Game: Drakon - 3rd Edition

Thread: Multiple Power Use Variant

FatherNature — 2008-11-24T01:40:11+00:00

This is a great game but the Special Powers variant included in the rules is a little flat. In the official rules each hero gets a special power (that breaks the rules in some way) that can be used exactly once during the game. One shot always seems a bit dissapointing after you've used it, but I see a need to prevent power abuse as well.

Variant: Each Hero starts with a hand limit of 4, every time you use your special power your hand limit is reduced by one. So, in effect it weakens the Hero to use their power. When you are down to a one tile hand limit you cannot use your power again. When you are directed by a tile (or ability) to take an extra tile this is temporary, you can use the tiles but will not draw back up until you are below your hand limit.

It works for us so far - hope you like it,
David aka Father Nature

Thread: Re: Drakon and a Hero on the Start Square Question?

FatherNature — 2008-11-24T01:22:45+00:00

We play a soft variant: The heroes can hide on the stairwell and make a quick break for it (leave the room) when Drakon is preoccupied. It just seems too maean to make Drakon take someone down perpetually, and we like the option of moving Drakon through the start tile on occasion.

Thread: Gaming with a 5 Year-Old: Drakon 3rd Edition

rsolow — 2008-10-03T16:54:17+00:00

Gaming with a 5 Year-Old:
Drakon 3rd Edition
(a.k.a. "The Dragon Game")

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Manufacturer's Suggested Ages: 6+

This is the 3rd installment of Gaming with a 5 Year-Old - a series of ten-point hybrid reviews/session reports from CLS Games that focus on reviewing games from the perspective of a father who plays games with his 5 year-old son.

Other reviews in this series are available here:

Gaming with a 5 Year-Old: AGRICOLA

Gaming with a 5 Year-Old: FORMULA DE

Gaming with a 5 Year-Old: QUORIDOR

Gaming with a 5 Year-Old: STONE AGE

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I. Theme:

Your five year-old son may or may not have an affinity for fantasy (mine did not), but it is never too early to expose junior to one of Dad's favorite game themes. However, because this game is also a maze building game, expect junior to want to jump right in and play.

II. Components:

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The plastic miniatures are fairly delicate, but should survive careful handling from your five-year old. My son started playing at 3.5 and there were some high anxiety moments when he wanted to handle the minatures. Fortunately, he always wanted to play the Barbarian which is one of this game's more sturdy miniatures.

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The tiles are extremely thick (if you are familiar with tiles in Carcassonne you will find these to be much more durable) and they have a nice texture to them (just do not look at the ugly edges)

III. Playing Time:

The game length is easily scalable since it is based upon the number of coins you set as the winning number. If you only have 10 minutes, play to 4 gold (with each coin counting as 1 gold, regardless of the number printed on the coin). But, if you have 1/2 an hour, you can play to 8 or more gold.

IV. Reading Requirement:

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If you do not consider the player reference cards, no text of any kind required for play. Each of the tiles has a symbol (no text) to indicate its special function. After 5-6 dozen plays, junior should have most of them memorized and a dozen games, he will be completely fluent.

V. Complexity:

The mechanical choices here each turn are simple. Move your pawn or place a tile. But, playing the best tile each turn is something the offspring will not immediately be able to do. That said, you son's erratic tile choices will make for varied and interesting games since you cannot predict what he will do next.

VI. Modifications:

None required, though depending upon the age and math skills of your son, you may want to disregard the printed number on each coin and count each coin as "one" (this also serves to reduce the luck-factor a bit). Also, you probably should not play with the "character unique abilities" until junior has numerous games under his belt.

VII. Handicapping:

Similar to the handicapping in Quoridor, you can let junior play with more tiles than you, though this is far-less elegant and efficient a mechanism with Drakon. Generally tile differential here works best if you allow your son to play with the normal allotment of 4 tiles and you play with 1 less (playing with fewer than 3 makes the game much much less interesting for Dad). That said, there is enough luck in the tile drawing that tile handicapping is not really necessary to give junior a fair chance at winning. Ultimately, tile placement decisions are the most important factor in determining the winner.

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Once your son is thoroughly familiar with the game mechanics and tiles, if you decide to play the with "character unique abilities," the best way to handicap the game is to allow your son additional blue markers so that he can use his special ability more than once per game.

VIII. Memorable Moments:

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Expect your son to cackle with glee the first time he screws your carefully laid plans by placing the harp or pouncing on your hero with the dragon.

IX. Fun Factor:
..... for Jr.
..... for Daddy

X: OVERALL GRADE:

This is the 2nd "real" board game by son ever played (the first was Quoridor) and after 50+ plays, with both continue to love playing it.

Thread: Re: 3rd Edition? Yes please!

larrypcross — 2008-09-30T22:36:21+00:00

Nice Review of a great game,

Here's a tip for punching out game parts that works pretty well for me.

I place the unpunched sheet on the carpet in our family room (or wherever) and press in the middle of each piece to punch it out. I think this works because the frame is supported by the carpet and therefore balances the force against it when pushing the piece out.

You may think I'm a bit punchy.....and you'd be right.

Cheers,

Larry

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Hex_Enduction_Hour — 2008-09-29T23:14:14+00:00

The player guide. There are six for up to six players. the guide assists in explaining what each type of Drakon's dungeon special floor tiles do when played or landed upon.

