(c) Fantasy Flight Games Used by permission |
Ridere, ludere, hoc est vivere.
Thursday, November 22, 2012
A game of "A Game of Thrones"
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Rules redlines
East India Company prototype photo |
Friday, November 16, 2012
Carthage and Old Dominion
Pondering my next action in Traders of Carthage |
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Trade triangles in "East India Company"
Monday, November 12, 2012
Tsuro, Settlers, and Time Travellers
Tsuro
One of my posts last Thursday described my initial impression of Tsuro of the Seas, a recent variation on the Calliope Games gem Tsuro (designer Tom McMurchie; artists Shane Small, Cathy Brigg, and Sarah Phelps; publisher Calliope Games). Playing TotS made me want to revisit the original Tsuro, which my good friend Grant Greffey had given us for Christmas a couple of years ago. As it happened, we had in turn recently given a copy to our friend Jeff, so on the occasion of having a number of friends over for dinner and games, he was happy to break it out and give it a spin.
(c) Calliope Games. Used by permission |
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Running the numbers in East India Company
I've mentioned several times that I'm worried about game length in "East India Company." Each turn has a "New Colony Phase" in which a tile is drawn from a bag and added to one of the seven colonies on the board. There are 21 tiles, three for each colony. My previous rules held that the tile draw would trigger game end when all seven colonies had at least two tiles. But the Congress of Gamers playtest ran the maximum possible length, when the second China tile didn't come out until all 18 tiles on the other six colonies had been drawn. That turned out to be too long.
After-school special: East India and Tsuro of the Seas
My friends Frank Hodge, Keith Ferguson, and Mike R. and I got together this evening for a couple of games at Game Parlor in Chantilly, Virginia, after work today.
East India Company
The guys were gracious enough to agree to another playtest of "East India Company." It was Mike's first time with it, but Keith and Frank had each played at least once. As I mentioned in my previous post, I increased the ship speeds, allowed for ship upgrades as an alternative to building ships, and added a new game-end trigger condition. The first two measures were intended to improve the cost-effectiveness of investing in ships, and the third was intended to shorten overall game length.
East India Company
The guys were gracious enough to agree to another playtest of "East India Company." It was Mike's first time with it, but Keith and Frank had each played at least once. As I mentioned in my previous post, I increased the ship speeds, allowed for ship upgrades as an alternative to building ships, and added a new game-end trigger condition. The first two measures were intended to improve the cost-effectiveness of investing in ships, and the third was intended to shorten overall game length.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Playtesting preparations
Tomorrow after work I plan to bring my prototype of "East India Company" to Game Parlor in Chantilly, Virginia, for a playtest session with some of my gaming buddies. One problem I had with this prototype at the UnPub ProtoZone event at Congress of Gamers last month was that the labels I had made for the ships didn't stick well to the spray-painted basswood ship pieces that I'd made. So I spent this evening re-gluing all the labels with Elmer's white glue. I'll leave them to dry overnight in the hope that they won't start peeling off again tomorrow afternoon.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Reading all the rules
I can't count the number of times I've gotten rules wrong in learning boardgames. It seems as though every time I learn a game for the first time, I get something wrong. Even worse, I am often the person in the group charged with reading the rules and then explaining the game to the other player(s), so I propagate my misunderstanding to other innocent souls.
Friday, November 2, 2012
Close Camels in Samarkand
Cocktail hour came with camels, pretzel chips, and hummus as we broke out Samarkand: Routes to Riches (designers David V.H. Peters and Harry Wu, artist Jo Hartwig, publisher Queen Games). I really like this game of Middle East merchant families and camel caravans. Both Kathy and I have come to appreciate the scoring focus on expanding trading routes to products whose cards we hold and especially on forming trade relationships between families in which we have an interest.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Lessons Learned in Le Havre
For today's cocktail hour game, Kathy and I selected one that we both like but are still getting the hang of, the worker-placement masterpiece Le Havre (designer Uwe Rosenberg, artists Klemens Franz and Uwe Rosenberg, publisher Lookout Games [website in German]). We've played three times before; Kathy won the first two, and I managed to win the last one. This time we fell into a familiar pattern - Kathy kept beating me to the punch, with the knockout blow being a big shipment of leather and bread for 26 Francs. I had some high-point buildings, plus both an iron ship and a steel ship, but it wasn't enough to overcome Kathy's strong position (including the 22-point steel mill), so she won 117 to 96.
