What game is hitting your table?

[R Newell]

Since last time I posted...

The release of Star Wars Risk had the wife hankering to break out its closest influence, Star Wars: Queen's Gambit.  As always, she played the good guys and I played the bad guys.  I got a narrow victory based on a few swing moments: Darth Maul taking off half of Obi Wan's life points in a single attack, and Anakin twice failing to shut down the droid armies.

I was part of a 3v3 team game on Matt and Greg's epic and thoroughly impressive Heroscape map.  This expansive sucker is sprawled across five 6' X 3' tables, complete with rolling hills, an ice-capped mountain, a swampy jungle, a forest at the foot of castle ruins (1 of 3 castles, I might add), caverns, tunnels, boats to cross the ocean bay, fluctuating warp zones... it truly is a wonderous thing.  There is no better game (or toy) than Heroscape when it's done up like this.  We were only able to get through two rounds (so each player taking 18 actions by their scenario rules) but a lot of damage was done in that time.  Both sides were able to take advantage of "bonding" (which means to get free activations of other units when making your initial action with a particular unit).   Our army in particular was designed to take advantage of this ability and ended up taking out two heavy hitting dragons and a few other key units on our way to victory for this battle.  Some rules changes were suggested for future installments to mitigate that dominating strategy a bit since it made some units overly ineffectual.

I got to try Seasons again after a first go about three years ago.  I liked it more this time around.  I was able to get some good synergy going in my tableau of cards.  The card draft during setup is really the heart of the game; the actual game is basically just a comparison of how well each player selected their cards, with the randomness of the dice thrown in to prevent the game from becoming overly deterministic.

I also enjoyed 4 games of Codenames, a new party game that was accurately described by silent_rob as "the game show Password meets Battleship."  This will surely go down as my favourite new game of 2015, and I usually have no love for party games.  It provides both the clue givers and the clue guessers plenty of opportunities to be clever -- or too clever... I will never listen to Matt again when he tells me to follow my heart -- and it generated a lot of laughs and victory cheers.  It's crazy that this game was designed by the same fella who made Mage Knight, Through the Ages, and other deep strategy games.  Vlaada Chvátil is easily the most eclectic designer of quality games that I know of.

I attended PGX and played the following:

I did well in a game of Fun Farm which is basically a cute version of spoons.  Lots of fun.

I tried the game Sun, Sea & Sand, which I'd never heard of before.  It was a fine worker placement game and its theme of attracting tourists to your resort is implemented fairly well.  I'd like to try it with more than 2 players but I have a feeling I'll never see this game again.

The wife and I took part in an epic game of Merchant of Venus on Matt's pimped out version.  I puttered around for too long in the first half of the game and wasn't able to catch up.  Great game that does a perfect job of balancing contemplative strategy with enjoyably frustrating chaos.

Matt and I played a couple games of Star Wars Risk, taking turns as the Rebel Alliance attempting to destroy the Emperor's fully armed and operational Death Star.  The game does seem to have some quirks that may indicate insufficient playtesting.  It's becoming more apparent that the game is likely imbalanced in favour of the Rebels (which is the consensus opinion online).  There isn't enough incentive for the Rebels to use their actions on Luke Skywalker, and I don't know why the Imperials would do anything but space battles, especially in the first half of the game.  Choices can become so limited in a longer game that turns must sometimes be forfeit because there's no action that can be taken.  I still have fun with it and want to play it, but I admit that may be my nostalgic love for Return of the Jedi rather than the game design.

[Jolo]

I will put an abbreviated version up in early October. I have played 27 different games since then with one nickel, Roll for the Galaxy (6 plays) and one dime, Sentinels of the Multiverse (10 Plays). 7 of the games are on the ToonCon schedule, 4 were Wallace games and 2 were Knizia.

[ChrisRoberts]

In this past week I've found myself pulling out both Descent, 2nd ed and Mansions of Madness for the first time in a while, and wishing I had the time to playing them both more regularly.  Of equal enjoyment was the game of Firefly that I got in, though I wish it has been the first session of the League as had been intended.

[R Newell]

I've been itching to play Mansions of Madness recently.  I've actually got the rulebook on my nightstand table right now to refresh my memory.  I bought the Call of the Wild expansion almost 2 years ago and have only tried one of its scenarios. 

[ChrisRoberts]

I've been itching to play Mansions of Madness recently.  I've actually got the rulebook on my nightstand table right now to refresh my memory.  I bought the Call of the Wild expansion almost 2 years ago and have only tried one of its scenarios.

I've actually got to play it so little that I haven't felt justified in even buying any of the expansions yet.

[ChrisRoberts]

On Friday evening, I had my first (and only, so far) game of Portal: The Uncooperative Cake Acquisition Game by Valve and Cryptozoic.

I think I'm going to write a more detailed post for the Tramp's blog shortly, but I will say in short that I enjoyed it.  It has the same potential for goofy screw-you-over humour as Munchkin, but unfortunately it has a similar capacity to inspire bitterness in those who take it too seriously.

The humour of the video games is captures quickly in that in order to succeed, one must sacrifice their own test subjects- but don't worry, there's always more.  Cake, however, is a much more valuable commodity than human life.