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Hex_Enduction_Hour — 2008-09-29T23:12:18+00:00

These are the hero ability markers. They designate if a character has used their one-time ability during the game. Once a hero uses the ability, the token is discarded.

Thread: Re: Spicing up the blank tiles - looking for suggestions

Little_Black_Dog — 2008-09-04T22:39:23+00:00

here's 3 more for your group;
1) Minor Teleport: Similar to "Teleport" except you can only go to another 'blank'
2) Knowledge: choose a player, he/she then has to turn a random coin in their pile face up
3) Foresight: choose a player, they then show you (and only you) the tiles in their hand

I haven't played any of these, but just thought they might work
enjoy
Pete

Thread: Re: Spicing up the blank tiles - looking for suggestions

mckinnwi — 2008-09-01T04:34:17+00:00

All very good suggestions. I'll pass them along to our gaming group and see which ones we want to experiment with.

Thanks

Thread: Re: Spicing up the blank tiles - looking for suggestions

MasterDinadan — 2008-08-30T03:44:02+00:00

Given that blank tiles are relatively common, I wouldn't do anything too powerful with them.
"Swap a coin" seems pretty fair to me.

Thread: Re: Spicing up the blank tiles - looking for suggestions

llyrsln — 2008-08-30T02:33:53+00:00

mckinnwi wrote:

Any other suggestions?

How about:

a. Tile Swap: swap the positions of any two tiles on the table (this is similar to, but not the same as, the Magical Shift tile).

b. Gamble: draw a coin and declare it; if it is 1 then you may draw another coin and repeat the process; if it is 2 then you keep the coin, leaving it faceup on the table; if it is 3 then you lose all coins gained on this tile, and miss your next turn.

c. Vortex: if a character is on an adjacent tile with an arrow pointing into this tile, that character is immediately moved onto this tile (this is similar to, but not the same as, the Escape tile).

d. Secret Passageway: draw a tile from the deck; if it is a blank tile, place the tile down, and then draw another tile, repeating the process until a non-blank tile is drawn. The catch here is that you must place a subsequently drawn tile adjacent to the previously drawn and placed blank tile.

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machollic — 2008-08-19T05:15:00+00:00

"This is a lesson to all of you, don't mess with me!!!"

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machollic — 2008-08-19T05:14:47+00:00

"You lowly humans dare to challenge me???"

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xamboto — 2008-08-17T13:54:24+00:00

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xamboto — 2008-08-17T13:50:14+00:00

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xamboto — 2008-08-17T13:43:01+00:00

Thread: Re: Coin difference in 3e?

flipscot — 2008-07-29T15:12:39+00:00

If you have the 2e version there is no need for an upgrade. The variants can be played on the 2e and you have so many more room types to play with. I guess there may be expansions coming out to 3e, but who knows.

The coins are the only difference. I did not think I would like the change, but I really enjoyed it! Once my opponents get up to four coins, I know there is a chance they are making their escape (I always play with the escape variant) and so the tension of the uncertainty is quite great. Then in attempts to steal coins or sending Drakon their way, you never know just how badly you will screw them.

Thread: Re: The escape Variant

flipscot — 2008-07-29T15:04:31+00:00

It is much more fun playing until 10 gold anyway. It is a short game and there is no need to make it any shorter. I heard some people play up to 15, but I have not tried that yet. I certainly would only try that in a smaller group.

Thread: Re: Fun, quick, and simple

kdiddy13 — 2008-07-28T21:57:39+00:00

Depending on your group, I'd recommend a turn timer. As plans almost always get thwarted, it'll often cause the need to rethink one's strategy. It can add up, especially if people are still figuring out what each card does.

Thread: Re: Doubt about Drakon game end

cagriggs — 2008-07-28T20:43:55+00:00

flipscot wrote:
When we played, you had to have 10 gold to escape but you did not have to declare anything (so it was a mystery if someone was actually making their way to escape or if they still needed to hunt for gold). And you certainly can steal gold from them to prevent a successful escape.

Without playing the escape option, I found the game ending terribly anticlimactic.
That's how I played it as well. Everyone could tell when a player was getting close, but no one knew for sure. As mentioned, this provides a more exciting end.

Thread: Fun, quick, and simple

flipscot — 2008-07-28T20:33:52+00:00

For the board gamers out there, just wanted to throw out a recommendation for Drakon. There are tons of great board games out there that me and my friends have come to enjoy. The primary drawbacks are getting through the instructions and the length of play tends to be on the longer side- which mostly becomes tough because people want to play a second time and it isn't always immediately possible.

Drakon is very simple, fun, and can go reasonably quick. You play one of 6 dungeon explorers (all of which have an optional ability) trying to accumulate enough gold (and optionally escape the dungeon). Without the optional rules, the game is especially quick, but also not terribly interesting or engaging. Once you play with the character abilities, you become especially cautious of your opponents and what they could do to you.

They are on their third edition and quite frankly if you have the older versions you don't really need this one. The main difference is that the gold coins have secret values and you need to get a total of 10 points worth of coins. This does add an element of uncertainty as you don't know just how close your opponent is to winning.

If you don't play with the escape optional rule, the game ends abruptly so I highly suggest to go with it. All you have to do is get the required gold and get to an Escape or Teleport room to win. This really makes some of the character abilities quite dangerous and gives you greater opportunity to thwart your opponents as they try to escape.

Fun, easy to learn, and can be played a couple of times. A worthy addition to your collection.

