It takes a village (Urban Sprawl)

Chad Jensen is a designer of many games that lots of people like. Mostly, the Combat Commander series and Dominant Species. Although Kozure and Bearbomb are fans of CC, I prefer Conflict of Heroes. We've played Dominant Species a few times, and although I recognize that it's a good game it seems too long by a turn or two, and in my opinion El Grande does a very similar thing in a much tighter package. Anyway, this is a long winded way of saying that although I looked forward to playing Urban Sprawl, i didn't expect to love it.

Kozure and I were once again accompanied by Bearbomb, but this time he brought along a friend. 4 is the maximum number of players for US, so I was a little worried that a long game would go even longer.

Let's start at the beginning. Urban Sprawl is a game about city building. The board is a grid representing a town, and it starts with some buildings built. Over the course of the game, players will take out permits to allow them to build buildings in different parts of the city. Various buildings are randomly made available for construction, depending on the stage of the game. A host of random events come up throughout, giving bonuses or allowing a player to change the landscape in some way. Finally, in the second stage of the game onwards, certain roles are handed out, such as mayor or union boss, based on specific criteria (such as the player controlling the most valuable factory building).

The placement scoring rules encourage players to play similar buildings adjacent to each other, but other rules will motivate players to play elsewhere. The end result is that the city organically grows with some semblance of zoning intact (industrial zones, residential zones, etc), but it's not at all rigid so the final city is realistically diverse and quirky in it's layout... Just like real cities are. That part was pretty cool and well realized. The various building powers are interesting and working out good combos of buildings to play and clever placements of said buildings is definitely fun.

But. But.

Wow, it's long. and the events are really frequent and random. And don't even think that your money or board position will look anything like it does now on your next turn, because it won't.

The main decision a player will have to make revolves around working out the best placement for the buildings he wants to build. It isn't a simple or easy decision, as it requires some calculation and analysis of a fairly busy board, but it's not bad and certainly reasonable and enjoyable. Unfortunately, for me, the sheer number of random events that happen at the end of each turn felt excessive. They often have a significant impact on the game, but more than anything they just added too much time.

From his earlier designs, I know that the designer likes a heavy dose of chaos in his games. Similarly, length almost seems likes a preference. In my opinion, what worked in combat commander didn't really work here as well. It was a fun game, but after nearly 4 hours we still had over an hour to go... That kind of play time isn't justified by the mechanics. I realize that removing the events entirely would kill some of the flavor that the designer intended but a reduction would certainly help.

Anyway, there was quite a bit of movement in points throughout the game, though generally Bearbomb and I exchanged first and second place throughout most of the game. I had concentrated on civic buildings, And gathered the media marker early after Bearbomb had said a number of events gave bonuses for it. He wasn't kidding! It seemed like I was getting an endless supply of 1 dollar + 1 vp awards from all the events.
Bearbomb and Dale seemed to be very good judges of how to place on the board to reap majority bonuses.

At the end of the game, the roles give bonuses to the players that happen to have them. Like Dominant Species, these felt too large to me. I had the mayor and the lawyer, which netted me and absurd amount of points, stealing the game from Bearbomb.

So, I liked it. Some parts were really fun, and quite innovative. However the length, and particularly the wild randomness in relation to the length, bring it down a notch for me.

Keeping Track

Last week we played Troyes, followed by Tribune. I asked if we could give End of the Triumvirate a miss because I was fighting a cold and wasn't up to the requirements of deep strategery.

We had close games in both cases, though in both games the people who were tied or close to tied were Agent Easy and Shemp. My head was not in it that night.

I believe that Easy squeaked the win in both cases (Troyes - tie?, Tribune, tied for victory conditions, but one point difference on score?) but I am uncertain.

My recollection is hazy but I plead illness-induced head-fog.

Another kick at the can (Dominion x2, Panic Station, King of Tokyo)

The Wags group welcomed this week a new player, ececec. Unfortunately I arrived late and missed the two opening games of Dominion (with various expansions thrown in). All I know is that ececec beat Kozure bay single point in the last game.

We set up Panic Station. Ececec wanted to give it a try and I think we all wanted to give it another shot as well. Since last week's game, I realized a few things... First, the game DOES have a backstory that makes sense of a few of the game's odd mechanics. Apparently, the aliens are immune to traditional bullets so the players are searching for bullets specially developed by the decimated inhabitants of the ship to combat the aliens. Secondly, the androids are linked to the human's psychi so that's why they both get infected simultaneously. Whatever.

This session was not like the earlier sessions. Shemp was the infected one, but he decided to lay low for a while. So much so that I literally had no idea who I couldn't trust and just one turn before I thought I could win the game for the humans no one else was infected (and as far as I could tell, no attempts had been made either). I started looking around the table in case the host card has been accidentally left out of the game.

I then committed a grave error. I ended my turn in the hive, with all the gas cans I needed, but without any actions left to actually burn the hive. In swoops Shemp. I deflect the infection with a gas can, but then have only two left. Over in the other corner of the map, ececec does a heat scan and it's revealed that I am still human. He then trades a gas can with my android. On his turn, Kozure does the same. My turn again, oops! Let's move the critters and sure enough 4 of them come into the hive (1 in 4 chance of that happening!) and my human is pulverized. We then spend a few rounds coordinating a run by Kozure and Ececec to get my gas cans and burn the hive while avoiding the swarms and Shemp. A well placed grenade thinned the swarm nicely, and Kozure succeeded in putting the hive to the torch.

Again, I had fun,despite the somewhat clunky rules and thematic oddness/ blandness. It does keep you guessing, and it's pretty challenging for both the humans and the infected. I think it would play better with more players, and I look forward to trying it again.

We then finished with a session of Kings of Tokyo. Ececec picked up on it quickly, and luckily didn't seem too bothered when he was eliminated mid game. Kozure's mekadragon, equipped with those damned Wings and Acid breath destroyed us all.

It's just about a perfect game for what it is.

Cans of Gas Stave off Alien Infection + I Have the Stupid (Panic Station x 2, High Society x 2)

Last week (November 17th) we played Panic Station, twice, plus one other game. Evidently that other game stands out so well in my mind that I've completely forgotten what it was . I'm sure Agent Easy will be along shortly to correct the record. [edit: Agent Easy recalled that it was High Society]

[edit - added "High Society"]

High Society

This is always a fun, quick game. The first game, Agent Easy and I came very close in terms of points but he had slightly more money remaining.

The second game was tight - Agent Easy and Pablo were tied for points and for most money remaining, so it came down to highest purchased item value.

Such a clever little game.

Panic Station

What to say about panic station? Traitor mechanic, exploration, high-tech weapons and equipment, explosives, sci-fi setting... what's not to like?

Execution, it seems.

I wanted to like this one, I really did, but the weird "why is this done this way?" moments started to pile up about half-way through the game and never really went away.

First up, why can't humans use guns? The "in-game" explanation is that they're carrying the flamethrower, so they don't have the "room". OK, fine. They have the flamethrower to purge the alien nest. Sure, I can buy that. But... why do they have to find or trade for the fuel to actually use it INSIDE the facility they're supposed to be purging?

OK, only androids can use guns. I can also accept that, if you assume that the androids have built-in weapons that cannot be detached. But the upgrades are detachable - indeed, they START detached... once again, INSIDE the facility they've been sent to clear out.

Also, equipment teleports back and forth between team members of the same colour, but not between team members of other colours. In addition, if the human gets infected, the same-colour android gets infected as well, and vice versa. Say what?

If a human/android goes down, all their equipment disappears. Huhn? It's possible to lose the game because you can't possibly get enough fuel cans because your team mates got eaten by a parasite and apparently their equipment evaporates when your vital signs disappear?

Too many shaky "plot-points" that might have been 'hand-waved' with better background story writing, or better yet, avoided altogether with better rules writing.

Also, once again, the future is white ... except for one human who may or may not be Asian (Raven). They couldn't fit in a single visible minority? [edit: judging by surname "Ramirez" would seem to be Hispanic, so not entirely WASP] To top it off, all the androids look identical and are the stereotypical bald female hottie with silvery no-iris eyes.

The art is lazy. Actually, I take that back, the equipment art and the station location art is fine. The humans, androids and parasites are lazy. Compare:

Picture of "Alien Parasite":



with picture of "Japanese beetle Larvae":



You're using barely modified images of insect larvae as your evil swarming Alien/Body-Snatcher-esque take-over creature? Did someone on the production team have a bad phobia-generating incident on their lawn?

Okay. Deep breath.

I'm giving this one at least more try before I pass final judgment because people seem so crazy about it on BGG and usually the chattering masses aren't completely wrong, at least at BGG.

So far, though, not very impressed.

Now, to be fair, I screwed up the first game because I (and no one else) forgot the vitally important (but thematically none-too-intuitive) rule that people can avoid being infected by trading a gas can (... wait, what?) so I thought everyone was infected when in fact only three people were infected. I tried to make the case for ending the game early when in fact there was at least one viable human left.

In the end, the infected still won, but the experience was somewhat tainted.

Not to be outdone by my stupid mistake in the first game, I then nearly made the exact same mistake in the second game, fortunately it was spotted and corrected before it did too much damage.

UNfortunately, a strange (though probably not entirely unusual) combination of card trading around mid-game utterly confused both Shemp and Agent Easy making it look like I thought I was uninfected when I was, or was infected when I wasn't (I was actually infected), so a long period passed where Shemp and Agent Easy thought I was playing very stupidly, when in actuality I was really doing the only logical thing, which was to stay away and keep my infected guys out of danger (and being forced to trade back the stolen gas cans) because I had no infection cards left.

Not so! (This time.)

