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Gathering Threepeat
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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Obviously, this was our third trip to the Gathering. Last year's summary is here. I'd initially bought tickets for a Friday arrival, but things actually began on Friday! So we payed our fees and changed the dates so we could maximize our gaming opportunities! Fortunately, we weren't on Skybus (which went bankrupt and suddenly shut down, leaving several Gathering attendees stranded en route, or in Columbus)! We were on American, which had its own problems later in the week: one of their plane types were grounded for inspection in the middle of the week. Fortunately, the planes turned out to be fine, and American had caught up on getting travelers to their destinations; we had no problems at all on the return trip. We arrived Thursday evening (April 3). Ken very kindly picked us up at the airport Robin, his finacee, was supposed to be arriving a bit before us. We'd planned on having dinner together. Unfortunately, her flight was a bit early and ours was rescheduled and arrived a bit late; so she'd already gone home! Thanks for driving us, Ken!! Mary and I helped with some of the setup (the badges/gift bags), but that was about it ... the first (and only?) night we went to bed at a decent hour!
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Posted Wed Apr 16, 2008 8:06 pm
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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This was the first game of the event for me, and had 2 plays total. Before playing Brass, I'd thought Wabash was the best game of '07. It's still in the top 3, I think (along with Race) ... I just wish the published map wasn't so butt-ugly! TedA thinks the game is best with 3, but I'm not so sure: I hate being the one forced to keep the other guy in check (Attika syndrome). The game plays so quickly, though, that it should be easy to get several plays in, with a varying number of players. My guess is that 4 or 5 will be ideal, where you have a lot of competition for shares, and multiple train lines get built and developed.
I've seen a few different versions of the map out there, some prettier than others. Both my plays were on a pretty map  , about 45min each.
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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In the Year of the Dragon
4/4/2008, 10:57 (67.9 min)
FTF
1 play, although I did teach it later to a different group. It's a decent game, but I just don't find myself having as much fun while playing it as I would have hoped for. Maybe there's just too much pain? I like building things up, developing an engine; in this game, the cogs (people) are throwaway -- use them when you need them, then toss them for whatever will help you with the disaster that's coming up next.
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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Die Dolmengotter
4/4/2008, 14:49 (13.8 min)
FTF
1 play. An oldie that got overshadowed by the other Eggertspiele game released the same year - Antike. The board isn't particularly inspiring, but the gameplay is smooth and simple and quick.
Me: 59 (rank: 2)
JaffG (first play): 46 (rank: 5)
SophieG (first play): 58 (rank: 3)
PeterE: 60 (rank: 1)
PhilippE: 57 (rank: 4)
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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Lehman prototype
4/4/2008, 15:21 (117.3 min)
FTF
1 play. Fun, but needs some rules streamlining (which it apparently got; I wish I'd gotten to try it again!) and a lot of graphic design changes (it is a proto, after all!). I like several of his designs, but there sure are a lot of icons in this game!!
Me (first play): 21 (rank: 1)
JaffG (first play): 13 (rank: 5)
SophieG (first play): 16 (rank: 3)
PeterE (first play): 16 (rank: 3)
TomL: 17 (rank: 2)
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5.
Board Game: Brass
[Average Rating:8.08 Overall Rank:13]
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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2 plays total, and 2 losses. I also taught it to a group at the end of the Gathering (although I'm not sure how well: at least one of the three seemed to be pretty confused!). I'd started recording a rules summary for my "podcast" before the Gathering, and will hopefully finish that some time soon.
This is a great game, strongly thematic and very engaging throughout. It's lighter and more forgiving than Age of Steam, so I'd expect it to have a wider audience. Unfortunately, there are a lot of rules and exceptions, which may make the first game a somewhat painful learning experience.
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6.
Board Game: Tichu
[Average Rating:7.72 Overall Rank:39]
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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15 plays total, scattered throughout and including the Tichu Tourney (where I got to beat Mary in Round 1, but then got knocked out in Round 2 ... by last year's champions!). You could see Tichu being played somewhere almost any time during the 10-day event!
