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Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Love Letter, Escape: The Curse of the Temple, Nobelemen, Unexpected Treasures, Snowdonia, Suburbia, Mieses Karma, Libertalia, HomeStretch, Keyflower, Ginkgopolis

January is almost over! That's really fast. Lets see what I got to play :)




Love Letter
Been playing a lot of Love letter recently as I feel it is quite a good filler game, great for warming up everyone and a game that all gamers should have a copy of. The power for each character changes quite differently when its 2 players and when its 4 players. Some characters are better to have like No. 8 in 2 players because when you can compare, you will always win. Whereas for more players, you are wary of comparing as it may reveal who you are and someone can easily kick you out by playing a Number 1. Gamers who are quite experienced are also pleasently surprised by a game so simple yet can provide so much fun. A great game and I sure hope to discover more games like this where its simple to teach and learn and in all aspects is a filler type game yet provide many hours of fun.
One thing to note to my horror, I discovered quite recently that I have been playing a rule wrongly. That is the Number 1 character when played, cannot guess another player as having the same Number 1 character! I don't believe it changed a lot of game results but I guess this is an important rule which I overlooked. For those who have played this with me, I do sincerely apologise for my oversight! Oh well, time to play more of Love Letter to overwrite all the wrongly played games of the past few weeks! :p



Escape: The Curse of the Temple
A game that I have heard so much about and Jon had talked about in the podcast. We managed to break out this game for 5 players and boy was it frantic! Like what I have heard in other podcasts, I don't believe I breathed at all till the game is done. It feels like 15 - 20 mins rather than just 10 mins which is a good sign. Our first game we did not suceed though as we were running out of dice and did not have enough to beat the final challenge. Also I was playing the music through my iphone which initiallty I had thought it was loud enough but when we were playing and making a lot of noise, it did not allow us to clearly hear when the doors are closing and when the temple has collapsed. I can certainly see how the game is fun but there are many grey areas where it can lead to a tainted victory. While everyone is trying their best to be honest and play it properly, there will be cases where in the frantic moment, you thought you could unlock another player's dice when you are not even in the same room as he/she is and those few seconds to check and verify maybe costly or break your momentum. I much prefer a game where when you win, you know you won without a doubt and due to your planning (and luck) so I am guessing that when I think i won in Escape, I will wonder if i REALLY won or did someone played wrongly. I would like to try this again especially with my office group and see how it goes but I probably won't have one in my collection.




Noblemen
First and foremost I must rave about the components provided in this game. Its heavy and when opened i can see that it is value for money. Kudos to Tasty Minstrel for the compoennts. The number of cardboard pieces and how thick they are made me happy. The player shields are some of the biggest and sturdiest I have ever seen. In the game, you are trying to expand your estate and thus, gaining certain "resources" by doing so and using these resources erect buildings, get money, get prestige etc all of which will contribute to scoring points for you during the Masquerade Ball and during Estate scoring. An interesting aspect of the game is when end of turn is triggered. There is a queen piece which if at the end of your turn you have, then that triggers the end of turn. This creates a need to plan properly because otherwise you can get screwed when another player grabs the queen during his/her turn and ends that round and you suddenly realise you have less turns than you had expected. Gameplay wise we also found that it is not very forgiving if you make a mistake right at the beginning, it can be quite difficult to get back into the game. Also, we found cards like Cunning Stroke which allows you to place more tiles in a turn (which is vital in providing you resources and points scoring) maybe overpowered. Granted we did not play with the Men-at-arms power too much (only 2 players did), I still did have fun. i would want to have a few more plays but at least 1 player decided that its a lousy game (due to the punishing first start + overpowered card)