What had happened is that I had tried repeatedly to infect Pablo, only to be given a gas can each time, with the net effect that I had taken all of his gas cans. By reasoning out loud, Agent East figured out what had happened, but this clued Shemp in at the same time. Fortunately for humanity, some canny play by Pablo and Shemp allowed the humans enough time to search for more gas cans and win the game by burning the nest. Cleanse it with FIRE!

Humans 1, Aliens 1.

Now if I could just remember what the other game we played was, I could close down this blog entry in peace. [yeah, it was High Society]

Maria x2

I'm a few weeks behind, but I wanted to post this before tomorrow's game night so I will keep it short.

Over the past two weeks we've played Maria, the successor to Friedrich. It apparently plays best with three, which is very useful in our group (Friedrich is best with four).

In a nutshell, although we've only played the simple version so far I really like it. Movement is a logistical challenge for the players that aren't playing Maria since units must maintain supply and supply is slower than the troops. Combat is very interesting because the board is separated in regions and each region has a traditional card suit assigned to it. During combat, only cards from the appropriate suit can be used. This has the interesting effect of encouraging players to pay attention to where battles have been fought, because if a suit is exhausted by an earlier battle it can be advantageous to try to take advantage.

Anyway, the full game apparently introduces politics and different armies that change the dynamics substantially. Looking forward to trying it, though it will be hard to find the 5 hours to commit to it.

In our first game, I played France and managed a win on the very last action of the last turn of the game. Similarly, in our second game I won on the last action of the last turn as the Prussians. In both games, I was extremely lucky with my card draws so I can't claim any particular prowess at the game! So far, each power seems to play quite differently (the supply situation for the prussians is much more difficult than it is for France, it seems to me) which is nice to see.

Anyway, highly recommended even at the basic game.

If Babe Ruth was chased by zombies (Last Night on Earth)

To celebrate Halloween we played Last Night on Earth, a game that I enjoy well enough but only really gets played this time of year.

Me and Kozure were the zombies, Pablo and Shemp were the humans.

The last few times we've played this it's been on irregular maps, so playing the "Save the Townsfolk" scenario felt a little like a throwback.
Since the hero's objective is to keep searching until they find 4 townsfolk, the actual gameplay boiled down to: run to the other side of the board, where the zombies aren't, and then search. Ok, the zombies are close again, run back to the other side. For whatever reason, I don't recall previous games to be this way.

Anyway, the back and forth running went inform a while, occasionally (ok, frequently) peppered by Johnny blasting a zombie with his endlessly loaded shotgun. As the zombies, we were having a hard time cornering the heroes, so we weren't managing to damage them much. In thelastthird of the game, the hero's had found the villagers and were trying to survive until morning. Three of the heroes had taken refuge in the gun store in the corner, trying to keep the horde of undead at bay. It was quite close in the end, but the heroes prevailed because only one of them fell victim to the zombies.

The highlight of the game, for me, was when Johnny the jock sprinted through a wall of zombies. He attacked one and rolled a 5. Pablo, who was playing John, needed anything except a 5 or a 6. Oddly, he yelled "roll a 2!". The zombies did roll a 2 and Pablo nearly jumped out of his hair in excitement.

Clearly, comparisons between Johnny and Babe Ruth's famous prediction were earned and given...

Metal fatigue is a harsh mistress (Galaxy Trucker, Power Grid w/ alternate power plants)

The recent announcement of another expansion for Galaxy Trucker reminded me it had been a while since we had played this great game. I though it would be fun to try a really punishing series of flights, so we skipped round 1 entirely and instead did the following:

Ship 2 with evil machinations
Ship 3 with evil machinations and 2 Rough Road Ahead cards
Ship 3A with evil machinations and 2 Rough Road Ahead cards

The first round went pretty smoothly, but starting with round 2 we really started feeling the heat. The rough road cards are pretty tough... Round 2 had a card that made any energy use cost an extra tic-tac and another card that reduced our ship's speed for every ship connection that matched a 3 connector with a 2 or a 1. As you can imagine, ship building was slow and batteries/ furnaces where hot commodities.

... But we all made it without horrible consequences. My MVP was certainly the techie blue alien, since it made the first battery expenditure each encounter free.

Round three saw Remorseless fate (which is every bit as bad as it sounds) and Metal Fatigue. Now, between remorseless fate and metal fatigue, I thought the first sounded the most dangerous. Shemp would beg to differ.

Before launching, Shemp pointed out that this was his best ship ever. No bad connections, plenty of the tiles he wanted, every space used up. The problem is that ship 3A looks a lot like the Enterprise... It's got a very narrow middle. A single mishap there, and the ship splits in half. During the second event, Shemp lost a piece which protected the critical part through metal fatigue and then in event 3 a meteor struck and Shemp had to pick whether he wanted to keep flying with the front or the back of his ship. He chose the front.

When Shemp arrived at the end, he had approximately 5 tiles left in his ship, a single crew member, and no engines ( he lost his final one on the last card). It was pretty funny. Also, since ship 3 A is uninsurable, he paid nearly 30$ for the damage.

Ultimately, Kozure won the game. I actually thought I had it, but he snuck past me by a few points. I really enjoy this every time it comes out, even though it's definitely an experience game and not to be taken seriously.

Power Grid

We then played a three player game of Power Grid with the new power plants expansion (the expansion isn't new, only new to us). Although I enjoy Power Grid, I find it requires too much constant calculation which kind of ruins the pace. Also, I dislike the lull that seems to often happen during the middle of the game because nobody ever wants to by the middle powerplants. Apparently, the solution is to play with only 3 players and use the alternate plants because I found this game quite enjoyable.

It's hard to pick out the differences, but I never felt like nothing on offer was worth buying. We did have an odd result because many of the higher plants got pulled before the start ofthegame (as per the 3 player rules). This led to an end game where only I actually could power the 17 cities once they were built. I unintentionally foiled Shemp's hail Mary to beat me because he planned on buying up the resources preventing me from actually powering to capacity. I decided at the last minute not to power all my cities on the before last turn and kept the resources I needed for the last round so I did pull off the win.

Anyway, it would be interesting to know if the new plants simply have a lower capacity and the struggle to attain 17 is intentional. Either way, it was fun.

Shempuzelan TV is more entertaining than Easylander jousting (Civilization, King of Tokyo)

We played another three player session of the new Sid Meier's Civilization. It was Kozure, Shemp and I as Russia, Egyptians and Americans (respectively).

I was flailing around, not really having much success getting a strategy going (poor choices in city locations meant that the available resources were a touch thin). I purchased the Hanging gardens early so my military was easy to come by, so I went that way. Kozure had quite a productive empire, but also his military was surpassing me in technology. Shemp, meanwhile, was racing after a cultural victory.

Since no one had ever come close to wining with culture, it was not a threat we saw coming. Suddenly, Shemp was on the verge of winning! Kozure and I tried to stop him but Shemp was generating culture points too quickly. A last ditch attempt to thwart him was interrupted by his cultural superiority (he proposed we watched tv, when all we could offer was offer Jousting).

Anyway, Shemp won!

We ended off with another game of King of Tokyo. This one is getting lots of play in and out of WAGS.

Ketchup (Vikings, China, Clans, King of Tokyo, TransEuropa)

We thought we'd be five players this week, but then, before I knew it, we were back to three.

Pablo, Shemp and I gathered around a large bag of games. Our dictator was absent, but ordered us to play a very specific sequence of games in his absence. Then, the sequence was revoked. In our confusion, we ignored all instructions and chose to play a large number of short games so that Pablo could rip through his unplayed list that much faster.

We started with Vikings, which is a game I like very much. It packs a lot of game in a small package. Unlike a lot of games that try to insert a random factor in the hopes of making each game "different", Vikings succeeds at forcing you to consider each new round carefully once the tiles and Viking combinations are out. I was rocking this game, and built a very efficient set of manned islands. I started the evening with a win.

We followed with China. Another game that feels like a big game in a slim package, China never fails to conclude in approximately 1/2 hour and still provide a nice strategic experience. Shemp was gunning for me, and prevented me from completing any chains but a misunderstanding of the rules regarding emissaries caused him to fail his blocking strategies there. Pablo did manage a long chain, but ultimately I had enough majorities to pull win #2.

Clans followed. In my mind, anyone who enjoys China should also enjoy Clans. The games are completely different from a gameplay perspective, but they have a similar strategic weight, play length and semi-abstract nature. I goofed a few too many times during the game, and ultimately kept setting up the wrong colours. Shemp dominated this one.

Next up was King of Tokyo, the first repeat play for Pablo. I went first, and snagged the tentacles. Shemp stayed in Tokyo most of the game, but I was rolling lots of 3s and made it to 15 points without spending much time in the city. Shemp knocked us down with the -5 vp card but it wasn't enough... I used the tentacles to steal the jet pack from Shemp, forcing him to step down and I gathered the last few points required for the win. Pablo was yearning for hearts throughout the game but he couldn't roll them to save his life. On the other hand, he managed huge smack downs of 5 attacks on at let two occasions... This is a very fun game that achieves exactly was it's going for. Bravo.

Lastly, we played TransEuropa. In our first round, Pablo, in his first time ever playing the game, ended while Shemp still needed 8 links and I needed 5! Shemp managed to hang on a few rounds with his 3 lives before succumbing. In the last round, Pablo and I ended up tying so it was a shared victory for the final game of the evening.

The King with Wings (Roma/ Roma 2: The Arena x2, Lords of Vegas, King of Tokyo x2)

Kozure, Shemp and I gathered this week to play an evening of Vegas games. It didn't work out due to a lack of available time, but what can you do.