I enjoy the game, especially how you can deconstruct a hand after its played to figure out what you should have done -- learning is good -- but I'm NOT a Tichu fanatic. Still, it's usually easy to find a game. By the end, though, I was kind of tired of it; I sort of turned it down that last night! "Sort of" b/c I felt I should be playing something, but couldn't find anything I really wanted to play. Curt had offered earlier, but when I went back to see if there was still a spot open -- there wasn't! But, no big deal ... I was pretty tired that last night!
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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Sticheln
4/4/2008, 23:29 (44.1 min)
FTF
1 play, while looking for a quick game to end the evening. We'd all played before, but it had been a while -- we needed a rules refresher, and I don't think we were playing particularly well!
Me: 37 (rank: 1)
RobinK: 31 (rank: 2)
JuneK: -10 (rank: 3)
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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1 play; Eggert-Spiele Knizia prototype.
4/5/2008, 09:37 (36.8 min)
FTF
Good game, but not great. My, my -- we have gotten jaded, haven't we?!
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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2 plays total, back-to-back. We'd just started a 3er game when a 4th interested person walked up; he joined us after we finished. One of my favorite games from '07, although I think I prefer it as a 2-player game. I'd play it much more often if I could; unfortunately, the SO likes to have more variety in her gaming!
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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Metropolys
4/5/2008, 14:12 (37.4 min)
FTF
1 play. The new Ystari release works well: it's an auction game with area control and a cool spatial mechanism for bidding. With repeated play I'd expect your skills to increase, so that you could spot those choice positioning opportunities to win bids cheaply. Unfortunately, I just didn\'t find it particularly engaging ... I'd much rather play Mykerinos or Amyitis.
Me (first play): 25 (rank: 3)
ChristianH: 34 (rank: 1)
HenningK (first play): 31 (rank: 2)
JohnP (first play): 12 (rank: 4)
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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Stone Age
4/5/2008, 15:19 (94.8 min)
FTF
1 play. This was another game that saw almost continuous play.
Like Pillars of the Earth with a stone age theme: you allocate workers to various areas on the board in order to collect resources and then to convert them into points. The point conversion seems more straightforward than Pillars (simple recipes). The major difference, other than theme, is that resource production is based not only on who got to the location first (some locations have only limited space for worker meeples), but on dice rolls. I wish they'd used averaging dice instead of standard d6's, though!
If I were choosing between this and Pillars, I'd likely choose this. But since I already have Pillars, is there a need for this game?
Me (first play): 179 (rank: 1)
TravisR: 119 (rank: 3)
CharlieD: 115 (rank: 4)
JohnP (first play): 161 (rank: 2)
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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Palastgefluster
4/5/2008, 17:11 (33 min)
FTF
1 play.
Everyone is assigned a color. Deal out all the cards, which each have a color and type (different members of court, with unique powers). Starting player plays a card, which may have a power; it also shows which player goes next (like Twitch). You may not play the same type of card into your display twice. Also, a separate King deck shows the type of character currently out of favor; those powers are canceled (until the next King card is revealed). If someone cannot make a legal play, they lose; everyone else gets 1VP. First player to n VP wins.
Our game was fun, but kind of a fluke: one person (Kevin, who taught us the game!) was the only one to ever lose a hand; the rest of us all won the game. I'd definitely like to try this again, although I'm not sure I really NEED to have it.
Me (first play): 4 (rank: 1)
TravisR: 4 (rank: 1)
CharlieD: 4 (rank: 1)
KevinB: 0 (rank: 5)
RhondaB: 4 (rank: 1)
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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Aquaretto
4/6/2008, 00:23 (39.1 min)
FTF
1 play.
Similar to Zooloretto, but with enough changes to make it a different game (although you can also play this as an expansion to Zooloretto, where you're basically playing both games simultaneously):
- instead of pre-defined pens, you have an open space in which you create pools by playing animal tiles of a specific type, grouped together (orthogonally adjacent, cannot be adjacent to different species)
- instead of open barnyard to house extra animals, you have a depot where they are stacked; only the top tile is available for manipulation (sell to other players, discard from game, move to your pool)
- no more species-swapping allowed
- additional way to get money: the 3rd, 6th and 9th of a species played to a pool gives you 1 money
- additional scoring (replacing stalls): the 5th (and 10th?) of a species gives you a meeple, which you may place either on the board (trainer, scores 1VP per adjacent trainable animal) or on some bonus locations (bonus 1VP/gold, or 1VP/fish icon on tiles).
