New to you October 2011 => Best new boardgame
Andy
United Kingdom
Stockport
Manchester
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What new board and card games did you play in October 2011? Please share your experiences of the games you played for the first time this month.
In order to assist with collecting Statistics from these lists, please post an entry with your chosen game of the month, and if possible please use the "insert board game" feature to add other games you mention in your entry.
- October is Essen month, so typically this list will be filled with plays of the most recent games... so what is the top tip from Essen 2011??
New To You Metalist 2011
New To You MetaMetalist
New To You Geeklists - Announcement thread
Other Great Monthly Lists
Your Most Played Game (and more): October 2011
New to Your Kids October 2011 - the best new games you've played with children and why
Videogames New To You October 2011
Your best gaming experience of the month and why October 11
New to you a year ago Oct 11 => Has it stood the test of time?
Games only YOU have played in October 2011
Out of the Dust, October 2011
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26.
Board Game: Samurai
[Average Rating:7.48 Overall Rank:81]
Play Games - Interact - Have Fun!
United States
California
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Nothing exactly "New" this past month, but I did re-visit an old favorite of mine...
Re-Visits
Samurai - 1 play
 
Prior to this most recent play this month, I hadn't played a game of Samurai since June of 2009 - that's nearly two and a half YEARS! I'm really kind of shocked it's been that long as it didn't feel that way as I was setting up the game.
I completely remembered how to set up the game, how to play, and after a turn or two the strategies returned and the game was ON!
Often terms used to describe games get overused and they become almost derisive when someone sees them over and over. The term "elegant" comes to mind here. The definitions (as they pertain to games) would be the following:
1. tasteful in style, or design
2. dignified and graceful in appearance, etc
3. cleverly simple; ingenious
With those definitions in mind, I can clearly state that Samurai is Elegant.
Look at the first picture I added and you can see the beauty of the components - they are simply beautiful to look at and the evoke the far eastern feeling of the theme of the game quite nicely. The game is played on a map of Japan - again tying in the theme yet also providing some dignity and respect for the subject matter.
On top of the beauty and style in which the game is presented, the game play itself is very simple - yet very deep from a strategic standpoint, making the game one of both intense contemplation and risky manuevering. The design allows you to play the game both "fast and loose" - where you are "feeling" the right decisions to make; or you can be more strategic and plan your tile placement move by move - hoping to outwit your opponent and catch him offgaurd at an inopportune time. This flexibility is what makes the game so ingenious as it can appeal to gamers from many different backgrounds and preferences.
Although it really could be considered an abstract, the game doesn't necessarily feel that way when you are playing.
Samurai is simple, beautiful to look at and much deeper than the game play would suggest. It's a favorite of mine and for good reason.
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Joerg Schaefer
Germany
Frankfurt
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It was Essen month again! I got to play 24 games for the first time ranging from really good to absolutely not my type of game as a visit to Essen is prone to me ending up in games I normally wouldn't play. My game of the month is Power Grid: The First Sparks which meets my high expectations for a Power Grid game. At the lower end there were some disappointments such as Tournay, Colonial or the seemingly broken AFAOS.
Game of the month
Power Grid: The First Sparks:  (4 plays)
My favourite game of Spiel 2011 so far. Friedemann took the basic Power Grid structure, stripped away the auctions, the differentiation of needed resources, the fixed game board and added a few special skills available for purchase to get a quicker, less calculation-intensive Power Grid light. The best part: he succeeded with this task!
Very good games
Charon Inc.: (1 play)
Charon Inc. succeeds in transforming the market mechanism from Hermagor into a full-blown game. There's a second clever idea in combining the central mechanism with a negative action selection, i.e. you start with pawns on all actions and possibly only can use the action where the last pawn is left and only if there's not more than one other pawn. I'm probably to positive in my intial rating but Hermagor is a good 8/10 for me and Charon Inc. was as enjoyable to play notwithstanding it's lack of the network aspect.
Potion-Making: Practice: (4 plays)
Potion-Making: Practice does exactly what I expected it to do. It's a light card game with a few possibilities for clever play while still random enough to give occassional gamers a chance for winning. The big plus is the well-implemented cute topic that's perfect for game-playing couples.
Good games
City Tycoon:  (1 play)
Until a few days before Essen, this wasn't on my screen at all. Then suddenly, people started talking about it on the Geek and as I like Sim City and the art of this game, it went on my list for Essen.
I liked what I saw. Each of the four rounds starts with a draft of tiles. Players have to balance the development of their city between generating money, resources or VP's while managing the spatial component of tile-laying and not losing sight of what the neighbours are doing. It's not a deep game but players need to be concentrated all the timeor otherwise they easily will make mistakes which usually will cost them VP's. My single concern is that there's almost no way to catch up with a runaway leader once somebody got together a nice coherent infrastructure.
Prêt-à-Porter: (1 play)
Before Spiel 2011, I dismissed Pret-a-Porter on account of the length of the rules which are beyond what I usually accept for a worker placement Eurogame. But as there was a table available when I finished my game of City Tycoon, I gave it a try.
Bearing in mind my low expectations, this was a positive surprise. I'm not too fond of worker placement as a mechanism. It has a tendency to be repetitive and resolution of placement can get boring. Pret-a-Porter avoids this trap by many unique actions (drawn tiles) that can be chosen and will change from turn to turn. It definitely helped that we had a skilled game explainer from Portal that spared us the hassle of constantly browsing the manual. The explanation also mitigated the few rough corners that this game has (stars for the exhibition first provide additional money for each exhibition piece and one turn later they provide a second type of money that only counts at game end). I have one worry though: due to the multitude of different tiles they strongly differ in strength. As there's no way to influence turn order, there's the potential for lucky shots that could throw off the game balance.
I would call Pret-a-Porter 2011's Vinhos. Let's see if it will have a longer life span. For me, the points go to Pret-a-Porter. If I only could see playing it with some regularity which is necessary to get a flow into the game.
Kingdom Builder: (1 play)
I'm not a big fan of Dominion but Kingdom Builder with its spatial aspect sounded interesting. Play feels way more abstract than I was expecting. I'm a bit worried after one game that there's a start player advantage that's not compensated for. Still, I enjoyed the game and would like to try a few more setups. Everybody expecting a Dominion-like game will be severly disappointed though.
Trajan: (1 play)
Trajan was the heavy Euro game that interested me the most at Spiel 2011. Trajan didn't disappoint. Lots of options, an innovative central mechanism inspired by Mancala and potentially many ways to winning. My only concern is that there won't be much differentiation among equally experienced players as any selected strategy will yield a comparable amount of VP's and small efficiency advantages which won't even be noticed at the time could decide the game. Nonetheless, I almost bought the game. I only decided otherwise, because I found Feld's last year release Luna for half of the money they were asking for Trajan which shares the same characteristic of many ways to generate VPs.
Mondo: (1 play)
Mondo is a fun competitive puzzle if you're into that. All players grab tiles from the middle of the table at the same time and try to build up their island the best. Multiple criteria will be scored which makes this game challenging. These kinds of speed games get me worrying as I'm performing worse and worse each year.
Innovation: (1 play)
Combo-building is a genre I have trouble with. My first play of Innovation was ok which is almost a recommendation for the game. There will be wild swings in the game but there's also a lot of potential for clever moves. Innovation is one of the games players can't win by their decisions alone as there's too much screwage but that can easily be lost by stalling your engine. To really enjoy the game, it's necessary to play repeatedly and get acquainted with the cards.
Wars of the Roses: Lancaster vs. York: (1 play)
Wars of the Roses is a highly chaotic game which might be valid as a representation of the period depicted but which is critical for a 2-3 hour game. It was fine with me but I may have a double bias of having bought the game and winning the play. I liked the soft alliance system and the simultaneous action planning. My hope is that better bluffing and double-guessing decides the winner and repeated play will show that the same players will win more often than not. The rest of my group tended to the opinion that luck/chaos will decide the winner and that there's too much effort up front for too few output in the end.
Carcassonne: The City: (1 play)
Carcassonne: the City is more strategic than other Carcassonne incarnations. The walls and guards introduce a whole new scoring dimension. Keeping the right balance between permanently placed meeples and constantly scoring with them for markets and roads is key to winning as a higher percentage of points will come from permanent meeples than in any other Carcassonne variant. Potentially worrying: the importance of not letting others score something in the city to avoid giving them the chance to build a tower or put guards on juicy spots can lead to very defensive play up to a point where scoring in the city doesn't happen any more (see Glamorous Mucus' comment).
My favourite in the series remains the Castle and I usually will prefer plain Carcassonne or Hunters & Gatherers but the City is a nice change of pace.
The Princes of Machu Picchu: (1 play)
The Princes of Machu Picchu certainly is Mac Gerdt's most controverse game. Half of the players in my group were really annoyed by the alternative Spaniard victory condition which introduces VP multipliers that can lead to huge gaps in scores. This is sad as it will be very hard now getting it to the table again. They'll miss out on the sublime additonal strategic level of working with/towards the victory conditions and timing the end of the rounds accordingly. Other than that, it's clearly recognizable as a Gerdt's game with action restrictions imposed by the board (kind of a hidden rondel), getting your engine to run efficiently and choosing your VP multipliers. To put it into the context of his other games:
1/2. Imperial / Imperial 2030
3/4. Navegador / Princes of Machu Picchu
5. Hamburgum
6. Antike
Ok games
Onirim:  (2 plays)
Solitaire base game only. Onirim is the themed modern equivalent of classic card patiences. I don't play patiences any more but the fascinating card design and theme makes Onirim worth playing if I want to kill 15 minutes. There are some decisions to be made but if the deck is stacked against you there's probably not much you could do about it.
Feudality: (1 play)
I'm wondering why Lookout dropped its no-dice policy for Feudalherren. To me, it didn't stand out as a great dice game. It's old-fashioned in its use of dice. They can be brutal and kick you out of any contention for winning. They can be a cornucopia of VP's and push you to an uncontested victory which is what happened to me. A fun game with a huge potential to outstay its welcome. Definitely no game that warrants 90 minutes playing time.
Arcanum: (1 play)
The idea of playing a boardgame with a standard tarot deck created by a renowned tarot publisher intrigued me. As can be expected, the cards are nice although a bit juvenile when it comes to the portraits of women on the cards. All of them must have had some kind of plastic surgery. The game itself is ok. Players secretly invest in one of the four tarot suits and have to push their house(s) to the top by making the most of the cards dealt. The biggest weakness is that the luck of the draw can be decisive. Higher small arcana are just better than lower ones. The great arcana can be everything from big points to worthless. No balancing there. And if you just draw the suit that nobody else is pushing, there's not much you can do. If it weren't for the art of the cards, I would call this a family game. As is, I'm not sure where to put it.
The City: (1 play)
A simplified San Juan derivate which can easily be explained in five minutes and played in twenty. If you don't get your engine running in the first two rounds, you've lost as cards score points every round and there will be only six rounds or so. The rapid engine building is an annoyance. People will be able to draw 16 cards per round only to discard down to an allowed total of 12 cards. The hand management aspect gets lost in this shuffle. As with all combo building games, I suck at this game but the short playtime is a big plus.
Average games
King of Tokyo:  (1 play)
I had no intentions of playing King of Tokyo as this kind of silly random luckfest is not up my alley but a guy from the Iello booth at Spiel 2011 asked me to enter a game of it as they were looking for one more player. As expected, it's not my kind of game but for 20 minutes and considering the gorgeous art, it's ok. I had fun killing myself and reaching the victory condition of 20 VP at the same time by playing jetfighters. At that time, we all weren't sure if this made me the winner or first loser. In the mean time, I know that I lost the game but it didn't matter as it was the most fun part of the game.
