It seems that I can never talk about worker-placement games without comparing them to Agricola (designer Uwe Rosenberg, artist Klemens Franz, publisher Z-Man), which I guess was my first introduction to the genre and the one nearest to my gaming heart. It has become the standard against which I measure all other worker-placement games. Tonight, Kathy and I decided to drag it to the table again, and this old favorite still satisfies as much as it ever did.
Ridere, ludere, hoc est vivere.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Worker placement - comparison and contrast
My wife Kathy and I have played two worker-placement games in the past three days, and we've come to form very different opinions about the two of them.
Friday we played Belfort (designers Bamboozle Brothers Jay Cormier and Sen-Foong Lim, artist Joshua Cappel, publisher Tasty Minstrel), which I'd put high on my wishlist based on a number of strong recommendations. The appeal of Belfort is clear - it combines a number of Euro-game elements in a rather interesting format. DiceHateMe Games called it the Game of the Year for 2011. There is some area control going on, resource optimization, construction - all the things you expect in a Euro game these days.
(c) Tasty Minstrel Games Used by permission |
Friday, August 24, 2012
American battleships at Midway
Wednesday afternoon, my friend and colleague Frank H. and I got together after work for our re-match in Midway (designers Larry Pinsky and Lindsley Schutz, publisher Avalon Hill). We first clashed over the Pacific in June, when I played the Americans and Frank the Japanese. This time, we switched roles, so that I commanded the forces of the Imperial Japanese Navy and Frank those of the United States Navy.
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Lemming luncheon
My wife Kathy, my eleven-year-old son, and I inaugurated one of my WBC acquisitions this evening -- the light-hearted Leaping Lemmings (designers John Poniske and Rick Young, artists Rodger MacGowan, Leona Preston, and Mark Simonitch, publisher GMT). This fox-and-geese variation is actually a symmetric game, in which each player has a faction of lemmings seeking to evade the eagles, whose control rotates among the players.
Saturday, August 18, 2012
The game time conundrum
This isn't a new problem, but it's a problem that has recently really come sharply into focus. I've been playing plenty of two-player games at home, and several multi-player Euros with friends. But a number of other games and genres have caught my attention on which I'd like to spend more time and energy:
Friday, August 17, 2012
WBC: Acquire and acquisitions
Early in our game of Acquire. I had a majority holding in Worldwide (the purple hotel to the right), but that wasn't enough to prevail |
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
WBC: Designers' forum
One of the great things about a convention like the World Boardgaming Championships is having the opportunity to interact with fellow designers. The open gaming room at WBC was practically an informal design laboratory of demonstrations and playtesting.
My friend Keith F. and I had only the briefest chat with one of my favorite designers, T.C. Petty III, whom I met at WBC last year when he was demonstrating the semi-cooperative Viva Java, a game that has already seen its successful Kickstarter campaign and has a Dice Hate Me release expected this month. T.C. is working on a couple of ideas that sound characteristically original and off-beat. It will be fun to see what creations find their way to production out of his unique perspective on game design.
TC Petty III's Viva Java Image courtesy of Dice Hate Me Games |
Sunday, August 12, 2012
WBC: Wooden Ships semifinal and final
I was pleased to qualify for the semifinal in the World Boardgaming Championships Wooden Ships and Iron Men tournament. The previous year, I'd lost in the semi-final to Evan Hitchings, and as it happened, this year would provide the opportunity for a rematch.
Semi-final: Frigate frenzy
For the semi-final, we were each given the opportunity to choose from among three orders of battle:
Semi-final: Frigate frenzy
For the semi-final, we were each given the opportunity to choose from among three orders of battle:
- Two elite-crewed American frigates, including one 44-gun ship
- Three crack-crewed British frigates
- Four French frigates - one crack and three average
Friday, August 10, 2012
WBC: When ships were made of wood
The Wooden Ships and Iron Men tournament has become an enduring staple of my experience at World Boardgaming Championships. My post a few days ago described my loss in a one-on-one engagement, but I enjoyed a fair degree of success later in the competition.
Thursday, August 9, 2012
WBC: "Ethics in Gaming" revisited
At WBC on Thursday last week, Joel Tamburo hosted his annual seminar on Ethics in Gaming. This was my second opportunity to attend.
I arrived a little late and found myself in the middle of a conversation on the interpretation of rules
ambiguities. Not entirely a matter of ethics, the question on the floor seemed to center around whether an unaddressed action in the rules should be allowed (because the rules don't prevent it) or prohibited (because the rules don't allow it or provide for it). Peter, an attorney, likened the question to that of Constitutional interpretation, whereby some people hold that rulings on Constitutionality ought to depend on the intent of the founders at the time that they wrote it, as best we can determine from other writings at the time. Others hold that interpretation of the Constitution necessarily changes with the times, and so it is with game rules: It doesn't matter how the game designer wanted you to play the game; what matters is how the players want to play. So, then, the question became, does the designer's intent matter?
Signing of the Constitution of the United States U.S. Government. Public domain |
Monday, August 6, 2012
World Boardgaming Championships: Wonders, ships, and farmers
Last Thursday, I arrived at the World Boardgaming Championships in Lancaster, Pennsylvania with a "flexible plan" (which is just one step above no plan at all) of how best to enjoy this annual trek to the highlight event of the Boardgame Players Association.