Roma/ Roma 2: The Arena

As Kozure was in charge of his lads that evening, Shemp and I played two rounds of Roma. We pitted the two decks against each other to see how that went. We'll certainly have to play several more times to really know if one is stronger than the other, but it certainly seems to me that the original Roma is a swingier deck, with more opportunity to score big points when things work and potential to get none at all if things don't. Roma 2 seems smoother, with better odds of getting useful cards but a slower overall pace.

In our first game, I was getting creamed because I couldn't get any VP generation going. I was down to one vp if i'm not mistaken. Luckily, Shemp lost all ability to roll the dice he needed, consistently failing rolls that had a 5 in 6 chance of working. I didn't lose that last point and in fact landed two forums and started reaping the rewards. A few short rounds later I bounced back and won the game. I did realize one thing, though... Once the opponent is close to winning, getting VPs can be a bad move if it ends the game before you have more than the othe player. It was necessary to bleed out VPs from Shemp before claiming them. Tricky.

Our second game was more even, and I don't remember who won.

Still enjoying this two player game. Long live Herr Feld!

Lords of Vegas

With the kids in bed, we started our game of Lords of Vegas. As the game developed, a few patterns emerged...

1) I once again started growing a large casino in the big center-left block. I seem to do this every game.
2) Kozure once again received a disproportionate amount of disjointed properties.
3) I got into a war over a casino with Kozure. Normally, this happens between me and Shemp. Although in the end I managed to wrest control from Kozure and end the game with two decent casinos, the constant re-rolling of the casino dice drained both our money and made it hard to stay competitive with Shemp.

There wasn't a huge amount of trading this game. Not sure why... The opportunities seemed harder to find (though Shemp tried his best!).

Shemp won by quite a large margin. Kozure and I were in a tight race for second.

King of Tokyo

Tom Vassel and Michael Barnes have both recently talked up King of Tokyo and so when I saw it I thought i'd give it a try. It's a very simple and mostly silly game about competing monsters trying to destroy Tokyo and each other. Although there aren't a ton of games with this theme, it's also not really particularly original. What sets this game apart is the simplicity and focus of the design. You are either a creature in Tokyo, dealing damage to all the monsters outside of Tokyo OR you are a creature outside of Tokyo dealing damage to the monster currently in Tokyo. Since the monster inside Tokyo cannot heal, it creates a natural cycle of monsters entering Tokyo, trying to stay as long as possible, and then leaving to lick it's wounds. The game is won by either accumulating 20vps or being last monster standing. It's a dice rolling game where you can either roll wounds, healing, VPs or victory points. Each player rolls three times, hoping to get dice in the combination they are trying to achieve, yada, yada, yada. A deck of cards representing upgrades spices things up as players can save up energy to purchase them and slowly transform their creature from, for example, a simple giant dinosaur to A GIANT DINOSAUR WITH TWO HEADS, WINGS AND ALIEN METABOLISM!!!. It's easy to teach, it's short and a lot of fun to play. Big thumbs up from me and easily the best boardgames Richard Garfield has done since Robo-rally.

In our first session, Shemp dominated Tokyo for nearly the whole game because he managed to snag the "wings" upgrade early, which allowed him to spend energy to ignore damage. I think Kozure won the second game, but I'm not sure.

Bilkis' sacks of sand (Roma 2: Arena, Macao, 7 Wonders + Leaders expansion x2)

Roma 2: Arena

When I purchased Roma, I actually thought I was purchasing Roma 2: Arena. I remembered reading that one had text instead of icons, and that the same one had more paths to victory, but I didn't know which was which. When I saw Roma at j&j cards in Waterloo, I looked at the back and saw that the cards were text based, not icons, and purchased it. Unfortunately, the picture on the back of the box is of the German version, which uses text, but the north American version of Roma 1 uses icons. I purchased the wrong one. Anyway, figuring it couldn't matter that much, I opened it and we played it anyway. As it turns out, me and Shemp liked it quite a bit. Sure, many games are lopsided and the only likely path to victory is having Forums, but it was quick and enjoyable. Shemp decided to purchase Roma 2, figuring that at the very least we could try the variant where the decks from both games are pitted against each other. This week, we got a chance to fruit out (the base game, not pitting the decks against each other). It's good. There are definitely more paths to victory, and the game seems less fragile (less games will end because they couldn't get their engine going before they went broke), but the tradeoff seems to be a significantly longer game. I'd say I did like it better than Roma 1, but not by a wide margin.

Shemp won the game by emptying the vp pile, scoring one "phantom point" (I.e. The vp pile was exhausted, but the bank owed him one more vp). The phantom point broke the tie, making the game 19 to 18. Well played.

Macao

I was in the mood to play Macao again, just to see if Shemp's streak is truly over. In short, it is. The game was very close, between me and Kozure, though. A miscalculation left Shemp 1 cube short of scoring big,leaving him behind. Between me andKozure, it came down to the bonus end game points, and I had more.

About 4 rounds in, I activated the artisan. This card allows you to activate one card per turn without spending the cubes (as long as you have the necessary cubes in your supply). Between that card and the various mistressesthatgaveme a free cube in their co our every turn, I was flush with goods cubes. I either played very poorly or Kozure played extremely well, because I should have killed the other two with that combo so early in the game.

7 Wonders: Leaders expansion

We capped of the evening with 2 sessions of 7 Wonders with the Leaders expansion. It's a simple expansion that introduces a new deck of cards representing famous leaders throughout history. There is a pre game draft to deal each player 4 leader cards and before each age players choose which leader, if any, players want to pay to put in play.

The end result is not terribly different from the base game. The leaders allow a little more long term strategy, which is nice, that's pretty much it. Shemp commented that the downside to having these leaders is that it predetermines a strategy for you and reduces the interaction as players concentrate on their cards instead of blocking opponents.

The art continues to be very nice, and the game remains a very fun and fluid despite the additions. I'll probably keep playing with the addition in future sessions but I'm sure I won't really miss it if I play someone else's copy.

I won the first game using a combination military and science victory (as Rome, led by Ceasar, the guy from 300 and Alexandre the Great). Kozure won the second with a more focussed military strategy that apparently also involved burying all the brick in order to prevent others from building.

Spite upon spite (High Frontier, Quarriors x2)

The four of us (Kozure, Shemp, Pablo and I) started with an intro game of High Frontier. Knowing that it's a difficult game, Kozure thought a learning game involving just trying to build a factory on mars would be a good idea to ease Pablo into the system (although, as Shemp aptly pointed out in our email correspondence leading up to the game, "not good" is a very generous description of our skill level with High Frontier). What is it about this game that is so challenging? Every time I play, I spin around in circles accumulating fuel endlessly only to realize that I could have launched much earlier. This game was no exception... I had forgotten how the air break leading to Mars worked, so I was trying to come up with a rocket that could get to the planet and still pay the landing costs. Anyway, Kozure got off to an early lead with a mission to drop of the robonaut he needed to build the factory. I was behind him ( once again wasting my time refueling at a nearby planet, not realizing it would be unnecessary due to the air breaking). Kozure essentially lost his lead by blowing up while going through a danger zone.

Then, out of nowhere comes Shemp with all the parts required for the refinery and successfully lands. Shemp for the win!

Pablo seemed willing to play again. We'll see.

Next up, we played 2 games of Quarriors, the new dice building game from Wiz-Kids.

Quarriors is a game that follows much of the Dominion model... Draw a hand (of dice, in this case), see what you can play from your hand and purchase one die from the center. The fact that the dice represent creatures and that there is much inherent randomness gives the game a very distinctly chaotic and light feel, but for a 1/2 hour game it's fun. I've personally been playing this quite a lot with my eight year old son and having a great time of it. The variety of creatures is very good because they very cleverly include several variant creatures and spells for use with each dice. There are synergies to be found between the dice, which is fun, but since it's a dice game you never know whether the combinations you are shooting for will really pan out.

Anyway, for the record Pablo won one of the games. He was very proud, because it was his first win at WAGS. I think I shed a tear of pride.

A new history (Troyes, Innovation x2)

Kozure, Shemp and I again.

Shemp once again asked us to bring an assortent of games and convince him that what we wanted to play is what he had picked. I don't know that either of us convinced him of anything, but he did ultimately bring games I brought.

Ha!

We started with Troyes, a game that I liked well enough on first play but neither Shemp or Kozure thought much of, apparently. The second play was remarkably easier for all of us, and we all commented afterwards that it was much more enjoyable now that we had a better grasp of what was going on. As far as comparisons go, I'd still have to say it most reminds me of Macao but I still prefer that one better. Either way, I did like it. Both Kozure and I were running short on dice as Shemp concentrated on occupying the main buildings (his secret goal to no one's surprise). I spent longer with fewer dice, however, and this showed up in my last place finish. Kozure was better at snagging VPs throughout and won.

Looking forward to trying this one again.

Next, we played two hands of Innovation. This game is also fun, but I feel like we are missing something because the game never seems to get past the 5-7th age, and once a player gets in the lead it's hard to see how to catch him. We chatted afterwards and discussed that it might be a better strategy to try to just burn through the decks and get to the alternate victory conditions in the late ages if a player is falling behind on achievements. We'll have to try it next time.

In both games, we made good use of cards that stole points from other players. Kozure won the first game and I won the second.

Sometimes, the dice hate you (Duel of Ages)

... and sometimes they just hate Kozure.

We dug up from the vault a game we hadn't played in five years... Duel of Ages.

This is an old favourite of mine. Flawed in many ways but still lots of fun and there still isn't really anything like it that I know of. For anyone that isn't familiar with the game, it's a cross between a tactical wargame and Cosmic Encounter. Two teams of 4-10+ iconic characters from the past to the future (depending on the number of players and their experience) run around on a modular map. They compete to dominate a number of challenges all the while beating each other up. The past to future thing means that Conan the Barbarian might be running around a mall parking lot with a laser gun.