Colonial: Europe's Empires Overseas: (1 play)
Colonial was one of the Spiel 2011 hypes. It is ok but it didn't blow me out of the water - except for the absolutely outstanding board. As is recommended, we played with the advanced colony rules but we probably were too tame in our first game as nobody started a war. I suppose that things get more interesting with more experienced players but I have the nagging feeling that as with many small publishers this game could have needed a professional developer. Just to mention two issues: some of the actions will always be taken, some almost never and attaching 20% of the total needed prestige tokens to a single D6 roll (discovery of Australia) is at least unusual. I would play it again but after playing it I don't have to think any more about purchasing it. My guess is that next Spiel nobody will be talking about this one any more.
Tournay: (1 play)
Somebody has thrown the elements of Troyes up in the air but they didn't assemble correctly again and the dice got lost. While Pearl Games' premier game was a fine-tuned positive surprise, Tournay left me with the impression that the pressure on Pearl for developing a succesful second game was too high and they ran into a dead end. It could be inexperience with the game but in our play the pacing was off, especially in regard to the external attacks and the end game timing. It's nice that they have reused the great art scheme from Troyes but I'll stay with the big brother.
Discworld: Ankh-Morpork: (1 play)
Discworld is Martin Wallace's take on the Munchkin / Chez Geek genre. There's a lot of randomness, which usually can't be mitigated. The experience is the game which carries through the first 20 minutes but gets repetitive from thereon. To be fair, there's a few things you can do to work towards your secret goal but if the other players pay attention or events hit you, you probably won't make it unless you have the winning condition of playing through all cards. Some of the winning conditions are also more obvious than others. A fine game to play with non-gamers but nothing I would ask for.
Texas Nukem: (1 play)
The Spiel in Essen is about small publishers and it doesn't get much smaller than Mondainai. I followed the few threads on his 2010 Swedish Parliament. This year (2011) I decided to see what his games are about as the Spiel probably is the only place to ever run across one of the Mondainai games. Unluckily, his new creation basically is Texas Hold'em Poker with a board and a few additional rules. To be honest, I would rather play the original which is a bit sad as the publisher seems to be a really nice guy.
Not good
Evolution: The Origin of Species:  (1 play)
Too much 'take that' card play and if you don't get any combination cards, things are tough. The first half of the game probably doesn't matter too much. It's only important to get good cards shortly before end. What a pity, as Sergey Machin who demonstrated the game, seems to be a nice bloke and I really like the art.
A Few Acres of Snow: (1 play)
Deckbuilding+, i.e. there's a purpose to deckbuilding and there's a spatial component to the game which puts this ahead of other deckbuilders. I really enjoyed it on my first play. A firm 7/10 so far.
Too bad that I made the mistake to browse BGG forums: Can France Beat Britain's "Settle Halifax, Besiege Louisbourg, Besiege Quebec" Strategy?. As usual with deckbuilders, there are annoying / degenerate deck thinning strategies that are well beyond my understanding as a non-MTG player but are necessary to be applied when winning is the only goal. Deckbuilding coupled with asymmetric sides worsens the situation and easily leads to broken games (e.g. Campaign Manager 2008 - just take a look at the best players winning ratios at yucata.de and you know what I mean). Knowing that there are superior strategies for one side that can't be countered diminishes my interest close to zero. Hopefully, Wallace issues a fix that will open up the field of possible winning strategies again. Until then, 4/10.
Heroica: Fortaan:  (1 play)
I'm surprised by the comparably good rating for a children's game. You walk around, roll the die. Many times it doesn't even matter what you roll as you will be able to jump ahead of the players in front of you anyway to the next empty spot. Potentially, you could buy better equipment but why should you. Collecting the money to buy them is a waste of time as the winner will be the one who rushes straigth to the baddie and kills him with a lucky roll. The only fun is the nonsensical situation of being at Europe's biggest gamer convention and playing this! Even for a simple game like this Lego managed to provide a rule set with huge holes in it. Give me Looping Louie any time instead.
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Max Maloney
United States
Portland
Oregon
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Though there were many new games this month, it was a little soft overall. The good ones weren't amazing and there was a lot of garbage. Still some highlights to be had.
Homesteaders x2
A surprisingly fresh game given that it uses so many typical euro elements, such as auctions, resource conversions and VP engines (and a little worker placement). I love the short length and quick turns that focus the game.
Santiago x1
A cutthroat abstract-ish game, which is usually not my thing. This game really appealed to me due to the negotiation involved with canalmaster position, the difficulty in bidding on tiles and randomness of the tile draw. I want to play again.
Vikings x2
I went to some effort to track this down based on the review of a GeekBuddy. The game's biggest appeal was that it really didn't feel like any other game I've played. I'm not certain whether the gameplay might be repetitive over more plays, but I am very glad I took a chance on it at full MSRP if only to experience something new.
Eaten By Zombies! x5
I kickstarted this a day before the time limit. Again this was based on a desire to see something new and the reviews made it seem like a truly fresh take on deck-building. Though I've enjoyed it so far, I've played all 5 games with new players each time and haven't seen any cards beyond the recommended starting selection. I'd like to branch out and see how much the game can really do.
Dice Town x2
What can be said? It's random and silly, but it works for the right group. I got targeted a lot and never came close to winning either play. I'll play it again, but not too often.
Belfort x1
Unfortunately, it's dull. I did like the way worker placement was used to drive an area control game and all was done with a cute theme, but the variety of gameplay felt very lacking. I'd like to see many more different buildings than those included in the basic game.
Last Night on Earth: The Zombie Game x1
This is going to feel like a theme for me this month, but this game is a bit of a waste of time. A cute theme ruined by the unfortunate decision of Flying Frog to use poor photography in lieu of art. A nice theme made dull by bland gameplay. I can imagine some tension, but our game ended very suddenly with no fanfare and drama. Better than some other Flying Frog Games, however...
Space Hulk: Death Angel - The Card Game x1
A very procedural-feeling coop, in which there is risk of failure but no exciting tension. Working out the best path was more dull than enthralling. It may have been compromised by the group playing with information more open than the rules-as-written allow. I'd be tempted to try with the more secretive play.
Urban Sprawl x1
Verrrrry disappointing. The problems with this game mostly come down to fiddliness. Calculating payouts wasn't too bad, though planning for them is difficult which makes income feel too random. The big problem were the events in the planning deck, which are far too common and slow the upkeep phases down immeasurably. Learning the contract cards was also a bit tiresome on that first play. I don't want to have to read and process 60 new cards. My play was 4 hours and we quit after the first 2/3 of the game.
Monsters Menace America x1
Another cute waste of time. Our play was riddled with house rules and just plain incorrect rules, but I don't think it matters. There is too little going on here and the endgame is a major letdown. Nice bits.
Fortune and Glory: The Cliffhanger Game x1
A great theme ruined by obscenely overwrought gameplay. This game was fiddly and slow as molasses. No, slower. The box says 90 minutes; we played 2 hours and were 5% through completion of play. Also, for all it's components it was dismally lacking in villain variety. We encountered the same random villains over and over... because there were no other options. Good ideas. Terrible development. This should be overhauled.
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Claudio Campuzano
United States
Portland
Oregon
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Not only was Viva Topo my favorite new game this month, but it was a gaming milestone: my daughter learned the rules of a competitive, played by the rules, and adored it. She was shaking with excitement as the cat gained on us. Her only rules lapse was that she wanted to give me one of her rolls to help my mouse to safety.
But not only did I play with her, but also with my wife and a non-gamer friend. Everyone just adored it. No, it is not really a deep game that's going to have a ton of replayability by adults, but it is silly fun and about as good as gaming gets with your four year old. Watching my daughter learn to make calculated risks, to manage risk by identifying safe spots on the threshold of the the cheese stations... This was more than I could have hoped from the game.
Mother Sheep
(LittleGiraffe)
Mother Sheep was a surprise. While it was not a great game, it had way more to offer than I expected. It is something of a free form Transamerica with a ton - and perhaps too much - opportunity for screwage where the hidden goals are sheep to be fenced in by communally placing multicolored fences. Fence in the most sheep from your goal card and you win. The restrictive placement rules make each turn a significant spatial challenge. Our group is a bit prone to overthinking so it was no surprise that a game that was expected to take 20 minutes to something over an hour. That was too long for what this game can bear. But still, a very solid game. My biggest concern is that very destructive play is too easy and too worthwhile; with experienced players I see it devolving into an unplayable mess.
Pamplona: Viva San Fermin!
(Toynan)
Pamplona was beautifully produced, silly, fun, and, potentially good. Four races where each player controls a bull, an ox, and a runner. Bulls gore and eliminate players, oxen trample players and score for their owners, and the little dudes run for their lives. The closer they start to the bulls the more they score if they make it. Bulls and oxen move with cards; dudes move a set amount but can be enhanced by beer - yes, beer! There are also special cards that give players special offensive and defensive abilities. We only made it through half a game before we got kicked out of the pub, but I was starting to see how one might actually be able to build a race strategy out of the dealt cards, the chosen special card and the starting spaces. I'd be more than happy to play a full game of this sometime. It was a hoot.
Jenga
(OldestManOnMySpace)
Speaking of fun, I played Jenga and liked it. Yes, it was at the end of a five hour/seven bar trivia pub crawl, but when else are you going to play a classic dex game? No world beater, it was had all the requisite tension of the 'don't knock crap down' genre. No, the possible moves were not that physically interesting, but man, it is a visceral pleasure to watch it fall. An admission, this wasn't really my first play, but it was my first play in over twenty years, so i figure that counts.
GIPF
(msaari)
I was very underwhelmed by Gipf. I'm sure there is much, much more to learn and appreciate about the game, but I didn't feel that exhilaration that I got on my first plays of Tzaar, Yinsh, and even Dvonn - that feeling of exploring and experimenting with a very strange and nonintuitive dynamic. Gipf just... Well... It happened.
ZERTZ
(toulouse)
Another one in the 'I don't quite know what to make of that' file. Very highly touted by many geekbuddies, but my first play was a bit underwhelming. I suppose two newbies weren't able to set up the tense sacrifices that everyone talks about. That said, I liked the shrinking board, the shared pieces, the multiple win conditions. More plays are in order.
Breakthru
(Pergloco)
Breakthru was one of several auction pickups this month. It is gorgeously produced; the pieces are like slugs from a pretty serious caliber firearm. The game, though, did not feel that promising after one play. Admittedly, this is not much of a test, but while I liked the asymmetrical nature - one player tried to get the flagship to safety while the other, equipped with a larger force, tries to stop it - the board locks up pretty tightly. Unlocking it seems to result in a cascade of sacrifices. This type of tactical lookahead is not my thing. I much prefer my abstracts to be focused on the control of space. It tends to lead to more interesting decision spaces.
Too Many Cooks
(DeanMary)
We didn't play a complete game of this because a game of Traders of Genoa was waiting. But after two rounds, I felt there was still enough to explore in the hand management to want to play again. Each round, players have different goals as selected from their initial hand of goal cards. You play the one that fits your hand that round. My guess is that there is a reasonable amount of play in this little trick-taker.
Agricola
(leaxe)
I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Part of that probably had to do with playing with people I like and hadn't played much with in recent months. Besides that, I found it to be a totally functional implementation of the worker placement/action selection mechanism in the context of efficiency engine. That is to say: pretty bland. Lots of little decisions. Zero drama. The push away from specialization in the scoring seems necessary to create the tension of the action selection. While reduces the 'paths to victory' that so many people beg for, it emphasizes the interaction - a plus from my perspective. It changes the game from an engine building game to a blocking/anticipating game. I imagine that my appreciation would grow over several games as engine-building moved to autonomous brain function and blocking became the focus of my thinking/planning. However, after that, I imagine my interest would quickly wane because, frankly, the blocking doesn't seem particularly interesting. Moreover, the single-path issue would eventually lead to indistinguishable plays. Zero drama, untineresting little blocking decisions. Not my thing.
