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Gathering 2007
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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I think this is the first of many GL reports on this year's event. I'll try to update the list as the event goes on.
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Posted Sun Apr 1, 2007 2:16 pm
Edited Wed Apr 11, 2007 5:24 am
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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This is year #2 for us - yay! This GL is my report from last year's event. When offered the chance to preregister on site, we'd jumped at it: this was days (and days!) of gaming fun! I chose the McMulti pic because it was one of the many new (to me) games I got to play here last year, that I enjoyed quite a bit. Others included the now-published Friesse dungeon crawl and the soon-to-be-published Race for the Galaxy.
This year we took an extra day off to be sure to enjoy the entire event (missed the last night previously). We arrived Thursday (29 Mar) night but had forgotten to arrange for the free hotel shuttle! Rather than wait 45+ minutes for it, Mary (diceychic) found us an empty and waiting non hotel shuttle. About 20 minutes, $25, and a friendly conversation (with the driver - nice guy) later we found ourselves at The Hotel. It's generally not a bad hotel, although it's certainly not  either!
We checked in without problems, then went down to the gaming area: only a few souls about. We wandered a bit, unpacked our games (first to unpack, I think) then headed up to the room. We stopped at the desk first, though: M was expecting a game shipment (demo copy of Colosseum). The game was here! Or rather, somewhere in the hotel. We waited for about an hour before deciding to give up and get it in the morning! During that hour, we found that the previous occupants of the room had ripped out the phone cables from the wall -- we had to call the front desk with our cellphones! So, off to bed some time past midnight.
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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30 March ... Day #1!!
We woke up early and headed down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast -- same stuff as last year, and pretty darn good! Then, we picked up our game and headed down to PLAY!
We met some others there (AvaJ, JenniferS, MikeF - "Hey!") and taught ourselves the game. The brief summary: wow, this is fun! But it's not at all what I'd expect from Days of Wonder: the production is, of course, great (cute Romaneeples); but it is a deeper game than most of the others - it feels like Princes of Florence light. It shares many mechanisms with PoF (works = events, similar but different auction, improvement tiles similar to Jester variants) but also has some Settlers-like stuff (trading, dice rolling, largest-army-type thing). Definitely worth trying!
Game Details
The board shows a track with marked starting spaces for the emperor, 2 consul and 3 senator tokens. Each player's colosseum will encircle 2 spaces, and are separated from each other ~equally in predefined locations. In the center there are 5 sets of 3 spaces, filled with Event Asset tiles. Each player gets 2 random events numbered 1-5 and 6-10, 6 random assets, and 30 gold. The rest of the events (events ~ works) are set nearby. Higher numbers have greater requirements for being shown (bigger colosseum size, more event assets); each event has a different mix of assets.
The game is played in 5 turns. Each turn has several phases.
1. Invest: buy stuff (e.g., expand arena [need bigger arenas for bigger shows]; buy season tickets = +5 to show value [~jester], new event program [~PoF personality], or loge = extra die to roll later)
2. Auction. PoF style with a twist. Starting player puts up a lot (group of 3 events) to auction. Last to pass wins. If auction initiator wins, refill all empty market spaces and next player initiates; if not, initiate again. Everyone who has NOT won a lot is eligible to bid. Each player gets a chance to initiate a bid, win a lot, or pass. Minimum bid = 8 gold.
3. Trade. Settlers-style trading of any Event Tokens between active player and others. For most asset types, the player with most (minimum 3) gets the "star performer" token = +4 bonus to show value using that asset type.
4. Produce Event. In turn, players do BOTH:
a. roll d6 (2d6 if you have loge); for each die, move a nobleman clockwise on the score track. If it lands on a resting space, get a medal from the bank. Medals can be returned to bank at various times: 6 gold any time; move a nobleman 1-3 spaces forward OR backward (b); +3 modifier to show value (b); turn 2 in during step 1 to take a second investment action.
b. announce the event they're showing. Calculate value (~PoF prestige points). Basic value (#spectators) is shown on the program; value decreases for each missing asset. You may repeat a show from a previous turn. Apply all bonuses (star performers, season tickets, emperor medals turned in, noblemen in colosseum, other completed shows, etc.): if higher than player's previous highest value show, move indicator forward on score track. Player earns that much gold.