For me, the silliness of the time/ space mashups are only occasionally amusing. The real draw is the tactical game. It combines characters, special abilities, cool equipment, line of site, opportunity fire, terrain, vehicles, etc, etc, in a really fast playing and relatively simple design. The biggest problem I have with the game is the way equipment is handed out... when a character successfully defeats a challenge, the player might get to draw a card (or more) from the stack. The issues arise because the deck is HUGE and the variety is vast. You might draw a turreted weapon, a pet tiger, a powerful gun, a hovercraft, a blowpipe, etc, etc, etc. Since most characters have advantages with certain weapons over others the luck of the draw can get really irritating if you never draw anything useful. Conversely, if you often draw the perfect items for your characters your opponent can be at a significant disadvantage.

I realize and appreciate that part of the charm of the game might be in making the best of what you draw. Unfortunately, some of the stuff i just so much better than the rest that it remains a sore point for me. Going into the game, me and Kozure both had thoughts on how to improve this aspect and we tried two variants. At first, we tried having 8 cards face up and having a successful player choose the one he wanted (with the option to sweep the cards away and draw a facedown card). This led to a somewhat overpowered game, and reduced the surprise that normally comes with revealing your equipment to your opponent. About 3/4 of the way through the game we switched to simply doubling the awarded cards and then keeping half of what we drew. In the end, I think that this was the better solution and I think I'd definitely play this way again.

As for the actual game, we played with 8 characters each on 4 platters (the modular game boards) for 3 hours. I had a fairly brawny bunch with characters that where good with weapons (like a couple of cowboy types) and a few terminator-like futuristic robots. I would say Kozure had a pretty well balanced party, with a better representation of characters throughout the ages.

As the game developed, Kozure poor luck was astonishing. He was failing easy challenges with alarming frequency. Combat almost never went his way. I know he will likely comment that he doesn't like to blame luck of the dice for his losses, but this was embarrassing. I, on the other hand, was benefiting from extreme and unusual luck. I succeeded all but two challenges, often rolling "amazes". I was flush with equipment, without any casualties and ahead in 3 of the 4 challenges. About halfway through, I asked if he wanted to concede but he said he'd keep playing. About 1/2 hour before we scheduled to finish we decided to call it quits (Kozure had a plan to retake a challenge and executed on it, but failed another simple roll and lost his chance. It was the straw that broke the camel's back!).

I still really enjoyed it, though. The funny thing about DoA is that even if you are getting hammered points can be really close. There are only 5 points to be had in the base game (leading in the ancient, the colonial, the modern and the future challenges and having the most surviving characters). Because of this, it's possible to be down to 1/3 of your original team and still be winning (if you had been successful in the challenges earlier in the game). It's possible to play a defensive game and just block the entrances to the challenges with your dwindling team and hope to hold on until the time runs out. Still, the fewer characters you have the harder it is to keep the other player from gaining on you so it's still a big advantage if you can destroy the other team.

They played Android (Android)

Shemp and Kozure played Android. Apparently, it was fun but plays better with more than two.

Re-writing history (Civilization)

It took a lot longer than I had anticipated, but we finally pulled out the new Civilization for a second try. In our first game way back in January, I had really liked it despite few concerns regarding combat, the culture mechanic and general thematic wonkiness. In our second play, my opinion has changed somewhat... The military system didn't bother me this time. Now that i understand it better works fine. The randomness injects a little riskiness to battle but generally the superior force wins. It's still a process that introduces downtime in an otherwise remarkably downtime free design (for a game of this genre), but it's nowhere near as egregious as Fury of Dracula. Culture did not play a huge role in this game, at least not the "take that" aspect that bothered me last time (though I don't know if it's because Shemp and Kozure refrained from using those cards because they disliked them or because they were genuinely less useful. I was the culture guy last game and I was playing those quite a bit, because even though I didn't like that style of play it was the avenue i had pursued and I didn't see a better easy available to me). Hopefully they'll chime in and let me know. The one aspect of the game that bothers me the most, however, is the trading, or lack thereof. In the Eagle games version, trading is central. In this one, the system OSS tight thatthereseemslittle reason to do it. Units and work value aren't tradeable, so that really only leaves "trade", resources and promises. Problem is, since resources are random and rare, so it's unlikely and unusual that you have one to trade AND other than temporary alliances there aren't much promising opportunities available that I can see. This leaves trade as the only commonly available resource, which doesn't work since two different currencies are required to make an exchange.

Otherwise, it's a game that has managed to marry quite a number of civilization elements together in a fun and playable package. I look forward to playing it some more.

(in our game, I was Germany, Shemp was Egypt and Kozure was China. Unsurprisingly, I went military/ science. Shemp went Culture/ Science and Kozure went Economic. I was doing well, but I stalled outside the gates of one of Shemp's cities because i was having a hard time balancing my discoveries with the need to press the attack. I kept distracting myself with unit upgrades and ignoring movement bonuses and increases in my stacking limit. Eventually, i decided to march but realized it was too late. I did crush the city, and would have crushed Shemp's capital, but I was one space too short. Kozure won an economic victory the same turn that Shemp would have won a cultural one. It was very close! The funny thing is that if I had realized that even having developped "flight" I couldn't reach his capital that round, I could have played differently and won a scientific victory with Space Flight. Oh well, I deserve what I got for missing an opportunity!

New's last gasp (Power Struggle, Junta: Vive El Presidente!)

With Shemp, Kozure and Pablo available, I took this week as an opportunity to play the last few unplanned games in my collection.

Power Struggle

First up was Power Struggle, a game about climbing to the top in a large corporation, by any means necessary. To many, this theme would be unappealing but at least it's not another game set in medieval Europe! I personally find it humorous because iWork in that environment, and in my opinion the theme has been integrated quite well.

Before I start, I have to say that explaining the rules was tough. I've taught hundreds of different games, but for some reason this one stands out. It's one of those games that offer many options AND where each rule seems to require the explanation of another rule to make sense. Also, it's a game where players have hidden objectives, so you want to minimize question asking in order to avoid giving things away at the wrong time. Once I muddled my way through a rules explanation, we started but we all knew nobody had any idea what they were doing (including me).

I'll give a very high level summary: the game board depicts a large corporation building, showing offices, manager's offices, the executive board room and the chairman's office. Throughout the game, players will populate and manipulate the offices in order to get their guys promoted to divisional manager and up. It boils down to a kind of area majority game, in a way. The trick is that there are several ways to go about what you want to do. Departments can be shuffled, merged, etc, divisional managers can be promoted to the board of directors and take their staff with them or exit the company and become outside consultants. Bribes can be offered to get the power of another player's division temporarily, etc. The upshot is that there are a number of score tracks that measure influence, investments, consultants and even corruption and each player must make it to a certain level in 4 categories before everyone else (each player also has a secret nemesis and can gain a victory point by simply being better than him/ her in certain categories).

In our game, after flailing about aimlessly for a few rounds we finally started figuring out what was going on. I started creating main departments and bribing other players at every occasion I had. After dramatically over bribing Shemp early, I reduced 90% of my bribes to the minimum because really I just wanted the corruption and the game punishes players for not taking them (one of the target's employees leaves). I did manage to win, having reached the target in influence, main patments, corruption and having beaten my nemesis, Kozure, in the required fields.

Initial confusion aside, I think I liked it. It will definitely take another play before I feel confident, though,andireally hope idon't need to teach it to a new player next time we play!

Junta: Vive El Presidente!

This one is a much simpler game, but also about terrible bosses. Some southern American country has a military dictator, and all the players want to build up their wealth and replace the dictator.

The game involves the presidente drawing cards and making secret offers to each player from those cards and then those players deciding if they want to attack another player or the president, defend themselves or the president, etc. If an attack on the president is successful, the attacking player becomes the presidente. Iftheattack is unsuccessful, anybody who didn't attack the presidente gets to keep the promised cards. We started with the ask game but quickly migrated to the advanced game... The main difference is that the presidente can also distribute dice along with the cards, and those dice can be programmed to attack other players, etc.

Pablo was our first and most successful Presidente, managing to keep the role for a few rounds. I earned the "worst presidente" honor after I kept giving cards to the player that couldn't defend me (like Shemp with only a single dice when Kozure had four!). In the end, Kozure won the game, funded heavily by my short terms as presidente no doubt.
Anyway, itwasfun but certainly not a "wow"

No more new! (Nightfall x2, Tribune)

The recent math trade and birthday gift certificate have led to a particularly large influx of new games recently. 100s of games into Wags, the group appears to be reaching their limit with new games, so a point was made to replay a few games we had recently learned (I'll admit to really enjoying learning new games and seeing how they tick. I still have two unplayed games in my collection, Junta: Vive El Presidente! and Power Struggle, but i'm waiting for a night with 4 players at least to try them out).

Nightfall

Nightfall hadn't really clicked with me last time we played, but tonight it really did. Shemp and Kozure are less enthusiastic, but seem to like it well enough. For Shemp, the fact that no effort was made to accommodate colorblind people such as himself makes the game harder to enjoy off the bat. Kozure mentioned that he felt that Dominion was still the smoother, more elegant game. I agree with that, but there are things that Nightfall does much better than Dominion in my opinion:

1) Dominon plays smoothly because it's mostly multiplayer solitaire. The interaction that exists in Dominion i'm not a big fan of, because the effects tend to be irritants rather than actual interaction.
2) I like some of the mechanical design choices, such as making parts of the pool of cards private to each player (increasing the variety between games further) and the victory condition of having the least wounds (solving the ganging up on the weakest problem common to this type of game). It's also clever how the game always starts with a generic starter deck which allow a decent buid-up of defense, boosts influence, etc to get the game going right away.
3) the chaining mechanic, although extremely weak thematically, is original and I enjoy building my deck around possible combinations of cards. In dominion, you have to look at the available pool of cards and decide what combination will allow you to get to hands containing 8 gold as quickly as possible. In Nightfall, like in Thunderstone, there is a wider variety of approaches and part of how you choose your cards has to involve anticipating how certain cards will chain into others, and whether their effects will be complimentary.