Glen More
(Toynan)
Glen Less. Typical euro point salad. I like the dude activation and the time track. I hope they show up in good games. Oh wait, the time track at least did and it is called Neuland. To be serious, I found this game to be the typical euro formula of many small, narrowly constrained decisions amounting to a drama-free slog.
Railways of the World
(EndersGame)
I'd rather be playing the Early Railways Collection. There is a lack of tightness that is just downright silly. That said, I do actually enjoy it more than Age of Steam because the logistics are not as punishing. So, I guess I am lazy that way.
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30.
Board Game: Eclipse
[Average Rating:8.34 Overall Rank:6]
Adam Daulton
United States
Indianapolis
Indiana
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Only two new to me games this month. Eclipse and Panic Station. Eclipse gets the nod here, though I could see it getting the nod in a bigger month too. It has a bunch of what I like in a game, conflict, variable player powers, balancing resources to research what you need, and awesome bits. A very solid game.
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Dave Kudzma
United States
Gumboro
Delaware
Muffins.
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Plays: 1 with 3
Rating: 7
Blood Bowl; Team Manager is essentially another deck building game. The places it differs is that generally you're using your hand over successive turns to outbid one or more opponents in total sum of cards for a given reward, and that most new cards you gain are either once-per-round-use static abilities or higher octane cards that almost always get placed on top of your draw deck; the latter is a nice touch and adds some real instant gratification to the game.
The central play area consists of 3 "matches" and either an even or a "tournament". The matches are one on one areas that up to two players will play cards in order to have the highest sum. Both will get a reward, however there is a bonus for having the highest total. If for some reason you go uncontested you gain all the rewards on the card. The Tournaments are a free for all amongst all players, giving the first two finishers a big reward and all others a basic reward.
The goal of the game is gain the most fans at the end of 5 rounds; which is actually something I lost sight of during our first game and was not able to mount a comeback once I realized what I had done 
Some of the static cards grant end game bonuses, which serves as the chaotic element some might not like. The balance there is to try and gain as many of those cards as you can in order to equal your standing, but there is still room for random chance to reward some far better than others.
Our group really had fun with the game. All six teams included are fairly unique with a very different feel. I actually see my rating rising with further play.
Plays: 5 with 3-6
Rating: 7
This game is the winner of my "there's no way my Geek Buddies could be right" award.
The game is a dice roller with a hint of tactics. It's also a hoot. As you vie to sucker each other into Tokyo to be the whipping boy, or perhaps try to dole it out from Tokyo to everyone else, there will be tons of shouting, cajoling, and laughter in this King of the Hill game. And that's really all it is. Roll, deal out damage to the King of the Hill or try to take their place and dish it out to everyone else.
It's a fun, fast romp that will likely never turn out the way you expect but it makes a great filler; especially thanks to the killer art, over-sized dice, outrageous powers, and wonderful bits.
It's finally another good game from Richard Garfield; the first since any of his CCG stuff and Robo Rally.
Plays: 1 with 4
Rating: 6
I guess being a late comer to Alien Frontiers after already having played, IMHO, stronger games of it's ilk really hurt my first play. I'm a big fan of Troyes and in both play, variety, and play time it has Alien Frontiers beat hands down.
It's a fine game but with the static board and a more favorable option I give it a positive nod but it's certainly not for me; and just for the record I won the game.
I found it tense, full of ways to manipulate dice, and a little long for the experience; even if it was a learning game. I'm glad I played but I won't be back.
Plays: 1 with 4
Rating: 6
I would have almost mistaken this for yet another dice game that stands along side of Zombie Dice but I'd have been wrong.
Rather than use a singular combo system with a singular failure condition Alien Dice ups the ante. You roll tanks and you have to keep them. You can also gather ray guns to counter the tanks; more tanks than guns means no score for your turn. Otherwise it's collect cows, chickens, and humans. They're worth one each but having all three means a bonus of three points. You must always collect the tanks, but you can collect one of the other categories per turn as long as you've not collected it before; ray guns break the "collected before" rule, You also get to continue rolling as long as you can collect a category.
It's a neat experience that has more strategy than your typical dice-chucker but still has the pitfalls of them. While I'm not going to buy it I certainly wouldn't turn down a game.
Plays: 1 with 4
Rating: 6
ST: TDBG is a game you play for the theme alone. Some say it doesn't perform that role very well, I'm in the opposite camp. I'm a Next Gen nut so this game sings to me.
There's combat, diplomacy, and getting away with massive shields. There's also a random encounter deck that houses the vps, and a very long learning game ahead of those of us that want to play.
The game is really more like Thunderstone than anything. The issue is that unlike Thunderstone you will only likely know up to 2 challenges you can take on, the rest come out randomly. There's no really penalty for failure other than a wasted turn You still get to buy, upgrade, and more during your turn even if you make a failed attempt at VP's; which is better than TS.
If the play time comes down, then my rating will rise. Our first game took 2.5 hours, which if not for the theme and a case or two of serious AP would likely have been more like 1.5.
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Patiently waiting for the zombie apocalypse...
United States
Colorado Springs
Colorado
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Mansions of Madness
I've had my eye on MoM since its release. I'm actually not a fan of Arkham Horror, so the theme was just a 'meh' for me. However, the more I read, the more intrigued I became. I love the idea of creating a 'dungeon type crawl' but have it more story driven then monster killing. I feel MoM succeeds on many levels. The theme is A++, but the game is a complete stand alone from the AH series, it just shares the same mythos. Playing the game where the story slowly unveils itself is pure awesome. The game play is relatively simple and after a game the flow is easy to grasp as a player and keeper. This game has so grabbed me, that I'm stoked with all the BGGer created material. I'm also seriously looking to create my own story. Now there are some major MoM haters on this website, but count me in has a major fan. I'm impressed, and look forward to playing this game over and over with new stories. Outstanding game, and I highly recommend it to buy, or at least play once.
Ultimate Werewolf: Ultimate Edition
Bought UW with the intention to play for the very first time at a Halloween party. The group was mostly non-gamers, and everyone had a GREAT time. The game is tough for the Villagers, because there is no evidence to go one, except accusations. In most cases the villagers who are accusing gets themselves picked off. The game is intensely social, and maybe as people play they would get better at identifying the werewolves. Regardless, the game achieves what it is trying to create. Which is a light, social party game, with awesome theme. I look forward to future plays. Any tips to make it easier for the Villagers is appreciated.
Hey, That's My Fish!
HtMF was a splurge buy at my local FFG. I'm so glad I did, I believe I've found a simple game, that is a step up from most children's games I have that I can play with my daughter who is five years old. I look forward to the day I can sit down and play MoM with my daughter. Indoctrination starts early and I've yet to find a game I like and she can also play. In HtMF she understands how to always go for the highest fish total. Obviously she doesn't get the cut throat aspect of the game, but I'm sure that will come. I'm trying her to think "how can you block daddy..."  I'm very excited, and I recommend this little game. Fun, with a cruel side.
A great month of gaming for me. Now where is the next MoM expansion... 
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Steve Bauer
United States
Gilbert
Arizona
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6 new games and 1 expansion is not a bad month, nothing really stood out but I guess they all can't be winners.
First the highlights:
Blood Bowl: Team Manager - The Card Game
Rating 7.5, 1 play
Nice card game with a big take that element. Enjoyed my one play and would like to try it again. Great fun with some strategy, I hope they make some expansions.
Power Grid: Russia & Japan
Rating 7, 1 play
Just Japan so far. I thought it was one of the weaker maps, didn't really care for the 2 network option. It is a shame they didn't make japan map longer instead of chopping it up. It did have a close finish with everyone powering the same number of cities and the money breaking the 4 way tie.
Lords of Scotland
Rating 6, 2 plays
This game was a nice surprise, wasn't expecting anything but it is a solid game. I think the could have handled the end of round powers better but it wasn't a big deal.
Merchants of the Middle Ages
Rating 5.5, 1 play
The biggest disappointment of the month. I had heard good thing about Die Handler and it had some really cool mechanics but all put together it seemed really random.
DungeonQuest (third edition)
Rating 4.5, 1 play
A silly dungeon crawl where everyone is going to die, no thanks.
Elder Sign
Rating 3, 1 play
The name didn't register with me when I first agreed to play but it came to me a round or two in. I don't like Arkham horror but I can see why people do. This seems to take everything that is kind of fun in Arkham out and leave a really boring game.
Cat in The Hat: I Can do that!
Rating 5, 1 play
Not much of a game but a big hit with 4 year olds.
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Martin G
United Kingdom
London
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Just the three new games this month, and the newest of them is from 2003, so I'm certainly bucking the Essen trend!
Show Manager is a neat hand-management/set-collection card game that I'd happily own if the Queen edition wasn't going to have far too big a box and over-produced components for a game of this weight. The tension comes from only being able to hold two cards more than you need for the show you're trying to put on - you can't just discard the excess ones so you have to be very careful about what you pick up. 7
Second Dirk Henn game for the month was Eketorp, a simple simultaneous-action selection Euro with high interaction. The main attraction is that it plays well with six (like Showmanager). I had a lot of fun in my two plays but it could possibly do with something to differentiate the players incentives, to make it possible to predict other players' actions rather than just guessing. 6
Finally, the highest-ranked Knizia I was yet to try - Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation. I'm not really an LOTR fan, which had put me off trying it until now. But it turns out to be a good, advanced, asymmetrical version of Stratego, which both my wife and I enjoyed growing up. 7
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36.
Board Game: Zero!
[Average Rating:6.94 Overall Rank:940]
Max Jamelli
United States
Chambersburg
Pennsylvania
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ouch ... bad month. Nothing new.
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Jerry Wilkinson
United States
New Castle
Indiana
"I can't think of anything that has anything to do with anything." Marc Swinford
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My friend Mike was Mister X and I caught him by using a double move. He was one space away from victory. I rate this a 9 after one play, but it could go up once I get the chance to be Mister X.
Ticket to Ride: Alvin & Dexter was fun and I would like to play it more. I will probably prefer to play some games with it in and some without. Probably rate a 7.
Steam My friend Dave taught this to me and two other newbs at the 13th Tribe gameday in Indy (all 3 of us love Railways of the World). It took a little while to get the hang of it, but I certainly want to try it again. Probably rate a 7.
Quarriors! My friend Chris taught me this at the 13th Tribe gameday in Indy. It was fun to try, and I would play it again if someone wants, but I'd rather stick with Dominion. Probably rate a 6.
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Brad Klein
United States
Minnetonka
Minnesota
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After not getting new games in awhile, I placed an order for several that arrived in the last week. A busy few days left us only time to get in a few plays but so far, so good.
I’ve been looking at 7 Wonders for a while. We often have six people at a game night and have limited options that do not split the group. Appropriately the first play was with six to end the night last Wednesday. It started slowly as everyone tried to grasp the icons on the cards, but within a round or two things picked up. By the end, there were requests to play it at the next game night.
Later my wife and I played a game with the two-player variant. We both agreed we didn’t like it as much as our first game. It could just be the two-player plays very differently than the normal game and we need to adjust better. We both used the dummy player as a person we could assign resources to that we might want to purchase from them later and it really unbalanced the value of certain commercial buildings and guilds.
I’ve scored really poorly in both games trying two different strategies but still enjoyed it. I like that it plays a larger number of players well and the larger number shouldn’t have an impact on length. It also was grasped pretty easily by our group of mostly casual gamers. The theme seemed pretty non-existent, but it could be I was just overwhelmed with all the information on the cards and it will creep in as I get more comfortable with the game. I look forward to trying more games across the range of player numbers and trying more failing strategies.
