Game: Vampire

Thread: Re: Preview

elcomadreja2 — 2007-10-29T23:40:25+00:00

I agree with you here, but I always thought it would be more interesting to have the biggest set thrown out instead of the smallest.

Thread: Yuck, where can I spit this thing out?

ed95005 — 2006-06-21T04:34:09+00:00

I hate chocolate mints. At the end of a nice meal out, if you're going to give me something with my bill, give me a chocolate or give me a mint, but don't give me a chocolate mint. Last night, after a lovely meal of Shadows Over Camelot and Expedition, Larry decided to give me a chocolate mint: Vampire.

I realize it's verboten in some circles to speak ill of the Grand Master of German Gaming, Reiner Knizia, but Vampire gives me the feel of having been there and done that once too often. I admit I'm not a fan of this genre to begin with, but of the Knizia card games I've played recently -- Loot!, Circus Flohcati, Thor, and now Vampire -- all of them seem pretty blah. I can't say I hate them, but there's nothing special to recommend them either.

As all of us were new to the game, none of us were quite sure how large our sets should be to withstand final scoring. I opened with a set of four vampires (I forget which color) and hoped that would be enough, as the smallest set for each color is thrown out at the end. Other players played sets ranging from four to seven. It turns out we were worried about nothing. In our five-player game, at least one player was void in each of the six vampire colors, meaning that nobody was forced to discard any of their sets and all of the played sets were scored.

The final score was Ed 21, Elliot 21, Kirk 27, Larry 23, and Quan 24. I'm still trying to get the taste of that chocolate mint out of my mouth.

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Keng Ho — 2006-01-13T14:30:10+00:00

Goldsieber Vampir Box cover

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pronoblem — 2005-05-13T18:11:54+00:00

as played at gametableonline.com

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Gialmere — 2004-11-12T13:10:42+00:00

Carriage & Card Back

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Gialmere — 2004-11-12T13:10:42+00:00

Ready to Play

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Gialmere — 2004-11-12T13:10:42+00:00

Thread: User Review

gamesgrandpa — 2004-10-14T16:16:12+00:00

Vampire is a Reiner Knizia card game with great artwork to support the theme. Three to five players attempt to hunt and collect vampires at six spooky sites, identified by six colors: Green – The Pub; Lilac (Purple) – The Castle; Gray – The Docks; Red – The Madhouse; Yellow – The Church; and Orange – The Graveyard. Six place cards, each with a painting of one of the sites, are laid out in a row on the table. One vampire of each color is placed below its respective place card to begin the game. Each player is dealt four vampire cards facedown. The remainder of the 106 cards (including 10 “wild” Carriage cards) form the draw stack.

During a player’s turn, he may either draw two cards from the draw stack or go on a “vampire hunt.” If the player chooses to draw, he may then either discard one card from his hand to any of the sites (played face-up at that color’s place card so that everyone can see how many cards are there) or play face-up in front of himself a set of at least three cards of the same color (including any number of Carriage wild cards in combination with at least one vampire card) – this is a vampire hunt. Instead of drawing cards, the player may pick up all the cards located at one site, if he can then play a set of those cards to the table as a vampire hunt.

If a player has played a set of cards of any color to the table, she may not add more cards to that set. However, a player may discard a played set and replace it with a larger set of the same color. This can be important in the scoring of the game.

Vampire cards have either one or two vampire heads in the corners. At the end of the game, sets are compared among the players to see who has the most vampire heads, not just the total number of cards. The player who has the smallest number of heads in a particular color must discard those cards, and they do not count in the scoring. Therefore, it is advantageous to have as many cards and heads as possible in each color set. The challenge for players is to decide whether to play sets of lots of heads in only a few colors or to play sets of at least three cards in all the colors as quickly as possible. Once one player has a set in each of the six colors (or when the draw stack is emptied), the game ends. Generally, when there are five players in the game, it is best to get more different colors down quickly; with three or four players, going for larger sets seems to work best.

The game is simple and plays quickly. It is usually best to play several games and total the scores to determine the overall winner.

The ghoulish artwork on the cards, by Franz Vohwinkel, makes the game attractive. The vampire heads in the card corners are colored to match the place card colors, so it is easy to arrange and review the cards in your hand. Unfortunately, the Carriage wild cards have heads that look very much like the gray cards, and this causes some confusion when holding the cards in your hand, but it is a minor detraction. The vampire theme is only carried out by the artwork. The play of the game has virtually nothing to do with the vampire legend.

