goes first, which of course makes the auction less interesting. Of course, going first has some major advantages, but if the player on your right is bidding hard to be first, why bother, since you'll be number two anyway?

Gone are the player roles, too. They are replaced with actions - each player has three actions each turn and those can be chosen from a certain set. The set features some of the actions that used to be roles - urbanization and engine upgrade, for example. Everybody can choose their actions despite what others choose. No more skipping vital engine upgrades because somebody bid more than you!

That's, of course, a ton of tension gone. Fortunately it's not completely wasted. There's going to be lots of grinding of teeth and pulling of hair, as the three actions are going to be a short supply. You see, moving goods is not a separate phase anymore - it's one of the actions. There's also an action for drawing cards, and I bet some of those cards are going to be pretty sweet. So, what are you going to do? Upgrade engines, build, urbanize, move goods, pick up a good card, do some of those things twice? Pick three!

So while something's been lost, a lot has been gained. The new action mechanism sounds simple and engaging. I'm slightly afraid of analysis paralysis, but proper prodding will keep the game moving on, I'm sure.

Even though I'm still a big fan of Age of Steam (the Warfrog expansion #4 is on my Essen buy list), I'm really looking forward to Railroad Tycoon. I'm expecting it'll add some colour to the game, add some value and provide a different experience. I'm sure it can't challenge the pleasure of fighting a tough battle over the Irish railways, but maybe it'll be a gateway experience to draw more people to the world of boardgame railroading?

Finnish Game of the Year winners have been declared. They reflect the Spiel des Jahres awards closely.

Best children's game is Geistertreppe, 2004 Kinder Spiel des Jahres winner. Kids loved the ghost mechanism and thought the game was funny and exciting. What's more to ask?

Best family game is Ticket to Ride, 2004 Spiel des Jahres winner. The jury thinks this one has more staying power than the other candidates. In general, jury found the level of games very high - there was a big list of games they would've wanted to have in the final, but couldn't. I agree, this year the candidates were probably better than ever.

Best adult game is Alhambra, 2003 Spiel des Jahres winner. Here the top-three stood out clearly and even then Alhambra won by a landslide.

Alfred's Best of the Blogosphere is a most welcome development. Alfred from Musings, Ramblings and Things Left Unsaid picks highlights from the board game blogs every week, pointing readers to the most interesting entries.

I like it, but I think it could be even better. Make a new blog out of it and perhaps get an editor or two more to join the process... But we'll see how it'll evolve, right now it's good someone actually did something on this front. Three cheers for Alfred!

Johanna handed me my butt, properly kicked, after a quick match of Mhing. She won four rounds, I got two, with score total of 160-64. She's phenomenal!

Finnish Players' Picks -votes have been trickling in. 51 gamers have already voted. The results look both interesting and unsurprising. I guess it's not a big surprise which games have already taken the lead, but there are very interesting things going on under the top three.

When I walked to work today, I thought about StreetSoccer. I don't count the play-by-web games in my statistics, but if I did, StreetSoccer would be second on my most-played games list; I've so far played 270 games at Little Golem.

Early on my career my rating dipped down to below 1400 (it's an ELO rating that starts at 1500), climbed up, dropped down again and has since climbed up. Right now I'm sitting at 1660 and had my all-time high this week. That means I've learned the game and win more than lose, right?

It also proves that StreetSoccer isn't a game of luck. After all, if it were a game of luck, I would've won and lost equal amount of games, especially after playing as many as 270 games. However, as that is not the case, it's a game of skill - at least to some extent. QED.

However! That's not at all what my game stats actually say. I've won 101 games and lost 113, with 46 draws (ie. games on extra time; some won, some lost, some actually drawn). First: I've lost more than won, and still my rating is rising. Second: My win/loss rating is interestingly close to 50/50.

Well - recently I've won more than lost, which explains my rating climb. Also, most of my losses are against superior players, which taxes my rating less. Every now and then I win one of those superior players, which gives a nice boost to my rating.

I suppose I'll stop, before I bore everybody to death. I just want to mention that while I wrote this, I lost a game, dropping me back to 1646 points. Bah. Also, last season I did very well in the championships (and forgot to blog about it!). After two seasons of close-but-not-quite placements just on the wrong side of the promotion border, I finally placed third in my division, which means a promotion to a higher league!

The September issue of The Games Journal is out. It's fairly thick, too! Greg Aleknevicus has written a good article on deduction games, while Bruno Faidutti comments well on the concept of game balance.

Come September and another round of Finnish Players' Picks voting! All Finnish gamers (and gamers living in Finland) are invited to vote for their favourite games. The rules are the same as usual: vote for five to seven of the best games you actually played last year.

More information at the voting pages. There's also entry on last year's awards, with links to the GeekLists of the winners.