Death of Monopoly

My mother's son...

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Martin) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 17:27:00 +0000

This past weekend I was on the phone with my mother back in BC and she was rather exhausted. I guess her, my Dad, and my sister and brother-in-law were up playing Dominion on Saturday night till 2 am. My sister and father even went out for an ice cream and potato chip run at 11:30 to stay fueled up. My mother says she woke up in the middle of the night with sugar hangover. Ha. Didn't discourage them, though, because I guess they played a few more rounds the next morning.

Uh huh. That's my family.

Oh, Risk: Legacy, how I hate thee...

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Martin) — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 18:33:00 +0000

So my current favourite game has got to be Risk: Legacy. Take a simple classic game system which suffers from some epic flaws and add a brilliant story arc, real emotional investment, and the options for players to choose how these flaws get fixed over a campaign of games. It's brilliant and I can't seem to get the campaign we're playing out of my head. This is the best Ameri-trash game to come out in years and a must-own for anyone who can handle all the aggression. It is also a wholly new gaming experience that rivals the original excitement that Dominion brought a few years ago.

Having said this, despite the ongoing emergence of new rules in our campaign of games, there is still a wild amount of dice rolling. The good thing is games don't usually last past 90 minutes so if you're losing the pain is over pretty quick. And it turns out I'm not the best sport either. Two games ago I threw a soldier piece at a dear friend of mine as she kept rolling 6's against all my attacks. Last night I nearly ended my almost 5-year relationship when I called my partner a "disengenuous, manipulative pig".

Um, yep, same old Risk.....

A review of San Francisco Cable Car...

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Martin) — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 21:03:00 +0000

Tile-laying games can be kinda hit-or-miss for me. I've never really enjoyed the very well-received and endlessly expanded-upon game Carcassonne as I found the aggravation of utterly random tile draws totally outweighed the enjoyment of seeing the land take shape. And yet I've recently fallen back in love with the nastily strategic and abstract Tantrix which could also fairly be accused of being a bit too random. Maybe the difference in Carc is that you always are looking for that certain one tile to complete your scoring and you just never draw it. Whereas in a game like Tantrix (or even Ingenious, for that matter) you try and make do with what you have and usually a clever move exists. San Francisco Cable Car (a reprint of the older Dirk Henn title Metro) is an excellent little board game that seems to fall somewhere right in between. The choice of what tile you play each turn is quite limited but exactly where you play that tile can make all the difference.

The gameplay of the basic game (which is exactly the same as Metro) is quite simple and, as in most Queen games, very clearly explained. Each player has the same number of cars in their colour which are placed on designated spaces around the outside of the board. Players take turns either playing their hidden tile onto the board or draw a random tile and play that one instead. Tiles must obey a few rules: all tiles must be oriented in the same direction, they must be connected to the outside of the board or another tile, and if at all possible they must not cause a car to score only a single point. If after the tile is played any player's car is connected in a continuous line of track to a station, then that player's car scores a point for every tile its track runs through. If that station happens to be the power station in the centre, then the points are doubled.

So in the basic version, players add tiles trying to extend the tracks of their own cars while running all of their opponent's cars into stations as fast as possible. It's pretty nasty stuff but a fairly short game so players don't tend to get too upset. Now, the big difference between Cable Car and its predecessor Metro is the new stock variant which in my mind takes a very light game and makes it much, MUCH more interesting. It is also, I think, what makes Cable Car so worth the purchase.

In the stock variant none of the coloured cars are owned by the players. There are now 8 companies with 4 cars each and each player is given a random set of 4 stocks in values of 10, 20, 30, and 40 percent. In addition to a regular play of a tile, on your turn you can instead exchange one of your stocks with one of equivalent value from the face-up stock or random from the top of the pile. This stock exchange is available only until one company manages to score 25 or more points and then all players' stocks are locked in till the end of the game. Once the final tile is played and all the cars have scored, players stocks are valued according to their percentage times the relative rank of the company. (For example, if the black company placed first out of the 8 companies and I had a 30 percent share, it would be worth 3x8=24 points.) In addition, there are some small company bonuses for players with majorities. Once the tally is done, high score wins.