Although the game is listed for ages ten and up, my seven year old grandson frequently beats the family at this game. There is no reading requirement to play the game, and he has been playing it since he was in kindergarten. It is not a challenging game, but adds some variety to our family gamedays. It’s worth having in the game closet, especially if you collect Reiner Knizia games.

Thread: Session Report

DangerMouse — 2004-09-21T19:08:36+00:00

Vampire: Adam, Eric, Dave, Phil and Mark

We struggled with the theme for a while and somehow I missed a crucial rule (I blame Becky's arrival). I haven't played this since Con Man 8 a few years back and now I remember why. I hated the artwork, theme and color scheme. The game's okay, but the other factors kill it for me. Is the theme really about collecting vampire heads, cuz that's what Eric told us.

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tpd2100 — 2003-12-14T21:28:28+00:00

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jcarvin — 2003-06-30T15:23:24+00:00

Thread: Session Report

anson — 2003-03-23T18:13:32+00:00

Session Report: Vampire by Reiner Knizia

The follow session report assumes that you have a basic understanding of the mechanics of the game, Vampire. If not, please read the rules.

# of players at Session: 4; Everybody was new to the game.

Play time? Quick and easy, 20-30 minutes.

All of us caught on to the game quickly. It was a good filler game while we waited for our last gaming friend to show up. Right off the bat, you could sense there would be two strategies.

A) Rush and Vampire Hunt quickly.
B) Wait to build up your hand to get a big hand.

In the three games we played, the deck never ran out. I suppose this is because people decided that it was better to go out quickly than to wait for the appropriate cards to form a big Vampire Hunt.

In most locations with cards greater than three or a value of 3 or greater, you could expect one of the players to scoop them all up within 1 turn. This, I suppose is dependent on the number of players in the game. With 3 players, I don’t expect people to take all the location cards immediately because they would be waiting for a higher score. Conversely, with more players, it is more likely that the players will pick up location cards quickly as the points are more scarce. So I suppose that one had to be quick and to also look at the other player’s locations. Were they going to leave that location alone? Will it come back to you on the next turn?

There was a moment in the game when I had already Vampire hunted for PUB 5 and in my hand there were 3 PUB cards. Out in the game, there were already 2 PUB cards. Was it beneficial for me to add to that stack or REHUNT? I decided to REHUNT to deny players the points. Thinking back however, I think that was the wrong strategy. I don’t think it was beneficial at all to REHUNT unless you are in jeopardy of having the smallest Vampire HUNT in that one location.

One of the things that was apparent was that in each location, there are a potential 21 points + wild cards to be divided amongst 4 players. A value of 5 for a Vampire Hunt was decent. However, a 6 would almost guarantee a successful hunt without the risk of someone tying you for the lowest score if you take into consideration that there were 10 jokers out there.

Conclusion: All in all…a very simple and clean game mechanically. Our group liked it. If you go into this game expecting big things, I think you will be disappointed. If not, you will enjoy it.

Thread: General Comment

BoardGameGeek — 2002-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Most of the negative comments about this little card game are about how the theme is irrelevant. Maybe it's just me, but I would rather play a game with a theme (even one that's tacked on) than a card game that's simply made up of numbers and colors. Maybe the vampire-hunting theme doesn't entirely mesh with this game, but it works for me! Plus, it's yet another horror-themed game that I can bring to the table for my Halloween Game Day!

I also think it's an easy-to-teach and easy-to-play game that appeals to non-gamers (always a good thing).

Thread: General Comment

BoardGameGeek — 2002-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

I've got to agree with Scott. Although the theme is clearly just pasted on to this game, it really adds a lot in my opinion. The cards are just beautiful to look at and the theme has a real gothic feel to it.

Thread: Session Report

telbert — 2001-12-18T21:13:42+00:00

We then embarked on a new game to all of us. Vampire is one of Knizia’s card games. Each player is a vampire hunter trying to collect sets of vampires. There are 6 different colours each containing 11 cards worth 1 point and 5 cards worth 2. There are also 10 jokers worth a point each that can be used to represent any colour. Each player starts with 4 cards. In turn they either draw 2 cards or collect all the vampires in the centre of 1 colour. If they draw 2 cards they must either discard 1 card to the middle or lay a set of cards (min of 3 cards) down. A set can only contain one colour. If they take cards from the centre they must lay a set of cards down. Players are only allowed one set per colour so must discard their old set if they lay down a new one of a colour they already have. The game ends once either the draw pile is depleted or any player has a set of each of the six colours. The game is then scored. Each player scores the points for the cards they put down as long as they don't have the lowest points in that colour.