All in all, it's a game I quite enjoyed. It's true that there is something to the sequence of operations that feels inelegant or anti-intuitive... Three games later we still seem to struggle to not forget phases, or doing some of them in the wrong order. It's not hard, just a little clunky.

I won both games. In the first, I focussed on combinations that led to large amounts of direct player damage. The game ended rather quickly as I was accumulating a number of 3 direct damage cards and we were whipping through the wound stack. The game ended so quickly that we decided to try again. This time, I focussed on selecting cards that eliminated wounds from my deck. Tis worked quite well, but the highlight of the game for me was playing a card which allowed me to choose the target of an opponent's effect and sending 3 wounds Kozure's way as a result. With final scores being 10 vs 9 vs 8, that move won me the game!

Tribune

In our second play, Tribune continued to impress as a Smooth, elegant euro that manages a nice mix of strategy without brain freeze. I lost any chances I might have had to win on the final turn when I failed to bid for the chariot to protect my vestal virgins from takeover. I needed them to get the tribune, and by losing them my temporary favor of the gods went away as well. Shemp was the happy winner when all was said and done. So far, this is turning out to be a winner.

Two original themes (Troyes, Tribune)

I purchased Troyes a little while back with a gift certificate, and received Tribune in a recent math trade, so we played a couple of new games tonight. Both feature particularly unoriginal themes, and the kind of abstraction that demands excellent gameplay to be fun (or else it's just another bland, dry and generic euro). Let's see how they did on our first try:

Troyes

Troyes is a game about the struggle between three factions (military, clergy and trade), all the while faced with external threats of various types, in medieval France. The actual gameplay has little do do with this, however. Players get a number of dice in three colours according to their presence in the three main "buildings". Dice are rolled, and these become the pool from which all actions will be activated. Over the course of the game, a number of cards are turned up showing possible actions and on their turn players will choose 1-3 of the available dice and assign them to one of those actions. The actions will generate money, influence, VPs or future bonuses.... But most of them amount to micro moves and the game is won by accumulating many small rewards over the course of the game.

There are a number of unique things going on. Number 1, dice can be selected from any player, not just your own pool. It costs money to do this, but often it's worth it and it obviously it takes away from what that player can do later. Number 2, the actions work by totaling the number(s) on the selected dice and dividing them by whatever is on the card... For example it might say you get 2VPs for each multiple of 3 you had totaled. Number 3, a player gathers "influence" which allows modifications to the values rolled (re-roll dice, flip dice, etc). Number 4, the city of Troyes is perpetually under attack and/or suffering internal unrest of some kind and this is represented by event cards which turn up at the start of each round. These must be defended against and if left un-countered will continue to impose a nasty effect every round. This means that depending on what comes up, or where you are in turn order, it may be necessary to re-prioritize and dedicate resources to quash the event. Lastly, each player gets a secret goal but at the end of the game every player gets to score points from each secret goal (in other words, if the goal was to get X influence for 6VPs all players who have that much influence get the VPs). This is interesting because it means you must pay attention to what other players are concentrating on to try to guess what the bonus condition they have is and try to earn it as well.

Between selecting yours or another player's dice, the ability to modify your roll, and the various items worth pursuing there is a lot more control than you'd expect from a dice game. Commensurate with this, there is a lot more to think about. With the wrong players, this could be an AP nightmare. otherwise, it's an interesting and challenging game, but I think it might take another play or two before it starts to reveal it's true colours. In our first game, the amount of options is large enough that it's hard to see how one choice is better than the other. About half-way in I started seeing how things worked together a bit better. The dice selection mechanic and the way the available actions change each game is quite interesting and should provide a different experience each game. I am reminded of Macao, and the way that the dice and available cards drive the game... A combination I really enjoyed.

I liked it. I didn't love it, but my gut tells me this one is worth investing a few more plays in. It's definitely a VP hunt, it's pretty mathy, and quite abstract but I think the sum is more than it's parts. We'll see.

Kozure won the game, having accumulated a large stack of VPs even before the endgame had been scored. He had gone after many of the events while I was focussing more on end game bonuses. Shemp was unfortunately saddled with a starting position that gave him little income, a problem since his secret goal was money (my fault, I hadn't explained that part). Scores where close, though!

Tribune

For our second un-original theme, we have a game set in ancient Rome. This one is about controlling different factions in order to satisfy a number of victory conditions before the other players. It's worker placement, but the rewards for each space is always a choice of cards (face up cards! Face down cards! 5 face down cards!, etc) and after reading the rules I was skeptical that it would be much fun at all.

Turns out it's pretty good. The cards are collected to try to control factions, and control is established by playing a set of cards. Control is kept until someone else plays a better set (higher total value or more cards). There is a bonus given for simply taking over, and another for being in control. Going after the factions means more than just accumulating the number required to satisfy a victory condition... You need to get them in the right order and at the right time so that the take-over bonus and control bonus helps you satisfy the other victory conditions at the same time. It's true that all the actions available are for gathering cards, but the thematic link (although tenuous) at least makes sense and since players are always trying to complete sets of cards the various ways of collecting them allows for different types of risk/reward.

It flows well, is fun to play and the interaction is interesting. Looking forward to trying this one again as well.

This was apparently Kozure's evening as he won this as well. Shemp thought he had a chance to achieve all the goals at the same time as Kozure but couldn't manage it. Meanwhile, I still had a few more to go.

Catch up (frag x2, Nightfall, Power Grid)

Very late post... Will keep it brief.

A few weeks ago I showed up late and only was able to participate in the second game. They had started out the evening with Frag, which i've never played and know nothing about. I had recently participated in a mammoth ( for me) math trade, and so had a pile of new to me games sitting around. One of the games was Nightfall, the new AEG deck building game, and Kozure decided he wanted to try it. We unwrapped the cellophane and did what we have rarely, if ever, done before: read and learn the rules as we played the game. Typically we make sure someone knows how to play, but this one didn't seem like it would be too complicated and it turned out to not be too bad.

The game is extremely combat centric. It's all about getting past the other player's guards and doing damage to the players controlling them. Think Magic the gathering instead of Dominion or Thunderstone. The clever twist which makes this game work better than Magic for multiplayer is that the goal is to inflict "wounds" and the winner is th eplayer with the least wounds. The result is that in order to win, players are forced to spread out their attacks, not simply picking on the weakest player.

I used to be an avid "Jyhad" player, and on the surface I thought that the game might feel like a stripped down version of that game. The theme is similar, the combat oriented gameplay fits, but ultimately there us little resemblance. Where Jyhad did a great job of capturing the theme through it's mechanics, Nightfall could really be about anything. The gameplay in Nightfall revolves around playing chains of cards, and other players can choose to add to the chain if they have the right combo in hand. Effects are resolved in reverse order so later orders can mess around with earlier ones. It is through this mechanic that players will play their minions and give them orders. In practice, it creates interesting gameplay and decision making, but the chaining has zero connection with anything that could be going on thematically so it feels like you are playing a game mechanic, not a ferocious battle between vampires and werewolves.

I was very successful and finding combos, but less successful at taking advantage of them. It's quite hard to set up cards that will work together AND be useful, which makes choosing cards for your deck difficult. Our first game saw Shemp emerge victorious.

So, I enjoyed it and look forward to playing it again but I was disappointed by how weak the game was thematically. It's also tough on the colorblind, because the chaining mechanic depends on matching collies between cards that haven secondary symbol associated.

Last week I also missed games night. I heard Power Grid and Frag! were played.

Easy Come, Easy Go. [Historical]

EASY GO:

Blue Moon City
Phoneicia
Quo Vadis
Pueblo
Betrayal at House on the Hill
Zombies!

Easy Come, Easy Go.

Agent Easy trades his games a lot. Poor addled Shemp can't keep track of what games are available to the group, since a lot of those listed on the left have been traded away.

So.

I'm initiating a new series of posts. Starting NOW. Hopefully my math trade stalking skills are strong. Of course if I'm incorrect, AE will let me know. I'd hope.

EASY COME -

Tribune Prima Inter Pares
High Frontier
Power Struggle
Nightfall
Dixit


EASY GO -

Dungeon Twister 2
Alien Frontiers
Earth Reborn
Ingenious
Ghost Stories: The Village People expansion

The Raw of Go(f) (Go)

Shemp and I played Go. We drew randomly for side. Shane won despite me playing black. Pretty substantial loss for me (though not completely crushing), mostly due to my attempt to invade which went disastrously wrong and resulted in a lot of prisoners for him.

I played another game of Go on Saturday with an opponent at TABS which was a real back-and-forth battle. Neither of us was never certain who had the upper hand until the end. My opponent won, but it wasn't quite the same blowout as the game against Shemp, because I learned my lesson and didn't try a foolish invasion, opting instead to pass, which my opponent took. Pretty close. I lost, even though I was black, so again, not a good showing, but this guy had over 40+ finished computer games under his belt where I have many fewer.

They say that one should lose one's first 100 games of Go quickly... I'm on my way to that.

I still really like this game.

The Fog of War (Alien Frontiers, Nexus Ops)

Another math trade is coming up, and since I had a number of games I was considering trading I sent an email to the group and asked if they objected to me trading any of them away. After receiving their feedback, Kozure mentioned he'd like to give a couple of them a parting play. Alien Frontiers and Nexus Ops it was.