So the stock rules don't add too much complexity to the game but they allow for players to focus on increasing the length of paths for multiple companies. They also shelter players a bit from being directly attacked although it's almost guaranteed that early on someone will make your 60 percent share company score a 2-point car. But at the point you just exchange your 40 percent share for one from a different and hopefully better company. Of course, this can only occur before one company scores big and then everyone's assets are locked in. And this adds a delicious tension and makes the speculation that much tougher as not only can exchanges only be done early on but you must also give up an opportunity to add track to the board. And since only 60 tiles can ever get played in a game, your options to influence the tracks are already fairly limited.

We played the original version once with everyone being their own colour and have only played the stock version since. The rules aren't much more complicated and the depth added to the game now feels like it should always be there. The stock game feels a bit lighter than say Ticket To Ride but plays much quicker and works perfectly well even with the 6 players. The satisfaction of completing that 20-point track in a company you've got investments in is quite satisfying and watching the board take form is pretty cool. I'm not surprised at how enjoyable and satisfying this game is considering it was designed by Dirk Henn whose credits include the classic Alhambra and the tense and tricky Atlantic Star. I was lucky enough to receive this as a Christmas gift (you have to be VERY careful when buying me board games as gifts) and boy am I glad I did as I probably would have overlooked this little gem. If you want a family strategy game that includes tile-laying, stock options, and a little bit of delicious nastiness, I don't think you could do better than this game. Easy-to-learn, fun, and very quick. But you gotta play with the stock variant....

On The Horizon: the latest Friedemann Friese project...

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Martin) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 16:39:00 +0000

The ever-strange and creative inventor of Power Grid and Black Friday has decided to create a board game using mechanics from the top ten board games of all time on BGG. That would include the worker placement from Agricola, the card purchase from Through The Ages, deck-building from Dominion, the card-drafting from 7 Wonders, turn-order from (you guessed it!) Power Grid, and the action selection from Puerto Rico. Huh. Okay, I'll bite. I'm interested to see how all this comes together....

You can see him talk about his schizophrenic design here.

First Plays: Fealty and German Railways...

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Martin) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 19:51:00 +0000

There was a full-frontal nerdity again last night at UW games night and, as usual, I forced people to play some of my new games that have been waiting patiently to be played.

We started with Fealty, a sharp, nasty, tactical game that is remarkably short. 8 turns and you finish and score. It was an interesting experience and a relatively simple game but figuring out the right play seems nearly impossible. I think it'll require a few games to get a handle of but I imagine it'll be just excellent with 2 players.

Final layout with scoring tokens. Colourful. I lost horribly.

We also got German Railways to the table. It definitely felt like the successor to Chicago Express but different enough to stand on its own merits.

The clever turn-order mechanism made this one feel a bit like Power Grid, you know, all about the timing, and the winning condition (most money overall, stocks worth nothing) made correct bidding paramount much like a great game of Modern Art. In fact, in our game the top 2 players at the end ended up owning the least amount of stock. This is a very, very interesting game - quite devious and very much open to table-talk and coercion. Definitely a favourite of the new year and in my mind an even better game than Chicago Express.

One caveat, though: Queen really messed up this design by leaving one thing out. There are 8 different railroads each with a unique power and in the original Winsome title these powers were clearly laid out ON THE BOARD! In this reprint, Queen stupidly removed that and just left it on the back page of the rulebook. This was a horrendous oversight and something we kept screwing up over and over. We had to continuously check the rulebook throughout the game every time we went to make an action. I'm really not sure what the hell they were thinking and I'm actually considering taking a Sharpie to the board and writing them on myself. Painful.

Dude, I think you drunk my Battleship...