Other new games:
Castle Panic – I’ve started playing some of “Mom and Dad’s” games with our sons when they turned four this summer and purchased this one mainly to play with them. For them, it was a fun game. They liked the theme and imagining a boulder rolling across the board was great fun for them. Once they saw what certain cards did, they got excited when the card (“Drive Them Back” for example) came back around. I don’t think they totally grasp it, although by the end of the one play we had they were usually able to recognize what cards they could play and had some idea what might be good to trade. They’ll definitely need some help from Mom or Dad for awhile. The best thing was the guys were totally engaged for the whole hour.
For me, it was a bit more enjoyable than expected. We won fairly easily, although a few bad tile draws got us in trouble right off the bat. I’m not sure how it will replay after a lot of games but we’ll have to see. It’ll be interesting to see how well it goes with our game group and one of the variants to increase difficulty.
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Ben
United States
Washington
Dist of Columbia
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Chally's New-to-Me October:
.7.5. Tammany Hall
_7_ The Bottle Imp
.6.5. Luna
N/A Loopin' Louie
Game Notes:
Although Tammany Hall was billed to me as "El Grande, but better," to the extent that the game can be viewed as reimaging a well-known classic, I think Tammany Hall owes more to Martin Wallace’s Liberte than it does to Wolfgang Kramer and Richard Ulrich’s Top 20 staple. I consider this a good thing. I already own a better El Grande (Dominant Species, which coincidentally I played earlier that same game day). But Liberte had struck me as a great, novel idea too poorly implemented to be salvageable. Tammany Hall succeeds in salvaging it, though it is not without its own flaws.
Like Liberte, Tammany Hall layers a number of winner-take-all majorities to distill the experience of competing political factions into a cogent game system. Here, the setting is Nineteenth-Century Manhattan. The game comprises four four-year terms. Each year, players may secure votes in a city district, gain favor with immigrant communities, slander their opponents, and flex the power of their political office. At the end of each term, an election occurs. During the election, the player with the most votes (calling in political favors as needed) in each district wins that district. The player winning the most districts is named the Mayor and must assign his opponents to positions in his administration. Additionally, the players who control the largest population of each immigrant community gain additional political favors to get called in down the road.
As the description above implies, Tammany Hall is a game with simple rules but complex interactions between its layered systems. That complexity can be a drawback, as deciphering the game state (who leads in each of the numerous majorities) often takes as much energy as responding to the information you’ve discerned. Additionally (relatedly?) the game is a near-perfect-information game. Consequently, the game favors experience and punishes missteps. This may be tough for new players to swallow because the game depends heavily on all five players keeping each other in constant check. Letting one player get a small advantage at the wrong time can lead to a brutal death spiral for everyone else at the table.. While I enjoyed my first play of the game, despite a third-place finish, at least two others at the table very clearly did not, and I suspect these features of the game had something to do with it.
I think that Tammany Hall is a strong game, and a great title for the sort of gamer who can process information quickly, who has no qualms about rapidly-shifting alliances and cutthroat play, who will take blatant and seemingly relentless attacks in stride, and who is looking for a throwback game well outside of the mold of today’s generic efficiency Euros. It probably falls somewhere between a 7 and an 8 for me, but I enjoyed my play enough that I'm inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt.
The Bottle Imp is a great little trick-tacking card game. It was reminiscent of Triumvirate (which is a tribute to Triumvirate, given that it is a two-player only game). I wonder whether The Bottle Imp will hold up over repeated plays, as a large part of the fun so far is in muddling through the beginner strategy. I would love to try it again, however.
Thanks to Larry Levy for opening my eyes to this one.
Luna is probably the best Stephen Feld game that I've played. As is indicative of Feld, it maintains absolutely no useful connection between the theme and the gameplay. But there are some interesting decisions to puzzle out. My initial impression was that the fun of the game primarily consists of figuring out the systems (of which there are many), but that the game is likely to get fairly repetitive once you've reached the point of real understanding.
I would say my one play was a 6.5, but the perceived lack of interplay variety means I'm likely to be rounding down. The art is pretty.
Loopin' Louie is not the kind of game I rate. It simply doesn't fall into the spectrum covered by my rating system. But it is awesome. It's a great reprieve from the heavier strategy games I enjoy (my learning game was right after Dominant Species, which was perfect). Heck, as one player showed, it's a great game to play during heavier strategy games.
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William Bussick
United States
Reno
Nevada
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5 new games this month. Probably get in more next month at BGG.CON, you think?
BEST
Time's Up! Title Recall!: Kind of a no-brainer here. Take my favorite party game and focus on famous titles instead of people. Almost disqualified as an expansion, but there are some subtle rule tweaks (and a possible 4th round!) that set this apart.
THE REST (most liked first)
Master Merchant: A surprisingly good “hand-building” game. It’s innovative. It’s small. It’s 40 cards! Lots of tension and gameplay in such a tiny package. Great stuff!
Belfort: A very well-produced engine building game. Worker-placement, area-majority...yeah, we’ve seen it all before, but it’s quite glossy here. It would be a must-buy for me if it came out 5 years ago.
Discworld: Ankh-Morpork: A little London-y, but different. It’s short and tense...a good race game. I look forward to more plays of this simpler Wallace effort.
Pergamemnon: I was a bit disappointed. A good premise, but it fell a little flat in execution. A little too much back-and-forth on combat, and I think there’s a runaway leader issue. Not bad, mind you, but I expected more.
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Rob Bradley
United States
Belleville
Wisconsin
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Urban Sprawl
After one play I have to rank this a 7. I really want to like it but in my one play with 4 players, the downtime killed it. I don't generally mind downtime, but what I don't like is downtime where there is nothing to do. THe game state changes way too much by the end of each players turn to allow for any semblance of planning.
This is unfortunate because I really do think that this is a really good design. Next time I play it will be with less players.
Yggdrasil
Ok, first off, this game is probably a 6.5 or maybe even a 7, I am taking a half point off because I can't pronounce the title. So, why is it a 6.5? It feels like a formula. As the person was explaining the game, I wasn't thinking gods and frost giants, I was thinking odds and math. OK, so the more I think about it, the more I think the 6 is deserved.
Eaten By Zombies!
Just in time for Halloween! This was a good diversion and interesting spin on deck building. It was fun to play and I love the theme, but there is not a lot to come back to for repeated play. I'd play it again with the right crowd, but there are dozens...no, hundreds of other games I'd pick first.
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♪ Isaäc Bickërstaff ♫
United States
Greer
South Carolina
Entropy Seminar:
The results of a five yeer studee ntu the sekund lw uf thurmodynamiks aand itz inevibl fxt hon shewb rt nslpn raq liot.
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I played a lot of new stuff this past month, and played a handful of games that could easily have taken the top spot on a normal month where I only play a few new games. I actually had to make a choice this time around, but in the end, it was pretty easy to pick the best of the bunch. You'll find a picture of that game over to the left, but if you want to read all the details about it, I'm afraid you'll have to scroll down a bit.
New Games
The Battle for Hill 218 
I've actually played this game once before, many years ago. More specifically, I played a version of this game that was impossible to win because I didn't catch the most critical rule of the game the first time I taught it. It turns out that only playing one card per turn makes it impossible for one player to take his opponent's side of the hill! I finally had a chance to play it again this month, and I'm pleased to say that the game is much, much better when you follow the two-cards-per-turn rule. Who knew?
It's a pretty neat little game, and much thinkier than I would have expected from just a deck of cards. It has a wargame-y feel, since there's a strong ebb and flow to it as players lunge forward each turn, only to be pushed back on their opponent's next turn. It definitely feels like a ground battle where troops are gaining ground by inches, and since the decisions are primarily tactical, it's all about creating a large defensive army that will allow you to make one spectacular move to occupy the other side of the hill. In fact, you want to have one card providing support to your target each turn, so there's very much a feel of being in check every turn once the game gets underway. It has some unique characteristics to set it apart, but it definitely belongs in the same category of games as Chess and Go.
It's possible that the game relies a bit too much on the luck of the draw to be a game with a lot of staying power, and the rules could use some clarification (or at least some better organization), but so far it's pretty impressive. For a first-time game from a new publisher (at least, at the time of its release this was the case), it's mighty impressive.
Circus Train
I think I first heard about this game through lorna, where she posted a brief review of it after having played it at EGG. Since Age of Steam cemented in me a desire to play more pick-up-and-deliver games (and because the theme was unique), I decided to pick up a copy when VPG had a sale last year. And the only reason it got played this month is because I had a day to myself, and an interest in trying some solitaire games.
The solitaire game is apparently pretty different from the multiplayer game -- you disregard the VPs and the best performance scoring and focus instead on money -- but the game still has a neat flavor, and an interesting tension between the distribution of the talent and performances, the action cards that determine what you can do on your turns, and the way that you can dump talent if you don't want to pay them. Since money is tight, you'll be making these decisions a lot over the course of the game. There's nothing terribly new here, but it all comes together well enough to pique my interest. The theme is based on Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants, and the historical flavor in the rulebook adds a little bit extra to the game, even if it has no effect on how the game plays.
I'm interested in trying it out with more players to see how it holds up with the money/VP/best performance thing going on. At least now I know enough how to play it to be able to teach it to some other folks! And with GMT running a P500 on this title, I'm hoping that the future will mean I can get a copy that doesn't look like I hacked it together using an inkjet printer and some Elmer's glue.
Double Agent 
You really only need to know one thing about this game: Bruno Faidutti designed it. If you've played any other of his games, then you have an idea of what to expect. It has some control, some chaos, and both aspects of the game can be controlled to some degree by the players. There aren't any role selection mechanisms this time around, but the overall feel of the game was familiar, so if you enjoy his games, I can't see why you wouldn't go for this one, too.
The game's premise is pretty simple. You influence six agents by playing loyalty cards, hoping to have a higher total value than your opponent, and some of those values are known, and some are unknown. The chaos comes in through the action cards, which allow you to modify the state of the game (seeing cards that are otherwise hidden; swapping cards or tiles around; drawing specific cards from the deck), but those can also be played as cards of values to influence the agents. The thing is, only one action card can be played on an agent this way between both players, so later in the game, you might find yourself forced to play an action card and muck things up. It's sort of a shame, because the game is a pretty decent tactical game of bluffing your opponent, but it can't stay that way because the way the rules are written. It's possible, I guess, with serendipidous card draws, to maintain that tactical edge for the whole game, but it's not very likely. It makes the game mediocre, at best.
The game really isn't that bad (it has a neat element where you can plan to reveal all the agents on the same turn in a wild chain reaction sort of thing), but I just can't see myself playing it a whole lot, since there are other, more satisfying games that fit this timeframe and number of players. It's not something I would turn down playing, but at the same time, I'm not going to rush out and buy it, either.
Eaten By Zombies!
I waffled over this game when it first came up on Kickstarter. It seemed like a cool idea, and it was a deckbuilder, but it was being published by a company who didn't have a whole lot of experience with publishing games, and I was concerned that it might be more theme than game. In fact, I cancelled my pledge at one point, and then re-pledged at a later date just before it ended all together. So, yes, I waffled over it a bit.
I finally played it on Halloween, and I have to say, I should have trusted that second-guessing I had when I cancelled my pledge, because there doesn't seem to be much of a game here. It takes the basic idea of a deck-building game and does something a little different with it, but it winds up being a bit more random and fiddly as a result. In fact, it reminds me of something I read about James Ernest from when he was designing Spree!, where he kept adding rule after rule to make the game thematic, at the cost of the gameplay itself. Here, we have attrition rules that apply differently in different situations, and it seems like more than one should have to keep up with in a game this light. Our first game took about 90 minutes, which just felt way too long.