Shemp, Kozure, Pablomeka and I started out with Alien Frontiers. It was actually a very close game, with everyone within one point. The game ended with a great turn by Shemp placing his last two colonies before anyone expected him to. He won.

I like Alien Frontiers well enough. I've played it with the group a few times, and a few more times with my oldest son, but ultimately it's just "meh" and lasts too long for what it is. This farewell session confirmed that to be true...

Nexus Ops was a bit different. I hadn't played in a long time, so I was prepared to feel like maybe I shouldn't trade it. It certainly has it's charms... I like how it forces combat, and the combat system itself is fun. However, it is also too long for what it is AND it suffers from a generic and bland feeling I can't quite put my finger on. I wouldn't have expected a garish and dayglow space combat game to feel bland and generic, but there you go.

This session was characterized by phenomenal bad rolling on everyone's part. Pablomeka, in particular, had his rubium dragon breath approx. 6 times in a nearby square and fail every time. On another turn, I had 3 rock striders and two fungoids attack 4 humans and no hits were registered on either side. We blamed it on a mysterious space fog that must have been causing the problem.

Anyway, it was fun as always but both games remain on the trade pile.

A war of ideas (Clans, Ra, Scrabble Slam, Innovation x2)

Work prevented me from arriving on time last week, so I missed the first few games. The group was kind enough to play a number of short games until I arrived (Clans, Ra and even Scrabble Slam!) where played, though I do not know the details).

When I did get there, Bharmer perused the games I brought and selected the newly acquired "Innovation", casting aside Troyes and Junta- Vive el presidente! Shemp promptly added "Y'all have got too many games", and we were off.

Innovation

I read the rules. I reread the rules. I played a few hands. I still had no idea what was going on, or why. Mostly, I didn't know why. I was afraid that a four player game would lead to certain brain asplosions.

I really like the designer's previous game, Glory to Rome. It's a kind of managed chaos. Despite similarities to Race for the Galaxy, I doubt anybody would describe the experiences as similar. The game plays quite differently each game because of the variety of possible super combos that inevitably come out in the later game. Innovation has a similar barely contained chaos but the games are distinctly different.

Innovation is about the evolution of great ideas through different periods of history. It's a card game, and every single card represents a different idea. At the start of the game, all the cards are grouped by era and each stack is placed in a circle. All players are dealt two ideas from the prehistoric era and the game begins. Players get two actions per turn, which can be to draw a new idea, to play a new idea or to activate an existing idea. The meat of the game is in the activation if ideas... Each player's tableau of active idea cards will feature a number of icons, and each time a player activates an idea it's necessary to compare how many of the pertinent icon each player has. If it's a beneficial idea, any player with equal or m ore icons also get the effects. If it's an aggressive idea, players with equal or more icons are immune. One of the main, ahem, innovations of the game is the concept of "splaying" cards. An idea that permits the splaying of a stack of cards allows a player to slide all the cards in a stack to the right, left or top. This allows a number of icons from the cards below to be seen, and the revealed icons then count as forming part of the tableau... Very powerful.

So,it's a game about creating synergy between ideas. As expected, some of the powers become quite powerful and can create unexpected combos. One thing we hadn't expected was that some earlier ideas can become quite powerful if all other players move on. For example, Shemp discovered that in the beginning, when everyone has "plant" icons, a card based on them can be hard to pull off. However, as players move on and everyone else starts to shed their "plant" icons in favor of science and industry, it's much easier to dominate in that field. To win, one player has to claim a certain number of achievements (however there are cards in later ages that provide alternate win conditions, so if you are behind you could always make a rush for those).

Although there is some effort made to tie the card's powers to the idea it represents, between the abstraction and the bland cards it's hard to feel the theme in the game. Still, from a gameplay perspective I quite enjoyed it. Chaotic, definitely, but fun. Also, not nearly as hard to grasp or play as I had thought.

I will say for the record that Shemp destroyed as in both sessions. This is untrue, of course, because Kozure and I each won a game, but since I miss reported a few of his wins in previous weeks this will be my olive branch.

Pus is a harsh mistress (Chaos in the Old World, Steam)

Pablo joined us and made it a foursome, allowing me to select Chaos in the Old World... a game I like a lot but only ever want to play with the full complement. We followed with another game that doesn't play well with three: Steam.

Oddly, despite both game being typically 1/1.5 hour affairs, both took 2 hours each.

Chaos in the Old World

I played Slaanesh, Shemp was Nurgle, Kozure was Tzeentch, and Pablo was Khorne. I had never played Slaanesh, the "prince of pleasure and pain", so it was fun to explore. Speaking of which, as much as I enjoy the game, I still can't get past the corny theme. I'm sure there are people out there that think it's the coolest thing ever, but I have to say that I personally wish they could retheme this game.

Oh well, whatever.

The old world cards that came up where definitely favoring me because quite a few heroes were popping up around the land. Since heroes and nobility give me bonuses, i had a much easier time than I otherwise would have getting my dial ticks. Pablo was doing his best to knock us around but I think Khorne becomes more difficult to use as players get to know the other gods... it seems like getting away or neutralizing the attacks is relatively easy. Anyway, Kozure and Shemp were running away with the VP track so I had to try to get there with a dial victory. On the last turn, three players satisfied a win condition. Lucky for me, dial victories take precedence so I took it.

This game, mechanically, is really good. There is some chaos, and the cards and dice can be swingy, but the better player probably wins most games. Still, I am at a loss for the terrible board layout. Huge expanses of available cardboard real estate are used for nothing while two provinces get crammed into a tiny little space in the corner. This is a fictional landscape, there is no reason why the final layout should have been this impractical!

Steam

This was Pablo's first game of Steam. We played on the USA map and it was a tense game as usual. As with Chaos in the Old World, scores were incredibly close: Kozure in first with me and Shemp tied one point behind the leader. Amazingly, PAblo was just a few points behind us (I say amazingly because in a first game of Steam against experienced players it would be easy to end up in a tailspin and go bankrupt or be way behind). It all boiled down to who had the 6 point deliveries on the last round, and Kozure had 1 and Shemp and I did not. Very close.

The strip is a harsh mistress (Lords of Vegas, Dominion x2)

this week marked the triumphant return of our good friend Bharmer. He had abandoned us briefly in a quest to gather "knowledge". We roundly criticized him, and then got started.

Lords of Vegas

I was really happy to be able to play this with 4, as I was very curious if the dealmaking possibilities would open up even further. Also, I was hoping that a game played without the game being messed up by spectacularly bad shuffling on my part would go.

In the end, I didn't note much difference as far as deal making. This game seemed to have less, if anything. The properties ended up clumping earlier than normal, which probably contributed. Kozure was the victim of poor luck on a couple of occasions (he should have known he was in for a rough ride when he sprawled and drew that tile on the next turn...). For my part, I once again ended up with a large casino in the center left of the board but there was quite a nail biter in the final rounds because Shemp owned the 6 property adjacent to me and my large casino had no sixes in it. Lucky for me, no casino tiles of the right colour remained. Unlucky for me, Kozure was about to renovate one of his casinos which would have put three back in circulation... I was out of contention by that point, but for Shemp it could have meant winning the game, the only worry was that the game was going to end any turn now and he was afraid he wouldn't get to act. On his turn, he drew the game end tile and missed out! Actually, Bharmer had made a bargain with me that would have made it difficult for Shemp to win anyway, but that's just details. It was a memorable ending.

Must admit I wouldn't have predicted Bharmer winning, though!

Dominion

we finished up by playing two hands of a random setup from the basic dominion cards. We ended up with a whole tableau of cards that allow the trashing of one card to get another. The end result was a setup which led to very lean decks and huge trash piles. It also led to me clearly forgetting how to play the game because not only did I come in last in both games, but DEAD last. I had ridiculously low scores. I think Shemp won the first one through a tiebreaker, and Bharmer the second (though my memory is hazy).

Blight is a harsh mistress (Dominant Species)

We finally played a full game of Dominant species last week.

I played the insects, Kozure the mammals and Shemp the reptiles. In our two previous games, "Blight" came early and in all three cases I grabbed it to make sure no one could use it on me. Unfortunately for Shemp, he was the recipient this time and it was difficult for him to recover the loss of sun tokens on the board. For my part, the land was awash in grass tokens so it was comparatively easy for the insects to assert their dominance in many regions (what's more was that the grass tokens where mostly aquired through Wanderlusts I was able to associate with water and wetland hexes). Lady luck was shining on bugdom that day and I won. Kozure was right behind and Shemp... well Shemp didn't get lapped, so that's a kind of victory, isn't it?

Every game i've played so far i've felt compelled to go for tundra dominance. It's so obviously a huge source of points. Also, if you have at least a single dominant tile, it's almost a requirement to place on the Dominance track to scoop up first choice in cards... There always seems to be a hugely powerful card available. It's nice that each player gets so many actions, though, because it allows room for important and less important actions to take place.

One thing: I didn't really feel that playing the full game was an improvement. The way points scale means that the value of the tundra scoring gets too high, and the endgame bonus for majorities is overpowered (and somewhat redundant... What are the odds that the player with the most majorities isn't a already the player that will win?). I think my favorite was playing to 5 fewer cards. I might also suggest eliminating Blight and a few other particularly crippling cards.

Yahtzee for geeks (Alien Frontiers, Vikings, 7 Wonders)

We finally had a nearly normal week at wags, with three people in attendance and everything! It was my pick, but we weren't sure how long we would have so I kept it to relatively short games.