Sunday, August 5, 2012
World Boardgaming Championships 2012: Quick note upon return
I just got home earlier tonight from the World Boardgaming Championships (WBC) in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. A quick note before going to bed, with more to follow:
- 7 Wonders: quarterfinals, and the loss of a card
- "Ethics in gaming" seminar
- Agricola with the Interactive deck
- Wooden Ships and Iron Men: Made the finals but lost
- Acquire: Still learning
- "East India Company" demo/playtest
- Heartland Hauling: first impressions
- War Time: Reprise
- Mars Needs Mechanics: Gaslight supply and demand
- Trains Planes and Automobiles: My first event as GM
- Acquisitions: Chicago Express, St. Petersburg, and Leaping Lemmings
- A gift: 1949 edition of Clue
Thursday, August 2, 2012
East India Company: Turn sequence re-work pays off
After work today, I got a fourth playtest of "East India Company" with my friends Brian G. and Frank H. Earlier this week, I'd completely reworked the turn sequence to improve the flow of decision-making and order of events, plus I added a couple of commodity tiles to the initial set-up to open up the early game.
Monday, July 30, 2012
East India Company: More playtesting, more adjusting
My family and I did another run-through of "East India Company" this weekend with my wife, my 19-year-old son, and my mother-in-law, of all people, who isn't afraid to learn something new from time to time. I made some adjustments to correct the issue with the pace of the game this time, and I wanted to see how effective they were.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
HistoriCon 2012: A Submariner's Life and a Gathering Storm
I must say that HistoriCon offered many more lecture opportunities than I've seen at my favorite boardgame conventions, WBC and PrezCon. After the "Battle for Manila Bay," I turned my sights to a series of presentations by historians on topics of interest.
Monday, July 23, 2012
HistoriCon 2012: High Noon and the Battle of Manila Bay
High Noon
Friday morning at HistoriCon opened with a demonstration of High Noon (designer and self-publisher Leo Walsh), a home-grown 19th Century Western skirmish game. Leo had a large, elaborate Western landscape set up in 25mm scale - right down to gullies that descended below table-top level and bald eagles that graced some of the rock formations. The rules were pretty detailed, and I particularly liked the wounding mechanism (example to follow).
Image (c) Leo Walsh Used by permission |
Sunday, July 22, 2012
HistoriCon 2012: Borg Attack
Thursday afternoon at HistoriCon 2012 saw me in command of Star Fleet's task force at Wolf 359, assigned to stop the approaching Borg cube that threatened Earth. The task force consisted of approximately twenty capital ships and perhaps ten interceptors. The fleet focused nearly all firepower on the Borg propulsion systems to slow its progress toward Earth. The Borg destroyed a number of Excelsior-class and other major starships with its torpedo missiles and did considerably damage to the fleet with beam weapons and collisions, but our unrelenting focus on propulsion turned out to be successful, as we rendered the cube dead-in-space outside weapon range from Earth.
HistoriCon 2012: A boardgamer's reflection
HistoriCon came to Virginia this year, and though miniatures gaming takes a distant second to my boardgaming preference, I couldn't let the opportunity pass to spend at least a couple of days in the world of scratch-built terrain and tape measures. Inexcusably, I forgot to bring a camera both days that I attended, a virtual crime at a miniatures convention.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Games for a family of three (or four)
Monday, July 16, 2012
East India Company playtest
While on vacation, I arm-twisted my family into playtesting my work-in-progress "East India Company" again. I'm not proud of it, but it was necessary, and it was fruitful.
In this round, I incorporated a number of notes from our previous playtest. I drastically - and successfully - simplified the process for declaring dividends for bonus points. Also, since the previous game ended just when it seemed to get going, I lengthened the game from a minimum of 11 to a minimum of 15 turns. I made this adjustment despite my general concern about the overall playtime.
In this round, I incorporated a number of notes from our previous playtest. I drastically - and successfully - simplified the process for declaring dividends for bonus points. Also, since the previous game ended just when it seemed to get going, I lengthened the game from a minimum of 11 to a minimum of 15 turns. I made this adjustment despite my general concern about the overall playtime.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Ethics in gaming: Reflections on the WBC seminar
[While on vacation in North Carolina, in anticipation of going to the World Boardgaming Championships in Pennsylvania in a few weeks, I scheduled a re-post of one of my most popular articles, a reflection on the "Ethics in Gaming" seminar from the 2011 WBC convention. Originally appeared 15 August 2011]
Last week at the World Boardgaming Championships, Joel Tamburo led a fascinating seminar on ethics in gaming. I had no idea what to expect and was pleasantly surprised at the directions that the conversation took. Right away, the group explored the question of whether it is ethically acceptable to lie in the course of a game. The immediate example that came up is Diplomacy, a game only half-facetiously blamed for ruining good friendships. A consensus emerged that there is an understanding that in a game like Diplomacy, lying is an expected part of negotiation. Although success requires alliances, winning sooner or later requires betrayal. So as long as it is understood among players that lying is - or can be - part of the game, then that becomes part of the game's acceptable code of ethics.
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