Won by the Sword and more

So after my last lament at getting so little gaming in, this has been a good catch up. Managed to play Won By The Sword. As a recent arrival with limited length of rules I decided it was best to get it to the table instead of something else.

It took us an evening to get through the first month (ie 5 activations of 5 armies each) of the 1632 scenario including a major battle and a small siege. The manoeuvring was a lot more hectic than I'd thought it would be. By the end we felt reasonably comfortable with the rules (there's not a lot of them but some of it is complex).

What I liked about Won by the Sword was that it promoted historical strategies, like laying waste an area so you make it more difficult for your opponent to attack you; and splitting off a separate cavalry column to forage.

Although it is a main part of the game, the foraging feels clunky, mostly because you make about 30 dice rolls in a turn just for that (no kidding). Too much looking up. I understand the wish to randomise but with this many rolls, the results tend to the average. 

Oh well, no judgement till I've played a bit more

Yesterday we were supposed to play a game of Civilization but changed our minds. We had a very tight game of In The Name Of The Rose, where Diederick scraped a just few points less than Michiel and me, even though I saw through his little trick!

Then continued with Love Letters. Michiel finally got most letters through. Love Letters was perceived as okay but not as cool as King of Tokyo which we played next. And again. And again. Absolute hit I guess!

Brutal as always I think we all won one of the games, and I won the last, very unlikely, with one health left. Epic, n'est-ce pas?

And in terms of New Years Resolutions this means one more unplayed game scratched off!

Essen 2013 Challenge Completed

With Essen 2014 fast approaching, I can draw up the result of my self imposed Essen 2013 challenge. What games did I manage to play that I bought there?

Rats in the Walls (at Essen 2013)
Strajk (Christmas Offensive 2013)
Concept (January 2014)
Sigismundis Augustus (19 september 2014)

Which means I have actually managed to play all four games I bought, but only just in time. These weren't the toughest games to learn, so you can see how hard it is for me now to make the effort. But I can go to Essen knowing my hands are free to buy games.

But the sad story is that the past few months, I haven't played many games. Only 5 since the end of June. Apart from Sigismundis Augustus there were the familiar Civilization and Battlestar Galactica. I learned the Game of Thrones card game I had bought for Died's birthday. Newly bought Pathfinder was also good, but doesn't really count towards my NYR because it wasn't my copy.

In terms of getting 13 unplayed games from my collection to the table this year, I'm now at 7, so behind schedule.The sterner among you (and who can remember the New Years' Resolution) will note that I also played Eight Minute Empire, which although I didn't buy it at Essen was also mandatory to play before the deadline.

Essen nearing

And with Essen nearing, I've made my first draft of the list of games to look at.

Some interesting stuff like 15 Dias, which is about my old friend the Conde-Duque de Olivares, or a game looking at the logistics of the Normandy Breakout. New stuff from Martin Wallace and Phil Eklund, a rondel microgame, more Polish military history.

And one game that sounds just to strange to be true. The Walled City: Londonderry & Borderlands has you populate villages 'with loyal peasants and nobles who share your view of this new city'. This means: Protestant settlers in Northern Ireland in the 17th century, so a highly contentious part of history. This might not go down will with (Northern) Irish catholics who understand Londonderry as a Protestant colony. Let's see if the game shows that sensitivity.

I was afraid I would be a bit meh about Essen this year, having been out of the gaming loop so long, but going through the new crop has wet my appetite.

30 Seconds From Mars to Tokyo

Well, more like 8 minutes. And even that is understating it.

Last Friday we first started with Mission Red Planet, a Secret Satan gift that I had on my wish list to play for a year. We were a bit slow in getting to grips with the rules, but finally did alright.

Mission Red Planet is effectively an area control game. Although the player action mechanic copied from Machiavelli/Citadels works well, we felt that this game is more subtle and doesn't give you the satisfaction of pulling off a good on one your opponents like you can in Citadels.

We will bring it back to the table sometime, but it might turn out a bit scripted once you know the game better. I can see the Explorer getting used en masse in the 5th and 10th turns, with the Recruiter in the 6th.

Then it was on to 8 Minute Empire that is really liked by us all. Jeroen got a good introductory game.

Finally we played two games of King of Tokyo. My first game was really bad, not doing any damage before getting killed myself. In the second I managed to stay out of Tokyo for most of the time while acquiring a card that allowed me to recuperate faster. It meant that when I went I went into Tokyo in good health, I won.