While the basic mechanism remains the same, all these changes take a further step away from Coloretto, making this game a bit more challenging. After just one play, however, I think Zooloretto may be my preference: not as simple (and boring) as Coloretto, but not quite as difficult as Aquaretto. Not to say that this game is particularly difficult ... just more difficult than I'd prefer to play often. On the other hand, if I played any of these games repeatedly, I could see my preferences moving towards Aquaretto -- it's definitely more gamery than its predecessor.
Me (first play): 20 (rank: 3)
JeffA (first play): 22 (rank: 2)
MichaelSchacht: 23 (rank: 1)
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14.
Board Game: 18FL
[Average Rating:7.23 Overall Rank:1674]
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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18FL
4/6/2008, 11:45 (6.4 hrs)
FTF
1 play. A kinder gentler introduction to the 18xx system. I'd played 1846 before, but I think it's been about 2 years. JoeC organized some teaching games, with 6 of us signing up (he and Scott Nicholson split us into 2 groups).
Our game started with 3 newbies, but Uwe had to bail early on -- Joe, who started out teaching the rules then supervising our game, took Uwe's spot. I thought he would win for sure, but I got lucky in the end. Or maybe my "making change" tactic finally paid off ?!
The game took a LONG time, and I had a headache by the end. Just like my last 18xx experience, I came away annoyed by having to constantly figure out the best routes, avoid using the same track twice (different trains), do share dividend calculations ... Age of Steam is so much more streamlined!! Nevertheless, I really do like the system, if only it would play more quickly! I'd hoped to take one of the 18xx games off the prize table, but they'd all been picked up by the time my name got called.
Me (first play): 10795 (rank: 1)
UweE (first play): 10661 (rank: 2)
TerryB (first play): 8860 (rank: 3)
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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Game X: the game-without-a-name that Valerie Putman and Dale Yu are developing for Rio.
10 plays total. It's really good, although I'm not so sure how it will do in the long run. Still, if I could get my hands on the card information I'd make my own copy to play with!
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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Peter Hawes prototype.
3 plays total. There was supposed to be a 4th, between several of us who'd played repeatedly during the week, but that never happened (Peter went to dinner with his girlfriend -- I'm shocked!!). The physical production of this prototype was very very good; and fortunately, the game play matched! Again, it's not really anything brand new, but it should fill a nice niche -- a 2 hour game with simple rules, good theme, a bit of randomness, and some fun killing things! Eggertspiele will be publishing this (after a bit more development work) for Essen this year.
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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An Alspach Age of Steam expansion map: the one with a lot of mountains and very expensive build costs!
4/7/2008, 15:21 (107.3 min)
FTF
1 play. I quite liked the map! The rule changes aren't terribly drastic, but enough to make you think a bit differently: production, for example, actually got chosen more than once! Three of us ended up fighting in the NE corner; I won that fight
Funky scores (Ted gives 1/3VP per track, and only subtracts relative differences in shares):
Me (first play): 48 2/3 (rank: 1)
JeffA (first play): 33 2/3 (rank: 5)
MartyH (first play): 39 2/3 (rank: 3)
TedA (first play): 43 1/3 (rank: 2)
JeffF (first play): 39 (rank: 4)
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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Another Alspach prototype. This is a pretty abstract bidding and set-collection game. It worked pretty well, although something felt a bit off? Maybe ... need to try again.
4/7/2008, 18:43 (136.8 min)
FTF
1 play.
Me (first play): 12 (rank: 2)
JeffA (first play): 8 (rank: 4)
EricM (first play): 6 (rank: 5)
TedAlspach: 14 (rank: 1)
Mary (first play): 11 (rank: 3)
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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Party Pooper
4/7/2008, 21:34 (15.2 min) (partial game)
FTF
This can ONLY be played with people you know well. You roll a die (either party animal or party pooper) then ask the question on the card, looking for who would be the animal/pooper with regard to the question. Like Cash and Guns, everyone points at that person simultaneously; you get points for being "correct". Unlike Cash and Guns, it's not actually fun. And the questions, at least the ones we had, didn't really fit the animal/pooper designations! This is a game to enjoy with your friends, rather than a game to get to know other people.
Of course, this is based on 1 partial play with mostly strangers -- it was so awful that we quit after the first round! Based on that, it'd probably rate a 3. But I'll wait on the rating until trying it, if I ever try it again.
