sedjtroll/Con Report/2010/BGG.com
Seth Jaffee
United States
Tucson
Arizona
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Last
week month was BGG.con, and I had a GREAT time as usual. Actually, I think I had a better time than usual...
For one thing, the con was extended to start on Wednesday. So Michael and I arrived on Tuesday afternoon. I spent some time helping bring in shelves of games to the library and stuff like that, and while chatting with someone they mentioned they saw Eminent Domain being played already down the hall. Someone was teaching my game to 4 other people before I even got there, and it's not even out yet!
While the extra time was really nice, I also very much enjoyed not frantically agonizing over Tasty Minstrel product not being there in time, and later, being screwed up from the printer. Instead, 90 copies of Train of Thought arrived in plenty of time, and we were able to rest easy about that.
I didn't get to play a lot of games (at least ones that aren't Tasty Minstrel games), but I did get to play more than last year. Honestly, I was a little disappointed in the new crop of games that I played - none of them were stand-out awesome. It makes me feel like I'm doing something right when I play Tasty Minstrel games and get the feeling that "hey, this is a really good game" - I haven't had that feeling from other new games as much lately, and I wonder if it's because there are just so many games out there that it's hard to find the gems, or if it's because the gems are fewer and further between than they used to be. By way of example, some games I've played in the recent past and gotten that "hey, this is a really good game" feeling have been: Brass, Goa, Vasco da Gama and Hansa Teutonica.
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Seth Jaffee
United States
Tucson
Arizona
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By now a lot of people are familiar with Eminent Domain and the kickstarter campaign we put on to raise money to publish it. That went really well - thank you everyone who supported it! We purposely timed the end of the kickstart for after the convention so we could demo the game and get people to place orders at the last minute.
When I arrived at the convention, Tuesday at 1:30 pm, I was super excited to find out that there were ALREADY people playing prototypes of my game at the con! A handful of people had brought their print and play copy of the game and all through Tuesday evening there were multiple games of Eminent Domain going on without me even being a part of it! It was great to see how well received the game has been so far - and it hasn't even got artwork yet!
I'm so excited for this game! I played Eminent Domain about 7 times at the convention, and taught it a bunch of times as well.
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Seth Jaffee
United States
Tucson
Arizona
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In addition to teaching Eminent Domain at the Tasty Minstrel booth, we also had about 90 copies of Train of Thought, hot off the press! This year they arrived in plenty of time, unlike last year's debacle.
Train of Thought went over really well at the booth, and we sold something like 70 copies. The game will be available soon, we'd hoped people would be able to pre-order in time for xmas, but seeing as how it's December 20th already I guess that didn't happen 
For ehn you play the game, here's something it may be important to note: a common mistake is that people think the FIRST word in a clue has to be the required word. In fact, the required word can be ANY of the three words in your clue - that makes it MUCH easier to make clues!
Also, people who try to get from the Start Word to the Destination Word in 1 step will struggle - the whole point is to try and construct a multi-step clue. You gotta get people on the train of thought!
I played a 2 full games (one of them 8 player!) of Train of Thought at the con, as well as teaching and playing a few turns of it in the Tasty Minstrel booth many times over the course of the week.
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Seth Jaffee
United States
Tucson
Arizona
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Lost For Words
Jay had several prototypes with him, and I tried this word game of his called Lost For Words - which is like doing a word search, only you create the board as you go. It was interesting, and fun, but I think it would be very prone to AP and I think the target market would be too small to make this a Tasty Minstrel title.
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Seth Jaffee
United States
Tucson
Arizona
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But Wait, There's More!
We then played another of Jay's prototypes called But Wait, There's More! - a game about making a ridiculous sales pitch, and voting on each others pitches.
This was a silly and fun party game which seemed well received every time we brought it out at the Tasty Minstrel booth. Michael really liked it, so it's likely going to be the next game in Tasty Minstrel's party game line!
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Seth Jaffee
United States
Tucson
Arizona
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Brainfreeze
It had been a while (maybe a year) since I had broken out my chess clock and played some Brainfreeze. I have forgotten to bring it to the last few conventions I've gone to. Playing it again reminds me how much I really do like this game!
I mentioned to someone how I think it should be possible to have a plastic timer made with 2 digital readouts, a start/stop button, and a toggle switch cheaply enough to provide that and a deck of cards for $20. They responded by saying that people could just use an iPhone app for the timer, and that conversation led to the realization that in fact, Brainfreeze would really do well as an iPad game!