The game keeps eliminated players in the game by making them zombies, but once that happens, there's still no way for them to win, and it just seems like insult to injury at that point. I'd rather cut my losses at that point and find something else to do, but no, now I have to do some kingmaking with the remaining players to help one of them win. It seems counterproductive, and it contributes to an overall feel of the game just not being interesting. I'd give it another shot just to make sure we didn't miss anything -- it was definitely a game I wanted to like -- but I'm just not seeing anything here that's going to improve over time.
Flying Circus: Aerial Combat in WWI
Over a year ago now, the owner of our FLGS was trying to sell me on Down In Flames: Aces High, and while the idea sounded cool, the price tag of the game was a bit prohibitive for me. I took a chance on one of the games when it came up on Tanga, and related to that, a buddy of mine brought this to show me after hearing about my interest in the series. I'm glad I bought the other game, because this one has a subtlety to it that I think is pretty cool.
At its heart, the game is still a card game, so there will be some situations where you lose simply because you can't get the cards you need at the right time. Still, the game captures the back-and-forth feel of a dogfight, and it plays so quickly and provides just the right amount of decisions to make, so it doesn't feel like it overstays its welcome. It's just about right, and that's certainly a good thing.
It's interesting to me to see how many games there are that use this central design. I'm not sure it will ever be necessary to collect them all (one of them seems to use dragons instead of airplanes), but one will definitely be sufficient for scratching that itch that calls for dogfighting games.
Jaipur
A few years ago my wife told me something along the lines of, "Quit buying games because you think that I'll play them with you." This was right after I bought FITS, which failed with her despite her love of Tetris, and since then I've taken that comment as gospel. It's probably for the best. Even her old favorites, like Crazy Chicken and Mhing, haven't seen table time in over two years. But I'm convinced that if I could get my wife to play Jaipur, we'd find a new reason to spend time off of our computers in the evenings.
Like Crazy Chicken, the game is deceptively simple, with simple rules and very basic actions to take, but offers an intriguing set of decisions to make each turn. On the surface, there's the choice between taking quick points with small sets of cards, weighed against the bonus points you get for playing larger sets of cards. Below that surface is another set of choices, based on how you take cards from the row. Do you take a lot of camels and refresh the row for your opponent? Well, how many cards is your opponent holding? Do you take a lot of goods from the row? If you do, will you replace them with camels, or swap out some cards in your hand? Again, how many cards is your opponent holding? Or how desperately do you think you need those cards?
I'm very intrigued with this game, and it might be one of those that forces me to break my wife's rule. Someday, somehow, I might be able to convince her to try a new game, and I'd hate to not have this one on hand when that time comes.
Ka-Ching!
I really like games that have simple ideas, simple goals, and simple turns, but afford a lot of decision-making over the course of the game. Drive is one, and Jaipur is another recent discovery, and now Ka-Ching! is another to add to that list of games. The goal is pretty simple -- make the most money -- as is the turn structure -- either buy one top-most card on a pile, or sell a pair of cards in the same suit -- but the game itself is a bit trickier than one would expect for such a simple idea. The denominations in the suits are small enough that the profit margins aren't great (you buy cards at face value, but sell two cards and receive the product of the two values, so even getting the 6 and 5 cards in a suit only nets you 19 points), forcing you to weigh your choices more than you would expect.
All the cards are dealt face-up in five stacks of seven cards, stacked so that the players can see every card in the deck, and only the cards at the bottom-most of the stack (effectively the top card) can be purchased. Since players can see what's going to be available next, sometimes it's not in their best interest to buy that card that would give them a quick return, since the next card would give the next player an even bigger return. It's not possible to lose money in this game -- the smallest denomination is 2 -- but you're going to be buying cards with no intention of selling them, and you may not be able to sell all the cards you want to sell before the game ends, so you might not get all of your investments back in time. It presents an interesting set of decisions to make over the course of the game. If you get stuck not wanting to buy anything that's available, you can "pass" by selling a pair of cards, so it makes sense to hold on to cards for as long as you can before selling them, but you'll need to make money to buy more cards. Plus, the game ends as soon as only two columns of cards are left in the game, whereupon the players get a chance to sell one more pair of cards, so hold on to your cards for too long, and you won't be able to sell them off.
I don't really get the low rating of this game. It's short -- games play within 10-15 minutes -- it has a low price point, and it has a nice tension based off of the choice decisions to make over the course of the game. What else are players looking for here?
Lords of Scotland
I should preface this comment by saying that I've only played this game with two players, and with that player number, it seems like the game comes down to whichever player gets the blue cards first. It just seems like the only strategy to play in the game, and it gets annoying and frustrating when you're having your clans removed from the skirmish every battle. Why even bother putting cards down if they're only going to be discarded?
I'll admit that there might be tactics I'm overlooking at this point -- building up a larger hand of cards over a turn or two to make the mack daddy of all battles -- but it just doesn't seem as interesting or intriguing as Court of the Medici. I'll give it another chance, but right now ... yeesh. They don't even compare.
Manhattan
I remember when this got reprinted a few years back, and having no interest about it at all. I'm not a fan of Puerto Rico, so the designer's legacy didn't make an impact, it appeared to be mostly abstract, and the layout just made it look boring. The only reason I ever took an interest to it recently is because I was sitting at a table where a game was finishing up, and the gameplay actually looked pretty involved. It became one of those "I'm interested enough in it to add it to an order if I ever need to get to a free shipping threshold" games (and believe me, I have a lot of them), and that's how I bought a copy.
It's a game of placement and majorities, with a couple of different ways to score each round. What really makes it cool is the way that you pick the pieces you want to play in a round before the round begins, so you also have to anticipate what your opponents are going to do, as well as what you want to do, all without having all the cards for the upcoming round to see. There's an element of risk involved with the game, but it comes together quite well, enough so that I'm not surprised to see it still in print after 17 years, nor to see that it won the SdJ the year it was released. There's a small element of frustration when you can't draw the cards you need to take majority in a certain area, but the hand management aspect of the game is another part of it that I like.
So far, I've only played the game two-player, and in that case, both players play two colors and combine their scores for their two colors. This seems to make it a very different style of game than a multiplayer game, since there's really no incentive to play both your colors into one city, and you can base your moves off of what pieces (if any) your opponent still has to play. It reminded me a little bit of Hey, That's My Fish!, since the differences between the two- and four-player game feel about the same. There are very few moves in the game that feel certain, though, which can be slightly frustrating, but that adds to the tension of the game, and besides, you have different things you can try over the course of the game. It's pretty cutthroat, though, and as my opponent said, it's one of those games where you're very quiet as you're always thinking about your next move. I'm glad I finally got around to trying the game.
Medici vs Strozzi
A while back, I posted a Geeklist titled "Cracking the Medici Code," which was about games that I liked, but just couldn't understand. Medici was the flagship game on the list, because the valuation of things in that game eludes me. I can determine what a set is worth to me, and to another player, but trying to do that for all players in the game, and then trying to balance the price among all that, even when it's worth much, much less to me than to someone else, but I still can't let him have it, eludes me. It boggles my mind, but I love the game.
Medici vs. Strozzi is a remarkable adaptation of that design into a two-player game, which is made even more remarkable because the original game is an auction game. I think it helps that Medici was a once-around bid, and MvS has a "name your price" element that mimics that mechanism. The monopolies are similar, but the different ports for the monopolies create a different sort of turn angst by creating more options, especially with the additional ships with different storage capacities. That valuation thing still happens in this game, thanks to the different ships, so I still can't escape that aspect of the game that I have such a hard time understanding. Still, like Medici, I'll probably come back for more in the future.
I'd recommend it for anyone who likes Medici. At the very least, I think those fans would find it interesting to see how similar the two games are.
Mondo
When Galaxy Trucker first came out, I fell in love with it because I found a neat efficiency puzzle in the ship-building aspect of the game. Unfortunately, that only made up half the game, and I never could see the benefit for having built a neatly efficient ship in the game. I played the game a few times before I discovered it really wasn't for me, and traded it off. I kind of hated to do it, but no one else wanted to play a game where all we did was build the ships, so what could I do?
Now, along comes Mondo, and I find a game that takes that efficiency-building puzzle and makes it the entire game. Sure, there are other aspects to building your world that will create incentives for you in different directions (sure, that tile fits that space you left open, but is it worth risking that volcano in the process?), but it's not like you build a world and then send it off to a death of a thousand cuts in space.
So far, I've only played the game a few times solitaire, and I know it will play differently with multiple players digging through the tiles, but that's a form of gentle competition I like. Plus, the game has three different levels of scoring that will keep it interesting and worth replaying. I took a chance on Michael Schacht again, and was again rewarded for it!
Peloponnes
It wasn't until this year that I realized Michael Tummelhofer was actually just one person, and not a team of publishers who decided to create games together. That wasn't a bad thing, necessarily, because I've really enjoyed Saint Petersburg and Stone Age, and now that I know who the mystery man really is, I can try some more of his games! Now that I have Pantheon, and have PAX and Pergamemnon on the way, I really hope I like his other stuff.
Peloponnes (which is a word I constantly want to misspell) is a good introduction into Bernd's other games. It's a light civ-building game that plays in under an hour, and ends with a very strong "Let me try that one more time" feeling. There's a neat balance in the way that the tiles interact, and how you're working to make sure that you get everything you need for all the tiles you want to build, and you only have eight turns (and very limited resources) in which to do it. Then, at the end of the game, you compare the total points you've earned through your tiles against your total population (times three) and the lower score is your score for the game. There's a great tension in the game as you try to balance all those parts and keep that efficiency engine going.
I only played the game solitaire, which eliminates the bidding element (which seems to be similar to the one in Amun-Re), so I'm interested in seeing how well it plays with more players. Now that I'm past learning the rules, it shouldn't take long!
The Pillars of the Earth: Builders Duel
I don't care what anyone says about this game; it has a ridiculous amount of luck to it. There's luck in the card draw, there's luck in the coin-flipping, and the consequences of bad luck in either of those two respects can be severe. Sure, there are ways to alleviate that luck -- be start player, or get a bunch of extra neutral tokens -- but the actions you get in the game are few enough that it can be severely damaging to spend those actions on just balancing out the luck. So you get into this position where you can either work to alleviate that luck, or take chances to get the best draw/flip at every possible moment. Neither option is all that appealing to me.
This is also a race game at its heart, and I get a little frustrated with those in general, because they tend to have a "He who falls behind will stay behind" aspect to them. I think that's balanced out some in this game (my opponent managed to parlay a bad start into a crushing defeat), but by the time I saw that he was going to be able to win, there was really nothing I could do to stop him. The card he needed to win was one I could have fought him for, but he had far more flipping tokens than I did, and even though I had a card that forced him to discard a character token, he could choose which one to remove, so it didn't make a difference. I felt helpless, and it's not a feeling I like in my games.
With more plays, I think I could better manage different aspects of the game, but at the same time, I don't feel compelled to play it a whole lot more.
Prolix
I bought Prolix for a number of reasons -- I had heard good things about it, I knew the designer was a BGGer, and a geekbuddy of mine really dug it -- but what happened was I was in Barnes & Noble and wanted to spend some money, and this seemed like as good a choice as any. Yes, I've heard that admitting you have a problem is the first step in overcoming it.
Anyway, I'm a fan enough of word games to give them a whirl, and this month Prolix was one of four games I played solitaire on a day I had to myself. I thought it was a pretty decent game (you weren't stuck with just the letters you draw, and it seemed to increase tension in the game for those of us who get stuck on the same word when given a set of letters, and have a hard time thinking of something different), and I liked that I always seemed to be right on the fringe of losing every turn (I only won one of the four solitaire games I played). For all that, though, I think the game will probably be best with more players, since the interrupts will come into play in those cases. So it's really hard to judge the game based on these four plays.