For the first half of the game everyone was a little cagey with mainly large scoring sets coming out. Then Andy informed us that having no cards in a colour counted as zero points, which affected everyone’s tactics. Much smaller sets suddenly started to hit the table. Terry managed to complete the six colours first and end the round, opening up a lead in the process. Over the next three rounds Paul started closing in and Steve slowly dropped back from the pack. But in the end having finished 3 of the 4 rounds with all six colours ( the last round mainly thanks to 6 jokers) Terry managed to sneak the win by a couple of points from Paul. Andy took a close third with Steve back in 4th.

This will make a nice filler but with a 75mins, 4 round marathon it overstayed its welcome. Also, the game was not helped by the choice of colours. Grey and purple cards were confused on more than one occasion and red and orange were not hugely distinguishable under artificial light. To be fair, each colour also has a picture. However, when fanned out in a player’s hand the picture is normally obscured by the card above so only the colour on the card is usually visible.

Ratings Terry 6, Paul 7, Andy 7, Steve 6

Thread: Session Report

gschloesser — 2001-11-06T20:03:57+00:00

We were still expecting a few more gamers to arrive, so I decided to bring this quick Knizia card game to the table. The vampire hunters were Keith, Steven, Darren, Ashton, Alec and myself. The game is designed for a maximum of five players, but it worked reasonably well with six. The main problem is that it is too quick and no one is eliminated for having the least 'heads' in a particular color as there is always someone with zero heads.

Steven, Keith and Alec were all winning accolades throughout the Transylvanian villages for the acumen at slaughtering the foul beasts. Steven edged them both out, however, for the prestigious title of 'King Vampire Killer'.

Finals: Steven 24, Keith 23, Alec 22, Greg 18, Darren 18, Ashton 16

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2001-10-12T04:30:57+00:00

Thread: Session Report

gamemark — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

After vetoing this earlier for a younger audience (that was my doing... the art is cartoonish but bloody), we gave this new RUMMY-like game from Knizia a shot.

First problem: My complaints about SCHOTTEN-TOTTEN seem equally valid here... this game could be about literally anything. I've always thought that BASARI kind of had a lock on disconnected themes, but it looks positively 'American' compared to VAMPIRE.

That said, the game itself is a simple RUMMY variant with a LOST CITIES-like discard scheme. Players are (ha!) vampire hunters, collecting cards worth one or two points and then melding them in sets of three or more. On your turn, you can take 2 cards from the deck, then meld or discard one card to the appropriate discard pile (one for each 'suit' of vampires), OR you can pick up the entire discard pile of one suit and then you must meld. A second meld of a type of vampire you already have sends the first meld off to the discard pile.

The game ends at the (hallo, Knizia!) end of the deck OR when (hallo, Knizia again!) one player has a meld in each suit. (Shades of ZIRKUS FLOCATI). At that point, the lowest meld on the table of each type (counting not melding as a zero meld) is discarded and players count up their points.

That's it. Really.

Can't say it's a bad game... but it's not really about anything... and the card play is interesting but not spectacular. Yes, I'm damning it with faint praise, but I guess I was expecting a little more here. (To be fair, the art is not terribly graphic but rough for the RUMMY-like nature of the game.)

All I can remember from our game is that Sheldon (who was to my right) kept picking up what I needed then laid down his final meld to end the game with me poised to lay down a monsterous meld in my next turn. Boo, Sheldon! :-)

Sheldon Smith 27
Chip Triplett 24
Mark Jackson 20
Sandi West 19
Frank Branham 12

Rating: 5
I should note that my wife enjoyed the game of this she played later in the weekend... evidently going out fast & furious with a win.

Thread: Session Report

dougadamsau — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Present: Debbie, Tina, Steven, Doug, Janet, Alan, David, Craig, Julian, Jack, Robert

Welcome to newcomer, Steven Gardner!
Happy birthday to Tina!

With people walking in the door at an alarming rate, the usual game of musical chairs began. In such cases, my tactic is to sit in a corner and await offers

A very simple new game from Reiner Knizia. The theme is hunting down vampires via collecting and melding six sets of vampire cards. The card art is impressive, the game considerably less so!

Vampires come in six suits, and there is a foundation card for each suit on the table (an appropriately themed vampire haunt that could have been lifted from Stoker's novel). Players are dealt four cards each and play begins. On your turn you may:

- draw two cards and either discard one to the appropriate foundation, or go on a vampire hunt (wow!), OR
- draw the entire contents of a foundation and be forced to go on a vampire hunt.

Vampire hunts are simply melding at least 3 cards from a suit to the table. Melds can be augmented with the strangely named "somewhere" cards, which are wild.

That is essentially the game. It ends when the draw pile is empty or a player has melded all six suits of vampires. You score up your melds, but first calculate who has the weakest score in each suit (that will score zero points).