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Martin) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:00:00 +0000

How to make a classic game WAY more fun!

Click on the pic to embiggen

(Via Geek Sect...)

A particularly mathy way to determine first player....

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Martin) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:00:00 +0000

At games night at UW, the mathematician friends of mine have a particularly quick and clever way to determine who starts each game which they call "Shoots" (don't ask me why...) Anyone who has done any studies with modular arithmetic or group theory should be quite comfortable with it.

Okay, so here's how it goes: one player calls "Shoots!" and on three, everyone reveals a random number of fingers, rock-papers-scissors style. Now add up all the fingers and count that many around the circle of players clockwise starting with the player who called for "Shoots". Ta-da. Whoever you finish with is the start player.

Of course, in math terms, if x is the total number of fingers and the players are numbered clockwise as 1,...,n where 1 is the caller of "Shoots" then the start player is simply x modulo n. See, easy!

Or I suppose you could just grab Ted Alspach's cute Start Player deck of cards. But I think math is WWWAAAAYYYYY more fun.....

Daily dose of awesomeness....

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Martin) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 21:00:00 +0000

Big Bang Theory catches on to the age-old "Wood For Sheep" joke from Settlers.... Only for the highly immature and severely dorky. Um. Like me.

<p>&amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br /&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br /&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt; &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;gt;</p>

(Link thanks to the other Eric at BGGNews...)

On The Horizon (next week): German Railways and Welcome to Walnut Grove...

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Martin) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 20:12:00 +0000

I am currently in Florida for the rest of the weekend, enjoying a family trip with the in-laws. It's quite the lovely albeit busy state and I can see why older wealthy Americans and Canadians come here to spend their last days playing Bridge and turning their skin to leather. Boy, I can't wait to retire - I'll probably end up here with all my board games in tow and enough free time to finally play them....

When we return Monday (sadly) I look forward to playing German Railways, Queen's lovely new production of a very well-received Winsome title, which could be considered the unofficial sequel to Chicago Express. I talked about it a bit last year and it has finally been released in North America. Also looking forward to Welcome to Walnut Grove, described as a lightcross between Carcassonne and Agricola. Um, okay, sold.

It'll be sad to return to work in the frozen north but returning to some new gaming Monday night should ease some of the pain.

You tell me: time for some sun....

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Martin) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 14:38:00 +0000

Off to Florida tonight for a week of warmth (thank goodness!) And of course the toughest choice is what games to subject my in-laws to. Any suggestions? I picked up Jambo to play with the hubby in the airport while we're waiting and I'm definitely bringing Tichu and Liar's Dice. Hmmm.... How big is that suitcase again?

Games night...

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Martin) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:48:00 +0000

Two new ones played last night at the University of Waterloo...

Quebec, Ystari Games

The gorgeous colours of Quebec

I finally got a copy of Quebec, designed by Philippe Beaudoin and Pierre Poissant-Marquis, which was first described to me by one of the designers at Origins last year. And it's good. Really good. Really, REALLY good. Smart, fast-moving, dynamic, tricky, original, so many words I could use. Definitely on the heavier side but very fast-paced and the decisions are limited so it trucks along fairly quickly. I can't wait to play this again and if I'd bought it last year, it would definitely be in my top 5 of 2011. Ah well. Great start to the new year....

Leaders and workers

Zones of power... White is about cascade like crazy!

In the Shadow of the Emperor, Rio Grande Games

Wasn't playing this one but it's on my list of must-try's. The other table was VERY quiet throughout which goes with what I've heard - a very dry, calculational experience.

First plays: Risk: Legacy...

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Martin) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 17:05:00 +0000

Okay, so if you haven't heard of the latest incarnation of Risk, you may want to get your head out from under a rock. And buy it. As soon as possible. And this is coming from someone who REALLY does not like the original game of Risk (it's divisive, eliminates players early on, and way, WAY too long.)

