2007.12.29
Posted in Board Games at 11:28 am by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
I visited my family for a few days this holiday season, and we played a few different board games. It was interesting to hear their remarks on the games, most of which none of them had played before.
Ticket to Ride: Europe
Everyone seemed to enjoy this game. At the end, everyone remarked that it was a lot of fun once you figured it out. Further, they all liked the fact that the game moved fast, with little downtime between turns. My brother-in-law was also a bit surprised at how much the tickets mattered in the end.
Killer Bunnies
I found that Killer Bunnies dragged a bit for me, but it was an enjoyable game all in all. Once mom caught on, she enjoyed the game, and my sister had played before so got into it pretty quickly. Mom remarked that once she realized that the rules were only a framework and you just needed to read the cards, it was easier for her (and more enjoyable).
Thebes
Thebes took a little while to get rolling, and there was a bit of confusion about a technicality of what happens with expeditions that cross a year boundary, but everyone seemed to enjoy it in the end, though less than Ticket to Ride: Europe. There were two comments of note:
- Several people commented that the downtime was too long between turns. I personally don’t mind the downtime in Thebes, as I find it interesting to watch the other players take their turns, and I also feel the game moves fast enough.
- Mom found it interesting that there were many different ways to get points, and that no one strategy seemed to be better than any other. For instance, I did miserably at excavations, drawing very few points, but I got a large number of congress cards, and wound up winning the game as a result (by fewer than 5 points).
Based on this, I think Zooloretto would be a definite hit with my family, and Power Grid has definite possibilities, so long as things are kept moving.
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2007.12.17
Posted in Board Games at 1:02 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
I’ve been playing board and card games nearly my entire life, and I continue to do so today. One thing that troubles me about the hobby is that many people do not realize that there are many board games available besides mass-marketed ones like Risk, Monopoly, and Scrabble. I’m not suggesting these are bad games – if you enjoy them, that’s wonderful. But you would probably also enjoy many of the lesser-known games, if you knew where to look for them.
I’m writing this article to provide the curious with a starting point in the sometimes confusing world of modern board games. And yes, I’m going to recommend some of them as well.
Since you’re reading this, you’re obviously interested in board games and / or card games. So let’s get started.
Read the rest of this entry »
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2007.12.16
Posted in Board Games at 11:52 am by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
Jason and I played a game of Caesar and Cleopatra that was very odd. I won by a staggering margin – the final score was 22 to 6, or something in that range. I’m not sure how I managed to do that well relative to Jason, but things just always seemed to go my way.
But the definitive victory came at a bizarre price. Not once did Jason draw the reshuffle the deck card from the vote of confidence deck. I had to shuffle the damn thing every time. Weird. Weird all round.
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2007.12.11
Posted in Board Games at 10:49 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
On Sunday, Jason and I tried both Thebes and Zooloretto for the first time. It was just the two of us, so we played the two-player rules for both games, which differ a little bit from the rules for more than two players.
I enjoyed both games, and they were both quite different from games I have played previously.
We tried Thebes first, and I was a bit surprised to discover the length of the rules. While longer than I would have expected, the rules were quite easy to follow, and once we figured the game out, it turned out to be very easy to play. The main tension in the game comes from deciding what to do on your turn. As an interesting alternative to action-point based games like Tikal, In Thebes you can only do one action on your turn, but some actions take longer to complete than others, and thus cause your time marker to advance further. Each player has their own time marker, so the total amount of time you can spend in the game is a fixed resource. You might take a single turn that lasts for 10 weeks in the game, while another player may opt to do 3 shorter turns instead that total up to 10 weeks of cost. The player furthest “back in time” takes the next turn, so it is also possible to end up with consecutive turns if you are taking short turns and other players are taking long ones.
It’s quite clever, and forces you to make some tough decisions. Any time you have to travel there is a cost in weeks, and actions that provide you more gain have a greater cost than actions that produce less gain.
Possibly the most interesting mechanic in the game comes when you decide to excavate on your turn. The longer you choose to run the excavation, the more tokens you get to draw from the bag for your location. However, at the start of the game, 50% of the tokens in the bag are completely worthless, so even if you draw 6 or 7 tokens, you may only get a couple of useful ones (or none at all). Even worse, after keeping any tokens of value, the worthless ones go back in the bag, which means that future excavations are even less likely to produce useful results.
It’s quite a lot of fun to draw the tokens out of the bag one at a time, and it really adds to the feel of the game.
Next up was Zooloretto, which was this year’s winner of the Spiel des Jahres, for good reason. It’s an excellent family game. It espouses all of the values that Eurogamers hold dear. And best of all, it’s neither about resource trading in the Mediterranean Sea, nor does it involve pushing wooden blocks around to achieve majorities in different areas.
In Zooloretto, you get to put animals and vending stalls into your zoo. All of the animals and stalls are delivered by truck, and players cooperatively fill up the trucks. Each round, each player takes one truck back to their zoo, and then they are out for the rest of the round. There is a lot of tension in deciding which truck to take – do you take a truck early, before it’s completely full, to make sure you get what you want? Or do you push your luck? Do you take the truck that gives you the animals you want, or the one that gives you additional cash immediately? And what the heck are you going to do with those animals that you don’t want?
It’s a really fun game with surprising strategic options if you look for them. It’s also simple enough that you can pick it up and start playing very quickly, without a lot of teaching.
In the end, I lost both games, but only by very slim margins. I lost Thebes by a single point, and I lost Zooloretto by only two points. One might argue that I lost Thebes by luck more than skill, but in the end, I did feel that Jason managed his time better than I did, so perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I almost won by luck more than skill. As for Zooloretto, well, I got greedy and it bit me in the end. My zoo was bursting at the seams, and the extra animals cost me a bit too much.
I highly recommend both games if you’re looking for a new Eurogame to try out this holiday season. Zooloretto would get the nod for family gaming over Thebes because it scales to 5 players and would be a bit better for younger gamers, while Thebes might satisfy someone seeking a bit more depth.
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2007.12.04
Posted in House and Home at 1:46 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel
I had last Friday off work, and I’m also off all this week. I’ve been taking advantage of being home during the day and running my errands then instead of in the evenings. The difference is quite shocking.
On Friday, I took my car in for an oil change, picked up the last of my Christmas gifts, and also picked up some Rubbermaid containers to reorganize my linen closet (oh yes, I sure do know how to have fun). I was able to do all of that in about 2 hours. On a Saturday or Sunday, that would have taken at least 4 hours.
Even more noticeable was the errands I ran today. I went to renew my vehicle registration, and there was no line up. None. In and out in about 5 minutes. And, the coup de grace, Safeway on 10% Tuesday.
On the first Tuesday of every month, Safeway gives you 10% off your entire purchase as long as you spend at least $35. The downside of this is that the store is absolutely nuts. I normally avoid shopping on 10% Tuesday since the $7 or $8 I save is more than offset by the fact that it takes forever to get through the checkout lines. Nope, sorry, I have better ways to spend my Tuesday evening than standing in line at the grocery store.
But going before 11:00am was a totally different experience. The store was nice and empty. And, there was no lineup at the checkout. I just walked up and the cashier started ringing me in. Nice. I’m sure I would have hated it around 6:00pm.
Running my errands during the work day has been a good reminder that there is a definite downside to working a 9-5 type job. I do like having evenings and weekends free since those times are when my friends are also off work, but running errands definitely takes longer than it does during the day.
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