This is light fare, but no turkey. It slots into that comfortable Knizia zone occupied by Katzenjammer Blues, Circus Flohcati, Money, and so on. An okay game to bring out once in a while, and easy enough for the kids to pick up. Our game ended when Doug melded all six vampires -there were no melds on the table that reverted to a score of zero (I think this would happen more in 3/4 player games), so every vampire counted.

A quick count of the vampire heads on the melded cards (each card has 1
or 2 vampire heads on them - ie. points):

Doug: 26
Janet: 22
Julian: 19
Jack: 16
Craig: 15

Doug's rating: 5. Fury of Dracula is still THE vampire game for me.
:-)

Thread: Session Report

BoardGameGeek — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Report from Dave Rapp

Emily, Norbert, and I sat down to play a quick game of Vampires, Knizia's new card game. Object is simple... capture vampires by melding cards from 6 different suits. In the center of the table are six locations under which a single vampire card is visible. On your turn you have two main options: (1) Pickup two cards from the draw deck and either meld from your hand or place a card under a location, increasing the number of vampires in that location or (2) Pick up all of the vampires from one location and make a meld.

Therefore, you need to decide whether you're going to increase your hand size to set up a meld or use the visible vampires before our opponents get a 'stake' in them. There are also wild cards that sub as vampires from any suit. You cannot add to a suit you have melded, and if you meld the same suit twice, the first meld must be removed and discarded. Simply put, you're trying to make large melds. At the end of the game, the number of cards out for each suit are tabulated: the player with the least cards in a suit will not score for that suit, and everyone else will score for the number of heads on each card in that suit (1 or 2 heads per card).

So, with only three people in our first game, we tried to make huge melds. Gameplay seemed to be of the 'build up and lay out' nature, players trying to accumulate lots of cards to make big melds. Not much strategy, and not very exciting, but stimulating enough for the 15 minutes it took us to play, plus Norbert hadn't been sucking on any garlic ( this time). I'd give it a 5 or 6. Norbert with the win, I think 26 points.

Second try:

We played again with five players: Al, Matt, Jason, Em, and I. This time, big melds ended up being difficult to get, and meant you would be weak or fail to meld in other suits. The game felt different with the addition of two more players, as melds were quicker and players tended to steal vampires from locations from other players. Again, fun but probably not higher than a 5 or 6 in my book.

Each player ended up melding in 5 suits, and missing a sixth so there weren't any real melding penalties in the final score. Both gamers were close, with winners beating the second place player by about 2 to 3 points. Jason with the win, I think 25. In both games the winner seemed less obvious than expected. I want to try this with four.

Thread: Session Report

BoardGameGeek — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Since I was writing up the results of Carolus Magnus, I was only half paying attention as James explained the rules. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing other than making sets, so I decided my strategy would be to lay down sets as fast as I could. I never had more than 4 points in any set, but I was quick enough that I got 6 colors down and didn't lose any sets. James and Paul were about to lay down serious points, but I snuck in with 23 points and won. I'm not sure if my strategy was really killer or if I just got lucky with a variety of colors quickly. It does seem that looking for long sets is not a winning strategy. It's too easy to lose out as the short sets come out quickly. But that's only based on limited experience. Good game, but I particularly like set collecting (and trick taking) card games.

Late that night they ran one of the first of several charity auctions. Everyone was a bit punchy and the jokes were flying. My favorite was when a T-shirt (Legend of the Five Rings Logo) came up. Several in the audience were calling out asking for the size. The auctioneer looked at the fairly large (probably an XL) shirt and said it's "gamer's petit". Made everyone laugh.

Saturday saw my RPG cancelled (that's 2 for 3 with no GM) so I headed off for boardgames again.

Thread: Session Report

davekohr — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

(RicB, *DaveK*, *PaulM*) :

Paul: "Since I won one of the games, I can't knock it too much. Light fare."

Dave: "Theme matters to me a lot, and the theme doesn't match the mechanics at all, so I don't think much of this one. As Ric said, it could have been about butterfly collecting. I think in that case it would have had better artwork.

As a game, it's OK, but no Lost Cities. There is a nice tension between holding back to build big sets, and going for lots of sets early on and potentially stuffing opponents who hold back. But I suck at traditional cardgames, yet found it easy to read what others were trying to do, so I doubt it will have much replay value. Overall, a disappointment."

Thread: Session Report

davekohr — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

(Chris, Kim, *Ed*, Ray)

Chris: "This game is really not so bad. Not going to displace Mü or anything, but as light melding games go I'll definately get my money's worth More than I can usually say for a Goldsieber game ..."