5. Charity. The player with the best show gets the podium (+3 modifier to all shows). The player with the worst show then gets to take 1 Regular (non-special) asset token from player in the lead.
Start player rotates each phase. At end of 5 phases (skip step 5 in last turn), the player with the best show wins!
7/10
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3.
Board Game: Huang Di
[Average Rating:7.81 Unranked]
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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JS kindly drove us to Chipotle Grill for lunch (there's not much within walking distance, and what's there is just OK). CG is a Mexican restaurant chain serving freshly made food that you custom order (burritos, tacos, fajitas with various meats and sauces): good sized portions, and very tasty! We stuffed ourselves silly, then headed back to the gaming area.
Bryan (the designer aka SwedeLad) and his wife had been demoing this game. Mary, Ava and I decided to try it; Bryan taught and the 4 of us played. It's an interesting game -- a good design, although not necessarily one I'd play very often. Will have to try it one more time.
It's a resource management game where you're trying to generate enough money to bid for the Emperor's favor and pay the fees to hire laborers, buy building material, build blocks, etc. Victory points are awarded by area influence, with areas defined by the 3 wall areas and level of blocks (within each area, scoring occurs when a level is complete; there's also scoring when the entire level, across all 3 areas, is complete.
Each round starts with a blind bid (money) for the emperor's favor: the winner goes first (then clockwise), and also receives a favor chip and an emperor's block (functions as a neutral color building block that you may place this turn, for example to finish a level). Play is driven by role cards -- each player has one (identical) set; they will play 3 of them, one at a time, each round. The cards allow you to hire peasants, buy material, and build 1 or 2 blocks; each action has a variable cost depending on how many you buy. Other roles give you money, allow you to gain convicts, destroy a block, take all convicts in your province, move your taskmaster token to a different area, etc. There are some special actions, too: e.g., the favor chips allow you to take the role card just played back into your hand, and play again. Most points are awarded for building blocks and completing levels. The tricky part of building is that it consumes not only building blocks, but also workers (half of all peasants used, and ALL convicts used)! So you are balancing goals of generating money, using money to do things, build, maintain a labor force, maintain area majority, etc. At the end of the game there is final scoring, with points awarded for majority of blocks built, most money, etc.
There's a lot going on in the game, with tough decisions throughout. It seemed to play a bit slowly, although perhaps only because 3 of us were new to it. I will hopefully play it again here -- needs another look.
7/10
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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Wandering around again, I saw some folks from Syracuse (ScottN, KenD, IanM) at the Colosseum table. None had played it, and I wanted to try it again - so I did! This game was different: the emperor and other tokens hardly moved at all! Ian did great even without expanding to a size 4 colosseum. Scott won, helped in large part by a very fortunate auction draw (3 musicians and the star performer for $8! And exactly what he needed for his size-4 production!). I was 3rd, a good ways behind.
This was a bit less fun for me than my first game! That could, of course, be because I didn't do nearly as well this time! But I wonder if the game is better with 5? At least, it's different -- the emperor/consul/senator tokens didn't move nearly as much (fewer people rolling, fewer loges) so some people may benefit more easily from them? Will need to see ... still an excellent game, though.
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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Almost ready for bed! But we decided to play a "quick" game of this.
We had to go through the rules several times (one of us was VERY tired) but we finally got going. It was less quick than it should have been, though, because M decided to go help the next group learning how to play Colosseum (Ralph and I took the time to read through EVERY special power in the game!)!
As usual, I lost miserably 7-5-4 (good game, Ralph!). See http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/158458 for my comments on the game.
7/10
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6.
Board Game: Wizard
[Average Rating:6.83 Overall Rank:387]
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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31 March ... Day #2
We'd been up late, and M hadn't slept much at all. By the time we left the room today, it was already time for lunch! We decided on something quick, and just ate at the hotel restaurant (not very good buffet of hotdog and burger, with dry but tasty cheesecake). Then down for gaming.