The magic of this game may change the board game industry as much as Dominion did and Magic: The Gathering before that. If you don't know yet, in Risk: Legacy, players get to change the board and their factions permanently as the games progress. Players can name continents, found cities, permanently scar the board to give regions advantages and disadvantages, and basically create the experience as they go. It's a stunning coup by Hasbro as takes a relatively simple board game and gives the players a level of investment in replay that I've never seen.

And it's a riot, it really is. Each game plays in 60-90 minutes due to the different game-winning conditions and we are excited every time to see how our world will change and develop. There are envelopes that only get opened once certain events happen (like last night when someone was eliminated for the first time) and they add new rules and variation to the game. What's so clever is that last night the player whose faction got eliminated was given a power to make that faction stronger in future games. Permanently. And that player got to choose the power which means he ended up getting rewarded even though he was permanently out of the game. The whole thing was extremely satisfying and the eliminated player was surprisingly happy about it.

The only thing I worry about is that the Risk board has it usual issues - the Australian subcontinent is impenetrable and you are prone to a million bad dice rolls - which makes me think that after the first 15 games, once the board is fixed, we may quickly lose interest. But so far it's been an absolute blast! Where else can I at the end of a game, MUCH to my partner Vincent's dismay, found a minor city in the Middle East called "Fagdad". Ha.

The Australian subcontinent is now "Vincent is your GOD-Land" with the minor city "Vincopolis". Oh give me a break.

A little experiment....

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Martin) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 13:20:00 +0000

My partner threw an idea at me one day about maybe doing time-lapse photography of board games as they progress. Seemed kinda cool so I finally figured out our new camera and I-Movie and tried it. I figured Dominant Species might be kind of appropriate, you know migrating species, approaching tundra, and all that.

Unfortunately, you can only whittle a 3 hour game down so much so here's 5 minutes of cube and tile pushing, put to some nice classical music (I've always thought inter-species violence, and violence in general, makes more of a splash to classical...)

This may only interest two other people - the ones who played the game with me. Ha.

Next time I think I'll try Tigris and Euphrates.

Best of 2011...

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Martin) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 16:30:00 +0000

As always, I definitely did not play even a tenth of the multitude of games that those lucky people over at Opinionated Gamers get to play so my choices are totally coloured by that. As well, due to living in Canada, many a game that I finally played this year may have been a 2010 release. Deal with it. Maybe just consider these the favourites of the games that were new to me this year.

So without further ado...

Best New Game of 2011 - Mammut, by Kristian Amundsen Ostby (Queen)

My favourite game this year earns its status for playing so completely and wonderfully different than any game I own. In Mammut, players are cavemen determining how to share the spoils of a hunt. The hunt is composed of 31 tiles, of varying values and importance, and each player in turn can take as many of them as they want from the spoils in the middle or all the tiles from one other player. The key is that if you take the tiles away from someone else, you have to return at least one back to the center (they were being "too greedy!"). This back and forth of stealing and returning continues until everyone has tiles. The round then ends and a scoring occurs similar to Knizia's classic Ra. 4 or 5 rounds and the game is finished.

This game is brilliant, loaded with strategy, and helluva lot of "take that" nastiness. No other family game this year has made me think so differently about how to play well. For more details, see my full review here. Or just go out and buy the damn game. It's wicked, tense, strategic fun.

Second Place Favourite - Asara, by Michael Kiesling and Wolfgang Kramer (Ravensburger)

This one may come as a surprise to you (it sure did to me). It also may be from 2010 but I don't care. When I first read the rules to this, it seemed like there wasn't a single original mechanic. And maybe there isn't. But after playing it I found the game so well-balanced, so interesting, and so easy to explain, it's worth every second. On paper, it's just a worker-placement game about building the tallest towers in five different colours. But it's gorgeously produced and the worker-placement is cleverly handled with cards where players must follow suit to take certain actions after others. It's an extremely fun family strategy game that is super-tense right through to the finish. Kramer invented Princes of Florence, one of my all-time greats, and his masterful touch is quite evident here, although Asara is a slightly more relaxed affair. But only slightly. A very, very pleasant surprise.