Mice, Mystics and Empires

Spurred on by my lack of progress on the boardgaming resolutions for 2014, I spent part of last week reading the rules for 8 Minute Empire and Mice & Mystics. And Friday that made me the master of ceremonies for the evening.

And an enjoyable evening it was: we managed two pairs of empire building at each end of the introductory scenario of the cheese fest.

8 Minute Empire manages to get a lot a bang from its very few rules. Every turn you can pick one of six cards on display, with the order determining the cost of each card. Free for the first card, three coins for the 6th. At the bottom of the card you find the action you are allowed to take. This mostly means placing a varying amount of blocks on the board, or moving them. But occasionally there is the opportunity to build a city or to remove a block of an opponent.

At the top is the symbol of a good. Building sets of goods gains you victory points, but of course some goods score easier than others. Apart from the goods, there are points to be gained from having the most blocks in areas on the map. With 7 to 9 turns (depending on the number of players) you have to chose wisely.

A highly tactical game. With a variable map and deck of cards, there is a enough replayability. Due to the minimalist design it has been compared to Love Letters.

Mice & Mystics is an entirely different beast. A sort of dungeon crawler, but due to the fairy tale setting and wonderful art work and miniatures one that immediate grasps your empathy.  There is quite a bit of information to take in before the game: a reasonable amount of rules, but also some scenario specific information.

I hadn´t had enough time to fully master the rules before playing and although I took on the role of dungeon master (not prescribed in the rules, but a useful variant, I think) there was a misunderstanding with the rules which meant that the players felt the were unduly pushed towards the end. If we had played correctly, they would have had more time.

This game is definitely coming back to the table sometime. I think the setting and scenario´s have the potential to make this a returning favourite.

White Monks, Black Monks, Red Monks...

Played with Da Mike and Da Mir last Tuesday. Good times. First time I ever played In the Name of The Rose. This is and interesting deduction plus placement  game in the setting of the book by Umberto Eco. The setting has no other relevance in that there is a bit of mystery in finding out who your opponents are. But the mechanics worked well and the game was more enjoyable than I thought it might be (no, I didn't win).

As you can see my secret identity was the white monk. He scored the most
evidence points and so turned out to be the murderer.

T
hen finished with a game of Set, which just showed that I'm getting old and slow. The only comfort was that I got better as the game progressed.

Essen 2013 watch out list inaugurated

I´ve put up my list of games to watch out for in Essen at boardgamegeek.com.

Serious gaming: playing King of Tokyo in bed

I have started with Pete Ruth's excellent report on GenCon and will add games from Eric Martin's preview list later.  I'm also adding opinions and reviews from some people who've played the games in the run up to Essen, so you might want to check back once in a while. Your suggestions are also more than welcome!

I will be tweeting from the show as @jurdj on the Thursday and Friday and post a few pics if time allows. And Saturday on the way home we will play a few of the games we bought. In the run up and afterwards I will also post here at Rear Guard Action.

Oh no! Essen is just 2 months away!

Summer is done, time to think about Essen. But I'm not psyched yet. I have not picked up any buzz around an Essen release. It seems some good stuff was shown at GenCon. See the extensive but great report from Superfly Circus.

Phil Ecklund explaining the rules to Pax Porfiriana at Essen 2012

I'm interested in the Mice & Mystics expansion. The Wreck Age minis look good, but I'm at least going to wait till it's affordable. The Pathfinder coop RPG sounds great. And then there's the Firefly game (although I never saw the show), the Blackwater Gulch western shoot out miniatures and Bioshock: Infinite, yes a boardgame of the videogame.

Democracy, one of the few kickstarters present at Essen 2012
made its funding goal and seems to get published soon

What I fear is that this year Essen will  have more kickstarter/indiegogo stands, and fewer games in real development. That would change the atmosphere of the show. Anyway, not having a huge to-do list might actually make me more relaxed, even more so in the week after the show.

Of course, I'm on my honour to play every game I bought last year at least once and although I've managed Slavika and Kolejka once, and King of Tokyo and Gauntlet of Fools half a dozen times, Camp Roskilde has not been played since Essen. It leaves me with two games to play in the next two months:

Signum Mortis: now complete

and the

Expansion for Lupin the 3rd

The trouble in both cases is that I need to invest in reading the rules.

Last year I went full on with this list of interests at boardgamegeek. I followed up that list with a bunch of blog posts before and after the show.