Mary again taught a group Colosseum. I wandered around and found TedA teaching Brian and Rebecca Wizard, and joined them (they'd played Oh Hell, but not Wizard). It's a pretty standard trick-taking game with a few tweaks: wizards = super-trump; jesters = anti-trump; lose points if don't win exactly the right number of tricks; progressively larger hands, from 1-->15 (in a 4er game). Ted played with some rules I'd not played before: 1st card is played indian poker style, and the dealer cannot bid to make the total bids equal to the #tricks (sort of a screw-the-leader situation!). I tend to overbid, and for most of the game was in last or second-to-last because I kept missing my bid: Ted and Brian were out front, and Becca and I were a SIGNIFICANT way back. As our hand sizes increased, though, I got lucky on some hands while Ted fed Brian a few too many tricks: Ted won (with 460!), and I made it all the way to second (290)!
A good game, although the beginning feels pretty random!
7/10
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7.
Board Game: Gheos
[Average Rating:6.69 Overall Rank:559]
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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Getting ready for dinner, but found 3 who wanted to play this (all new). I started to teach, but didn't really remember much -- David kindly volunteered to teach (thanks!)
A solid tile-laying, area-influence game. Plays in about 45 minutes but there's a lot going on, with some good decisions to make throughout.
Players are gods creating the world, which consists of land and sea areas (islands, continents), populating it with civilizations, gaining followers, building temples, etc; get points based on the importance of each civ. Most points wins.
Start the game with 2 tiles in hand, and Start Tile on the table in play. Turn sequence:
1. Play a tile. Can add it to board, or replace previous tile (except one with a pyramid on it). If the tile you place has a temple on it (keyed to 1 of the 3 icons on the tiles) that is part of a civ, get 1VP per matching icon on the continent that the civ controls. Replacing a tile can cause 2 civs to come into contact (War) or divide a civ's continent, forcing it to move to one of the new areas (Migrate); in either case, you must discard one of your followers. Wars are resolved by the # of sword icons in each civ; ties decided by player. Losing civ is removed from board, and all players lose those colored followers. In Migration, the civ preferentially goes to the continent with more grain-icons (and prefers continents to islands).
2. Either start a new civ (if 1 of the 5 in the game is still off board, AND there's an unoccupied continent) or take a follower (if there's one available in the pool that matches a civ already in play). If you start a new civ, you get a number of followers equal to # grain-icons on the continent.
3. Optional: turn in 1 of your 3 scoring markers to score all your followers. Each follower is equal to 1VP per cup-icon on the continent their civilization controls.
4. Draw a tile to add to your hand. If you draw an Epoch card, Epoch Scoring occurs: all players score for their followers. Each follower is worth as many VP as there are pyramids in that civ's continent. Draw a replacement tile (repeat till you have 2 non-Epoch tiles in hand).
Game ends when all players have used all their (3) scoring tokens, or the 6th, 7th or 8th Epoch tile is scored (for 2, 3 or 4 players).
7/10
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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Larry Whalen, of Face2Face Games, arrived around this time. We roped DanB into driving, and we went back to Chipotle Grill for dinner. This time I had the veggie bowl -- mmm mmm good! (Yes, I know it's not gaming, but this is why our game days are Potluck Game Days!) Dinner was good, although the conversation was way too depressing (we were talking about the war, the person featured in my avatar, etc.). Anyway, after dinner, it was time for prototypes: F2F has several games coming out and they brought them here to let people play them, start talking about them, etc. These are not actually prototypes, since the games are already in their final forms just awaiting release.
Details, approved and encouraged by F2F Games:
Pampas, by Leo Colovini
This game is similar to Masons, but much better IMHO. It takes almost all the randomness away; this can be a brain-burning-type abstract. I generally don't like abstracts so this is not my favorite game. Still, it's a pretty good one.
The board is a random mix of square tiles in a 4x4 grid. Tiles are mostly pampas that can support 3 tokens; some areas are dry and support only 2; there are also inhospitable mountains. Players each get 9 gauchos, 2 cows, 3 sheep, and 4 pigs. The latter are worth 4, 3, and 2 VP. On your turn you either score a region (regions may only be size 3-5) or place tokens. Placing: place a hedge on any un-hedged border between 2 tiles, then place your gaucho on one side of the hedge (anywhere on that side of the board along that row where you don't exceed the space's limit) and an animal on the other (again, anywhere on the row). If you place your gaucho on the edge of the board, you explore: add more tiles to all orthogonally adjacent empty areas. All mountains are immediately surrounded by hedges. Note: you may NEVER place a hedge to create a region <3 spaces (includes unplaced tiles, though, so can create size 2 region as long as there's the potential to expand it later by exploration).