Runners-up -

Airlines Europe, by Alan R. Moon - It's a quicker, slicker version of Moon's Union Pacific/Airlines system and the tension in the game sneaks up on you. Imagine Acquire meets Ticket To Ride and you're starting to get the idea. But you gotta play it with the flight ban rules which can be found here. It adds some nastiness and clogs the board up quite nicely.

Fauna, by Friedemann Friese - Definitely my favourite party game this year and it was republished in English this year by FoxMind Games. This is a trivia game about animals - where they live, what they weigh, how tall they are - where you can win points by still being close to the answer and not exactly on it. Sounds dry but it's actually shockingly fun.

Black Friday, also by Friedemann Friese - Once you get past the god-awful ruleset and make sense of how to play, you'll find yourself immersed in one of the cleverest stock market simulations ever put to board. It's tense and strategic but still chaotic and a bit number-crunchy. Maybe not for everyone but my math friends and I love it.

Mord Im Arosa, by Alessandro Zucchini - I love this game of dropping cubes in a tower and listening to which floor they fall to. It's simple, hilarious, and nasty. This is the most enjoyable game I've played all year and also one of the cleverest.

Water Lily, by Dominique Ehrhard - This little race game was brought to my attention at Origins this past year and I'm glad we picked it up. It's a very simple race game that's made quite tricky by the memory element of the scoring. Excellent, suspenseful, and so quick. It's also one of the nicest productions I've seen in years where the box becomes the board. Just lovely.

(Aside: I haven't played my copy of A Few Acres of Snow yet but it may jump on this list pretty quickly. Deck-building, Canadian history, and Martin Wallace - sounds like an amazing combo.)

Guest post: a review of Sorry Sliders...

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Martin) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 14:27:00 +0000

Sorry Sliders is a game marketed to children, ages 6 and up. I just played it with my three year old and she had the hang of it after the first slide. In fact, she beat me.

Sorry Sliders really doesn't resemble its predecessor at all, with the exception of the logo and the little game pieces. The best way to describe it is that it's basically a board game version of curling; without the sweeping and the obnoxious shirts. Kind of like a poor man's Crokinole. Set-up is really simple and if you pay attention to the diagram, which I didn't, you can have all the pieces punched out and attached in less then five minutes. If, like me, you choose to wing it... well, you're looking at about 8 minutes once you realize you put the edges on each piece upside down and you have to pull them all off and re-attach.

The nice thing about this board game is that it comes in 2, 3, and 4 player options. You just attach the coordinating number of sides and fill in the other edges with walls. That's it. Easy as pie. There are also four variations of the game so when you get bored of the first one, you can add a little challenge into the play.

We played cooperatively, as I feel badly beating my three-year-old at board games. So neither of us had to say "Sorry" at any time during our game. And neither of us had to send our pieces back to home. I suspect that when I play this with my sons, there's going to be a lot more gleeful "Sorry"-ing going around as they aim to send my pieces flying of the table. Game play is super simple. Basically, you take turns sliding your tokens down the board trying to get as close as possible to the middle ring, which is worth the most points. If you managed to send an opponents piece to the edge of the tabe in the process, well, that's where the apologizing starts. The further from the ring, the lower the point count. We playing 3 rounds (12 slides each) and finished the game. Because I let my daughter score first, she won, but in reality, it's was probably at least a draw.

So, from the perspective of a young child, Sorry Sliders is a great game. My daughter said, and I quote, "I like getting my pieces home best." The least "I don't like when you lose." Awww...

From my perspective, it's a fun, quick little game. It's certainly not as frustrating as I remember the Sorry from our childhood to be. Don't expect to utilise any strategy as this is definitely a no-brainer. And don't bring it out to your university game night... they're just not the target audience!