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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Yet another Alspach prototype. This time, a party game.
4/7/2008, 21:53 (54.7 min)
FTF
1 play. I think this game has been picked up by a large publisher, but it just didn't work for me -- I'm not that bright, I guess!
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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Steam Over Holland
4/8/2008, 10:45 (133.6 min)
FTF
1 play. I'd been meaning to try this ever since its release (with all the stuff about "short playable 18xx" that I'd heard). The three train-gamers were waiting for DavidF, but he'd overslept! So I jumped in.
In fact, this does seem like a good introduction to the 18xx system, playing more quickly but retaining the ability to really mess each other's plans and cash hoard through stock manipulation and control of game pace. It might be a bit too harsh an introduction (not the kinder/gentler intro that 18FL gives you), but at least it plays quickly! Unfortunately, it may play a bit _too_ quickly -- trains become obsolete almost before you can use them! I don't think I'm likely to play this one again.
Me (first play): 1554 (rank: 4)
BobD: 2677 (rank: 3)
MarkG: 3399 (rank: 1)
JimM: 2799 (rank: 2)
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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Tribun
4/8/2008, 13:30 (65.6 min)
FTF
1 play.
Another game of deploying meeples to collect resources -- this time, cards of different colors and strengths, or money -- which you use to acquire the stuff you need to win the game (control of factions, legions, laurels, various tiles). Difficulty scales by requiring increasing numbers of these conditions. The basic game, which requires only 4 of the 6 conditions, was interesting but played way too quickly -- it was over at the end of the third round! Apparently based on good card draws (and good play, of course), one player was able to win without any difficulty.
Need to try it with more advanced rules.
Me (first play): (rank: 3)
GregS (first play): (rank: 4)
JeffG (first play): (rank: 1)
TaraM (first play): (rank: 2)
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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Indonesia
4/8/2008, 16:37 (4 hrs)
FTF
1 play. Jeff had taught this at Gulf Games (I'd played a long time before and needed a refresher), where he'd easily beaten the rest of us. It looked like he was about to do it again, with a new group of chumps. But HAH!
I really like the system. The board is pretty but sometimes difficult to play on (the Mike Doyle syndrome), but the system really works. You get a flavor of 18xx games but this is much simpler. There seem to be multiple paths to take, although I really need to play this more often to really explore its depths.
Me: 1616 (rank: 1)
JeffA: 1615 (rank: 2)
ScottM (first play): 1132 (rank: 3)
CurtC (first play): (rank: 4)
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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Pandemic
4/9/2008, 10:43 (31.1 min)
FTF
I was wandering aimlessley and a group kindly asked me to join. I'd played before and had a good time, although I don't think I'm really a fan of full-on cooperative games. But they'd played several games and lost them all, so they wanted to play the easy level. It turned out they'd played the wrong rules, of course! Anyway, easy = boring ... given the initial setup, it was pretty simple figuring out how to cure all four diseases.
I want me a TRAITOR!! Or maybe an OVERLORD!
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Snooze Fest
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
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2 plays total, first with 3 then, a few days later, with 2. The 2-player game is a bit weird (too easy to collect cards), and I suspect the 4-player game would be too long (twice through the draw deck); so 3 is ideal??
A nice little blend of basic Ticket to Ride mechanisms with Mamma Mia-like resource collection, except that everyone is collecting for themselves. There are also some new things: the take-that of forcing someone to discard cards, the end-game destination bonuses (although I wonder if anyone really tries for them specifically, or if you just hope for the best?). In a 2-player game, you can collect a lot of train cards; that makes it easy to draw a lot of destination tickets, but also makes the end-game scoring and calculations (which tickets did I make?) last a bit too long.
Not a bad card game, but not one I'm likely to seek very often.
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Posted Wed Apr 16, 2008 8:10 pm
!
Colorado Springs
Colorado
Hillsborough
North Carolina
Thanks!
Sadly, it will have to go at the end of the year once W has left the building. I'm going to have to figure out how to edit my avatar again!
Brooklyn
New York
Hillsborough
North Carolina
Yes:
1) The slide show is kind of entertaining, at least to some (including me).
2) I have to figure out what to replace it with, and how to do that ... more work.
Brooklyn
New York