August 2009 Archives

Finnish Game of the Year ("Vuoden peli") awards have been given. The finalists were chosen August 5th and the winners the next day, but for some reason both weren't published until today. Bizarre.

The adult game category was won by the official prize winner of the season, Dominion. The finalists were Pandemic and Stone Age. All three are published in Finland by Lautapelit.fi.

The family game category went to Zack & Pack. It's my translation, so I score something this year too. Finalists were Epäillyt (by Competo, as is the winner) and Livingstone by Lautapelit.fi.

The best children's game was Quoridor Kid, another Lautapelit.fi game. Finalists were Moomin Alias by Tactic and World of Cars: Race O'Rama, about which I know absolutely nothing.

In Finnish, you can read Vuoden peli 2009 -voittajat.

I was able to organize a longer game today. We ended up playing Roads and Boats, which was certainly welcome. I bought the game back in 2006 and played the only game so far back in 2005, so I'd say it was about time. Olli and Robert joined me, Robert had played back in 2005 and Olli was a newbie.

A quick rules explanation during the setup and off we went! This is a pleasingly simple game to explain, considering how difficult the game actually is. This time we didn't make the same mistake mixing mountains and rocks, so we got mines and gold a lot better. Still, that's all we did. I was just about to build my first coal burner when the game was over. Robert won with almost 100 points, he had four gold and rest of the points from the wonder. I pretty much chose to lose, as I decided to skip the wonder rush and try to actually build something.

There was also a lot more fighting this time. Olli and Robert started building walls pretty soon. I was laughing, but then Olli rushed to my areas with a wagon and a donkey, straight to my brick yard. Ouch. I was able to seize initiative, though, and build, what, six or seven walls on my areas. If I hadn't, Olli would've built those walls and that would've been the end of my game, period.

I need a lot more practise. I'm pretty good at Antiquity after just six games, but Roads and Boats is still a mystery to me. With just few of these four hour slots each year (our game took 3.5 hours with rules explanation, setup and packing), getting Roads and Boats routine is going to be hard.