Thread: Re: Doubt about Drakon game end

flipscot — 2008-07-28T20:32:51+00:00

When we played, you had to have 10 gold to escape but you did not have to declare anything (so it was a mystery if someone was actually making their way to escape or if they still needed to hunt for gold). And you certainly can steal gold from them to prevent a successful escape.

Without playing the escape option, I found the game ending terribly anticlimactic.

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zombiegod — 2008-07-08T15:44:22+00:00

Ugliest tile edges ever?

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machollic — 2008-06-28T10:52:55+00:00

Sleeved Coins

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machollic — 2008-06-28T10:50:52+00:00

our first drakon session....all tiles & coins are sleeved

Thread: Re: Coin difference in 3e?

matthewjhoskins — 2008-05-20T22:26:30+00:00

3E includes a variant to play to 5 coins, just like 2nd edition. Not a big deal really.

Thread: Re: Coin difference in 3e?

Zimeon — 2008-05-20T21:23:03+00:00

I guess.

For us, the whole concept of Drakon has been the open information on how close people are to the win, and what can be done to stop him/her, and how cleverly people have to set up situations that are unstoppable or have alternative routes.

But that's just one way to play the game, I suppose.

Thread: Re: A Lot of Expectation to Live Up To - I'm not disappointed

kdiddy13 — 2008-05-20T17:43:01+00:00

Quizoid wrote:
kdiddy13 wrote:

There are also several rules variants for team play and special character abilities. Team play seems like it would take some of the real fun (screwing with your neighbors) out of the game, and the character powers don't seem to add a whole lot (or take away anything) so we decided not to go with them for our initial plays. While we didn't use the player abilities (or particularly feel that the game needed them), it's nice to know they're there if we wanted to add some variety to the game.

Granted, I've only played this game once, but I enjoyed my Team Play experience. The coolest part was the additional strategic options with tile placement. In addition to helping myself or hurting others, I could lay positive tiles around my team mate's position as well.Great to know. It's been a while since I've gotten this one out, perhaps a good team round of it is in order!

Thread: Re: Spicing up the blank tiles - looking for suggestions

mckinnwi — 2008-05-20T16:20:20+00:00

I guess we've played it that way so much I forgot. (though not so much recently) We've never played it with the team variant so I don't know how it would work. Though we do find that alliances start to naturally occur depending on who else leaves in your direction and how you want the dragon to move.

Thread: Re: Spicing up the blank tiles - looking for suggestions

Quizoid — 2008-05-20T15:29:48+00:00

mckinnwi wrote:
We usually play the escape variant, but have increased the coin value to 12 and escape instead of 10.

Actually, the default is 8 (that's the third time I've said that on this board today, I'm a crusader )

Cool that you enjoy the game so much you like it to be longer.

I've never played with the escape variant. Must be more tension because even if you have a win, you need to get somewhere with it. How would that work with the team variant too?

Thread: Re: Coin difference in 3e?

Quizoid — 2008-05-20T15:26:29+00:00

I think they created the variable coins to make the "leader" a bit less clear, so that games might end quicker and with more sneakery (O:

If you don't like the idea of not being 100% sure who's in the lead, there's a option in the book to just play to five coins, with coins having no number value. So, there might be other reasons for you not to get this, but you don't have to worry about that one.

Thread: Coin difference in 3e?

Zimeon — 2008-05-20T15:12:13+00:00

I have owned Drakon 2e for several years, and it's for many a favourite.

I was a bit jealous of the 3e with minis, but what the heck. But then I read that coins in 3e are numbered 1-3. Does this mean that when you go to a draw a coin-tile, you draw a coin at random and you might end up with getting 3 gold?

Are the gold coins that players have, hidden?

Forget it… I found the answer in a reviews thread here.

I finally found it. A game that actually is worse in an updated edition. The whole idea of Drakon is the interesting screwage that starts when a player is close to a win, and how you plan to squeeze through what the other players can do to stop you.

Amazing. Well, I guess 3e Drakon is just a different game, then. It might be fun it its own way, but it won't replace my 2e with expansion.

Hm. $$ saved! Nice!

Thread: Re: A Lot of Expectation to Live Up To - I'm not disappointed

Quizoid — 2008-05-20T15:00:12+00:00

kdiddy13 wrote:

There are also several rules variants for team play and special character abilities. Team play seems like it would take some of the real fun (screwing with your neighbors) out of the game, and the character powers don't seem to add a whole lot (or take away anything) so we decided not to go with them for our initial plays. While we didn't use the player abilities (or particularly feel that the game needed them), it's nice to know they're there if we wanted to add some variety to the game.

Granted, I've only played this game once, but I enjoyed my Team Play experience. The coolest part was the additional strategic options with tile placement. In addition to helping myself or hurting others, I could lay positive tiles around my team mate's position as well.

Thread: Re: The escape Variant

Quizoid — 2008-05-20T14:55:00+00:00

rmcorrea wrote:
I have a doubt about how to play that variant:

After a player declares that he has 10 golds, may the other players steal gold from his hand or move the Dragon figure so that he has to get another amount of gold before escape?

If so, you can only escape or move to a escape tile or teleport tile with 10 gold in hand, right?

Actually, it's 8 gold, not 10. And you never need to "declare," how much gold one has until you actually win by moving onto an Escape or Teleport tile with 8 gold.