Alien frontiers

Shemp hadn't played this yet, but it,s rather simple so it didn't take too long. Alien frontiers has been a bit of a disappointment for me.... I enjoy it, but not overly. I hadn't yet played it with more than two, and the added interaction and blocking was welcome, but the downtime that comes with it was not so great. In this session I felt that the interplay on the planet was somewhat missing, though. In my last game with Kozure, we had taken advantage of the alien tech cards and their abilities to move space colonies around on the planet and this had added substantially to the game in my opinion. This session, we were mostly just placing them and leaving them be.

Anyway, Kozure managed to win this one. I was in the running, and Shemp was going the "tech king" route which probably would have payed dividends if the game had a lasted a little longer.

Vikings

Tonight was also our second session of Vikings and WAGS. I had been looking forward to playing this again because I had enjoyed the design. Shemp has built his collection out of games that are simple yet engaging straight euros (Carcassonne, Acquire, Transamerica, Santiago, etc). There is a nice mix of straightforward design and tough decisions that makes it a light puzzly auction game.

This one came down to the wire. Kozure and I were tied on points, but he had more left over coins for the win. Shemp looked like he was running away with it at the beginning, but this is one of those games that leaves much of the points for endgame bonuses so it can be unpredictable.

7 wonders

Another game of 7 Wonders. This is consistently enjoyable and I don't see that changing. I might sleeve the cards, because they are starting to show wear ( a problem in hidden card selection games!). We all played uncharacteristically, with me going after military and eschewing science, Shemp doing science and Kozure competing with me in military. It's one of those games where you are rewarded for not doing what the others do, but at the same time once begone down a path it's hard to change it.

With no one else going after science, Shemp managed to accumulate quite a bit. It,s hard to beat an unopposed science strategy.... Shemp won.

Green Eggs and Eyes (Go) + Haaaaroooo! *jowl wagging* Nixon Gets in Early, B*tches! (1960)

So I (Kozure) have been meaning to get in better touch with my Japanese roots and force myself to play a game of Go.

A little background... I dislike abstract games. I would use the word "loathe", except that I really appreciate the effort and clarity of vision that is required to distill a game into its most intrinsic elements. That said, if you pull out a game of Dvonn or Yinsh or Nqyltz or whatever, I get the same sensation that I would feel if I were asked to participate in a three day symposium on the economic theory behind 18th century Paraguayan quantity surveying; I'm sure would be enjoyable for some people on this planet - I am not one of those people.

For me, Go fell into the same category of pre-5AM push-ups; I knew that I would benefit from doing it, but the thought of the effort required wasn't making me rush out to start.

However, I force myself to eat fish because I know it's good for me (my Japanese ancestors finger their ghostly wakizashi short swords in shame), even though I dislike the taste, texture and look of most cooked fish, but I eat it nonetheless, so I felt it was time that I swallowed my mental gag reflex and gave Go a decent shot.

The other thing that held me back is that for such a simple game, I could tell that it is dripping with deep strategies. Strategies within strategies. Strategies within strategies within strategies. Strategies so strategic that it reaches a Zen state of strategy. Literally.

I am bad at strategy. Not horrendously bad, good enough that I can tell that I am bad, which is probably both a blessing and a curse. I can hold my own in some strategic games, but in most games where very long term strategy is key, I will be used as a mop to wipe up the blood of my countless slaughtered gameboard minions.

"But," I said to myself, "this is Go, we're talking about here. This is a game where gameplay is rumoured to be so eloquent that Zen masters can hold off of bashing their students about the noggins for several days just to finish a game."

"Self," I said, "You need to play this game."

So, I borrowed a copy from a friend, along with a strategy guide, read the rules and... put it back on the shelf. It's been sitting there for nigh on two years (the friend told me to hang onto the game). I just couldn't wrap my head around the strategy or the appeal.

Recently my wife introduced our eldest son to chess. As an highly-strategic abstract (albeit a wargame-y one), I have a sort of love-hate relationship with chess. I love it because it's a battle, the figures and the board are just so beautiful in all of their incarnations, and its obviously such a remarkably distilled and studied game. I hate it because it's intimidating to game with a better player, and my strategic skills are not such that I feel equal to playing others with any modicum of skill. Playing chess with my son again reminded me of the classical beauty of the game - the strategy involved was deep, but the game itself was also pleasurable.

Recently our games night attendance has dropped to two at times for a variety of reasons, so I took another deep breath and proposed that Shemp and I play Go. He's played before, but not often - he thinks 12 or 15 times - not often that I'd be embarrassed to even venture to compete, anyway.

Now Shemp cares very little for theme. It's not that he dislikes them, but he doesn't care one way or the other if a game is well-themed. I'm almost on the other side of the spectrum. I want that "real-world" connection. I want to simulate the trajectory of a APCBC round from a M1 57mm anti-tank gun smacking into the Zimmermit-slathered front glacis of a PzKfw V Panther Ausf G tank. I want my cubes to be representative of specific commodities, not generic "colours". I want theme!

Go.

(deep breath)

We start simple. 9 x 9 grid. We pick randomly for side. I've read enough of the strategy to place somewhere in the middle of one of the quadrants. I pick a point and play a stone. Shane initially plays conservatively and starts into his own little quadrant. I start to flesh out an eye, then he comes at me with an aggressive play. I treat it like a wargame and consolidate my position, forming a line and linking my chains. I realize there is a definite real-world connection - the connected lines of orthogonal plays are like battle lines, strong, but requiring "supply" in the form of liberties. He continues to push. I try to lengthen my lines. He continues to push. Even with simple stones and points, there is an amazing simulation going on here.

I see the inklings of strategies and how they relate to board position begin form in my mind. He is pushing me. Fine, I will push back. Then, I push too far. I realize I have overextended. I can keep trying to develop this salient, or I can approach it from a different angle. I realize I am throwing good money after bad and play into another quadrant of the board.

Shane looks at me with a expression of mild surprise, "Good play."

(later he says he saw "the penny drop" in my mind)

The game develops. Shane develops a strong chain in the centre, but I am trying for an envelopment strategy. Unfortunately he's too quick and experienced and manages a stable two eye structure. He's also seen the weakness of another portion of my line and starts attacking it. I attack in another direction to change tempo. He backs off his attack to shore up his own flank. I take the breathing room to shore up my chains. He comes back at me, but this time I've got a better footing. He makes a play to get around behind.

I try another angle - I realize that I can also feint, and sacrifice, much as in chess.

At this point, I realize I've been thinking too linearly - too much in terms of real-world strategy. New perceptions open up. This sounds trite/clichéd, but the game is opening up to me. It's like a chime has rung in my mind. Lines are static, conservative. Diagonals are dynamic, aggressive.

We continue playing, but with each stone, I'm trying to drop my pre-conceptions of warfighting and concentrate on the simple - life and death - and then "zoom out" to the complex - stable systems - growing systems, dying systems.

Basho's frog leaps into the pond.

I am playing now with thought, but also "no thought" - I reach a point where I think I have managed a good position, but I will have to fight to the finish to be sure. We are grappling over the interstitial spaces between our strong chains and some of the edges of the board. I've managed an anchor of sorts in one corner, he has one, one is denied to either of us and we're fighting for the third.

Then, suddenly, Shemp says, "I pass."

I've forgotten completely that's an option in gameplay. I blink for a moment and consider the board. Have I missed something? I think back to the rules. My recollection is that if both players pass in succession the game is ended. I ask if that's the case.

He nods, knowingly.

I look at the board. I think I have won. I don't know enough about the game to be sure.

"I believe that I have more empty points," I begin, uncertainly, "so if I pass at this point, I win, correct?"

He smiles broadly.

I pass as well. I have won my first game of Go.

This game is amazing. I couldn't grasp it until I was playing but it is astoundingly deep. Even knowing going in how deep it was, I didn't realize it - couldn't internalize it.

I don't know how easy Shemp was going on me. Perhaps he was holding back, perhaps not. He's not the type to hold back usually, and he's only played just over a dozen times. I'll chalk it up to luck backed up with a little skill.

Or, as my dabblings in the river of Zen has taught me, "Zen mind, beginner's mind."

I asked for another game, but Shemp wanted a rematch in 1960: Making of the President last night. We randomly chose candidates - I got Nixon this time. Again it was a close game in the end, but I won 299 votes to Kennedy/Shemp's 238. AGAIN it came down to Cook County deciding Illinois and Early Returns from Connecticut deciding California. I had leapt to an early lead in the South and West, and we really duked it out in the Midwest and East.

He snaked Texas and Pennsylvania from me in the last turn, and almost (almost!) got California as well with two CA cards in his campaign strategy hole. Nice try, Jack. Maybe in 1964!

Good game, good opponent, great night. (Except for thinking I had left the games on the roof of my car, asking Shemp to go look for them in the streets outside my house, and then discovering I had left them on his washing machine in the basement)

You don't see the fast trolls too often (Dungeon Twister, Roma x3, Dvonn)

Work and life schedules are getting busier and busier... Kozure wasn't able to join us this week and I've been out for a few weeks myself. Shemp and I convened for an evening of two player games, determined to keep the WAGS torch burning.

Dungeon Twister

We started with Dungeon Twister, using the basic tiles and characters. Very early on in the game, the tile at Shemp's end of the board was revealed showing my troll and the speed potion. An unusually speedy troll sprinted to the finish line one turn later. Otherwise, it was fairly tit for tat as the game progressed... Shemp scoring a point, then me scoring a point. Then, suddenly, Shemp was in position to win because he was able to get the two points he needed. I strategized and came up with a way to frustrate his plan, but alas a third way was open to him to score the last point he needed and that was the game (He had wounded a character previously and so he went and finished him off). Score 1 for Shemp, 0 for Easy.

Roma

I've been really enjoying Stephen Feld's games recently (Macao and In the Year of the Dragon), and thought I'd look into some of his back catalogue. Roma seemed like an interesting two player game so I gave it a shot. Actually, I meant to purchase Arena: Roma 2, but somehow I got the wrong one. Don't ask.