Unexpected Treasures
A light role selection type of games where players will first choose a card from a set of identical cards for all players and then reveal it after all players have chosen in secret and resolve. If there are any players with the same cards, they check their player order, switch and only 1 player will be active in that round. The rest will be out. Next resolve the player who has selected the robber and he/she gets to steal a number of objects from the rest of the players who are still active for that round. Then, in ascending order, players will be able to obtain a number of tokens representing goods from the middle of the table. If possible, they can resolve any number of contracts also available on the table by trading in objects that they own and corresponding to the contracts. Contracts provide you points and when all contracts have been drawn, the game ends and the player with the most points wins the game. The game has interesting art, oversized cards (not many sleeves can fit btw) and is easy to teach and play. Going against the norm (i.e. play robber when others are not) and making efficient use of the goods (i.e. not leaving any behind for robbers to steal) is key to the game. I found myself in a different rhythm with the other players and ran away with the game (outscoring by quite a bit). So there really isn't much catch-your-leader mechanism even though you can try by stealing goods but its pretty hard to guess what the leader can play as there are 6 roles to choose from. It is an average game for me and I won't say no to playing it but will not be in my collection.




Snowdonia
A hotness from Essen that I wanted to try and I was glad to be able to get a game of this before deciding if I want a copy for myself. In the game players are assisting to build a railway to the top of a mountain and score points along the way. When the station at the mountain top is reached, the game ends and player with the most points will win the game. During your turn, you choose where to place one of your 2 pawns (you can get a 3rd if you own a train later during the game) and once all players have placed their pawns, in a specific order sequence, players will take actions by removing their pawns. Actions that you can do include getting resources, clearing rubble, getting cards, contribute to building of a station or purchasing a train. I initially thought that the game was kinda long but we later realised we played a rule wrongly and it should have ended in a timely manner. The game does have its own timing mechanism to ensure the game does not drag on and that is cool. Another cool aspect of the game is that there are many paths to victory but most of it involve performing actions to get resources so that you can achieve objectives from the cards that you can obtain during the game. I tried the surveyor without utilizing the train route but got distracted halfway through the game which was detrimental to me. Art and components reminded me of Walnut grove and is nice and cartoony. Not a bad game and can be played solo like Walnut grove and I may just get it for the solo aspect (yes I am now much more open to solo games and may just have a day where I play all my solo games ;p)



Suburbia
Another hotness from Essen that I wanted to play but did not manage to get until recently. As mentioned in previous posts, I am eagerly looking for a game that can give me the same fun and feel that I had with Simcity the video game. I think suburbia does that to an acceptable level for me. The game is easy to play and teach and essentially is obtaining a tile during your turn, place it into your borough and then resolving the tile, adjusting reputation and income and getting said reputation and income and that is the end of your turn. The game does have some progression as you go through category A buildings and end somewhere halfway through category C buildings where A buildings are your basic small town type buildings and C buildings are more advanced, expensive and powerful. So while it seems simple and easy to play, it does require some thinking and planning though not too heavy that your brain will start to smoke so I think this is a medium weight game. One fiddly aspect will be the resolution when placing a new tile because you need to check your borough if there are any benefits to be activated and check each other player's borough because there are benefits that apply to ALL boroughs in play. I wish they had extended the player board another row which includes the various "ALL" benefits and provided tokens to mark them so that players can easily see if they qualify when a new building is added anywhere. Another interesting aspect of the game is the scoring track which will penalize you by decreasing your reputation and income (which can lead to negatives) when you start to move up the track. It is a neat catch the leader mechanism which will ensure that you have established a well balanced borough before progressing further. Unfortunately it feels very much like a multiplayer solitare game and interaction amongst players is limited to the market and objectives and that's about it. I was wondering if its possible to restrict the players to a fixed sized and force players to build into each other's area and even allowing boroughs to connect to each other! I wonder if there will be an expansion like that :) Good game and I recommend.