Thread: Re: Doubt about Drakon game end

Quizoid — 2008-05-20T14:52:07+00:00

rmcorrea wrote:
I have a doubt about how to play the escape variant:

After a player declares that he has 10 golds, may the other players steal gold from his hand or move the Dragon figure so that he has to get another amount of gold before escape?

If so, you can only escape or move to a escape tile or teleport tile with 10 gold in hand, right?

I think you may have read something incorrectly.

Simply, if you have eight or more gold, and you move onto an "Escape" or "Teleport" tile, you win.

Thread: Re: The escape Variant

zombiegod — 2008-04-26T08:42:36+00:00

Once a player has 10 Gold they may escape through the exit.

If a player or the Drakon steals coins from them, they must once again achieve their 10 Gold total before they exit.

Thread: Doubt about Drakon game end

rmcorrea — 2008-04-25T23:24:57+00:00

I have a doubt about how to play the escape variant:

After a player declares that he has 10 golds, may the other players steal gold from his hand or move the Dragon figure so that he has to get another amount of gold before escape?

If so, you can only escape or move to a escape tile or teleport tile with 10 gold in hand, right?

Thread: The escape Variant

rmcorrea — 2008-04-25T22:09:57+00:00

I have a doubt about how to play that variant:

After a player declares that he has 10 golds, may the other players steal gold from his hand or move the Dragon figure so that he has to get another amount of gold before escape?

If so, you can only escape or move to a escape tile or teleport tile with 10 gold in hand, right?

Thread: Re: For my Tenth game, I score No gold

JonnieK — 2008-03-12T10:29:35+00:00

Great Session report, enjoyed reading it. I have just picked this game up and hope my gaming group (who normally dont like being evil) will respond the way this game dictates

Thread: Spicing up the blank tiles - looking for suggestions

mckinnwi — 2008-02-16T16:25:21+00:00

We've been playing Drakon every weekend for the past six weeks. It has become a big hit with our group as it has a nice mix of backstabbing, screwage and just enough strategy to keep your mind in it . We usually play the escape variant, but have increased the coin value to 12 and escape instead of 10. However, after all the play it's getting we have found that drawing blank tiles isn't so fun, especially when you have 2 or 3 in your hand. So why not paste some custom icons on the blank tiles and make up some new abilities? In reality, the game doesn't need it, it's fun as it is, but after so many plays something new would be welcome. So here are some things I've considered:

Special ability tile - This would allow the player to retrieve their special ability if it had already been used. I've also considered customizing the special ability tokens so there would be a unique one for each character. That would then allow a player to retrieve someone elses token and use their power, or trade their token for someone else's used token.

Coin swap tile - This would allow a player to trade one coin with the bank in hopes of trading that 1 or 2 value coin for a 2 or 3 value coin.

Location exchange - Swap locations with another player.

Angry dragon - Allows the dragon to move up to 5 tile spaces.

Retrieve a tile - Allows a player to retrieve a tile that was previously destroyed back into their hand. On this one I've actually considered just modifying the existing map tile with a fine point sharpie. Writing a "D" on the map to denote drawing from the destroyed or discarded tiles or an "S" to draw from the supply.

Well, that's where I'm at so far. Any other suggestions?

Thread: For my Tenth game, I score No gold

MerricB — 2008-01-30T04:48:29+00:00

I'm rather surprised to find that I've now played Drakon 10 times. It's a good game, certainly, and one that well fits in with the likes of my friends... but ten times? Wow.

Oh wait, we played it three times on the day I got it, and then we... Oh. Yes.

Drakon is a fun game, then. However, it's not always a kind one. More correctly, it's not always a game that your friends are kind to you in. Even more accurately, it's the type of game that your so-called friends will delight in stabbing you in the back, front, side or any other orientation that might suggest itself to them.

Of course, I was trying to do the same to them, but there was a difference in this game: they were sneakier and nastier than I was!

I did manage to get Drakon down before them, which gave Craig and Randy some horrible moments, but Randy later managed to use Drakon against me!

Then too, I stole coins from Randy and Rich, only to find Randy walking down a corridor with two "Steal from Merric" tiles on it. Oh dear!

When your friends gang up on you to make sure you don't have any coins left, then you know they're not good friends. Or, at least, the type of friends you want to play Drakon with!

Randy was the sneakiest and ended with 11 coins.
Craig had 9 coins
Rich had 6 coins.
I had nothing.

Well, I didn't have nothing. I had stab wounds, bite marks, burn scars, and an entirely new look on revenge!

This really is a great game.

Thread: Re: 2-Player Variant

iPAUL — 2008-01-27T23:14:25+00:00

I played my first game of Drakon recently. It was a 2-player game and to be honest it didn't leave much of an impression on us beyond being just an "OK" game.

Your variant sounds very cool and I will definitely give it a try the next time we play Drakon. Thanks for posting!

Thread: Re: So Close..

Hendal — 2008-01-26T22:48:34+00:00

great write up. thanks for sharing, I have been thinking of getting this one, it sounds like the 3rd edition is the best on out there, and they have it working well, it was a super close game, great fun all around!

Thread: So Close..

Toasty — 2008-01-01T17:45:33+00:00

All it takes is 4 heroes, 1 Drakon and a fist full of tiles to get the competitive spirit burning. Tonight was no exception and we all ploughed in by selecting our favourite minis.

"I'll take the little guy with the big tool!"