Thread: Session Report

gschloesser — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

I brought this one to the table for the first time at our Westbank Gamers Christmas party and it was a surprise hit. I've always felt the game to be rather light and much more suited for family gaming. However, with our current group of Mark, Wendy, Elizabeth and Steve P., I felt it would get a fair shake and a decent response. I wasn't disappointed.

This is a rummy variant from Herr Knizia with a VERY loose theme of hunting vampires pasted on top. Players attempt to complete successful vampire hunts and meld sets of three or more cards in six suits. Each card depicts either one or two vampire 'heads', and these heads will ultimately be tallied on a player's melded sets to yield his final score.

On a turn, a player has two options:

1) A player can draw 2 cards from the deck, and then must either (a) discard one card face-up to one of the six locations (which correspond with the six suits), or (b) complete a vampire hunt by melding three or more cards of one suit face-up in front of him.

2) Or, a player may pick up ALL cards from one location, but he must then execute a vampire hunt as described above.

One of the game's twists is that a player cannot add cards to a previously melded suit. If he manages to accumulate a larger meld of the same suit in his hand, he must discard the previously melded suit when laying the new one.

The game ends when the draw pile expires. At that point, scoring is held. Of course, Reiner has added yet another twist to the scoring procedure. The player who has the smallest meld in each suit must discard that suit. If players tie for the smallest suit, they all discard it! The saving grace in a game with 4 or 5 players is that having no cards melded in a suit is considered the smallest set.

Once smallest sets are discarded, players tally the number of heads on their melded sets. The player with the highest total is the supreme vampire hunter and is declared the victor.

Yes, it's light, but still fills the requirements of a good filler. It's also proven popular when gaming with my family, but my good friend's young son (age 10) was a bit disturbed by the gory vampire graphics.

I managed to nip (nip ... get it?) Wendy for the victory:

Greg 26, Wendy 25, Steve 21, Mark 20, Elizabeth 18

Ratings: Wendy 8, Elizabeth 7, Mark 7, Steve 6, Greg 6

Thread: Session Report

BoardGameGeek — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

What better way to end an evening than with a good old fashioned VAmpire Hunt? A quick rules refresher from Alan and the blood suckers were launched. Once again Tony played this game in a befuddled state of confusion and managed to really irritate poor Uwe by his persistent interogative, "Oh, is it my turn?"

Without in the least knowing why, Tony secured a victory from the fangs of defeat:

Tony 26, Uwe 22, James 20 and Alan 19. Hmmm, I don't think Alan explained the rules very well, because if he had Tony would have lost!

Thread: Session Report

gschloesser — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Not wanting to end the evening on such a sour note, Steven, Joey, Keith and I elected to end with a quick filler, Reiner Knizia's Vampire. This is quick and easy game with a bit of a Rummy feel. I figured it wouldn't be to Steven's liking, but he still insists on playing these games anyway.

I pursued the 'kill 'em fast and quick' strategy, while Joey concentrated on just a few vampire hunts, each with a high 'head' count. Keith and Steven seemed to pursue a mixed strategy. The end result was an extremely close finish, with Joey edging me out for the title of 'Chief Vampire Hunter'.

Finals: Joey 25, Greg 24, Keith 23, Steven 21

Ratings: Joey 7, Keith 7, Greg 5.5, Steven 3

Thread: Preview

gschloesser — 2000-07-09T18:09:36+00:00

Yet another card game .. and yet another game from Herr Knizia. This one is going to rank VERY closely at the top of any list of games having virtually NOTHING to do with its theme. It is a Rummy-style game which could have just as easily had any type of theme adhered to it ... even 'bunnies', as suggested by buddy Mark Jackson.

Players chase vampires in Transylvania, routing them out of six different locations. Cards represent six different types of vampires, each of which is haunts one of the six locations.

On a player's turn, he may do one of two actions:

1) Draw two cards from the face down draw pile. If he does this, he MUST then discard one card to the proper location. OR

2) Pick up ALL of the vampire cards from one location, add them to his hand, and then lay down in front of him a meld of at least four identical cards.

If a player lays down a meld of cards of a type he already had played, he must discard the meld with the lower number of cards in it.

The game ends when the draw pile is exhausted OR one player succeeds in laying melds of all six vampire types (colors).

As is traditional with Knizia, there is a scoring twist. At the end of the game, the player who has the LEAST cards in front of him of each color discards these cards and does not score points for them. Then, all players add the value of the cards laid to determine the winner.

Umm ... that's it. There really isn't much to this game at all. It, too, was unexciting and, frankly, uninspiring. A disappointment from Knizia.