Pros: Easy to set up, colourful, easily grasped by young children (and if you're like me, easy to let them experience winning)

Cons: The four-player version might take up a bit more table room than you expect. This might be a floor game when fully set up. Of course, when you have kids, empty floor space is hard to come by, too...

- Laura Freeman resides in Vanderhoof, B.C, where she is a social worker, mother of three amazing kids, soon-to-be published novelist, and all-around amazing sister! She also scrapbooks avidly and you can check out her scrappy antics at her blog Scrapbooking Beats Housework.

(Editor: Hmmmm, wonder who gave them them that game for Christmas....)

UPDATE: 04-Jan-2012 - I may have been premature when I wrote my comments about Sorry Sliders after playing it with my daughter the other day. We pulled it out again yesterday at my five-year old’s birthday party. It scored some decent table time as each of the guests in attendance wanted to have a go at it. So, to update my opinion of the game, I thought I’d add that Sorry Sliders is much more competitive and much more fun when played as a four-player game. And tilted on an angle, it actually will fit on my kitchen table. We only used the basic board, and have yet to try any of the three variations, but despite the simple instructions, it was a ‘hoot’. Adults, unlike three-year olds, can strategize. Instead of just aiming to land their sliders as close to the bulls-eye as possible, adults will aim to knock each others’ sliders out of play; Or even more cut-throat, knock them into higher scoring rings when, towards the end of the game, opponents are looking to score ones and twos to land their tokens in the home square. To my surprise, and delight, everyone enjoyed the game and got into the action. So, I guess I just want to add that this is an excellent family game as everyone will enjoy the action regardless of age or skill level.

Great gifting...

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Martin) — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 17:17:00 +0000

Gonna be a fun week leading up to New Year's!

Risk: Legacy, a dice rolling tray for said Risk game, a lovely Dirk Henn game from Queen, and some awesome beginner's Bridge books!

First play: Dominant Species...

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Martin) — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 01:22:00 +0000

I finally got a chance to play Dominant Species, a game that seems to be at the top of a lot of 'Best Of' lists this year. And I think I can see why. It's a rather complex worker placement game with an interesting majority placement/war gamey kind of feel. It wasn't half as complicated to learn as people make it out to be and it's actually quite enjoyable to watch your class of animals grow and adapt.

However, for an almost 3 hour game, it's rather chaotic and in our game the winner seemed to be completely determined in the final round. As well, the worker placement choices seem a tad clunky. Every single round started with players filling up first the limited spaces on the Dominance (scoring) row, allowing them to choose which tile to score and which special power card to use. It seemed pretty much programmed and in a 5 or 6-player game I imagine it would be rather frustrating. Still, for a strategy game this long to hold my attention so completely despite the randomness, there's definitely something working. I won't be buying it but I'll definitely play it again.

First plays: Airlines Europe expansion and Yspahan....

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Martin) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 21:00:00 +0000

This month has been WAY too busy (hence the almost total lack of posts in December). But some gaming did happen and some pics were taken. Hopefully I'll add some more words during the Christmas holiday...

Airlines: Europe - Flight Ban expansion

I have been aching to try the Flight Ban rules and they finally got posted on BoardGameGeek (if you haven't played the delightfully tense A:E, you can check out my description here). One major problem with Airlines: Europe (and Union Pacific before it) was the fact that none of the airlines actually ever seem to clash on the board, it was just too open and they could all be expanded quite easily. The addition of flight bans, which anyone can play with just 12 dark chips, tightens the board up nicely. After each of the first couple scoring rounds certain routes can be closed up, making it harder for airlines to reach their destinations. Very simple addition but definitely adds some complexity and interaction. Well worth it and we will not be playing this game without it again.