You could tap your deck to dig cards up, 'push' your card to make your play, and the timer would automatically switch to your opponent's time, and there could be a CHALLENGE button to hit if you want to challenge an opponent's play. I could see little animations for cards coming up and flying to the center, and for revealing the top 2 cards for a challenge... seems like it's a perfect fit!
I made some contacts with iPad developers at the con, so maybe someday (soon) this could be a real possibility!
Edit: this is happening! Look for Seth Jaffee's Brain Freeze, coming soon to an app store near you!
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Seth Jaffee
United States
Tucson
Arizona
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I played Terra Prime and I taught it to a couple other groups over the course of the convnetion. It was really neat to see almost everyone walking around with a copy of my game! I signed a few copies for people, and I heard a lot of people talk about how excited they were to try it.
I kinda feel like Terra Prime got a bum rap when it came out, between rumors of bad production (which were true, but in a lot of cases largely exaggerated), rumors of "too much luck" because the game involves tile flipping and die rolling, and my not doing enough to promote the game I feel like it didn't get as much visibility in its first year (no video reviews, that didn't help)... but more recently I've gotten the impression that more people have found out about Terra Prime, tried the game, and liked it - and that makes me feel a bit better about it.
I have an expansion ready to go, but I don't know if or when it will be printed.
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Seth Jaffee
United States
Tucson
Arizona
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I played this twice at the con, once with 7 players and once with 4. My biggest concern going in was this...
I've played magic, and in an M:tG booster draft, if you had to choose when drafting each card whether you were going to put the card in your deck, your sideboard, or remove it from the game - that would totally suck. 7 Wonders works kind of like that - you draft a card, then you either play it, add it to your Monument, or sell it for money. I was concerned that this would suck in the same way it would suck for a Magic draft.
I'm happy to report that in 2 games of 7 Wonders, I only felt like that aspect was detrimental a couple of times... "only a couple of times" isn't the ideal number of course, but it's better than every single turn. I wonder if the game wouldn't be improved if players drafted all 6 cards for the age, then took turns playing them, so that when playing cards you have an idea which other cards you have drafted.
Something else I didn't love about the game was that it felt extremely solitary. Yes, I have some direct effect over my immediate neighbors. and I suppose if you get good you could theoretically affect players 2 down from you... but that's about it. In a 7 player game, I found myself unable to reasonably even watch what most of my opponents were doing, let alone affect it. So when I finished second to someone 3 seats to my right, well - there's nothing I could do about that, and that's pretty anticlimactic. Also, with so many people, you only see 1 card per pack, which destroys some of the interesting dynamics of Magic's Booster Draft format.
Playing with 4 players seemed better, as my actions had direct influence over a much greater percentage of my opponents, and the first couple packs actually came back to me for a second pick. I suspect that 3p will be this game's sweet spot because in that case you will directly affect each of your opponents, AND you'll see 2 cards from each pack. I could see 4 player being OK as well, but I don't think I'd ever want to play this with more than 4 players, and likely not with more than 3. I'll know better after I try it with 3.
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Seth Jaffee
United States
Tucson
Arizona
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I brought a copy of Jump Gate with me to try and figure out if it's something Tasty Minstrel should publish, and I rustled up a game of it on Wednesday night.
Jump Gate is currently available via TheGameCrafter.com, got a very positive [url=]review from Tom Vasel[/url], and won the Games! MAgazine Traditional Game of the Year award for 2011. Nothing against Jump Gate, but I do wonder (a) why Games! picks a Traditional Game of the Year for 2011 in October 2010, and (b) how they managed to pick an unpublished game for the award.
I have played Jump Gate a handful of times now, and while my initial impression was mediocre, I actually have grown to like it pretty well. I understand the game's designer Matt Worden is self publishing a small run of the game in order to capitalize on the award, but I think he's still looking for a publisher to pick it up.
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Seth Jaffee
United States
Tucson
Arizona
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Time's Up! has always been one of my favorite party games, and I try to get into a few games of it at each convention I go to - perfect for late night gaming! This year I only played in one game of Time's Up!, dragging Kimberly (kicking and screaming) with me. It was a good one though!
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Seth Jaffee
United States
Tucson
Arizona
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I played this silly little stacking game a couple of times. There's a little known, dreidle variant called Staccabees which this reminded me of.
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Seth Jaffee
United States
Tucson
Arizona
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I usually dip into the dexterity games in the lobby a couple of times during the con, and maybe my favorite of them this year was Le Passe-Trappe. I played it with Brian and with Nikki, and I don't know if we were using the correct rules or not, but it was fun and we had some epic back and forth swings of fate!