That being said, though, the solitaire game has enough angst in it, thanks to the timer and the minimum scoring requirements, to keep me interested. I may not ever play it solitaire again (BuyWord was a game I played solitaire a lot one day, and then sold off many months later), but we'll see if I can convince some fellow gamers to give it a try.
Rune Age
I've come to discover that Fantasy Flight games almost always have some sort of "event deck" that's just there to screw with you. Arkham Horror and Elder Sign have them, as does Battlestar Galactica, and now Rune Age has one, too. In most cases, it makes sense to have them (especially when the game is cooperative), but I get the feeling that they're really overdoing it. I'll bet that the development team sits down to have a discussion about how to create a sense of desperation in a new game, but it's about fifteen minutes before lunch or the end of the day, so someone yells out "Event deck!" and then they all split. I mean, do you have a better explanation?
With Rune Age, the deck is small enough that it's at least somewhat predictable, and with more than one person playing, it may not even be the main focus of the game, since it also has an element where players can attack one another. When playing solitaire, though, the event deck is the game, and it can be insanely frustrating to not get the right draws in your own deck versus all the wrong draws in the event deck. It also seems to be key to pick the right race to battle the events, since there's no way those tree-hugging elves are going to be able to take out the Dragonlords. Seriously.
I like the game well enough, but I'm concerned that the luck may be too much for my tastes. Again, I'd like to play a multiplayer game before passing a final judgment, but there's definitely enough tension in the game to make it very satisfying when you do win in the solitaire scenarios. My win percentage is just 20%, but I expect it will keep going down, based on what I've seen so far.
Star Trek [Deck Building Game]: The Next Generation
OK, first of all, I should say that I've never been a big Star Trek fan. I saw some of the movies, and enjoyed the reboot, but I could count the total number of episodes I've seen from all of the various incarnations on zero hands. I've caught bits and pieces of different episodes, but it's just never interested me, and I could never get into them. So clearly I'm not the target audience for this game, even though I do really dig deck-building games.
The thing is, during our three-plus-hour learning game this month (three-plus hours), even the fans of the Star Trek universe was saying that it wasn't really capturing the feel of the show for them. Other than the rage I expressed when I drew the 10+ Diplomacy Q card for the second time in three turns, which he said was a perfect capturing of the emotion for that character in the show, he said it just felt like an abstract card game. And for a game with this sort of potential, it seems like it should really speak toward the theme of the show it's trying to capture.
Now, we played a key rule incorrectly, which undoubtedly led to the lengthy game time, but I'm convinced that even if we had played the rule correctly, we only would have shortened the game to about 90 minutes. For a game that's a lot of the same, and full of frustration, it goes on far too long for what it is, and when there are other, more creative and thematic deck-building games out there, why would I want to play this one again? It offers some things that I haven't seen in other deck-building games, but it's not so creative and new that it will make me want to run out and buy a copy. Besides, both of my LGSs have demo copies, so if I ever want to try it again, I have that option.
Tiki Topple
Gamewright has surprised me with some of the games they've released over the years. Sure, they've released such kid fare as There's a Moose in the House and In a Pickle, but they've also released some more adult fare, like Ka-Ching!. Tiki Topple is another of those "Simple turns with tricky moves" games that should appeal to adults as much as children.
The premise of the game is pretty simple: Manipulate a row of tikis so that the top three tikis in line are the ones on your scoring card. That premise suggests that you might want to bluff your opponents by moving pieces that aren't important to you, but you only have seven cards in hand to manipulate nine tikis, so you won't really have the time to bluff, especially if you're working to get all three tikis on your card up in the top three spaces. Each player has the same set of cards to manipulate the row, so you can make decisions based on what cards they have left, but you have to be careful not to get stuck with cards that you can't use, or worse, force you to remove your own tikis from the line. So while manipulating the tikis is the main part of the game, there's a hand management aspect to it, as well.
It's a cute game, with some great bits, but I'm just not sure how much staying power the game will have. It seems like the tactics will be the same from game to game, but that's just based on the one game, which was new to everyone. It's definitely one to try again, though, and one I would recommend people try, if not necessarily buy.
Transformers Battling Card Game
I used to own a copy of Clash of the Lightsabers, a short, more-fun-than-one-would-expect-from-Hasbro game that had a reputation for being a hidden gem. And it was, but the problem with the game was that the card stock was thick, which made the cards difficult to shuffle, and easy to bend. It was bad enough for me to get rid of the game, but not before I picked up a copy of this game, which is a near-exact duplicate of CotL, save for the theme, and has a better card quality for shuffling, even if they are a bit flimsy.
The game is a simplified, more tactical game of War, where players play a handful of cards each round in an effort to win at least two battles to score a point. Initial cards for each of the three battles are played face-down, and resolved one battle at a time. If a player is ever losing to the other player in a battle, he may play more cards to the battle to meet or exceed his opponent's total, or concede the battle to him. Any time players tie on their total, a showdown occurs, where each player picks a card to play and reveal simultaneously. This might not be in your best interest, though, since any cards you have left over at the end of a round are carried over to the next one. Otherwise, the cards you start with at the beginning of the round are all you get for all three battles.
It sounds a little complicated, but it works, and works surprisingly well. The game can still come down to wild swings of luck, but one change in this game from its previous version is going from a "best of five" win condition to a "first to five" one, which gives players a bit more time to recover from a bad hand. Still, in our first game, my opponent won all five rounds without me winning anything, and it seemed to come down to good cards in hand. The second game was a little more tense, but no less frustrating for him, since he got a nice lead which disappeared when I started drawing more good cards. For a 20-minute game with a nice flavor, though, it's a forgiveable offense.
World Without End
I expect that a lot of people thought the same thing I asked when I was introduced to this game this month -- "Is this a worker placement game?" -- and I expect a lot of people, like me, were surprised by the answer -- "Nope." That's probably good (it's better than going back to the well one more time), but at the same time, it makes me wonder if other people might have been disappointed that the game was only a thematic sequel. I'm lukewarm to The Pillars of the Earth at best, so I didn't mind that it was a different game.
The worker placement of the game is replaced with card actions, and the trick to the game is that you have twelve actions to select from for six turns, but for each action you pick, you have to discard one for that round. It's not a bad idea (and it's somewhat reminiscent of Dungeon Lords), but when you pair that up with the event cards, which can hurt you, then you find that what was once a useless card and worthy of discarding has become something you can use that round, but can't access. Maybe that's part of the risk of making decisions in the game, but it was more frustrating than anything else. I also thought that the rotation mechanism of the event card was pretty cool, but not enough to make a huge difference in my opinion of the game.
I think folks who liked the first game would like this one. It carries over the basic luck:strategy ratio, with the die rolls and card draws replacing the drawing of the pawns out of the bag, so if you liked that aspect of the game, you should like it here, too. Unfortunately, if that luck bothered you, then there's not much here that will make that experience any better for you.
New Expansions
Eaten By Zombies!: We Have the Bomb! Promo
With the base game, I can go either way with it, I think. I don't think it's something that will thrill me over the long term, but it's at least a little different from other deck-builders to elicit a few plays out of me. With this card, though, it really brings the system down. It makes it too easy for everyone to lose, which I guess works thematically, but it just doesn't make the game very fun. In fact, I think part of the reason I disliked the first game all together is because of this card and the way it forced everyone to discard and slowly rebuild. Again, yes, that's thematic, but I don't really care about the theme in games like this. I'd rather just lose myself in the system and feel like the decisions I make are worthwhile.
Eminent Domain: Bonus Planets
I can't remember if the print-and-play version of the game, released way back when the game was first announced on Kickstarter, included these planets, but I'm glad to see them in the game now. It makes perfect sense to have planets that can count toward whatever type you're trying to build up to, since it opens up possibilities and strategies to the players. It also makes sense to have planets that are worth more points, but offer no other benefit during the standard course of the game. Sure, it borrows pretty heavily from some of the game balance from Race for the Galaxy, but it works, so it's hard to argue against that point.
Tasty Minstrel took a lot of flack for making these non-exclusive after stating they would be, but having played them, I'm glad to see that they decided to make them included in all the printings of the game. They deserve to be a permanent part of the game. Besides, my biggest beef wasn't that they made something exclusive otherwise, it was that they made the game available to some choice convention attendees before making them available to the folks who had pre-ordered their copies.
Settlers of Catan: Oil Springs
Fifteen years on, and the Settlers of Catan license is still running strong. It's no surprise, really; the game has pretty simple rules, and encourages a lot of social interaction, so people tend to take the game pretty well, especially when they see how much fun real games can be. It's also no surprise to see that the designer and publishers are still looking for ways to make the design new and interesting.
Oil Springs is the latest Web-published scenario for Settlers, and it has a couple of neat things going on to make it separate from the base game. For one thing, it has new oil resources, which can be good or bad, depending on how you're planning to play the game. The oil can be used to trade for resources, but the more you use the oil, the more you threaten the island of Catan. If you spend too much, the game will end and everyone will lose, unless you sequester enough of the oil to win as the environmental savior when the island is destroyed. There are valid reasons to try both approaches, so the game can sort of become a game of oil producers versus oil hoarders, and it's not really surprising that there have been accusations of the creators using the game as a political vehicle (though it seems a little ridiculous).
The game is fine, and adds a nice flavor to the game without changing it up too much. It didn't wow me, but it didn't frustrate me either. It's just middle-of-the-road, which will be fine for the hardcore Settlers addicts, but for the rest of us, I get the feeling it will be a take-it-or-leave-it sort of deal.
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Carlos Ferreira
Portugal
Lisboa
Lisboa
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Washington's War -
A game that Was on my to play list for a LONG time. I had already played We the People, but I think this is a better game. I still enjoy the "grand parent" of CDG, but this is a modern game.
Puzzle Strike -
Quite interesting take on Dominion. I think the initial "powers" can be unbalanced, but for a 15-20 minute game this doesn't bother me. I was not expecting much, but this is definitely a good game.
Black Stories: English Edition -
Nice game to play on trips. The game has a serious problem of replayability, but I liked it. Our 4 hours trip went like a flash. Great.
Coney Island -
I enjoyed it. It seems that it can have some problems at the end, but it is too soon to take this conclusion. I need to play it again.
Tournay -
A pure card game that uses the same artwork and generic ideas of Troyes, but let's face it... its just a card game. Some interesting ideas, but nothing REALLY new.
Singapore -
Fast interesting game that has everything to work well and in the end it doesn't. The idea of Opium trade is a good one but at our game it was odd. In the end this is just a game where you have cubes, that you trade for cubes/money and again and again... and in the end you trade everything for Victory points. Meh!!!
Old Men of the Forest -
Simple card game. Nothing really new, but it saves orangutans
Babel -
Nice game. It might be a brain burner, but we played it just for fun. Interesting, but thats just it.
Yomi -
Don't get the buzz on this one. I'll play it again, but this is pure rock-paper-scissors game.
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James Keith
United States
San Leandro
California
"Watch, but do not govern; stop war, but do not wage it; protect, but do not control; and first, survive!" - Cordwainer Smith
...watch how I soar!
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The Good
Magnate - (4 Plays)
Got my copy of the Decktet at the beginning of the month from The GameCrafter, and though the card quality is...serviceable...Magnate is indeed worthy of the praise it garnishes here on the 'Geek. Quick playing, but with enough frills to keep things interesting, it very much deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as other two-player staples such as Lost Cities and Battle Line.