The game starts with the Drakon tile being played very early on. With the fiery beast in play, Heroes were stepping a careful path to keep 3 tiles away. This lead to a sprawling dungeon with some long corridors, making it awkward to make nice loops in the lair.

A couple of steal coin tiles were planted in reachable places before the first take a coin was proffered. No real conflict was happening early on, as no one had taken a coin, but plans were being concocted. You could almost hear the thought process ticking away in each players mind.

"So does red mean I steal from you or him?"

Then, a flurry of coin tiles were flipped and there was loot in the labyrinth. This lead to sharpening of knives and a few under hand moves to bash the current rich folk. I led the under hand charge and plucked a 3 coin from my Brothers stash, sweet!

Thinking the Drakon would be intrical to the game, it was left alone, assuming it could be called on when needed. But oddly, this sub conscious tactic effectively tamed the beast, as it was out of reach of the main play.

"If I place this tile in front of you, will you use it to bash him?"

Coin tiles were now being littered around the board and the player bashing ceased for a while as Heroes were harvesting the Lair of its gold. This was bad news for me as my immediate trail was fruitless. I was hoping to encourage some leader bashing, but this proved a little lame and there were now two players with a healthy pile of coins in front of them.

I needed to get some coins quick, so I managed to lay a tile and grab the loot un-hindered. A bit of coin stealing shenanigans later and the stashes were now 3 high for most players.

"How come you're planting so much gold!"

3 can be the magic number, because if you have a plethora of 2's and 3's you could be winning with a 4th coin draw. My wife was the first to grab a 4th coin, but it failed to take the win. This coin was promptly stolen, but did not yield a victory for the thief who was also now sitting on 4 coins.

My brother then took his 4th coin, but let slip he needed a 3 to win. It was instantly clear he had not drawn the required 3. I then realised I could now win. I could reach a coin tile and it would be my 4th. I drew a 2 coin to accompany my 2, 3 and 3 coins, which took my tally to 10. Victory!

"You spawn beast, that robbed 3 won you the game!"

I've not seen a game so close. In successive turns all 4 players made it to 4 coins in their stack. However, to a chorus of boos and hisses, it was left to me to take the win!

Thread: Re: Six players, One Drakon

malloc — 2007-11-27T18:34:13+00:00

I have been playing this a lot of late as well except I play 2 player vs my 4 year old son.

the game works well for kids in that they can usually remember what each tile does and if you play 1st person to 5 coins wins they don't need to do any math.

This is a fun little filler game that is good for wrapping up the night or while waiting for folks to show up. I agree that with adults 4 players is about right.

-M

Thread: Six players, One Drakon

MerricB — 2007-11-26T23:21:57+00:00

I didn't really buy Drakon all that long ago, but it's quickly become a favourite amongst my group - primarily amongst the roleplayers, which may give you an idea as to their mindset. I really need to set a Dragon chasing them down corridors in my campaigns; they should enjoy that!

]]> Josh considering the early game

Drakon advertises itself as for being from 2-6 players. Based on my experiences with it, I think it's best with the middle of that range. Four players seems a good number to play it with. Two players can get a run of bad tiles and cause the game to end prematurely, whilst six players - as was the number in this game - tend to prolong the game overmuch, and it really begins to suffer from Analysis Paralysis.

There's still a lot of fun to be had, regardless of the number of players, but I tend to get impatient when there's too much time between turns. A character flaw, no doubt.

]]> Drakon enters the board in the midgame

For those unfamiliar with the concept of Drakon, it works like this: you are an adventurer, trying to grab 10 gold from Drakon's hoard. Each turn, you may play one tile from hand, or move your adventurer figure onto a new tile (only in the direction of the arrows). Most of the tiles have special abilities that trigger when you move, and the game is a balance between playing a path that will get you the gold as quickly as possible, and playing tiles that will disrupt your opponents.

Gold tiles were hard to find in the early game, and through most of the midgame. Most of us found it amusing to place tiles like "lose a coin" immediately after a gold tile, or to sit just before a "destroy a tile" room, just so we could wipe out any gold rooms that were placed...

Mike took the early lead, along with Josh, although we were really cruel to Josh and kept stealing his coins. It took me some time to start getting coins, and I wasn't gaining them quickly. When Josh managed to sneak up to four coins, we were sure he'd won... but they weren't quite valuable enough. Oh, and Mike was very close as well.

]]> The game moves towards its conclusion

Josh and I had ended up on a loop of six tiles that had some really nice effects on them, but I had a couple of good Gold tiles in hand. Could I play them and move onto them without Josh getting there first?

It was a close thing, but Josh eventually made the mistake of going around the loop one more time, and I was able to place the gold tile and move onto it, taking the fifth coin I needed for victory.

Final scores:
Merric: 10 gold (from 5 coins); Rich 2 (1); Mat 2 (1); Josh 5 (2); Mike 6 (3); Craig 5 (2)

Thread: Two Pair Games

MerricB — 2007-11-20T00:44:20+00:00

My previous games of Drakon were with 4 or 5 players, but these were my first with just two players. The game worked fairly well with two players, although I don't think it's really as good as the multiplayer game.

In the first game, I managed to get myself a nice run of gold tiles. Rich, for some reason I'm not quite aware of, placed an empty corridor tile in front of himself and headed down it, thus wasting a couple of turns. I just headed down my run of gold tiles and picked up the rewards. Without any anti-Merric tiles, Rich was powerless to stop me, though he did pick up some gold for himself.