I would certainly recommend the game to anyone who's a fan of Portal, or who enjoys oddball humour.

[NeikeDjour]

Is Portal already out? I really want to grab a copy of that one. Looks like fun. 

[ChrisRoberts]

Is Portal already out? I really want to grab a copy of that one. Looks like fun. 

Here's a link to the review I wrote: https://t.co/q53Z9q2OAX

[R Newell]

Since last time I posted...

I played on Matt's and Greg's mammoth Heroscape map three more times.  On two occasions, we continued the campaign 3v3 battle.  My team got smoked badly in both games.  In the one, I was using robot rats and some swamp dudes, neither of which I was able to use effectively at all (I didn't make a single attack!!) and in the other, I was using heavily equipped gorillas whose range was rendered essentially useless by my opponents' ghost knights who were only susceptible to melee attacks.  We made a few tweaks to try and utilize the entire map more fully, and I think we succeeded to an extent.

We also tried a 5-player free-for-all on the typically isolated half of the map, but instead played with Magic: the Gathering - Arena of the Planeswalkers.  About a week earlier, Matt and I tried Planeswalkers in a 2-player duel, just using the terrain that comes with the base set.  It was underwhelming (despite the fact that I shut him out completely =  ).  It's mostly just a slightly modified and rebranded Heroscape. The two big differences are: you activate a single squad each round for move and attack rather than splitting your move and attack activations between one or more squads, and the addition of spell cards.  Despite being underwhelmed initially, I saw potential in some of these changes, and playing with more people and on a big pile of elaborate terrain made that potential shine quite brightly.  The two highlights (or lowlights) for me were 1) having my Planeswalker completely defend an 11 dice (!!) attack from a swamp monster dude, only to die badly on the very next attack, and 2) having one of my dudes pushed off the battlements of a castle and then finished off with a ranged attack from above.  Fun stuff.

I also tried (I'm going to be using that phrase a lot) Jaipur.  I really appreciate quick card games, especially ones that give you some opportunity to push your luck.  It's very casual -- not a brain-burner by any means -- but some of the decisions you make do make you stop and ponder what your best play would be.

I also tried (see?) Machi Koro.  I thought it was fine.  It was interesting in that I don't think I've played such a light economic engine game before.  If I had to make comparisons -- and these might be dumb, superficial comparisons -- it reminded me of Settlers of Catan (resources dependent on dice rolls) and Blood Bowl: Team Manager (building a tableau of cards that become borderline unwieldy to keep track of).  I'm not sure if I'd like it more with more than 2 players because that would mean just that much more to try and keep track of.  The art's cool.

I also tried two games of Weykick, a dexterity game whose closest cousins are rod hockey and foosball.  Players move their two wooden figures with magentized bases by gripping magnetized handles below the field and thrashing around like fools.  Or maybe that's not how it's supposed to be played.  I lost both games.

I also tried another dexterity sports game called Affentennis whose closest cousins are... actually, I don't know if there are any other games quite like this one.  Players use a rubber-band propelled shooter to knock the mini plastic tennis ball to the opponent's side of the felt hex map tennis court.  It does a surprisingly great job of simulating the tactics involved in terms of placement during a tennis match.  I don't think I'd have it in me to play more than 1 set at a time, though.  A best of 5 or best of 3 sets must go on for hours.  Also, the tennis players are monkeys wearing shorts and sweat bands.  I feel this is very important.

I also tried Taj Mahal.  In typical Reiner Knizia fashion, the rules are parsimonious and fairly straightforward, but the relatively convoluted scoring give players plenty to consider when weighing their options.  Its closest cousins are probably Condottiere and Maharajah: The Game of Palace Building in India.  Its closest song lyric is "You got to know when to hold 'em; know when to fold 'em."

I also tried La Granja.  *Sigh*  I'm having a hard time resolving how I feel about this one.  On the one hand, I think it's an intricate and thoughtful design that seems incredibly well-balanced. But, I also think it's waaaay more complicated than it needs to be (which may have been especially apparent since I had just wrapped up a lean, mean game of Taj Mahal right before it).  And I cut my teeth on long, complicated games like Twilight Imperium 3.  Kudos to Rob for teaching this game so well.  I would have been referring to the rulebook constantly if I were trying to teach it.

There are a few reasons I think complication hurts La Granja's design.  1) None of the detailed rules are situational.  Therefore, you pretty much need to know every niggly rule right from the very beginning, because it will all apply in round 1, which makes teaching and learning the game much more difficult than most comparable games. 2) The theme and the mechanics aren't that tightly integrated, so my brain isn't making the connections of "ok, it makes sense that doing action X represents thematic element Y."  Instead my brain is trying to keep track of how these nameless, colourless gears within gears within gears will all interact.  3) My brain prefers text to iconography as player aides (I understand icons are a much more economical way to publish a game in multiple languages, but this was overload for me).  4) ... I had two pints of beer before the game started...

I'd like to try La Granja again, and preferably in the near future, and possibly without the beer, because I did start to quite enjoy myself as I became acclimated to it.  My concerns may simply be the concerns of a newb.

[Bix Conners]

Again Ryan, really enjoy your write ups on games. I like the insight and commentary.