Scoring a region: if you choose to do this, the player with the most gauchos takes them (out of play) and also all animals of one species. This continues in order of area-control (ties broken by turn order).
The game ends when there are no more legal plays.
The rules are pretty simple but as with most abstracts, game play is tough. At least, it's tough for me. But I would think fans of abstract games would like this one. It feels similar in some ways to Through the Desert (surround areas, score stuff you surround), Terra Nova (surround stuff, score by area influence), etc. If you like those types of games, this should be worth a try.
I think this is coming out some time this year? F2F will have the dates.
7/10 if played quickly and without thought!
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9.
Board Game: Moai
[Average Rating:6.42 Overall Rank:1923]
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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Again, approved/encouraged for release by LarryW (F2F Games).
Moai "prototype"
It's ANOTHER game about Easter Island! Was there a special on TV some time in the last few years? This seems to be a hot theme!
Anyway, this game seems to capture the theme quite well: there's death and destruction, cannibalism, starvation, and of course the all-important race to build the biggest and bestest moai at all costs! The game is too confrontational for me -- I prefer more limited interaction, resource building, economics, etc -- but if you like getting in your opponents' business, this game is all for you!
6-7/10 ... I think it's a bit too in-your-face for me, but I want to try it again.
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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Another F2F "prototype" game, again approved/encouraged for release by Larry.
Cheeky Monkey, by R. Knizia
This game feels VERY similar to Circus Flohcati. There are 8 species of animals (on poker chips) which occur 3-10 times. These are mixed in the bag. On your turn, you draw chips 1 at a time until either you decide to stop (add the chips in any order to your stack of chips) or bust (get a duplicate animal). If you bust, the chips go back in the bag and the next player takes their turn. The twists vs. Circus Flohcati:
- if you draw an animal that matches the one on top of any player's stack, you get to take all those matching chips
- the Cheeky Monkey (#10) is special: it can either play as above (take matching monkeys) or be "cheeky" - trade with the top chip of any other player's stack.
- if your entire collection of chips is 1 species (e.g., drew a monkey and took all matching monkeys) you can bury it at the bottom of your stack.
- "busts" are not discarded, but returned to the bag.
- at end of game (run out of chips in bag), players get 1 VP per chip, plus a bonus for whoever controls the majority of each animal (VP = total # of that animal in the game, i.e., 3-10).
I think Circus is a decent game, but it's not one I'd like to play all the time. It is, however, a good filler. After one play I may like this more, except that I'd like it to end faster: it seemed a bit long since there is no discard pile. But the artwork (final version is here) looks great, the chips feel good, and if you're a fan of Circus you should definitely check this out.
6/10
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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We'd decided to end early today and get some sleep, but M had some interviewing to do (for The Dice Tower) so I was looking for something quick. MattA was also wandering; he suggested this, and we got RussellG to join us. This was new to R; I'd played it once before, or maybe just seen it being played (the French version).
It's a speed memory/pattern-recognition game. The box is very cool: looks like a spell book with one page that flips to cover either half of the book. You roll 9 dice marked with various combinations of weird symbols in either black or orange. Everyone looks to see what's there: like symbols in opposite colors cancel each other out. Someone flips the page and covers the dice, then everyone uses their play cards (9; 1 with each symbol) to indicate what they remember. Valid plays include any subset of either the orange dice or the black dice, using symbols that have NOT been cancelled out. If you're right, you advance on the score track. If you flipped the page and are wrong, you move backwards. There are bonuses for getting all orange symbols (+2 points) or all black symbols (draw a bunch of cards and choose 1 to keep; these can be extra VP or special spells with various effects).
The game takes a while to get the hang of -- you mostly have to become familiar with the symbols (there are some similar ones, e.g., lightening and bolt in clouds; skull/crossbones and cross; spider and web) but you do improve with practice. A fun, quick game!
A short while later (after some chatting with _: want to know what it's like to slip on ice and fall on someone who thinks you're assaulting them? Don't do it - it's not fun!) Matt showed Russell and me Bongo!, another speed pattern-recognition; that was the end of the gaming for the day!