The resource management side of things is fresh enough that fans of the previously mentioned games should definitely give this one a try. My only complaint is that getting together the resources to play Magnate requires a fair bit of scrounging. As I like custom built pieces, I also ended up getting a set of suit-chips from GameCrafter as well. And while procuring a pair of d10's was straightforward, I very nearly bugged
Wolfgang Zelller
Germany
Schramberg
Baden-Württemberg
for one of his custom Decktet dice, but I didn't want to make a nuisance of myself. A regular d6 is functional, if slightly awkward (I keep having to look up what set of pips correspond to which suit). The dice also make it a smidge more luck-dependent than its card-driven bretheren, but aside from that it's a fine two-player game with a plethora of choices that only takes 15-20 minutes to play, which is always a plus in my book!
Dungeon Lords - (1 Play)
The reason this didn't completely set me on fire, I think, was the nature of playing it as a learning game: There really was so much to absorb and so much strategy to suss out that I simply didn't have time to get my bearings before it was over. What I found, however, was an exceedingly clever worker placement/puzzle game with one of the best meldings of theme and mechanics I've ever seen.
I really enjoyed the puzzle aspect of beating up on and eliminating the Heroes as they tramp through your dungeon, both the management of the "Evilometer" to determine the strength of the Heroes and the use of traps and monsters to slowly whittle their health down. I could see this becoming a more mechanical exercise as you get familiar with the game, but it all works really, really well. This very much deserves to be ranked as it is here on BGG.
Confusion: Espionage and Deception in the Cold War - (1 Play)
As a big fan of deduction games, I was very eager to get this to the table, and I wasn't disappointed. What I found most interesting was the strategic element: deciding how much information was enough for you to make your move on the briefcase. Too early, and you could get stymied by your unknown pieces. Too late, and your opponent could have more of a handle on their own piece movement.
The one game I played was more of a learning game, as my opponent and I were busy getting our brains wrapped around the question and answer mechanic too much to worry about the above strategy. Because we ended up spending so much time on our pieces, the endgame was anti-climactic as I was able to nab the briefcase with a fairly mobile piece and navigate through an opening in my opponents defenses. Anti-climactic because it wasn't a surprise to either of us given our extensive deduction beforehand.
All in all, I enjoyed it and definitely want to try it again. I think that having a deduction sheet to keep track of what your opponent knows about their pieces is absolutely genius and keeps downtime to a minimum. Highly recommended for deduction fans.
Isla Dorada - (1 Play)
Normally I'm a fan of Bruno Faidutti (I love Citadels, Dragon's Gold, Fist of Dragonstones, Red November, the list goes on), but the more games of his I play, the more I realize just how much the concept of "barely controlled chaos" informs them. Naturally, there's usually just enough layers of control that it all seems worthwhile, and Isla Dorada is no exception.
My initial reaction was that this seemed a kinder, more gentler version of Genoa (which I still need to get to the table), with some lovely artwork and a goofy sense of humor (I was saddened to see that no-one picked up my on "If only you spoke Ovetos!" joke). While fun, it seemed to me that replay value was largely dependent on how interested you were to see all the Destiny cards, while everything else was largely the luck of the draw and risk-management. With the right crowd, the wheeling/dealing/misdirection could definitely hit the right spot. I'll welcome this game if someone suggests it, but I'm not in too much of a hurry to try it again.
Shadow Hunters - (1 Play)
As a fan of The Resistance and Castle of the Devil, I was itching to play this hidden roles game and have been completely frustrated that it's now out of print. Luckily one of my gaming buddies has a copy, and I finally got a chance to try it over a long gaming weekend.
In short, it's good. One of the things I liked about BSG was that revealing your allegiance was part of the game, and that figuring out when to reveal yourself was a big tactical and strategic question. That very much holds true for Shadow Hunters, and having item cards the the clue-gaining Hermit cards reminded me very much of Castle of the Devil, along with attacking and player elimination reminiscent of Bang!
I liked it, but as it was a late-in-the-evening play, it didn't really register as it would have if we'd had played it earlier in the day. Definitely want to try it again.
The OK
The Dwarf King - (2 Plays)
In short, a more random version of Chronicle. My opinion of this has softened with repeated plays, but my initial reaction was that it was entirely too random. Maybe I was used to Chronicle, maybe I wasn't having a good day, but what was I really supposed to expect from Faidutti? The Dwarf King shares an awful lot with the previously mentioned game (3 suits, alternating victory conditions for each hand, special cards that potentially alter tricks), but once I loosened up and viewed it as some light fun, it began to grow on me.
As with Isla Dorada above, there's just enough control to keep things interesting and stave off any deflating feelings of futility. Smart trick-taking play can net you points (or prevent their loss), but watching your carefully laid plans explode via a monkey-wrench-in-the-works play of an opponent (much like our perennial group-favorite Wizard) very much lends itself to the chaotic nature of the scoring rules.
It's perhaps more "fun" (in theme and mechanics) than Chronicle and more random than other trick-taking games, but it fills a little goofy niche and is one I'm quickly finding that I'll never turn down. Not a bad little trick-taker.
Nile DeLuxor - (3 Plays)
While I accidentally got both this and a copy of the original Nile (Funagain mislabeled DeLuxor as being an expansion that needed the base game, it's a standalone), I've been happy to find this game to be good after-dinner/aged parents fare that I don't mind playing. There have been a slew of family-friendly games that I've both checked out and checked out on due to me becoming such a board game snob (like Gemlok, Cromlet and similar good, but not inspiring games), but Nile manages to remain consistently entertaining.
If I had to describe it, it would be a cross between the crop-growing in King's Vineyard with the one-man-upmanship of Saga, mixed thoroughly with a simple trading mechanism and a very Knizia scoring method. The way everything comes together makes for a light but intriguing package. While it might not reach the heights of Can't Stop, Cloud 9, or No Thanks!, it's definitely worth checking out as a light/medium weight family card game.
Spectral Rails - (1 Play)
I expected to like this more than I did: While this is, I think, the first true pick-up-and-deliver game I've played (though parts of Macao definitely count), I found myself unable to muster up much enthusiasm for it, though I still appreciate its interesting mechanics.
In the game I played, none of us really knew quite how to handle passing early in order to get more cards. With the exception of some halfhearted attempts by me, we all essentially went through our entire hands each round. As a result, I couldn't tell if the fact that the scores were so close at the end was due to groupthink or that we couldn't determine a good reason to hold back and retain cards.
The problem is, we'd understood the necessity of using other peoples ether trails to supplement our own journeys, so clever play of cards wasn't lost on us. As the game play is fairly simple beyond this point, I began to wonder if devoting any more brain power to maximizing the potential of one's moves was really warranted, lest the game become an AP filled slog.
So all in all, while I was decidedly intrigued by the system to get my own copy, I felt that it fell a little flat, even though I was amused by the clever play and novel mechanics.
Give me the Brain! - (1 Play)
A Looney Labs kind of game by way of James Ernest, it's a light bout of silliness with a good sense of humor and enough control to keep it from devolving into Fluxx-levels of chaos.
It almost got a two-thumbs up from me when we mis-interpreted the rules and thought that the game also could end when the draw deck ran out (I'm a noted fan of fixed turn games, see Endeavor, Olympos, Troyes, etc.), but the potential for this game to go on and on did not sell me on it's overall appeal.
I wouldn't mind giving it another shot just to see what kind of crazy cards are included, but I feel no need to pick this one up again. As it is partway-decent filler, however, I probably wouldn't mind it on occasion.
The Meh
Spooks - (1 Play)
A pleasant diversion; a slightly more diverse version of Uno where the placement rules change based on the cards played. It's light and goofy and not a poor way to waste 10 minutes, but there is much better filler out there.
IceDice - (2 Plays)
IceDice is my second dive back into the world of Loony Pyramids. I had bought a single rainbow stash back when the original Treehouse units were being sold, and while the Treehouse game itself was marginal light fun, my real interest lay in finding out more about Zendo, which sadly hasn't been in print for ages (Yes, I know I can probably throw together my own copy, but I'm a lazy-ass and would rather get the whole package in one go).
While IceDice itself is a reasonably fun push-your-luck dice roller, it still hasn't gotten me interested in trying another other of the Loony Pyramids games (despite the fact that it comes with the rules and board for a different game). I had hoped that IceDice would re-invigorate my interest in finding out more about the various Pyramid games out there, but I find myself at much the same crossroads as before. Interested enough to want to try some of the other games, but not interested enough to scrape together all the extra pieces I need to give them a go.
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♬♪♪ ♫ ♩ ♫♫♪ ♩♬♪ ♫
Australia
Victoria
What happens when typographers play Busen Memo? . . . . . . . . . ὠ ὡ ὢ ὣ ὤ ὥ ὦ ὧ
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Seeland
Seeland in progress.Image courtesy lacxox I wanted a copy of Seeland ever since I saw it featured in Spielbox. No-one seems to be distributing the game in Australia, so I had to wait until my birthday at the end of July before I could justify the purchase. Seeland has been worth the wait!
The board is two-sided: there is an introductory version of the game on one side, with some fixed spaces, and an "advanced" version on the other. There are also some optional rules to make the game more complex. My advice is to go straight to the "advanced-complex" game, incorporating all the elements. With all the options, Seeland is still only 2/5 for complexity 
Seeland incorporates a rondel which restricts the tiles available on your turn, but allows you to plan ahead and see what will become later: both to yourself and your opponents. In this repect it feels similar to Cartagena. After selecting a tile is is placed on the board, adjacent to other tiles: players attempt to maximise their own score, and may also attempt to sabotage their opponents scoring. The Governor (advanced scoring option) adds a target threshold for some windmills- the threshold is variable and may be controlled by another player. Moreover, as each tile placement makes more spaces on the board available, players also have to consider the spaces that will become available to their opponents... I think this balanced tile placement effect will appeal to people who like Samurai. This desciption only lightly covers the main aspects of the game; there are some interesting scoring options, bonus move tiles, and an ingenious method of limiting movement on the rondel.
There are small quibbles:
• Seeland has a large, six-part "jigsaw-puzzle" board. These never seem as robust as folded boards, and can be annoying to setup.
• The windmill and land tiles are double-sided, yet need to be kept secret until drawn: if they were single-sided it would be easy to stack them, as it is, one draws from the bottom.
• The rules are short and simple, but have been poorly organised, with a hodge-podge of exceptions grouped together at the end, rather than as annotations to the rules they refer to. This sounds worse than it is - Seeland has simple rules.
• And finally, there are a number of tiles that need to be distributed over the board befor play starts, so there is some fiddling around (not much).
Like I say- minor quibbles.
Gameplay is excellent with two players, and very very good with three or four people of equivalent skill. It is an advantage sitting after an newbie: it takes a game to understand the options you may be handing the following player. Many games have this drawback, however, and Seeland should not be unduly criticised. It is more than compensated for by the rondel mechanism and advanced scoring option. Seeland plays briskly (about an hour) and has attractive components. The Eurodude on the boxlid appears to be selling bus-tokens.
8/10
Fortune and Glory: The Cliffhanger Game
Figures from F&G.
In the background...Image courtesy Zoroastro Only one play so far, and we got some rules wrong, but Fortune and Glory was great fun. I can't imagine playing F&G in a serous atmosphere, with careful calculation and precise plotting: if that's what you want, I don't think it's a good fit. But as a relaxed and light-hearted "playtime" game it is super.
The box is gigantic, and comes packed with cards, counters, coins... and figures! So many minis! It has a miniature of a Zeppelin. The rulebook is pleasant to read and nicely illustrated; but quite long, jumps about quite a bit, and desperately needs an index - this is actually a bit of a problem. But did I mention all the toys in the box? There are jungle-covered ziggurats, and a Zeppelin.
