I'm back after a weekend of gaming, my annual invitational gaming event.
IN one way, too much gaming - in other, not enough.
Started at about 10 AM thursday, came home about 6 to have dinner and sleep. Got back about 11 Friday, stayed till 0430 Sat morning. Came home, slept three hours, went back at about 10 Sat AM. Stayed till 6 AM then came home [at six am, pretty much everybody left the gaming room to hit the sack]. I didn't go back after I woke up because my boy had a Scout meeting at 2 PM that actually ran late, so after that I took a nap till about 7.
Next year I'm going to do my darndest to stay at the hotel, even if I am local [45 min drive is technically local, I guess].
We had about 125 attendees, from brand newbies to folks who have been 7 years. Everyone was awesome and friendly.
Hot games this year were:
Egizia - medium weight worker placement/resource management game about building monuments in ancient Egypt. I liked this one, playtime was reasonable, it wasn't a total brainburner and but you still had to make wise choices [but you could recover to an extent]. I actually won the first game we [three newbies] played, by five points, thanks to the 'Get 8 points at endgame' Sphinx card. Next game I played, I had a solid third. In both games the scoring was pretty close - the second game, a 4 player, first and second place tied, the tiebreaker was their position on the scoring track, and the other players were within 10 points or so, in the 70s IIRC.
The Gates of Loyang - I don't know if this is new, but it was popular. I think it's Uwe Rosenberg, and it's got a very familiar feel to Agricola although it's not as slow, and has a little more player interaction. I think it is good, it's just not my kind of game. Farming/marketing/satisfying customers.
New to me - Evo. This one was OOP, although I heard rumors of an upcoming reprint. When I saw Philippe Keyaert's name on it I was not surprised, I can definitely see the genesis of Small World in Evo.
You're playing dinosaurs on an island that has different terrain types and is too small for everyone [sound familiar?]. The game clock is a meteor track, so it's a limited number of turns, but can end one or two turns early based on an a die roll [meteor arrives early]. You bid on genetic mutations to help your dinosaurs survive cold or heat, breed more quickly, or survive battles more easily. It's pretty fun, more strategic than it looks, doesn't take a whole long time, and is deceptively cute.
The late-night, party-game hit of the weekend: Telestrations. Obviously the people you're playing with have a great deal to do with this, and the atmosphere was just right for certain things to be hilarious, [plus it was late] but this was successful. Players each draw a card with six words or phrases, a die is rolled, one of two words is selected, and the player draws it on an erasable pad within about 45 seconds. Pads are passed to the next player [we had 8 each time], and s/he writes their guess on the next page. Page is flipped again, passed to the next player, who draws the word the previous player wrote. Etc. At the end the initial player has his pad and goes through the chain with the group. We had some that went all the way around [sugar cubes], and some that were hiliariously wrong. "Make-up" became "queen latifah" became "queen" became "big bottomed girls".
"Potty mouth" became "toilet smile", and "stink bug" because "fart bug". There's scoring, but it looked like a pain in the ass and it really didn't matter. If hilarity ensues [and it did], everyone wins.
The board game big hit of the weekend: Dungeons and Dragons: Castle Ravenloft.
I played this three times, and I know I saw it out at least another ten times or so. Cooperative dungeon quest based on D and D [not sure if it's canon on 4e or whatever], where the dungeon is build with puzzle piece map tiles 4x4 squares big as the party [fighter, mage, cleric, ranger, rogue] explores it. The game comes with scenarios which are generally of the "go in the dungeon and defeat this monster" to "go in the dungeon and grab this treasure". Depending on how discussion goes, and which scenario is chosen, it seems like it plays in 1-2 hours [less if you get killed] and is true cooperative with no traitor. The turn itself flows pretty quickly [move/move, move/attack, or attack/move; then explore to get a new dungeon tile; then optionally resolve an encounter from the deck; then monsters controlled by that player move/attack], the length is in the discussion and planning. The way monsters are controlled seems pretty ingenious - there's no need for a DM [although we did have one 'keeper of the figures], since the monsters move in a programmed fashion as shown on their card.
Treasures, traps, spells, skills, lots of great figures, and an exciting co-op time: this one was a hit. As I said, I played it thrice and would have done a fourth. It's for 1-5 players. The only concerns I can see based on those plays are:
- limited number of scenarios [I think 15 or so] - but the way it plays out changes [different map layout, different treasures, can choose different characters, different monsters, etc] each time. Plus it's quite likely there will be fan-written scenarios, maybe official ones as well, and there is already an expansion planned, I think.
- limited number of monster types. Then again, this does keep costs down, and how many do you need ? We encountered about 8-10 different monster types not counting boss monsters, IIRC. I would like to see a few of the more iconic D and D monsters [beholder, gelatinous cube, etc], but no real complaints so far. The variety was still pretty good. Plus many of those were referenced in encounter cards, which is a great way to involve them without jacking up costs with figures.
- Figures. There are tons of great figures in the box, including a six inch dragon. The one complaint is that the player figures are all the same color, so it would be nice if they were tinted differently, though it's not a deal breaker.
- Table space required. Depending on how the dungeon lays out, you could end up needing lots of space. Still, that's the case with many of these games.
I really liked this one. I don't know if I can sell it to my family, and I don't know if my gaming groups are up for it [I'm in two, one usually likes lighter stuff, and the other is more hardcore Euro], but I think if I went to a game night at a store I would definitely get takers. Plus it can be single player as well.
MSRP is about 65 I think, but it could be had for 55 [Amazon] or 50 [Cool Stuff Inc], and I really want this one.
Other game I played:
Dominion Prosperity - not sure what I think about that 10 point province card. I had one turn where thanks to the Bank and the Counting House I had ~30 money - but only one buy. Maybe just the layout we randomly selected but definitely 'big money' focused. Still, it's Dominion, one of the most replayable games in existence.
Ascension - or - Hey Look I'm like Dominion - This left most folks underwhelmed. Has a few changed mechanics from Dominion, but only some of them add to the game, the others add unnecessary cumbersomeness. More of a Magic feel in that there are many more unique cards in one game than in Dominion, but instead of improving it, it seemed to add clutter to the game.
Founding Fathers - had a quiet but strong following. You control states and delegates during the signing of the Constitution. There's lots of very interesting flavor text, and different ways of scoring, but the game has some parts that don't flow as well based on my single play. I'd be interested in trying it again but am certainly going to wait before putting it on a wishlist.
I didn't play as huge a variety of games this year, but I did play the games I enjoyed multiple times. Plus I introduced some newer folks to more middleweight games [Long Shot, Roll through the Ages, Forbidden Island, each got multiple plays]. Plus timing was interesting - someone asked me to play Cuba at 0300. No thanks. And another table started Dungeon Lords at about midnight. [I initially had interest in this one till I saw it played].
TL;DR version:
Telestrations - wacky fun for many people.
Ravenloft - great co-op in D and D universe in less than two hours.
Egizia - the new hotness in resource management/worker placement.
Ascension - disappointing, and totally superfluous in the year 2 AD [Anno Dominion].
So, an awesome, tiring, too short weekend of gaming. And I can't wait till the next one. Also can't wait till I delve into Castle Ravenloft again.
ing awesome BSG.