Mieses Karma
I first heard about this game from Garrett's games and geekiness podcast and was intrigued by the theme which is Buddism, reincarnation and Karma. These 3 words also represent the main mechanisms of the game. In the game, players start off as ants and through helping other players and playing correct cards into their "lifeline", they will be able to "die" and reincarnate into better animals and ultimately back into a human again. The first player who successfully dies as a human will end the game and players then count up the points and whoever has the most points wins (usually one of the players who has reincarnated into a human). Game is light and amusing and the mechanisms of helping others to gain karma and the different powers that the animals have certainly help with the theme. I can see how this game was designed with the theme first and how the mechanisms enhance the experience of the game. For example, usually if the cards in your hand run out you will die and reincarnate. By helping others, you are giving a card away from your hand which in turn will hasten your "demise". Later animals will draw more cards when reincarnated which represents the longer lives these animals usually led and is also quite thematic. Art wise is cartoony and ok and there are little plastic buddhas which you use to keep track of your karma score. All in all, its pretty interesting and unique to me. I will want to play it a few more times just to see if there's too much luck involved. Do give this a try and see for yourself.




Libertalia
I am still not playing this well. I mean there are times where I can predict what my opponents will be playing and be able to take advantage of it. HOwever most plays I won't be able to do so and will suffer as a result. Rarely have i ever won this game :(
Still quite fun as you are trying to second guess your opponents and the powers are interesting. However with the new light filler games that kinda fulfill the need for games where subtleness and guessing of player choices, I am not sure how long this will last though. Also its amazing how pimped out components add thematic value to a game. The metal coins I gotten at GENCON 2012 for this game certainly adds a lot of theme to the game as they feel hefty and has that Chink as they collide with each other. Never underestimate how good components can help with the enjoyment of a game!




Homestretch
Another new release I believe from Essen that I was interested to try after hearing a few podcasts talk about this. After Long Shot, I am interested to see what other horse racing type games there are out there. I haven't had a chance to try Horse Fever yet but I gave Homestretch a try. In the game, players will draft shares for horses and then perform the first part of each race (total 4 races). They will place their betting chits on a chart in the middle of the board to denote bets they make on each horse and their placement in the upcoming race. Once done, the race will begin and that starts the 2nd phase. For the race, players will roll 2 D6 dice and decide to move the horse denoted by the sum total 2 spaces OR 1 space and then reroll again. When 3 horses have placed, the race ends and payout begins. At the start of the 2nd race, there is another opportunity for players to buy more shares and then race 2 will commence. Races 3 and 4 will just have the betting and racing phases. Once the game ends, whoever has the most money will win the game. This is a light party game which does have its share of hooting and hollaring but I think Long shot is more fun. The 2nd purchase doesn't really make sense to me and since race 3 and 4 there are no changes except for betting, they seem to just require players to roll and move the horses which seems a little redundant.Each race has special conditions to stop some horses from moving too early or provide a very big boost when they race. Though I have perhaps seen only a small fraction of the number of races available, I am not sure if there is much variety to make each race different nor interesting. Components wise the horses have engraved numbers which is better than Long Shot's stickers but otherwise the rest of the game is functional. I am not impressed with the game and this is a try before you buy type of game. I have another horse racing game called Bookmaker yet to be played so lets see how that compares to this and Long Shot.




Keyflower
Played with 5 players and taught to a group of 6 players who have never played this before. This is still a very good game for me as timing and observing what your opponents are doing is key to the game. I haven't reached the level where I am actively monitoring what the other players may want or what tiles they will need to activate yet as I am still largely focused on what I need to do and hoping others won't realise it before its too late. Players still seem to underestimate the power of using other players' tiles as you can utilize what other player's may have spent a lot of meeples to obtain AND block the owners themselves out from using their own tiles. I still having a lot of fun with the game and since it plays to 6, will be a definite keeper for me. I would like to try this with 2 to see how it plays though. Lets see if I get the chance to. A great game and highly recommended.




Ginkgopolis
Recently heard on Garrett's games and geekiness about how they do not get the game and feel that its boring and it is very surprising to me. Mostly because so far a lot of the games they like, I do like as well thus I am astonished that they just felt it was boring and did not like this at all. While I feel that once you have the right powers established, you can get a lot of returns each round by just performing that action and it may seem runaway, it falls on the other players to perhaps follow suite and balance the advantage out. I like how you can potentially screw with other players' plans and deny them victory. This latest game though I can see how some can feel that the game is broken and doesn't really allow for strategic planning and is tactical at best. So while I do like the game, I am beginning to see some cracks in the game. Still fun to play and recommended but now will be a try before you buy for me.