There are several hundred cards, which are difficult to shuffle (blunt edges, if that makes sense) and will actually be improved by sleeving. They are clear and very attractive. There are cards that refer to the Zeppelin. There has been some excellent attention paid to the physical component design too: hundreds of bits, 10 (?) different decks of cards, many counters, and not a single one of them causes any problems with colourblindness. Seriously- that's an achievement, and Flying Frog deserve credit.
The sound-track CD was... played, I suppose... No one paid attention: we were engrossed in the game. I was moving the Zeppelin
We played the co-op game three player: the Nazis had 12 out of 15 points they needed when we won. It was dramatic. There were times when it was exciting. My dude explored a jungle armed with a revolver and a bullwhip while a Zeppelin flew overhead. It doesn't get much better than that...
8/10
Did I mention the Zeppelin?
Dominion: Walled Village Promo Card
It seems a tad overdone to review a single Dominion card, but is was new this month..! Walled Village is Cost 4; +1 Card & +2 Actions, with the option of returning it to the top of your draw deck if you have played 2 or less actions during the turn. It works quite sweetly at the start of a game, particularly with a money deck or cards that trash. Whether there are better things to buy with $4 is of course the critical question.
8/10 (this is how I rate Dominion generally)
Expédition Altiplano
It must have been our month for competitive archaeologists: we played this, Incan Gold, Thebes, and Fortune & Zeppelin. Expédition Altiplano is a half-hour cardgame for two: the objective is to be first to capture two out of three artifacts. Players have a hand of cards: in turn play a card either for its effect or to add allies and resources to your expedition. Different allies may alter the alignment of your team, making different tactics available but potentially creating weaknesses.
There is interaction on every turn, and Expédition Altiplano plays quickly. It will get better with greater familiarity- one needs to know the cards to get a sense of strategy, and to predict what might come next. The cards have a good finish and will last, and the art is appropriate and well done. It's a good game.
7/10
Phœnix
Phœnix in play.Image courtesy richardtempura Phœnix is a quick two-player abstract. The board is simple and "vibrant". There are six wooden blocks, each a different colour, in a random order along the middle of the board. Each player has a randomly selected set of very bright coloured pawns. They take turns playing cards to re-order and swap the pawns, trying to match the order of the coloured blocks. Some of the cards swap pawns with the opponent, others move the blocks in the middle; but most are used to re-order your own pawns.
The game is reasonably light - players only have four cards to choose from, so there is not too much chance of analysis paralysis. The flip side is that it is easy to be left with a bad hand of cards. The game is played over three rounds, and it is difficult to recover after a poor showing. There is no reason this has to be the case, and it would be easy to play to a target score or a different number of rounds.
Phœnix looks really good, but the colour choices are problematic (orange and green defeat this colourblind player). We used little hats made out of sticky paper; if Phœnix becomes a regulpar part of the mix we will replace the pawns with similar pieces in friendly colours. The cards are coloured too, but this does not impact on play.
I liked Phœnix: it is challenging without being slow. Whether it becomes a favorite only time will tell.
6.5/10
Crokinole
OK, this is cheating: I have played Crokinole many times before. I included this because I want to boast:
I have a Muzzies crokinole board, and it is awesome!
A number of Australians got together and jointly ordered six boards, which cut the shipping costs. Mine arrived about two weeks ago and it is simply brilliant. It is a circular "Fundy" board; stained maple with
brass posts. I have already started introducing new players, and their reaction has been fantastic. It was terribly expensive (shipping was over $100, even with the discount), but worth every penny.
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Board Game: Onirim
[Average Rating:7.01 Overall Rank:497]
Brian Boyle
Australia
Sydney
NSW
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Not much gaming this month - and the fact that a solitaire game is the only "New to me" game this month just shows how gaming 'desperate and dateless' I have been.
Nevertheless this a really good, atmospheric and tough little game. Ideally played while listening to the soundtrack of Inception, the solitaire version features tough choices at nearly every turn.
Only 15mins game length but winds up to a very satisfactory and tense conclusion. Ten games in (two wins under my belt) and I have even started to break out the included expansions yet.
Game play - 7.5/10
Value for money - 10/10
[Mind you - it might have been different if my collector's edition of Discworld: Ankh-Morpork had shown up... 6 weeks and still no sign  ]
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David Reed
United States
College Station
Texas
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October was a month of lots of commitments which didn't leave me with a lot of time for gaming. Only nine non-computer games hit the table during the month. Strangely enough, four of them were "new to me" games.
For the "new to me" game of the month, I'm going to give the nod to I'm the Boss! (1 play). I'm a big fan of many of Sid Sackson's designs. Acquire was the first adult game I played and it changed my perspective towards games forever. I'm the Boss is a brutal game of no-holds-barred negotiation. It's also a tremendous amount of fun! The players are trying to be part of as many of the deals on the board as possible and end up with as much money at the end of the game as possible.
Other "new to me" games for October 2011:
String Railway (1 play) was a game from last year's Essen that caught me by surprise. I didn't get it, and, after a look at the game at BGG.con, I regretted that decision. I hoped that more copies would be available soon, but that did not happen. So... perhaps a reprint? While there is news that there will be one, it doesn't look like it will be happening any time soon. So, I did what many an industrious BGGer did - I made a set of my that I would replace with a purchased copy as soon as I could get my hands on a copy. So, after having brought it to several games nights and it not getting selected, I finally managed to get a two player game in earlier in the month. String Railway is a light train game that focuses on the building of the rail network rather than deliveries, upgrades and stocks. It's enjoyable and I think that it has the potential to be a very good game. It was an interesting and fun time, but I'm pretty sure that the two player game pales in comparison to a game with more players. Also, the yarn I used in place of string (hey, it's what I had handy  ) did not stay in place the way that string probably would. I have ordered String Railway: Transport from this Essen and hope that I will be able to use the bits I made and the components from it to give another try, perhaps at this BGG.con.
Taktika (1 play) is a game that I purchased from the designer at the third BGG.con. At about the same time, my two player game playing fell off, due the crazy work schedules of my usual opponent. So, this sat on the shelf, waiting its turn. In the meantime, it became a highly-sought-after item, while the promise reprint did not arrive. I finally got a chance to get it to the table earlier this month and I'm glad I did! The game is a mix between a tactical conflict and dexterity games. I think it's a good game and I enjoyed playing it.
The final "new to me" game for the month is Cyclades (1 play). This game has a theme that is rich, mechanicisms that work with the theme and a very tight map. Unfortunately, it also has a lot in common with a knife fight in a closet. For some people, that's attractive - for me, it was painful. There was way too much of "pound on the leader" for my tastes. I have no desire to try this one again.
So, October is at an end. If you've seen my reports in Novembers past, you know what that means... a package is en route to me that is filled with Essen goodness and, soon after it arrives, I will be making a trek to BGG.con to play the games in the box and as many other games as I can possibly get to the table. Many of them will be "new to me" games - even if they didn't come from Essen this year!
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Zack Stackurski
United States
Mankato
Minnesota
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October was a very light month in gaming for me... but I got to play three really good (perhaps even great!) new games.
Rating 8.5 after 3 plays.
This game is kind of a new Taco Bell item of a Euro... "Our seven ingredients mixed together in a whole new way!" In this case the mixture of worker placement/worker management/resource management/area majority yields a game any fan of Euros should try and will probably enjoy. Why? Despite being full of stuff we've already seen, Belfort manages to feel quite different from other games I've played.
I think the key reason is that all your points are derived from area and worker majorities. There is no building a point generation engine and watching it churn here (in fact there aren't many card synergies at all forcing you to think tactically throughout the game instead of relying on a combo to see you through)... you need to build the right buildings in the right places to keep yourself in line for points every turn... while your opponents are doing their best to deny you those scarce points. This leads to good interaction even if you don't use those interactive guilds.
Add in great replayability as the avaialable guilds really change your decision making from game to game (one example: its nice to go late in turn order in scoring rounds to maximize your majorities... but if someone has selected a resource stealing guild you will want to go before them so they don't ruin your plans...) and tactical play that keeps even the AP prone from looking too far past the early part of the next round. All in all I think this is a great game that has made my top ten in only three plays (sorry Stone Age) and certainly has a shot at the top 5 if I continue enjoying it this much. Check it out!
Rating 8 after 2 plays
Airlines Europe is a very good game that seems like it hasn't gotten as much buzz at perhaps it deserves... this is probably due to being a remake (of a remake) instead of something totally new and shiny. I doubt I'll be playing much TTR with my game group now that I have this (and my wife might prefer AE to Alhambra... which is a sentence I never thought I would type). The one limited action a turn despite always wanting to do more scratches a similar itch for me and vying for majorities in the various companies works for her. Add on being able to capitalize on what your opponents have built and you have a very engaging game with pleasantly easy to explain rules. Another that could break my top ten here with a few more plays (Unless that new Galaxy Trucker expansion can help fend it off  )
Rating 7 after 5 plays
Eminent Domain is last not because it is a poor game... but it simply has failed to wow me so far. I shouldn't be surprised as no tableu or deck building game has had much staying power with me so far... and this is both! That being said I prefer this to both Race for the Galaxy/San Juan and Dominion (and its clones). At first the game seemed to drag a bit... but now that we seem to know what we're doing it seems to be over before any cool strategies can really get going (perhaps the next step of the learning curve will be a balance between the two?). I like the process of building a deck that is good at doing what I want to do while leaching off my opponents roles... but something is still missing here that keeps it from being a true favorite... and I'm not really sure what it is. Perhaps one of the expansions will add some of the zing I'm currently missing...
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Steve Duff
Canada
Ottawa
Ontario
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Two light months in a row for me, total plays were again way down, and just two new games. But the strong winner is...
Elder Sign
Preliminary rating: 8
While generally our favourite games are mid to heavy weight optimizing/efficiency euros, sometimes it's just great fun to chuck a bunch of dice. And Elder Sign delivers in spades.
Gameplay is pretty simple, generally you're just choosing a room, and trying to roll the pictured dice combo. Sometimes order matters, sometimes not, monsters can come out and make things tougher, spells and items make things easier, clues allow you to re-roll dice.
One play was enough to make me ditch Arkham Horror forever. I immediately sold my entire Arkham collection, keeping only the painted minis, as they work fantastic for ES. In ES, I get all the dice rolling and decision making of Arkham, only in 60-90 minutes instead of 5 or 6 hours.
edit: Forgot to talk about the difficulty. I keep reading over and over again how easy this game is, and I keep wondering what people are smoking. In 3 games, I've had a massive loss (7 dead investigators), and 2 barely eeked out victories where the final seal was achieved just before the Goo woke up. And that's with the rules as written, allowing one card to be used as a "monster dump" when no set monster spaces are showing. As soon as that is officially changed, those 2 wins would have been sure losses, making me 0 for 3.
Sun, Sea & Sand
Preliminary rating: 7.5
Hey, it's one of those mid-weight efficiency euros I was talking about. Use your workers to build chalets for guests, resort pieces to entertain them, and pick up tourists off the boats. Tourists come in 4 different colours, and only stay if you've built entertainment in their colour, so matching everything up is really important. No hidden information, it's purely up to your planning to best pull this off. If you need, you can reserve guests in the future, but that means you'll have less workers and actions available next round.
Besides being fun to play, the game has some excellent physical design in it, you use parts of the board to cover up tourists to scale the game down for 3 or 2 player games. Really well done.
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Wowowowowow!
I'm officialy a rondel convert. Just fantastic. I loved the game very much and can't wait to play again.
Also new awesomeness is showmanager. I played Atlantic Star previously, but there is no comparison, show manager is a thousand times better. Theme truly is king, here.
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Posted Mon Oct 31, 2011 11:55 pm
That's so sad.