Oh no... not another game!

Given that I am short of time I am thinking of not spending so much time this year on Essen reporting and of not committing myself to an Essen 2013 project (either by not buying games, or not forcing myself to actually play them. In which case: why bother buying them?). This all depends on big plans for writing books.

Evo - my kind of evolution game

Apart from Fürstenfeld, last Friday we also played Evo. And while I was pleased but underwhelmed by the former, I was very pleased and impressed with the latter. Evo combines some sound mechanics with ample interaction and conflict.

The box art tells the story of the game: life is a war of all against all

Every player in the game leads a species of dinosaurs on its way to the ultimate crash down of the comet that will only leave one species standing. If you have gained the most evolution points by then, you survive (=win).

As in all evolution games (eg Ursuppe/Primordial Soup, Evolution, Dominant Species), you acquire new traits over the course of the game that will help your species to prosper, either by adapting to your natural environment, increased speed, higher birth rate or superior combat skills than your competitors, either offensive or defensive.

In Evo, there's a couple of main traits and a load of special ones. The most important are extra legs (you start with two) for movement, heat or cold resistance and horns for combat. And there's a trait that will keep the costs of other traits down (a genetical talent for adaptation). These will turn up randomly at the start of the turn, so you can't count on them being available all the time.

My player board after the first round, in which I acquired an extra (3rd) leg 

The turn starts with the survival roundel which indicates which areas on the board are safe, conditionally safe or outright dangerous. This is determined randomly with the general direction being clockwise, but there's also the odd counterclockwise movement or double step movement. This may suddenly leave your species bound for destruction at the end of the turn.

But the action really takes off with the bidding contest for the new traits that become available. This also helps to establish the turn order. The starting player puts his pawn on the evolution board, normally picking the trait of his preference, with the lowest bid of 0. Bidding is done with evolution points (=victory points), so you must try to keep your bid as low as possible.

The bidding board on the left and the survival roundel on the right

Other players then also place their pawns, but if one of them also wants the trait one of the previous players has chosen, he can overbid. That releases the pawn of the player being overbidden who then place his pawn somewhere else.

You can imagine that this triggers a round of replacements as players move to their second best option, freeing up other pawns. You can also imagine that some players will place their pawn strategically to force other players to bid higher and to move to another place (and point in the player order) they actually prefer.

The action then moves to the map board, where you can move around (based on the number of legs (=movement points) you have and attack others.  The special combat dice determines the outcome. Your chances of destroying your opponent are improved by having more (or bigger) horns.

The map, late in the game when players had scattered.
My pinko'saurs waiting to make their move

After movement and combat, your species procreate into free, adjacent areas. But the game ends with all animals in the wrong place dying. Having heat or cold resistance gives you more options, although the number of animals that you can save this way are limited. It all remains a balancing act.

At this point you score new evolution points based on your population.

Rob won the game by increasing his population quickly and adapting to cold and heat. He also got the trait allowing him to flee his enemies, so we could not go after him to cull his numbers. He ended up with 36 point IIRC. Jeroen was close behind by skillful bidding (I think 31 points).

My board at the end of the game: 4 legs, 3 horns and some cold resistance at last

My strategy of mobility and aggression did work to some extent, because I kept most others at a safe distance, but it invited some retaliation as well.  As I rarely managed to keep more than four of my dinos alive, you can imagine that betting power at the start of the game was limited, especially by the end of the game when new traits were less worthwhile than early on. I sucked at bidding however, and got my traits only late in the game, settling for event cards which in the end proved of little value. Still 25 points or so.

Everybody was so scared of Gerard's killer babies that he received some preemptive attacks. And because he didn't have horns, he lost most of them. Andries got himself stuck in a corner despite having useful traits, especially the adaptation bonus (ie discount on new traits).

But this is a good, fun game. Lots of meaningful and bloody interaction, tough choices and mechanics that work within the theme. Go fetch!

Euros and beer - not a winning combination

Played Friedeman Friese's Fürstenfeld last Friday. This game is a true euro: it is about selling resources to breweries so you can build a palace. It has deckbuilding, optimisation and is essentially multiplayer solo, the only interaction is through the market.

Beer, an inspired choice of theme!
Not that it matters much in a euro

The basic challenge is that you need all the space on your player board to build the six parts of your palace. It is also all the room you have during the game for fields and buildings. So by the end of the game income can become really tight.