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Seth Jaffee
United States
Tucson
Arizona
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This silly dexterity game I didn't enjoy, maybe I'm just not good at launching cannonballs by hitting them from below with a mallet - most of my shots left the board altogether. I do feel like I could get better at the game over time, but I didn't enjoy it enough to try to improve the skill :/
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Seth Jaffee
United States
Tucson
Arizona
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I was dead-set on playing one of the new Essen crop that was on my list, but Troyes and Navegador were booked solid, and I couldn't find any of the things I was looking for in the library or anywhere else - but I did come across Cleopatra's Caboose. I checked it out determined to play it right after dinner, and Snowden - who wasn't hungry - volunteered to read the rules and figure out how to play while the rest of us went to Denny's for dinner.
When we got back, none of the dinner crowd wanted to play Cleopatra's Caboose, so I rustled up someone else and Snowden taught us the game.
I wasn't sure exactly what to expect other than amusing quips and parodies of stereotypical eurogame mechanics - which was delivered as expected. I found the game to bee pretty cool, but a bit fiddly to play, as for most actions you need both the card of the city you want to do the action in as well as the card of the action you want to do. That doesn't really sound like a problem, but as it turns out, it's easy to either forget that you don't have the right card or something - it happened several times in our game. I believe I lost by 1 poitn, or a tiebreak perhaps, with Snowden just a couple points behind - a real nail biter as we counted up our scores - especially considering I thought I was way behind!
At this point it was something like 3am and time for bed!
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Seth Jaffee
United States
Tucson
Arizona
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I did not get to spend nearly as much time as I wanted to in Proto Ally this year, as I was called away to teach Terra Prime, and to do a few other things. I did however get a quick 4-player game of Equilibrium in with Chris Cieslik (of Asmadi games), David Etherton (big TMG and Eminent Domain fan), and one other player (I'm totally sorry, I forget who it was!)
The game didn't go over as well as I hoped it would. I wonder who the ideal market for this game is. I think it's clever, novel, unusual, quick, and easy to learn - so I'm surprised it hasn't gone over better when I've played it.
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Seth Jaffee
United States
Tucson
Arizona
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This was on my list of games to try, but before I knew anything about it at all I overheard a friend talking about some strategy he had used in his first game, and how he thought that might turn into a sort of dominant strategy. Since I didn't know the game at all, it didn't make any sense to me at the time.
When I got a chance to play Grand Cru, I ended up getting a couple of Yellow fields while Brian was diversifying in Green, Red and Blue (maybe Purple too) and David was concentrating on the later game resources (Blue and Purple). I was happy with my cheaper stuff, as I didn't want to take out many loans - I'd prefer to become self sufficient (and I guess that's how you end the game too). As I played I realized that while my friends were taking more loans and bidding each other up, investing in a future return from their Blue and Purple grapes, I was happily making profit (though less of it then they eventually would). I noticed that in the next round, David had a bunch of Purple grapes ready to mature, and he'd be able to sell them for a wad of cash (like 4 cubes for 7 or 8 each). Wile I had 2 Yellow fields and could have consistently made $15 pr $20 per round, I decided not to let David get his windfall and instead I paid off all my loans that round, ending the game. I won with a score of something like 22-4-2.
It occurred to me during play that I was doing about the same thing my friend had done (only he'd used Red grapes, so I did it more efficiently with Yellow). While other players invested in a long term plan for better returns, I made some smaller profit and then ended the game before their returns were realized. I figured that's what Robb must have meant by a dominant strategy, if ever you go for the Blue/Purple stuff, you could easily have the game end abruptly before you sell them - so if I were to play again I think I would not go for such a strategy, I would try to get Green, Yellow, and Red grapes instead. At first it seemed like that would pretty much dominate other strategies, but after some thought I guess what would happen is that people would all get more of a variety of grapes - cheap stuff in the early game so as to not have to take more loans, then, when not in danger of losing if the game ends, people would gradually build up their late game plays. I could see the game being a lot more interesting that way.
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16.
Board Game: Troyes
[Average Rating:7.81 Overall Rank:34]
Seth Jaffee
United States
Tucson
Arizona
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I had heard a lot of good things about Troyes, and I think it's amusing that with how much people bash dice and randomness on this site, whenever a new game comes out that attempts to use dice as a main feature, it's met with the highest praise... Kingsberg, To Court the King, Yspahan, Macao, Alien Frontiers, and now Troyes.