P.U.L.P
With regards to the podcast, thank you so much for those who have downloaded and listened and the feedback you have provided. Episode 2 will be out in about 5 days time so look out for it. We are still thinking of interesting and unique topics to discuss and podcast about but feel free to leave comments/suggestions/feedback as we would love to hear from you out there. You can leave the comments in this blog or via geekmail at BGG or even twitter me.

Conventions
Jonathan (my cohost on the podcast) will be heading to ESSEN 2013! I am quite excited for him and all the experiences he will get. This will be a first major Con for him and I hope if there are any people out there interested to help/meetup and say hi, do let him know. You can geekmail him at “jion” on BGG.

GENCON2013! I am 90% sure I will be heading to GENCON2013 again and I am so excited! I was planning to go Essen 2013 but plans change and GENCON here I come. I am excited to meet up with all the new friends I have made and met over the year and would certainly like to meet up with anyone. I will also see what I can do for the blog and podcast while I am there but 1 thing's for sure, I will be posting my pictures like how I did last year so follow me @duckizz on twitter if you want to be kept up to date on the latest and greatest at GENCON 2013!

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Bests of 2012 - Supporting post for PULP:Episode 1


Hi everyone, here are some of my additional thoughts that could not be conveyed effectively via the podcast :)

top 5 surprises
Plato 300
I am now wondering if Guildhall will have similar mechanisms as this. once my copy arrives from Canada (yes I have resorted to ordering from overseas so i can get my hands on it sooner! :p) i will do a comparison. I haven't played this with 2 decks but i think the sweet spot for this will be 3 players.

Space Cadets
Seems to be having rave reviews now and I am not surprised. There are elements which make me want to grab a copy and bring to the office to try but I do prefer more competitive games and I doubt I can form 2 teams and have them fight against each other with 2 copies of the game lol. If I was sponsored and I can find 10 people willing to play who knows! But for now I will give it a miss in my collection. Still you should give it a try and feel the tension and fun when you all make it and the pressure and shame when you screw up and cause the ship to explode and lose.

Xwing Miniatures
The hype seemed to have died down with my groups as there are so many new games to play. That and disappointment in the delay of Wave 2 sale date may have killed my initial excitement for this. Still lets see what happens when Wave 2 appears on the market and I grab a copy. Now I am wondering what to do with the unopened expansions that I have :p

Netrunner
OMG i need to get more plays of this and especially the deck building part. I will be getting my expansions soon and I hope to get more plays in. I have recently purchased a few more deck building-type of games (including Star Wars LCG) and I hope to do a comparison between them. Oh and have you seen the FFG playing mat? I WANT ONE! Come on ffg, sell the extras that you have already!

Terra Mystica
Still in a lot of our minds and still itchy to grab more plays on this. I will try to see if I can "infect" more people and get them hooked on the game. It really is a very good game and also widely received by the gaming public on BGG. I think I will be quite contented when I get to played each race once.

Top 5 disappointments
Scripts and Scribes the dice game
OMG its so ugly and while i was playing it i was so hoping that it will end soon so that we can move on. It did not made me feel I need to use a lot of brain cells during the game as I just react to what I have rolled. Pity as I do love Biblios so I would recommend people to try Biblios over Scripts anytime.

Urbania
I did think that the game was fun when I got it but after a few more plays the busy busy board got to me and secret objectives. One common strategy that I do is to cycle through the objectives right at the beginning rather than renovate any of the buildings. This will allow other players to "help" you to achieve your objectives rather than you do it yourself. At the same time I will try to buy the specialists so that at least I score points every round. So while I wanted to love this game, it did not work out between us lol. I am hoping when I get suburbia it will be way way better. Already Ginkgopolis surpasses Urbania for me in terms of city building. Even Oddville is more fun!