Merric - 11 gold; Rich - 6 gold.

In the second game, things got a little more involved. A "destroy tile" got played, and Rich and I took turns visiting it and mucking up the board. At one point, Rich managed to destroy the tile I'd just left, leaving me in a single tile not connected to any other part of the board... a teleporter tile!

This gave me great amusement when I played a Drakon tile and the dragon appeared on Rich's side of the dungeon. Heh. Get out of that one, Rich!

However, I had a problem: Rich had been happily playing some gold tiles. I was easily able to teleport to the Drakon tile and "get" Rich with the Dragon, but then Rich was just able to get onto the gold trail again and recover his coins and more! Oops. I miscalculated that one badly.

Rich - 11 gold. Merric - 6 gold.

I guess you'd call that a tie.

Thread: Re: Ending a day of new games

Asmor — 2007-11-08T04:59:51+00:00

I was playing this game against my fiancée and managed to lock her out with some skillful maneuvering. There was a harp tile next to the entrance. I got drakon on the harp tile... next to the entrance, after sending her to it.

Then I just had to wittle down her hand with the map room tiles to make sure she couldn't get an escape tile.

Net result: Her only option was to move, and she had to move onto Drakon, sending her right back to start.

Mean, but fun.

Thread: Re: Beginning a day of new games

Asmor — 2007-11-08T04:23:55+00:00

I just got the game a couple days ago (on D&D Game Day, November 3rd).

Didn't notice any odor on the tiles... They did take a while to punch out, but I'm used to it with board games... I actually did it while watching TV, so no biggie.

Regarding the figures that come with the game, they're servicable but pretty bland... Not all of us have the time (never mind skill) to paint them. But I found a wonderful alternative: D&D minis! I just scoured my collection and found 7 (6 heroes plus drakon) minis that fit the existing ones well. Definitely made the game more aesthetically pleasing.

I love the "programming" aspect of this game, and I think it makes an absolutely phenomenal 2-player game. One of the rare games that actually works well for both multiplayer and mano a mano.

Thread: Re: Holy crap this game is hard to punch!

astroglide — 2007-10-28T18:46:47+00:00

i remember this game being tough to punch. i think it might have been holding the whole sheet against a table and pulling up around the tile instead of pushing out the tile, but i can't recall exactly. my pieces ended up relatively unscathed, and no tools were used.

Thread: Re: Holy crap this game is hard to punch!

gamerbut — 2007-10-28T01:02:16+00:00

Add my name to this list. Tried punching out the tiles, but stopped just short of tearing some. Tried an xacto knife, but the blade was too thick to fit between the tiles. I do have a knife with a thinner blade, which I hope does the trick. By the way, a nail clipper usually works fine to take off those little nubs or spikes that stick out. But that's far less of a problem than freeing the tiles themselves. Bummer...especially since the tiles and game pieces are very attractive and the game looks as though it would be a lot of fun to play!

Thread: Five players get lost

MerricB — 2007-10-08T01:44:23+00:00

It was the start of another Board Game Day, and Craig was eager to play a game of Drakon. I wasn't averse to it, so the five of us sat down for a quick game.

As it turned out, this game took about an hour - a lot longer than I was expecting. This is partly due to some analysis paralysis, a few new players, and also just because there wasn't much gold about!

Our tactic seemed to be: Put down a gold room, then place the next room so it takes the gold away from you! Heh. It leads to a long game, though.

The beginning of the game saw few of us willing to move from the entry chamber, instead just playing a lot of tiles. Mike, playing his first game, moved out, and we delighted in setting nasty (or boring) tiles in front of him. So it went, until eventually we started exploring and discovered that Mike could play that game as well as the rest of us.

After about 30 minutes, there were only 3 gold coins in the collection. Drakon was lurking, and we were running out of tiles.

In the end, Craig managed to run out of tiles and find himself in a dead-end, sohe was out of the game. I wandered around in circles - I hate magic harps! - and rarely got any gems. We collaborated with Mind Controlling other people's Teleports to rooms to stop Rich, Josh and Mike from winning, but eventually we could do no more, and Mike found himself in a motherlode of gold coins.

Final scores:
Mike: 10 coins (4)
Rich: 9 coins (4)
Josh: 5 coins (3)
Merric: 4 coins (2)
Craig: 3 coins (2)

And Craig had been so close to victory at one point...

Thread: Multi-player team experiences - Harps, Psychology & Timing

Boogers — 2007-09-26T23:58:15+00:00

It's the last week of term at school, so I've been allowing indoor games activites with my Maths kids. I wish I could see them as part of our curriculum! There's a ridiculous number of educational outcomes covered in strategy games!

Drakon can prove frustrating in a team game. The beginning tends to be boring as we all start at the same spot and follow each other around. What my partner and I found was we had to psych the other players out by refusing to move towards the next coin tile to get them away from us. We would never get that coin and be behind for a short while, but then we could begin to use tiles that built up a strong pathway.

The key to team scenarios is proper use of the Magic Harp. When the opponents had placed a winning tile we played our reserve Magic Harp to draw them in the other direction to keep them out of competition.