I FINALLY got a chance to try this very hot game in the hot games room. I played with Brian, David and Andrew (if memory serves) - and of course none of us had played before. Luckily Snowden offered to teach, but unluckily he'd only played once, and it seemed to me that no two people at the convention knew the same rules to the game, so who knows if he was taught correctly. Over the course of the game we found some things that we were doing incorrectly, either because we forgot what Snowden said, misunderstood the icoography (which is great until you realize it's not consistent), or because what we'd learned turned out to be incorrect. That may have contributed (a little) to what turned out to be one of the most miserable gaming experiences of my life!
Troyes involves rolling dice, and then using those dice to do stuff - kinda like Kingsberg and Alien Frontiers. Something that I think is super important to note is that YOU ARE NOT LIMITED TO USING YOUR OWN DICE. You may pay money to use other people's dice. For people who consider that they got a bad roll and therefore can't really do anything, YOU'RE GOING TO HATE THE GAME - especially if you consider any of the dice to be YOUR dice.
That said, it IS possible to "roll badly" - but a bad roll actually doesn't mean "a roll you can't use yourself" - it means "a roll you can't use nor can any of your opponents" - and in general the game is set up so that 5's and 6's aren't always better than 1's and 2's. but it's a dice game, and it is possible that you will get a "bad" roll, or a roll you don't like, sometimes. most of the time what you're really doing though is evaluating the various actions along with the costs involved, and since you're able to use other people's dice, that just means that some actions cost you more money than others. Note also that if you pay to use someone else's dice, then your dice are available for other people to bu and use. And if they don't do that, then you get an (albeit poor) extra action later.
We had a player who absolutely did not understand that, and spent more time complaining about it than playing the game. I did some of that myself as well, complaining at first about the dice until I realized what was going on, but also complaining about or discussing the difficulty to know what the heck things mean (the rules ambiguity). It was so bad in fact (and was taking FOREVER) that about 1/2 way through I asked if we shouldn't just quit playing - while I myself like to finish games and see how they go (even if I'm not enjoying the game itself), I thought we would all be better served if we just gave up on this one. Surprisingly though, my suggestion that we quit the game and do something else was simply met with blank stares. So, we persevered, though Brian excused himself a little while later on account of it was late and he had to get home, but I suspect he was really not enjoying the game.
In the end, I managed to win even though I was way behind on the score track and was fairly certain my endgame scoring was sub-par. The final scores were 38 (me) - 35 (Andrew) - 31 (Brian) - 30 (David). I would like to play the game again, with a proper understanding of the rules, and see how it plays out. But I will be sure to take care what type of players I play dice games with in the future.
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Seth Jaffee
United States
Tucson
Arizona
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I played one game of this silly but fun sort of fluxx-type game (only way better because there's no chance the game drags on for hours). It took about 2 minutes, and I was totally going to win on my turn, but I managed to say "me" or "I" or something when someone had a card in play that said you lose if you say that. Bummer!
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Seth Jaffee
United States
Tucson
Arizona
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I played a few hands of Win, Lose, or Banana, with giant cardboard cards. That game is amusing, and oddly enough, is very similar to something my friend Jeremy came up with a few years ago as an analogy for 3 player Starcraft: The Board Game.
Jeremy wrote: Ok, it's like this - on the count of 3, everyone point at one of your opponents. The one that gets pointed to the most, loses. That player chooses who wins between the other two.
Since it was 4 in the morning at the time, we had some fun extrapolating that into a large group social game wherein each person starts with like 3 coins, and the "loser" gives a coin to one of the other players - and the idea is to get the most coins by doing lots of this little game with different people. I said "this game could be used as an icebreaker at some big group function." Jeremy's reply: "More like iceMAKER."
So that's what it's called, Icemaker. Maybe I should formalize it and publish it, as it's in the same vain as games like Win, Lose, or Banana. 
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Seth Jaffee
United States
Tucson
Arizona
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I have been trying to meet up with Tom Lehmann for several conventions in a row now, and I finally made an arrangement to meet with him and play both his latest, the Race for the Galaxy Dice Game, and mine: Eminent Domain. We started with RftG (Dice for the Galaxy? Roll for the Galaxy?) and as Tom explained the game the only thought I had was "wow, this is a lot more complex than I expected for a dice game!"
I suppose since it's not published I shouldn't really say anything specific. Needless to say, it's got a lot of the flavor of the card game, and has a whole new set of cryptographic icons for people to complain about. They didn't bother me at all, but then, neither did the icons in RftG. I enjoyed the game, and I even managed to beat Tom at it!