Roma is a short and relatively simple card game that relies on rolling dice to activate cards. Players start with 10 VP and the game ends when a player's VPs run out or when the central pool runs out. This leads to two distinctly different strategies... run the other player down or try to score points for yourself.

In our game, the first 3/4 of the game is about avoiding bankruptcy and staying afloat with VPs. This goes on until players start getting forums (the main bug VP earners) and then it's a race to finish the VP supply.

As with the other Feld games I've played, the theme is weak and weakly implemented but the gameplay is interesting and fun. It seems like luck plays a huge role in the game but clever play can definitely help you change your fortunes.

We played three times, and I lost all three. In the last game, I was pleased to have set up a combination between the Forum and the Crane... If I could activate the crane, I could move the Forum to whatever numbers I had rolled and score VPs easily. It was a good move, but clearly not enough! It's a really good game, and judging from Shemp's enthusiasm I'm betting we'll see it again.

Shemp 4, Easy 0
Dvonn

I discovered that I am missing a regular Dvonn piece from my set. Luckily, a piece of checkers worked reasonably well.

We set up randomly and got going. I felt like I was playing well, but when it was all said and done Shemp and I were perfectly tied! Little known fact:There is no tie-breaker rule in Dvonn.

So, no wins for me tonight. Oh well!

They played 1960 (1960: The Making of a President)

I was absent last week, but Shemp and Kozure report that a fun game of "1960: The Making of a President" was had.

Recorded for posterity.

Helping people is wrong (Survive!, Clans, Ra, Acquire)

After a significant period where we played at Shemp's house every week to accommodate my sons' swim schedules, we switched to Thursdays and played at Kozure's place. In addition to giving us a longer block of time to play games, we had a few additional players... Tilitumbleroo and Kozure Junior, the eldest (a very bright 6 year old).

Survive!

Our first game was Survive!, a classic game from the 80's recently resurrected by Stronghold games. This is a game of lighthearted nastiness where players try to get their people off a sinking island without getting eaten by sharks and sea monsters. It's very simple to play, so it's great for a wide audience, but it does have a mean streak because on a player's turn in addition to moving their people they must select an island tile to sink and move a monster... often leading to the fatalities of other player's pawns. Kozure Junior joined us for this game and made it a foursome. A few turns in, he asked if he was supposed to help or hinder the other players... to which we answered that helping people is wrong. Clearly, games teach important life lessons!

Many fatalities later, Kozure emerged victorious beating myself and Shemp by a single point! Kozure Junior finished just 2-3 points behind, so it was all very close.

Ra

Tilitumbleroo was hoping to play Acquire after she put the kids to bed, so as this was happening we started a game of Ra. Just to see what it was like, we opted to play on the Ipad instead of the physical game. Although Kozure amassed a large inventory of monuments, it was quite as much as he needed to surpass me. I was shocked when the score came up and I had won!

I play games frequently on my Iphone and I do quite enjoy it, however this was my first time playing in person against other players in this way. Although I think it would be dreadful on the Iphone, on the Ipad it's a decent experience. The obvious advantages of doing away with setup and takedown and of automatically tracking scores are nice but the tactile feeling is gone and the experience feels muted. In particular, the animations that they introduce to spice things up become annoying after a short time, even though they surely take less time than the physical actions used to take! Anyway, if I was going on a trip, this would be a great substitute for the real thing but I'll continue playing the boxed version for now.

Clans

We played Clans to finish up the time before our game of Acquire. I was green, but I played as red for a few turns (red being my normal colour when playing games). I recovered early enough that it didn't matter. We actually paused the game so that we could start Acquire and came back to it later, but for the sake of simplicity I won't break up the description. The green and red hut people both came within spitting distance of winning but in the end green (me) was triumphant. Go green!

Acquire

Acquire is the last of Shemp's Christmas buying spree. I had been looking forward to playing it for quite some time so this was definitely the highlight of the evening. It's a game from the 60s that, I had been told, still felt fresh today. Judging from the board, a grid of numbered spaces reminiscent of a battleship board, and the hotel chain building theme, I anticipated something in the same vein as Chinatown. It wasn't. Acquire is a business speculation game, not a negotiation game. It reminds me a bit of the casino growing aspect of Lords of Vegas, though far more streamlined.

In Acquire, players are investing in growing hotel chains. Players each have a screen hiding 6 random tiles that identify locations on the board. On a turn, a player must place one of these tiles.

If the placed tile created a grouping of two on the board, a hotel chain is formed. The player may now invest in this or any other
previously founded hotel chain by purchasing a total of 3 shares. The value of each share is determined by the current size of the chain (obviously, this means there is great incentive to invest early, before shares become too expensive).

Another possibility is that the placement of the tile joins two or more existing hotel chains. If so, the larger hotel subsumes the smaller one. Investors in the larger chain benefit because the larger size means higher share value. The investors in the smaller chain benefit because they get paid out. The largest and 2nd largest shareholders get a bonus and everybody can sell their shares at their current value. It's important to note that there is NO WAY to make money in this game unless a hotel chain you've invested in gets taken over. This means that after an initial buying spree, players start running out of money and are looking to have one of their chains absorbed into a larger one. In the end, though, being majority shareholder in the big chains will pay out huge returns so it's probably important not to focus exclusively on the smaller companies. It's quite a nice dynamic and I can see how many modern games could trace their mechanics back to those found here. Overall, although the gameplay felt quite abstract I found it to be a lot of fun and definitely able to stand up against current designs.

In our game, I benefited from the first take over and found myself with more cash than the other players which felt like a large advantage. Over the course of the game, I felt like I lost some ground and it seemed like Kozure was really taking off. Tilitumbleroo was also doing quite well. I felt that I had a very good stock portfolio, and that I might catch up in the endgame. At one point, I was playing an escalation war with all three other players as we were all purchasing shares to try to get a majority before merging some of the last available companies. The shares ran out and I was locked out. Kozure and Tili ended up as 1st and 2nd and did quite well. Kozure ended the game by merging the last company, but as the smaller one liquidated we all realized that Tili was able to convert shares to the larger one and this put here in the lead. When all the money was counted, her majority holding meant the difference and she won.

Lots of fun, very tense, great design.

Brain asplodin' (Yomi, High Frontier, Dixit)

Kozure, in one of his more sadistic choices, decided to foist upon our inexperienced group a game of High Frontier, WITH EXPANSION. Shemp prepared the room in case of brain asplosion.

Yomi

Kozure and I started with a quick game of Yomi. I played Grave, and got off to an excellent start... succeeding to land every blow I attempted. Kozure fought back to parity and we stayed close until we were both in the low 30s health-wise. That was when I landed the big mega attack for 45 damage, and that was all she wrote...

High Frontier

High Frontier is a challenging game. It's not the rules, though those can be challenging as well, it's that in order to get a succesful mission you have to get the math *just* right. You need to get the right parts that line up with the mission you plan to undertake, then make sure your rocket isn't overburdened by all that tech, then launch it into space and hope you brought along enough fuel to get to where you where wanting to go. Getting this right requires much calculating and recalculating... you can't get it wrong or you waste 30-60 minutes finding out. This is why brains asplode. It's also why I was fearing the expansion.

It turns out the expansion isn't so bad after all. The main addition, besides the expanded map, is a greater array of parts required to build your space rocket (previously, all that was available were thrusters, robonauts and refineries). Now, these same main elements are supplemented with reactors, radiators and generators. Some parts are interdependent, for example a particular reactor might need a level 2 radiator. It works, and provides more interesting combinations and possibilities without being too complex. This part works very nicely in my opinion.

There are other additions, such as politics, environments, glitches, etc. These had a very mild impact on our game, so it's hard to say if they were any good. My first impression is that they are not worth the overhead, but that could be just because of the way our session played out.

I have a feeling that the expanded game is really just the whole game the designer wanted to publish, before he was convinced that it would be too complicated. The whole experience feels more fleshed out, and I for one liked it better this way. Complexity be damned!

We didn't manage to finish the game. I managed to pull together a combination of equipment that gave me a heavy, high thrust ship. I flew to Mars and built my first factory and decommissioned everything. I then built the same rocket and went to the nearest M planet that I could explore, which was on the expansion board (technically, the closest planet is Hartha but Kozure would be getting there before me).

I think it happened to all of us, but in the confusion of trying to assemble these complicated ships parts kept getting left behind. In my case, I showed up at said M planet and realized I forgot the device that allowed me a re-roll in case of failure (odds where 50-50 of success without it). I did succeed, but if I had failed the whole mission would have gone down the toilet because there was 0 fuel left after I got there.

High Frontier is a fun, but very challenging game. Mechanically, it feels like it could use further development, but regardless it's quite an intriguing and immersive challenge. It's definitely right up there in terms of games I know I will remember when I look back someday.

Dixit

Just as we were packing up, Kozure pulled out Dixit so we could take a look. I suggested we play a round or two, just to see how it plays. It was the perfect relaxing type of game to follow High Frontier so we went with it and played out the whole game.

Dixit is the Spiel de Jares winning party game. Players are dealt a hand of cards depicting surreal images and each round a the acting player needs to select one and come up with a clue based on the image. All the other players must select a card from their hand that they feel also matches the clue, and all selected cards are mixed together. Points are then awarded based on how many people select the active player's card. As is often the case with these types of games, the acting player must select a clue that is neither too obvious or too obscure because there are no points awarded to the acting player if everyone or no one gets it right.

The images are quite nice and evocative, and the process of inventing descriptive clues for the images is fun. Ultimately, it's just an apples 2 apples clone, but a little more cerebral and involving more creativity.