7/10
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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1 April ... Day #3
We started our gaming day around 10am with this new game by MSchacht -- UlrichB taught us (me, Silvio - that's "SYYYYLLLLLL-V-O", Lotte, and Mary) and we played the game in about 1 hour.
It's kind of a board game version of Coloretto, but with more going on. Each player has their own board with 3 enclosures of sizes 4, 5 and 6; 4 spaces for market stalls; and a barn. Start with 2 coins. There are 5 wooden platforms with space for 3 tiles, and a bunch of face down tiles. Players start with 1 tile each, of a different animal. Tiles are animals of various types (11 each), with 2 male and 2 female versions each; or market stalls; or coins. On your turn, you either draw a tile and add it to a platform; spend money to do something (1 to trade species from one of your areas to another; 2 to kill an animal in your barn; 2 to buy an animal from another player's barn, 1 of which goes to that player; 3 to buy a new enclosure of size 5, with another market stall space); or take the wooden platform. If you take the platform, you put the animals and stalls in their areas (enclosures can only hold 1 species of animal); you are OUT of the rest of the round. If you finish an enclosure, you may get bonus coin(s). The game ends when you start drawing from the last bunch of tiles (set aside at the beginning). At the end, you score points for each area that is full or has 1 empty spot (if >1 empty, only get points if a market stall is adjacent) and for the # of different types of stalls. You lose 2 points for every animal still in your barn. Most points wins!
The game plays quickly. There is some min-maxing going on, but that should become faster with practice. I didn't really enjoy my one (or 2?) game of Coloretto a few years ago, but this was good. I may have to go back and try Coloretto again!
(Silvio won with 24, I tied with Ulrich at 22).
7/10
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13.
Board Game: Steam
[Average Rating:8.14 Overall Rank:15]
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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Age of Steam 3rd Edition
I love AoS, but I love it a lot more than everyone else in my usual game group  . So despite having a bunch of expansions, I hardly ever get to play it ("hardly ever" meaning "not as much as I'd like") so these group events are nice. But TedA happened to bring a version of the new 3rd edition version. The rule changes have already been talked about but since it may not be in it's final form all I'll say is that what I've read seems to be true: the game plays more quickly while keeping much of the feel of the original game. After one play, however, I prefer the pain and tension of the original game!
6-7/10 ... need to try again
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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Mary played a prototype of this at BGG.con and had been raving about it. Many others had, too, so I was looking forward to playing this. Multiple copies appeared today, with several games being played at the same time, so I was glad to get in on a game just after AoS finished.
It's a economic resource management type game with hand management and set-collection stuff going on, too. The board is very cool, designed to be put together for 2-5 players. Each player is largely playing in their own area, although they also have a wagon that can move around through all areas collecting tokens; and the central area (Notre Dame) is accessible to all. Play is driven by the cards and cubes. There are 9 areas corresponding to the 7 sectors of each player's area, 1 to Notre Dame, and 1 to move their Friend token. You get cards by drafting 3 at a time: draw 3 each round (3 rounds per period; score at end of period); keep 1 and pass the remainder to the left; repeat. Then, you'll play 2 of the 3 (in turn order). Cards generally allow you to place your cube into the corresponding sector. When you do so, you get the benefit (e.g., get gold, get VP, reduce #rats, etc.) of the sector; these generally improve as the #cubes there increases. After 2 cards played, can pay 1 gold to hire 1 person (cards set up; different 3 cards each period) who gives you some benefit. Then, resolve rats: these last cards have 0-4 rats on them; everyone adds the total # of rats to their count. If they get above 9, they lose 2 VP and 1 cube. Also score Notre Dame: each cube their gets VP = 12/(total # cubes there). Repeat all this for total of 9 turns. Most VP at end wins!
There's a lot going on but the game plays quite quickly (69 min for 5 newbies). Multiple paths to victory, depending on how you want to allocate your cubes. There may be some problems with luck of the card draw, but you will eventually have a choice of 3 from all your own cards, as well as what's passed to you, so it should usually be manageable. 3 of our group got behind early in the rat-problem and spent much of the rest of the game just fending them off (I was able to manage with a lucky timed use of one of the end of period cards).
Definitely worth playing, although I didn't like it as much as others seemed to. I'd say 6/10, except that I do want to play it more to try some different strategies ... so 7/10 for now.