Crappy pic of the player board. Note that there are six spaces on it.

The amount of  hops, barley and water  you gain each turn depends on the fields on your player board. You then sell them all to one of the breweries on the central board. Each brewery has its own beer recipe, and so a different demand for ingredients. The mechanism to represent supply and demand is pretty straight forward but works well.

Not such an inspiring board, but it hides a good market mechanism

On the far left you can see the coloured discs which indicate player order. Players with the lowest income go first.

Each turn you draw three cards. You can build a maximum of two on your player board on your turn and hold on to one af the end. This means that on a normal turn you'll have a choice from four cards, although you can use buildings to increase your draw (and thus go through your deck faster) and the number of cards you can retain.

The deck contains the six parts of your palace, improved fields and all kinds of buildings that will give you cash, or allow you to draw more cards, have discounts on other buildings etc. The choice of buildings allows you to pursue different strategies.

We saw Rob building parts of the palace as soon as he could, which limited his income. Andries got a building that allowed him to keep more cards in hand so he could save palace parts until he was able to build them.

I tried to go through my deck as quickly as possible, discarding stuff and increasing my number of cards drawn. This allowed me to build up a large war chest, but meant that I was too late getting to my last three palace parts in hand.

I think Andries was first to build all six parts, but since others built there six part in the same turn and I'm not sure who had most money left (the tie breaker) I'm not sure he actually won.

[edit: in fact it was Jeroen who first built all six parts, but both Rob and Andries also did on the same turn. Andries had the most money (tiebreaker) but had misplaced one of his palace tiles earlier in the game. Rob and Jeroen had the same amount of money so both finished first.]

The game is good fun, not too long or too mathsy. It is easily explained and picked up while the deckbuilding strategies will help replayability. Its appearance is traditional euro design. All this makes it an okay game to play but not one I would feel the need to own given the dozens of alternatives.

The Politest Mutiny

Despite the generous amounts of rum and cutlasses going round in this game, it is very well behaved. In fact, it's a bit dull.

Don't be fooled by the box, no violence in this game. At all

This is a worker placement game, where players bid their doubloons and rum on the favour of five members of the ship´s crew. Each of them offers different rewards for the highest and second highest bidder. Cutlasses which you need to win, rum that you can use for bidding, the ability to give extra resources to players, or to take them away, a tie breaker, and extra doubloons. The first of the crew members also allows you to move some of your doubloons around, allowing you to win a tied bit later on.

The turn is straightforward: first five blind biddings on the characters. The bids are then resolved one at a time to determine the winners and second places, who get their rewards immediately before resolving the next character. Then the next turn starts. You get your doubloons back every turn, but rum used for bidding is lost.

When one or more players have gathered at least 7 cutlasses, the game ends. The player with the most cutlasses wins, with the doubloons and rum as tie breakers.

The game should balance itself through the bidding system, but that doesn't always work. When you've got five or six cutlasses, it's easy to bid everything on the crew member that rewards you with cutlasses  because it is unlikely that all other players will be committing all their resources to stop you. There's a good chance you'll gain at least one cutlass or even two.

The advantage of this game that it is easy to learn, and quick to play. It is a streamlined design (by Kevin Wilson) with no fat on the bones, but therefor it also not so rewarding.

The Joy of Rampaging Through the Roman Empire

As much as I like my civilization games, there's a type of games I like even better: games which bring decay and destruction. I've always dreamed of a version of Avalon Hill's Civilization in which the players start with a fully developed civilization and then get hit by barbarians and other troubles and see their empires decay. That itch is scratched a little by Struggle for Rome, known in these parts as de Val van Rome.

In terms of mechanics the game is familiar but quite different from basic Settlers of Catan. The fixed map is an obvious change, but also the theme is much more warlike than other versions. The players have two tribes with which to invade the Roman empire, lay waste to its cities and establish kingdoms of their own.

The board is an abstraction of the map of Europe, with areas like all Settler boards. However, there are cities at some of the intersections, and some intersections are connected by sea. Also the map is divided in five regions (roughly Germany, France, Spain and Southern and Northern Italy).

Struggle for Rome combines stationary (cities) and mobile (tribes) centres for resource gathering. The randomness of the dice rolls is limited by having four different numbers rolled each turn, and turn order is changed so that all players gather resources, spend these on units or developments, take actions with their tribes in turn, rather than combining all these in their own turn.