Monday, October 29, 2012
Is two-player St. Petersburg a runaway?
(c) Rio Grande Games Used by permission |
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Changing history and other fun things with card games
I had a string of boardgame losses last week. My last post recounted my thumping at the hands of Frank H. in Midway. The next evening, my wife Kathy beat me in 7 Wonders with the Pyramids of Giza over my Statue of Zeus in Olympia. And then the following afternoon, she beat me in one of our very favorite games, Citadels in which we used the alternate Tax Collector and Abbott.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Mauled at Midway
This evening after work, my colleague Frank H. and I met for a reprise of our customary (if infrequent) game of Midway (designers Larry Pinsky and Lindsley Schutz, publisher Avalon Hill). Last time, we'd introduced a few rules modifications from the Wargamers Guide to Midway, most notably a variable order of battle (OOB) based on a chit draw. Well, apparently that inspired Frank dramatically, because he spent quite a bit of time researching and revising the possible alternate OOBs as well as other optional rules, so that the game we played today was a considerably souped-up version of the Avalon Hill classic.
Monday, October 15, 2012
Washout
This afternoon's backyard boardgame session was cut short by Mother Nature. We finished a quick game of Pirateer, but we hadn't got very far into a round of Ingenious Challenges: "Dice Challenge" before rain unexpectedly intervened and chased us inside. That's the first time we've ever had a game interrupted by weather.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Backyard Traders of Carthage
My wife and I love this time of year. The crisp air and the fall foliage call us to our backyard refuge, where we start a little fire in the firebowl, set out the cheese and crackers and cocktails, and play our afternoon game. Today it was our new favorite, a bring-and-buy acquisition at Congress of Gamers - Traders of Carthage (designer Susumu Kawasaki, artists Peter Gifford and You Satouchi, publisher Z-man).
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
CoG Unpub Protozone Report, Part 3
Finishing up my after-action report on the Unpub ProtoZone event at Congress of Gamers.
[Edit: The "Dr. Wictz" design team has changed the name of their game from "Pole Position" to "Post Position," so I have updated it here for correctness. - PDO]
Post Position
The Unpub Protozone was organized to have us designers pre-register to bring our designs in for playtesting, but in fact the event was actually pretty open-ended. Two fellows I'd never met before, Aaron Honsowetz and Austin Smokowicz, came in and asked Darrell Louder if they could get their game design playtested even though they hadn't pre-registered. As it happened, there was an open table, so Darrell said, "Sure, no problem, go ahead and set up." And thus the game "Post Position" was introduced to the Unpub.
[Edit: The "Dr. Wictz" design team has changed the name of their game from "Pole Position" to "Post Position," so I have updated it here for correctness. - PDO]
Post Position
Austin Smokowicz and Aaron Honsowetz with "Post Position" |
Monday, October 8, 2012
CoG: Unpub Protozone Report, Part 2
Tonight's post continues my accounts of games playtested in the Congress of Gamers designers room last weekend.
Compounded
The game I specifically remembered from the CoG design room last year and really wanted to play again was Darrell Louder's "Compounded," a game of set construction with a particularly unique theme - building molecular compounds by combining elements. Darrell calls it "better gameplaying through chemistry." Players draw crystals from a bag whose six colors represent elements. An array of 16 cards in the center of the table depicts different molecular diagrams that players can populate with element crystals to complete and score the corresponding compounds. Some compounds are flammable and can be lost or even cause chain reactions. All compounds score points when completed, but some also enable a player to draw more elements from the bag, store more on his workbench, claim more compounds for future scoring, or place more elements in a single turn. Some also provide other particular special benefits.
T.C. Petty III considers his next chemical concoction in "Compounded" |
Congress of Gamers: Unpub Protozone Report, Part 1
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Quick note on Congress of Gamers
A very quick note after the first day of Congress of Gamers 2012: I spent most of the day in the designers room. Detailed notes to follow in a subsequent post.
Friday, October 5, 2012
Prototype photos
At last, I've finished the second prototype of "East India Company," right down to the makeshift box art and player's aids. This will be the copy that I bring to Congress of Gamers in Rockville, Maryland, this weekend. I hope to gain a lot of feedback and really refine this rough cut gem into something special.
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