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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Next was 3 games of a prototype that played with Frank and crew, in about 3 min each. I didn't like it; not my style of games
4/10
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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Zong Shi
Again, it's not actually a prototype -- F2F will be publishing it at some point. LarryW taught us (and is happy to have information about the game posted, discussed, etc.).
This is an economic building game a lot like Leonardo da Vinci, although it's been floating around since before that game. I'm not a big fan of LdV, although I've only played it once or twice: it feels too complicated/convoluted to me. This is simpler, more streamlined, and seems to make more sense to me.
Players have a master builder and an apprentice builder. They send them out to various locations in turn order. Most things are resolved right away, while the Bins are resolved later. The locations:
- Large Bin and Small Bin. These are filled with random goods (n+1 and n-1 for n players). At end of placement, in turn order, Masters each take 1 cube. Then apprentices take 1 cube and go home. Then Masters divide up the rest, 1 cube at a time and in turn order. Large Bin done first, then Small Bin. May only take cubes if you have space in your workshop (player mat with 5 spaces).
- Place to get Scrolls of Wisdom. Apprentice gets 1 scroll free. Master gets the free scroll, but can discard additional resources to get more scrolls (1 each). Hand limit (3) applies at end of turn. Scrolls are GOOD!
- Alchemist house: turn in 2 different resources to learn one of the 6 alchemies -- can no freely convert those 2 resources into each other as needed. Each alchemy is worth 1 VP; bonus +2 for getting all 6.
- Town houses. Players have chits labeled 1, 2, 2, 3. Each house wants gifts of one of the 4 resources. When you go there, must choose one of your chits and pay that many of the appropriate resource type. Apprentices may only visit 1 house. Masters may visit additional ones, paying 1 extra resource. Also, the first master to visit a house gets a random reward (face down chit).
- Your workshop. Only your Master Builder can start building a project. Need to have all the resources necessary. All available projects are on display and in limited supply. Each has different building requirements, benefits (e.g., extra storage space, get extra scrolls, discount of 1 resource when building, etc), VP reward (2, 4, or 8) and #turns required to finish. You choose what to build, discard the resources, put the tile in the current project space, and put your Master on the appropriate turn marker. At the end of each round, you'll advance on the turn marker until the building is complete (so if it requires 2 turns, you'll finish at the end of next turn).
The game ends on the round AFTER someone has built their 6th project. Additional VP are rewarded at the end: 1 VP for every 3 goods/scrolls.
I played this with 5, had dinner, then played it again (teaching) with 4. Both games were very close, with only a 3-point spread between first and last place. Is that too well-balanced? That is, is it just random chance that determines the winner? I don't think so -- it certainly felt as if we were making choices throughout! People played different strategies (build quickly to 6; build valuable buildings; etc.) that seemed to work well. And unlike LdV, the buildings you complete actually help you with your future activity! Also, the scrolls of wisdom, while somewhat random, seem to generally be very useful -- and I like a little randomness in a game!
Both our games, with all-but-one newbie each time, took about 2 hours. That's a bit longer than I'd like, but Larry has routinely been finishing this in about an hour -- somewhere in between would be perfect, I think, and what I'd expect after everyone was familiar with the game.
A very good game; wish it would come out sooner!
7/10
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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Again, looking for something quick and light, we ended the evening with this game. We went over the rules for Mary, then she, RG and I played. As noted above, I like the game. It's quick, and fairly straightforward. You do get better with practice, so (as RG pointed out) it may not do so well with nongamers -- it's frustrating at first when someone slams the page on you before you've even had a chance to check both colors of dice! Also, I'm not sure how much I'd want to spend on this game - probably less than $30: even though the box is VERY nice, it's a light game and I'd like a light price!
Still, fun game to finish with.
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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2 April ... Day #4
This was actually Bucket Brigade, the new re-themed version of Honeybears (which I'd never seen, but had certainly heard a lot of hype about) that F2F just released last week. The theme is now fireman walking or running up the ladder to put out the fire (instead of bears running from bees). Why a new theme? Because, apparently, Dr. K wanted a new theme - something less childish - and firemen should appeal to everybody!
We played 2 games to accomodate people who wanted to try it (and then go to lunch after a quick filler).