There's four resources in three terrain types (mountain, arable and pasture) in this game. There's a neat twist when you draw pasture cards, because they give you either horses or oxen, and you may need one and not the other at this particular moment. Arable land offers you grain and mountains bring stone.

Movement is based on arrows on hexsides. In theory you can move as far as you like, but withing limits of your available resources. You may cross one arrow for free but pay for all the following. Arrows on land cost a grain card or three gold, and arrows at sea cost one gold.

You can pillage or conquer cities. Both require that your tribe has enough tribesmen to overcome the defences of the city, expressed in the number of its towers. When a town is pillaged, the countered placed on it before the start of the game is revealed. This shows whether tribesmen are lost in the attack and what the loot is. This may be gold, a pasture or a development card. When conquering a city, no loot is received, but the town now constitutes a victory point and generates resources in the bordering areas. However, it also ties down tribesmen. A tribe cannot conquer until it has pillage cities in three different regions.

As in many Settler variants, you strive to collect 10 victory points. As we've seen, each conquered city brings you one point, but there's a few alternatives that can determine your strategy for the game, as you can see in the two examples below.

Notice that southern Britain is included, but as two areas of wasteland

The first victory  last week was rather haphazard, as I bought a bunch of development cards early, that handed me two victory points on a plate. I then decided to go for Scourge of Rome by plundering cities in all five regions. After that I had some trouble to build enough towns, as my resources were coming in only slowly. In a neat move I denied my main competitor (who had extra points for his diplomats) the points for Scourge by conquering the last available town before his eyes. I won, but not far ahead of the competition.

The second game I ran for the extra points for conquering four cities with both my tribes. This strategy has the advantage of bringing in generous amounts of resources by the end of the game. Even though the competition was pretty fierce here as well, I managed to win again.

Don't be fooled though. Despite the warlike theme, the game does not call for much interaction between the players. You can't conquer or pillage the cities of other players. That allows for a bit of screwage by hemming other players in, but direct conflict is not on the cards.

So the game is still firmly in euroland, but much more dynamic than the original Settlers. There's less screwage and complexity than in Cities & Knights, but this is probably the best stand alone version of Settlers out there.

There's a small expansion involving the bigger cities, which you can download here.

Wandering in the past in the Czech Republic

I spent last week near the Giants' Mountains in the Czech Republic. On account of most people opting for alpine joys, there was little in the way of cultural refinement. The surroundings would have been promising, since our base was near Jicin, the main town in the famous Imperialist condottiere Wallerstein´s domains.

At least I had a closer look at the local brewery on a hike I managed to make. It looked pretty old.

A neat but disused building just outside Nova Paka

There was a hint of the old imperial legacy in this war monument to the fallen in WWI. Not a conflict many Czechs would feel proud of.

And in downtown Nova Paka, the once glorious Hotel Central had now been taken over by a nice Vietnamese textile salesman.

Note the plastic flowers at the entrance

And even though I didn't get to taste the local beer, I tasted another. It still had this pilzner taste, but carried 11% of alcohol.

It's all a blur now

Such time as I could spend, I dug into Britain After Rome, Robin Fleming's account of the years between the Roman 'occupation' and the occupation by the Normans. There's a lot of interesting stuff in there, mostly because it has a firm grounding in archeological evidence. This often trumps the historical 'evidence', as I also noticed earlier in my review of Edge of Empire, which deals with the Roman presence in the Low Countries.

Gamewise, I managed a game of chess and a few games of Dobble (or Spot It) with the kids. But I pride myself on two victories at de Val van Rome (Struggle For Rome) my favourite version of the Settlers line. More about that tomorrow.

My Secret Satan of 2012

Well then, returned home today and lots to tell and so little time to tell it. So let's start with this:

One of the joys of Fortress Ameritrash is the annual Secret Satan ritual performed around Christmas. It's similar to Secret Santa, but instead a great way to get rid of the worthless crap you compile through bad buying decisions and unwanted gifts. If you feel a bit sentimental, you might slip in a few nice bits to soften the impact of your satanic evil.

But you also receive a load of junk yourself.  Last year I received a copy of Ascalion, the German version of Borderlands, but also a puzzling cd of country songs performed on a Moog synthesizer. So I was pretty apprehensive of what would befall me this year.

Oh boy, was I glad my package turned up late for Christmas…

This meant I would be on holiday when it arrived and I wouldn’t have to touch it for some time. Who knows what hand Lucifer would’ve dealt me?