Yspahan

Okay, so this wasn't actually my first play of Yspahan. But the first game was about 2 years ago and what the hell have I been doing since?!?!? This game is amazing! Elegant, quick, and multiple strategies to follow. And the clever action selection using the dice makes the game extremely fun. I think I remembered the game being complicated to explain but everyone caught on very quickly and the turns flew by. Fun dice-rolling, tough choices, and beautifully designed production. What an excellent little gem. I love Ystari Games...

You tell me: favourite game designers...

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Martin) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 15:44:00 +0000

Managed to play a game of the new Ticket To Ride: Asia team expansion last night and loved it. My favourite series of games now has an option for clever partnership play and it felt quite rewarding when you worked together with someone to complete a ticket. I am reminded again and again of how much I enjoy Alan R. Moon games, whether it be a game in the TTR series, the lovely Elfenland, the interactive and nasty Oasis, or the brilliant and under-rated card game Gloria Picktoria. He is the tops for me right now with Knizia, Sackson, Friese, Kramer, and Wallace following not far behind.

Who is your favourite game designer and why?

Pics from games night at the Uni...

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Martin) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 04:11:00 +0000

Another couple Monday nights at the University of Waterloo and a whole bunch of board gaming....

Asara - God, what a great game! Why don't we play this more...

Worms Up! - A rather silly game that I quite enjoy. Not so much for the others.

EmDo (Eminent Domain) - The latest deck-building craze which I have yet to play.

Black Friday, Friday, market's gonna crash on Friday, Fun, Fun, Fun, Fun....

Lost Cities: The Board Game - This version sucks compared to the addictive Keltis. Fail.

At the Gates of Loyang - Epic harvesting. Thoughtful, enjoyable, but a commitment.

In The Year of The Dragon - Such sweet pain.

Wizard Extreme - Wizard! But extreme! (Minus the wizards yet surprisingly MORE nasty...)

Zertz - Favourite new abstract due to the clever built-in endgame timer.

Pocket train gaming...

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Martin) — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 23:26:00 +0000

I spent the previous weekend playing the new Iphone/Ipod Touch-only Ticket to Ride app. I actually think it's better than the online implementation despite not being connected to the TTR network. The AI is stronger and the touch screen controls are super-slick. It's totally tiding me over till I get the new Asia maps.

If you have an Ipod/Iphone/Ithingy I would also recommend checking out this article at the blog /(p[eu]rls of wisdom)?/ about useful apps for gaming. I'm about to download the Tichu score app for the long night of gaming ahead....

Game design camp!

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Martin) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 17:17:00 +0000

If you're in the Toronto area this coming weekend, you should probably try to check out Gamercamp Lv. 3. Although it looks catered more to video game design, there is a board game jam session on the Friday where a bunch of people get together and create board games on the fly. Awesome.

Man, I wish I had this Friday off work!

Crappy birthday to you! Crappy birthday to you! Crappy birthday dear......

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Martin) — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 18:09:00 +0000

....Robert Cannon!!! Looks like he's receiving a new copy of Crappy Birthday! (Sorry all that the draw took so long - my life has been on fast-forward for the last month.)

The worst gift Robert received was what he states to be a truly awful trivia board game, The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Game. Sounds thrilling. Some of the other crappy birthday gifts sent in included Reese's Peanut Butter Cups to someone who is deathly allergic, Dallas Cowboys Monopoly (oh my god, kill me), and a particularly obscene homemade statue whose picture I won't post here combining an elf and the baby Jesus (thanks, Maurizio, for that little gem).

Thanks to the ever-useful random.org for choosing a winner once again.

A review of Fauna...

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Martin) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 22:30:00 +0000

Okay, everyone, who wants to play a trivia game about guessing the weight, height, length, and natural habitats of various wildly obscure species of animals? Oh. No one? Right. Well, what if I said this animal trivia game was invented by Friedemann Friesse, the brilliant man behind Power Grid, Black Friday, and other modern classics of Euro-gaming. And maybe I should also mention the gameplay bears some similarities to that other great trivia game Wits and Wagers. Would that convince you? Still no? Perhaps you should read on and learn more about what I think is one of the most enjoyable trivia games to ever be published. And it just happens to learn you tons about animals while you play it.