It's a simple game. The deck has 55 cards: 4 colors, 1 wild color. Each color has 6 1's (walking) and 5 2's (running). You deal out the entire deck evenly (leftovers are removed from game unseen). Player to left of dealer starts, then play clockwise. On your turn, play a card to move the matching firemen up that many (1 or 2) spaces; wilds can be used to move anyone. The board has several steps on the ladder, with the lower half marked with -1's and the upper portion marked with 1's, 2's and 3. The game ends when any player gets a fireman up to the top -- that player gets a 6VP bonus. Then you tally up your VP: the level on the board determines the value of each fireman (-1, 0, 1, 2, or 3). For each card left in your hand you get VP = value of card x value of fireman, with one exception: a pair of 1's in your hand is valued at 5 (instead of 1+1 = 2). Play as many rounds as there are players, with dealer rotating. The player with most VP at the end wins!
The game is fun -- very light, and each round goes by quickly. Still, I don't see why there was so much fuss! It also lasted a bit too long for a filler -- I'd rather just play 2 or 3 rounds even if there are 4 or 5 players. But, another good filler.
7/10
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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A quick hand of this before going to Max & Erma's for lunch.
It's a climbing game stripped down to the bare essentials, almost. The deck has 1 1, more 2s, 3s, etc, then fewer 11s, 12s, 13s; also, 2 special cards. Player to left of dealer leads, then others play (if possible) or take all cards in center and lead again; refill hand to 6 at end of your turn. Can play single card or sets of matching cards where total value is higher than last played card/set (e.g., 1, 4, pair 3s, 8, 13). The special cards: one allows you to pass without changing value of top card/set; the other is a wild that matches other cards 1-7 (to help play high-value sets). The game ends when someone plays their last card; everyone else adds the cards left in hand to their pile of cards. Each card taken = 1 point; player with fewest points wins.
It's a fast little filler, again. Best strategy, as cyberkev63 said, is to draw high cards/sets! Of course, there's a bit of strategy about when to play sets vs split them, or to pay higher than needed, etc; but it seems your plays are largely dictated by the luck of the draw. Nevertheless, a fun filler.
6/10
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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After lunch I found a group trying to test this game. I'd played it once before -- my comments from then:
Quote:
This is a nice blend of PR-style role selection, Medici-style VP awards, area-control, and a twist on the Prisoner's Dilemna. Players are shepherds in medieval Spain, competing to be the best.
... rules summary (see my comments for the game) ...
This was one of the better games I played! It was quite a surprise, but it is a nice blend of several mechanisms (not uncommon these days!) and prisoner's dilemna. And it plays quickly - in about one hour! There's some room for further development, but I think it's actually pretty close to finished. A few of my suggestions:
-eliminate the die roll for casualties during Cry Wolf; just use the wolf pack strength instead
-change bonuses/penalties on die rolls so that higher is better. Make the modifications apply to the DIE ROLL rather than to the target (the Wolf Threat level).
-change the Gaita (Shepard's Instrument) bonus, since I'd remove the casualty die roll ... maybe just decrease the # sheep lost by 2 or 3)?
-some cosmetic changes on the role cards
This game went by very quickly. It wasn't quite as engaging as the first time I played it -- there was an early separation with one person taking a significant lead, and slowly adding to it. Probably could use a few more tweaks, although I think there's still a good game there.
7/10
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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Wandering around again, I found 3 people about to setting this up and asked to join - new to me, RobS and cyberkev; John taught.
Edited from the game page; BGN wrote:
Theme and mechanics are similar to the original board game. However, no board or score track. Components: cards, money, worker pawns, resource markers, the provost, and castle building stones. Each player has a set of identical cards, which are shuffled and used as a face-down draw deck. Players start with an opening random draw of cards, and on his turn a player can either:
* build a new building by extending the road
* pay 1: draw a new building card
* pay 1: discard hand and draw a fresh hand of equal size (shuffle discard deck when needed)
* pay 1: place worker on one of the existing building cards
* build one of the common prestige building cards (some of which are placed at the beginning of the game as part of the setup) or
* pass
- Once everyone has passed, players may move the provost in passing order, up to 3 spaces (not past road end), 1 gold each.
- Then the buildings are resolved up to the provost. Ownership of the non-common buildings is shown by the card color. When a worker is placed on a card, the owner earns either resources or money as a reward (not VP).