Another facit of the game which isn't talked about is the use of tempo. It's a familiar theme in chess. With only one move or tile placement per turn you cannot exploit a pathway immediately; actually your opponents do! So you need to sucker them into what appears a winning corridor to stuff them up as they move into that second last tile (the one before the crusher). At that point you place your knockout or move on to the "destroy any unoccupied tile" tile to leave them in empty space!

It's picking your shots at the right time. Don't telegraph intentions and get them to waste time moving around doing nothing productive.

Osu!

Thread: The game where it all just fell into place

Toasty — 2007-09-25T20:39:49+00:00

To me, Drakon had always been the "quaint" little dungeon game played at the end of the night to wind down. Well, be it fate, gathering experience or the right amount of alcohol to make the brain think just left of sideways, tonight was the night Drakon fell into place. Odd too, as this was our first two player attempt at the game.

Not another coin tile!

We played an initial game, which was a bit of a wash out due to a bad shuffle and a lot of coin tiles being drawn. This was played through quickly and we were both up for another game after a thorough shuffle.

Right, where are those steal tiles?

This time, my hand was full of differing tiles and set about creating a vast dungeon to explore and foil any plans my opponent may make. Then I noticed an odd thing. My wife's tile placements, more often than not, were clustering around my current player position. I was lining myself up for a juicy tile of choice, but my exit strategies were being plagued by daft tiles, or worse still, being sheparded toward downright horrible tiles, drop a coin springs to mind!

So, you think you'll get to that coin do you?

Then it struck, what's good for the goose is indeed good for the gander and I studied harder my sneaky partners dungeon movements. And yes, she now had a nice little path in the making which would soon turn a profit. So I quickly placed tiles in her wake to divert her to frustration and impending doom!

This was a wonderful new development for this cunning little game. Yes, I've made a path to glory, but wait, if the path eventually leads to a big pit of despair, what's a dungeoneer to do?

Blast! I've been blasted into nowhere!

Well as it turned out, fight fire with fire! And the next 15 minutes were spent setting as many traps and diversions to the point where we were in fits of laughter with each tile placement. Not only did this create giggles and groans in equal measure, it also created the largest and most interesting dungeon I had seen.

Reading this session report back, I can almost here the collective 'duh' from the readership. Surely forcing players onto bad tiles is the whole point?! But I'd previously played to activate bad things on others by moving my character on to a special affect. The concept of diverting other players away from their intended target and possibly onto bad affects too was an epiphany for me and led to a most enjoyable time.

Just when I thought that I was in, they pull me back out

Maybe this won't work as well with more players, but I can't wait to try it out

Thread: 2 games of Drakon before Star Wars

MerricB — 2007-09-24T08:51:32+00:00

We were waiting for other players to arrive for our Star Wars Saga Edition RPG session, so I drew out my new copy of Drakon, only played 3 times before!

Daniel, Sarah and I played the first game, which involved Daniel actually reading the rules properly (you place Drakon on the table when the "move Drakon" tile is placed on the table, not when it's first activated), and saw a good game of medium length (that is, a little less than 30 minutes) which Sarah ended up winning by collecting 4 coins for the 10 gold required. I was close behind her, but she just managed to hold me off and race to the win.

The second game saw Rob be introduced to the game - unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to try it with Adam, who I think would be great to play the game with. This game was superb, with Drakon roaming around the dungeon, catching us, and sending us back to the start, much the poorer. Rob and I had a run of moving to teleporters, and then Mind Controlling the other to some bad location (or a Drakon movement so we could move Drakon to chase Daniel and Sarah around the map).

Daniel managed to get himself into a very nice position indeed, with a couple of gold rooms and a Drakon movement room to keep us all away from him. However, Rob, Sarah and I finally combined to stop him from taking the victory... and, alas, Rob and I had spent too much time interfering with each other, and Sarah once again took the victory!

Drakon is a lovely game; I've no doubt it'll be played quite a bit in the near future.

Thread: A Review of Drakon 3rd Edition

ShotGun Jolly — 2007-09-17T12:43:55+00:00

Just now discovering Boardgamegeek, I decided that I will follow along like so many others and post my views on some of the games that I own, to help others decide if they too, would like to buy it. So here we go.

Background: Drakon, when I bought this game, I bought it with out knowing what it was. I was in the mood to own a game that would be fast and easy to play. Only going buy what I read on the back of the box, I picked it up and brought it home. A completely blind purchase.

The Game Box: Drakon is in a small box that very easy to carry around. The artwork is pretty cool and its pretty sturdy. It seems to me, that it will hold up very well in the travels to and from my house. And When I laid it on the table, it drew a fare bit of attention and it was quickly opened.

The Game Parts: In side the box are cardboard tiles (which needs to be punched out before play) are very high quality and very sturdy. The minis look pretty cool with one of them being a pretty neat dragon figure. (Although they are the same molds of the hero minis from the Descent expansion *But the dragon is unique*)

Premise: Well, your band of adventures was trying to steal gold from the cruel dragon named Drakon. Being a cruel dragon, he decides to play a game. Allowing the party to explore his labyrinth of traps, the person who finds 10 gold first, wins. While the others become Drakon’s after entertainment snack. It’s a good game to play with friends who like to play those “Knife in the back of your buddies” style games.