The version of Fauna we have been lucky enough to play is the latest from Montreal game company FoxMind and is the English-language version of the original German game from 2 years ago. The components are simple, excellently produced, and do exactly what they need to do. The board and cards are well-illustrated and I really can't complain about anything. This is a high-quality production of the kind you'd expect from Days of Wonder or Queen. The rules booklet, too, is quite well-done and covers a lot considering how simple the game really is.

This is an easy card?!?!?

So how does it work? Well, players have six betting cubes and play a series of rounds until someone reaches a pre-determined amount of points dependent on the number of players. Every round starts with a new player and an animal card is revealed by that player. Well, really only partially revealed as the top half of the card shows a picture of the animal and states how many areas on the board are the natural habitat for the animal and whether you can bet on it's weight, height, length, and/or tail length. The bottom half contains all the answers to these questions and so stays hidden until the end of the round. Once players know what they're betting on, each person in turn places a cube either on the map where they think the animal resides or on one of the squares corresponding to wight, height/length, or tail length. This goes on until all players do not want to play any more betting cubes and have passed. And then the answers are revealed and this is where the real cleverness begins.

Every player who placed a cube in the correct natural habitats of the animal score points (more or less depending on how rare the animals habitats are) and the players who are in a region adjacent to one of the natural habitats almost always score points as well. Similarly, players who guessed the right characteristics score big points and those adjacent to the correct answers on the scales also score some points. So it seems like you should just throw down all 6 of your cubes in as many spots as possible, right? But here's the tricky part - any cubes which don't score (on or next to a correct answer) get taken away temporarily and you only get one back at the beginning of every round, given that you'll always have a minimum of 3 to bet with. Oh, nasty. So now one wants to be a bit more careful with their betting cubes as they could lose half their cubes on a rather obscure animal on one turn and then not have the cubes to bet when they know all the correct habitats of the animal in the next round.

So what seems like a rather childish game of animal trivia ends up turning into a tight little game of pushing-your-luck, betting wisely, and still knowing a bit about animal biology. It's not deep but with 4 or 5 players (the sweet spot, in my mind) a player has to decide the most important places to bet before the spots get taken by other players. The tension in choice can almost feel a bit like during the worker placement phase in Caylus, although much, much less painful. So there is some strategy to the placing of the bets but knowledge plays a factor as well. The game has the same lovely feeling that Wits and Wagers gives, of not needing to know every answer to be able to play well. In fact, you can often bet cubes close to the "smart" player and score at least for adjacency points. Of course this backfired in our last game when the world traveller amongst us had us all convinced that jaguars roam the savannahs of Africa and we all ended up losing our cubes (they reside mainly in South America, dontcha know!) She was thinking of cheetahs.

Honey badger don't give a #@%$!

I can't say enough about this game. I've played it a few times now and every game has been a lot of fun. The rules are simple, the betting and revealing of answers is suspenseful, and you end up learning more then you ever needed to about the common garden snake. There are two levels of difficulty (obscure vs. RIDICULOUSLY obscure animals) although we haven't bothered with the tough ones yet nor will we anytime soon. I have had one or two people not so impressed with the game due to the trivia aspect so this may not be a hit for everyone. But if you like Wits & Wagers or random trivia or even just the occasional episode of Planet Earth, I think you will love this game. It only takes about 45 minutes, plays great with up to 6 players, and it's a total joy and if I had my way, it would be in every classroom across the country. It's the type of game with major mass-market appeal that actually deserves to be flying off the shelves of every department store because it's so good. And it's definitely one of my top games so far this year.

I rest my case....

noreply@blogger.com (Eric Martin) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 21:45:00 +0000

Headline: Woman in custody after reportedly attacking man with knife while playing Monopoly

Need I say more?