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Seth Jaffee
United States
Tucson
Arizona
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I did not play Puzzle Strike at BGG.con, this entry is actually for the Puzzle Hunt! One of my favorite activities at BGG.con every year is the Puzzle Hunt, and they've gone through a few different formats - most of which are great. This year they re-used a format from 2 years ago, and it's one of the better formats I think. Each puzzle's solution indicates an item which will fit into the paper bag you are given. Once you have a solution, you have to find the appropriate item and then wait in line and show it to the judges. If you are right, you get points... there are 26 puzzles (one for each letter of the alphabet), and the early solvers of each puzzle get more points than later solvers.
I like this format because there's a logistical element to it. You solve the cryptic puzzles on paper, but then you have to figure out how to cut a bottlecap in half, or how to put together a gum sandwich using pennies for buns (someone got extra credit for putting a little piece of lettuce on it). You also have to sort out physically how you're going to collect these items and get them in line to show the judges, and possibly which you think will be worth the most - because you can only show them 1 item at a time!
We didn't win, but it was a lot of fun. I'm fairly certain our team lost some of the score cards, because we solved almost all the puzzles, and yet had a really low score - even if we only got the minimum 5vp for each puzzle (and we definitely got more than that for some of them), we should have had more points than we actually did... Hmm. But there's no way we were going to beat some of the professional puzzle solvers who were in the top few teams!
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Seth Jaffee
United States
Tucson
Arizona
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After the puzzle hunt I finally got a chance to play Eminent Domain with Tom Lehmann. It was interesting hearing his comments about games that have potential to be a big hit (Tom Lehmann said my game had the potential to be a hit! Awesome!), and how to deal with scalability - not just scaling the number of players, but expanding the card base as well. He had some good insight into how to handle expansions, which was about the opposite of my own philosophy... so it's a good thing I talked to him about it! My philosophy is more for a board game that might get 1 expansion, not for a big hit like RftG or Dominion where people will demand multiple expansions. I don't know if people will demand that from Eminent Domain or not, but it's definitely something to shoot for!
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Seth Jaffee
United States
Tucson
Arizona
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Michael committed me to playing an unpublished board game that was supposed to be like playing Werewolf. While it was not the worst idea in the world, I did not like it. It was also very random, so it didn't really matter what you chose to do. It felt very little like i was playing Werewolf, although I did see that aspect in the game.
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Seth Jaffee
United States
Tucson
Arizona
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I read the rules to 51st State online a while ago, but forgot them by the time I got to the convention. 51st State was high on my list of games to try, because I liked the sound of how you have 3 ways to play each card. I finally got a chance to play it late Saturday night.
I am sorry to report that I found 51st State to be very fiddly, highly solitary feeling, and maybe the most annoying thing about it was that while I had my whole turn planned out, irrespective of other players' actions, I could only do 1 little thing and then have to wait while everyone else did their usually solitary action before I could move on with my turn. This turn order is very important in a few instances - people using your buildings, but otherwise entirely useless and cumbersome.
I suppose this is what some people have meant when they've made a similar comment about Terra Prime - that they knew their next 6 or so actions, but could only do 3 at a time and sometimes had to wait while another player contemplates their move. Ah well.
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Seth Jaffee
United States
Tucson
Arizona
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I hadn't played Wizard's Tower in maybe a year, so it was nice to bust it out again at BGG.con last month. I taught the game to Jay and Andy before Jay had to head back to Canada - and it went pretty well, I think everybody liked it.
Later that day I taught the game again to Ravindra Prasad, who also seemed to like it pretty well if memory serves (please correct me if I'm wrong, Ravindra!). Wizard's Tower continues to be a solid little game!
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Seth Jaffee
United States
Tucson
Arizona
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Titans of Industry
I had a Tasty Minstrel submission with me that I'd been wanting to play for a couple of weeks. I finally had the chance, and it's probably good that I waited because the designer sent an update pack a week before the con which he says improves the game tremendously.
While Mike and I set up the game to play with Ravindra and Mary Prasad, Mary recognized it from having played it at The Gathering or someplace a couple of years ago. Evidently it was a really bad experience that last time, and she was very concerned about playing it again. I told her about this update that has allegedly shortened the game a lot (one of the prior problems was game length), but she was hesitant.
Well, we played the entire game in about 30 minutes - but that's because we had a critical rule wrong. We figured it out halfway through and decided to finish the game so we could see how endgame scoring worked, then we started over and played a real game.
With the correct rule, the game was MUCH more interesting! There's a lot of stuff in there that I liked (not least of all the title: Titans of Industry has a certain ring to it.
I played a couple more games in the following week or so, and sent some comments back to the designer. I'd like to see what becomes of that game, because I think it has some serious potential.
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