So when I got back today, I picked it up at my neighbour’s. There was a bit of a wait at the door, but my apprehension was soon soothed when the old men appeared and happily handed me the package. He seemed in fine feather.

Much relieved I returned home, but decided to take precautions anyway. The box was sealed pretty tightly and I consulted a friend of mine who’s in waste disposal about the best approach. I improvised a hazmat suit.

Better safe than sorry, let´s move this MoFo outdoors

Then on to dissecting the box of doom.

This time Satan had not been beating about the bush. The hate was in my face as I stared at the behind of Reiner Knizia’s Modern Art in a dilapidated version. Many a time have I lamented my knowledge of this game and Satan throws it right back at me and my suboptimal talent for In Die Faust bidding. I left the box there to whither for some time and to let the foul stench wear off.

OH NO!!! I've been Kniziad!

As I returned I decided to dig deeper and removed Knizia´s Bane from the box, revealing a stunning edition of Jodorowsky’s Weapons of the Metabaron, a classic French comic. Of course Satan wouldn’t spare me a treacherous trick, as I lapsed on the series some time ago and have no clue where all this fits in the greater story line.

Puzzle

And still deeper down the box, I found this accursed amulet. Taunting me, Satan obviously despises me for my lack of needling skills. In fact, this proves to be the badge of the Colonial Marines in Aliens! That is awesomely cool! I will become a seamster, no matter how and sew this badge of honour on some fitting sleeve!

Bug Stomper: "We endanger species".

And then to top it all off: a kick in the shins on what first appears a friendly Christmas card…

It proves no such thing

Well, I guess I had that coming….

But then... much later, when I sat down to write this post, I thought of actually opening that box of Pandora, and found that apart from containing the accoutrements to the accursed Modern Art, it also held Mission; Red Planet! It looks almost complete, only missing the rules. But that can be fixed. That makes this year´s haul actually kind of awesome. And Satan rather like a big ol´ soft puss...

This game has been on my 'this must be really cool' list for a few years now

PS if you want to know what I inflicted on an unsuspecting victim, look here

Racing through euroland with Hansa Teutonica

Played two games of Hansa Teutonica (or Hanzesteden, as it´s called here) on Wednesday. It's not a bad game, it's well designed. But it is sorely lacking in ideas.

Can you see the difference between this and the Thurn & Taxis board?

The board looks like that of Thurn und Taxis. Not just because it's the same area, but also in design and artwork.

It has the worn out current euro mechanisms and accompanying strategic decisions: economise on your actions or score slowly and steady. Little direct confrontation and no surprises.

If you already own a euro game made in the last 10 years, this one will not offer much more. Which doesn't mean it's not fun to play once in a while.

A Golden Age of Boardgaming? Maybe, maybe not

Quinns, of the Shut Up & Sit Down boardgaming blog and video reviews recently gave an entertaining if longish talk at the GameCity video gaming conference on the development of boardgames in the last 15 years. He contended that boardgames are now experiencing a Golden Age and argues this mostly on the basis of a marriage of 'German' style mechanisms with 'American' storytelling. This is a story often told in many different ways at Fortress Ameritrash?.

The presentation includes many of the most interesting boardgame designs of the period under review (although War of the Ring is incredibly left out, while City of Horror is included for no good reason). If your not familiar with boardgaming design developments, the whole video is well worth watching, otherwise some of it will feel familiar.

The thesis of a Golden Age of boardgaming only partly convinces. There are many signs of crisis in the boardgaming industry and it is doubtful whether more people are boardgaming these days than 15 years ago. So we should at least differentiate between boardgame design, the boardgaming industry and the hobby.  While I can mostly agree with Quinns on boardgame design going through a strong patch, I have strong doubts about the industry and the hobby.

What I will do today is go is explore Quinns argument on board game design, and then discuss the industry and the hobby on Sunday. Part of that discussion has already filtered into my discussion of brick & mortar game shops in the last couple of days.

Design

Quinn uses the first part of the presentation to show the influence of German style boardgame designs from the 1990s. I’m fully agreed that these designs were more accessible than many older boardgames, and the design built on keeping the race tight until the end. But Quinn adds the dimension of the higher quality of components. On the other hand, theme in most of these games is thin.

By the start of the 21^st century these design concepts started to be copied by ‘western’ designers, who mixed them with ‘American’ storytelling. Examples mentioned are Twilight Imperium, Game of Thrones and more recently X-Wing.