- Then players may choose to help build the castle, in passing order. Castle stones are worth 2-4 points; collect most valuable ones first. Player building most stones gets a gold resource marker. If no one builds, 2 stones are removed from game.
- Advance the Provost 2 spaces (up to end of road).
- Pass the Start Player marker.
Winner: most VP; game end triggered when castle is finished. Get VP for castle stones (2-4), cards built, and resources and money in hand at the end of the game (gold = 1VP each; everything else = 1/3 VP each).
It seems like I would like this version of the game: it's much lighter and preserves many of the mechanisms and ideas of the original game. It does leave out some things, of course: no favors, limited supply of buildings from which to choose, fewer resource types, fewer buildings. But it's hard to tell -- our game seemed to take way longer than it should have. Were we just new to the game? Were some of us playing very slowly? Yes, probably both  . I think this is sort of like San Juan to PR, but it's more complex than SJ. I think I'll be much more likely to play this than it's big brother!
7/10
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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After the Caylus game, I ran up to join everyone at the reception. An hour and a half later, I was back downstairs to join the Magic tournament. It was a draft tournament with 0th edition booster packs. It reinforced what I already know: I'm terrible at drafting! I may not be such a good player, either, but I'm definitely a bad drafter! I was knocked out in the first two games!
Anyway, it's still a great game; but I don't think I'll play in a draft tournament again! I don't play the game nearly enough to bother learning how to draft, too!
This might be going (down) to a 9/10 ....
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23.
Board Game: Taluva
[Average Rating:7.17 Overall Rank:186]
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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Looking for one more game before calling it a night, I wandered around; found Ken and Gail, and then Ray joined us. They wanted to learn this, and I kind of sort of remembered it. My original comments:
It's an abstract game, apparently with kingmaker problems if played with more than 2. Players have 3 types of tokens: a bunch of houses, 3 temples and 2 forts. Tiles are 3 hexes attached in a triangular setup, with different types of terrain. Each turn you must place a tile, then place a token (lose if you cannot). Tiles may be placed on top of each other, but never exactly on 1 tile. Houses are placed in all like terrain hexes (you pick type) adjacent to your village (=group of houses). Temples must be played on level 2, but only 1/village. Forts must be played on level 3 (only 1/village?). When laying tiles on other tiles, can play over houses (removed from game) but not temples of forts. First to play all pieces of 2 types wins!
The pieces are beautiful! The game is actually pretty good, although I don't care much for abstracts. If you do like those this is likely like up your alley!
6/10
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24.
Board Game: Ra
[Average Rating:7.73 Overall Rank:28]
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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3 April ... Day #5
The start of the tournaments! After another leisurely start to the day, I arrived just in time to get in on the Ra tourney. M had not signed up but wanted to join in; unfortunately she was even later than I was!
It's an old classic, one of my favorite auction games. Not that I'm any good at it, but I love the way every game is different, the way you have to make decisions about the worthiness of the auction lot, even considering the value of the money (suns) itself. This ended up being 5 5-player games. Our game had some strange runs of Ra tiles come up, although strange seems to be not too uncommon with this game! One player (RS) was particularly unlucky and didn't get any points early on. In an effort to make up for it, he went all out, flushing a reasonably OK (certainly not great!) lot; of course, the next tile drawn was Ra, the end of the round! ZB didn't earn a lot during the game, but made it up on the back end with an impressive monument collection. However, EF ended up winning it, by just 1 point (41). I was in 4th place, at 34 -- if only I'd taken that flood/river lot, I could have tied! Ah well ... it was a fun start to the day!
8/10
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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After chatting a bit, we went to lunch at the Mexican place across the street. We'd managed to avoid it so far, but you've got to go there at least once, I suppose! We went with PeterE, PhillipEA, and RussellG. The food was OK, but we spent a while just talking. Afterwards, we went back and tried one of their prototypes -- they have a bunch! Although it's too early to say anything specific, it's a pretty good! There are some good mechanisms, although I think it still needs a few tweaks.
7/10
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Posted Sat Mar 31, 2007 3:48 pm
Illinois
JW
Apex
North Carolina
Hillsborough
North Carolina
Yeah, hopefully I'll go back and do that - probably when I copy the bulk of these entries into my Comments for the game.