Game play and Rules: The rules are on a double sided sheet of paper. And plenty of reference cards that explains the tile effects. The players take their turns, and are allowed to build the map by placing a tile, or they can move along on the map itself. Each of the tiles have some sort of ability, ranging from teleport, destroy a tile, steel a tile from a player, find gold, steel gold, and even rotate a room. One of the more dreaded tiles are the Drakon tile, which allows the person to bring the friendly dragon to the map and after that move the dragon around in a deadly game of cat and mouse. If you get caught by the dragon, you loose a random gold piece and get sent back to the starting tile. It took us all of about 5 minutes to read the rules. There are no dice involved, and it’s a quick game to play.

One more thing, you can play the basic version of the game, but it does come with a few simple variants of play. Which allows special abilities from the different heroes and even a team play version. (just rememebr its a simple ruleset)

Overall view of this game: This game has become a favorite among our group. It’s a good fast game (but it can be long at times, if everyone is trying to out wit the other) and the more players playing at the time, the more chaotic it gets. We seem to play this game prior to any other game while we are waiting for everyone to show up. We all enjoy trying to hamper the other players escape plans by throwing in a few devious little traps and tricks here and there. Overall, it’s a good simple game, thats fast to learn and play and looks pretty good setup on the table.

Overall score for what it is.. 10 out of 10

I hope this helps.
Regards and Good Gaming.

SGJ

Thread: Re: Beginning a day of new games

MerricB — 2007-09-17T07:31:32+00:00

Toasty wrote:
Good point about the tile popping, it took me ages! This could just be our game, but the tiles have quite an off putting smell to them, maybe they got a little damp some how, anyone else notice this?

I certainly did. Not sure exactly what is causing it, either.

Cheers,
Merric

Thread: Re: Beginning a day of new games

MerricB — 2007-09-17T07:29:55+00:00

Genre_Fad wrote:
Good read, Thanks. Would love to hear about the rest of the nine hours of gaming!

Thank you. The nine hours (or thereabouts) is now detailed!

2.30 pm: 2 games of Drakon - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/1725938
3.30 pm: 1 game of Talisman - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/1725951
4.30 pm: 1 game of Maharaja - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/1726099
5.30 pm: Dinner
6.30 pm: 1 game of Caylus Magna Carta - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/1726112
7.30 pm: 1 game of Reef Encounter - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/1727214
8.30 pm: 1 game of Tikal - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/1727285
10.00 pm: 1 game of Traders of Genoa - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/1727550
12.00 am: 1 final game of Drakon - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/1727559

Cheers!

Thread: Ending a day of new games

MerricB — 2007-09-17T07:01:19+00:00

The day had begun with me buying new games. The day ended with our third play of Drakon - perhaps one of the most striking of these games. Certainly it was a big hit with Craig, and I dare say it will be with my other roleplaying friends.

Here's a handy reference to the day:
9am - catch train to Melbourne
10.30am - reach Melbourne; go to Mind Games and Minotaur and buy things.
12pm - catch train back to Ballarat
1.30 pm - arrive in Ballarat, have lunch
2.30 pm - arrive at Randy's and begin gaming...

2.30 pm: 2 games of Drakon - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/1725938
3.30 pm: 1 game of Talisman - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/1725951
4.30 pm: 1 game of Maharaja - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/1726099
5.30 pm: Dinner
6.30 pm: 1 game of Caylus Magna Carta - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/1726112
7.30 pm: 1 game of Reef Encounter - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/1727214
8.30 pm: 1 game of Tikal - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/1727285
10.00 pm: 1 game of Traders of Genoa - http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/1727550
12.00 am: 1 final game of Drakon - this article!

Times are approximate in the middle there.

So, Drakon once more. It's a good quick game, surely?

In fact, I didn't enjoy this game as much as the first two, but that was entirely due to exhaustion. We actually had a lot of really good plays. Gold coin tiles didn't come up much early on, so we had a bunch of wandering around the maze and playing tiles to irritate the other players.

The best play of the day was when Randy placed Drakon on a Magic Harp tile, thus forcing Craig to step into the dragon! Back to the start, and lose a coin, Craig!

Otherwise, Randy was doing wonders with a Key room adjacent to a Coin room. Turn 1: Get coin. Turn 2: move to key room. Turn 3: step back and take coin. Repeat!

So, Craig and I were desperately scheming to do something to stop Randy from taking too much advantage of this. In the end we were successful, so all we needed to do was stop Craig from now winning. In that we were unsuccessful.

Final scores:
Craig 10; Randy 7; Merric 5.

We'd each won one game of Drakon on the day.

I can't wait to show this game to my other friends!

So ends my latest Day of Gaming. And more than just a day of gaming - a game of New Board Games! Of the seven different games we played, six of them were the first time we'd played them. I think the next game day (to be held at my place, a fortnight hence) will see a few more "traditional" games. That is, games we've played at least once!

I hope you've enjoyed the descriptions of this day, and that you'll have a few like it yourself!

Thread: Re: Beginning a day of new games

superdupergeek — 2007-09-16T19:22:59+00:00

Good review. This game is a little gem and definitely one of my all time favourites - if not THE favourite. The decisions each turn can be agonising - help yourself vs hinder your opponents. I also think the game can get almost chess like when played one on one due to the thinking several turns ahead challenge. Having said that it still remains a simple to learn and play game that can be played several times over in a sitting due to its short play length. And - a great theme that suits the game perfectly.

Thread: Re: Beginning a day of new games

Raharanor — 2007-09-16T12:25:17+00:00

Thanks for the great report Merric! I really would like to play this game at some point soon at one of our forthcoming Boardgame Days.