Dominion, the start of something beautiful?

To illustrate how quickly innovation is now taking place in design he went over the recent deckbuilding revolution, starting with Dominion in 2008. Thunderstone in 2009 added theme. Puzzle Strike then allowed playing the oppononent’s deck in 2010. And in 2011 A Few Acres of Snow integrated the deckbuilder into a boardgame, modelling the logistics of war.

Quinns actually leaves the two most exciting developments in game design to the end of the presentatio. The Boardgame Remix Kit allows you to combine elements from Monopoly, Scrabble, Cluedo and Trivial Pursuit to ´build the most dangerous things´. Risk Legacy lets players name continents, add new rules and extra information to the board as the result of events during the game. In this way each copy of the game becomes unique, with it´s own history. 

If it weren't for the Halifax Hammer...

While I agree with the general line of his argument I have two questions. On the one hand, we can also see how innovative designs like Dominion are copied and milked by less innovative designers and publishers.  While further developing the deckbuilding engine, are Thunderstone and other deckbuilder derivates actually good games who themselves will stand the test the time?  

You could also argue that most of this innovation is incremental but that these are not game changers. How many people outside, or even inside the hobby niche, will actually notice?  


Boardgames vs videogames

Later Quinns´ presentation becomes an attempt convert video gamers to board games. He argues that the boardgames revival happened because video games lately haven't reached into areas of social interaction, which leaves room for boardgames.

Videogames are versatile, he continues, but they cannot do everything, like talking, bluffing, joking and auctioning. It’s difficult to imagine a paranoid treason game like Battlestar Galactica or The Resistance working in a video environment.

One of the best games of the past decade. It made me watch the series

Boardgames also do stuff that videogames haven’t done yet: like the dungeoneering mega campaigns of Descent. That kind of 'maximalist' game design is not commercially viable in videogames but in some cases in boardgaming.

Most importantly, Quinns sees no real difference between board and videogames. To him they are two sides of the gaming hobby. Board game design principles can provide a solid foundation for video games with the example of  the recent X-Com being designed as a boardgame. The design tools of bardgames are much more accessible, require less investment and are easier to test. 

Paths of Glory, itself a legendary design, is one of the card driven games that can be enjoyed online using ACTS

But as far as I´m concerned the line between boardgames and videogames is already disappearing. Look at the online engines to play boardgames that have become available: ACTS for card driven games, Vassal for wargames, BrettSpielWelt for eurogames and there´s a host of online/browser games from Travian and Die2Nite to iPad versions of many popular boardgames. 

How will this affect boardgames in the future? Will this mean that physical boardgames will disappear and people will play them online with their friends? Not necessarily. The technology to digitalise boards in player mats is already available, which will allow you to play and easily store long playing games for later use.

It will also make it possible to hardwire the rules into the game components, preventing mistakes or cheating, and allowing limited information, hidden movement and administrative chores to be automated, while still retaining the feel of a boardgame! 

Underwhelmed by Mage Knight

We tried out Mage Knight on Saturday and my intent was positive, firing off a few tweets during set up and explanation. It went really quiet after that, though.

The board of Mage Knight towards the end of the game, with most of the map discovered

This is because I got disenchanted really quickly. Even before the end of the first day (half a round) I had just discarded a hand of cards in disillusionment hoping for something useful to come up. That is not a good sign.

As I was stuck behind other players, I had few chances of actually scoring or leveling up, and there were a few turns I was just marching and countermarching, not doing anything.

The complexity of the game is high, with lots of different mechanisms interacting. More than once, actions we'd been planning for a turn had to be revised because we'd overlooked a bit of detail. For example, every terrain type (keep, tower, monastry, questing location) has half a page of stuff you need to know first, and it's not intuitive.

It just grinds the whole thing down. And half of it is not essential to the game. The evil track doesn't affect the game much, so why include it? The game also makes an accounting exercise of something that should be exciting and risky.

This is a thing I've noticed about other games by Vlaada Chvatil, Dungeon Lord and Stronghold. It takes very interesting themes and then harnesses them into euro mechanisms. Like Dungeon Lord, Mage Knight is essentially a multiplayer solo experience. Mostly it's getting somewhere before another player. Attacking other players doesn't gain you much. For me it was a long, boring grind which made me weep deep down inside.

But there was real bad news that night from a few of the other players in our group. It puts gaming (and blogging) back in perspective.

Take care guys. Our thoughts are with you.