Archipelago
Sigh, I really really wanted to like this game. But the long explanation time for new players as well as the long gaming time (even on the Short objective mode) are real killers for this game. I recently gotten the Solo expansion and I am hoping to get some games in to finally be able to play this to completion. Hopefully there will be other players out there (I just need 1!) to be able to play multiplayer to its rightful conclusion. Looking online it does seem that you need the right group of players to be able to complete the game. Lets see how it goes... *cross fingers*

Rex
So many people raved about it but it just fell through for me. I am not adverse to the universe but knowing that this was based on Dune does allow me to see how Dune theme will sit way better than the Rex universe. Perhaps the way the group played did not have a lot of negotiations and banter as required to make this game interesting and exciting. After 2 plays I just don't feel it and thus was disappointing for me.

Merchants of Venus
Another one that many many people raved about. I was caught up in the hype as well because I listen to a lot of Dicetower and Eric loves it so much and well, i do like a lot of games that Eric loves so I had assumed I will too. Unfortunately after my first play I am not feeling it. I cannot get over the roll-and-move part of the game and it seemed a bit too light for me. Setup also seems to be quite tedious to me. Maybe I require a bit more confrontation (pewpew!)? So far I don't think I have many good space themed games in my collection. Hmm i wonder why....

Top 5 Best games
Andean Abyss
I need to get this out some more and play the solo version. It seems a bit daunting to teach but I think my groups can handle it. I love the different faction victory conditons and the forced interactions between players. Meaty enough for me with just the right amount of player interaction.

Netrunner
Enough has been said above so I won't go into too much details again.

Keyflower
Btw if you are setting up the houses, please be careful. It can be a real pain to set it up nicely as the chimminies seems to be quite difficult to setup correctly. I also need to grab a few more plays of this as it was a very enjoyable game for me. Lots of meeples, nice art and intriguing auction/activation mechanism. Timing here is also quite important because you need to know when to use your tiles and other players' tiles to block them. In our games often other players will curse when their tiles get used up and it is quite satisfying when that happens :)

Milestones
I love this so much that I got this for my secret santa target even though he did not request for it. I really wanted to spread the "love" for this game around and I am glad that he and his family loved the game as well. The most important thing when playing this game is not to set it up for other players. Timing is also very important. If you can time it such that you can dictate the end game round and prevent the other players to make constructive last turn moves, the feeling is awesome.

Terra Mystica
Not much else that I want to add to this. Some games we can sit around and let our mind wander as other players make their moves but Terra Mystica really kept me glued to my seat and focused on the game the whole time and for a game that takes at least 2 hours to play, that is quite an accomplishment to be so engaged and still entertained. Highly recommended and I am really glad I got a copy!

Here is a list of games released in 2012 that I played in 2012 and the number of times I played it.

Plato 3000-9
Android: Netrunner-8
Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game-8
Milestones-7
Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small-6
Libertalia-6
Ginkgopolis-5
Urbania-5
Fleet-4
Ghost Blitz-4
Lords of Waterdeep-4
Noah-4
Terra Mystica-4
Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar-4
Archipelago-3
Dominant Species: The Card Game-3
Farmerama-3
The Great Zimbabwe-3
Empires of the Void-2
Keyflower-2
Myrmes-2
OddVille-2
Rattus Cartus-2
Rex: Final Days of an Empire-2
Seasons-2
The Manhattan Project-2
Zombicide-2
Zooloretto Würfelspiel-2
1812: The Invasion of Canada-1
Andean Abyss-1
Aztlán-1
Catan: Junior-1
Descent: Journeys in the Dark (second edition)-1
Disaster Looms!-1
Empire Express-1
Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards: Duel at Mt. Skullzfyre-1
For The Win-1
Heap-1
Kairo-1
Level 7 [Escape]-1
Merchant of Venus (second edition)-1
Morels-1
Quills-1
Richelieu-1
Rocket Jockey-1
Scripts and Scribes: The Dice Game-1
Shadows over Camelot: The Card Game-1
Sheepland-1
Space Cadets-1
Spartacus: A Game of Blood & Treachery-1
Sunrise City-1
Tahiti-1
Trains-1
Urbanization-1
VivaJava: The Coffee Game-1
ladies of troyes-1
qin-1
pala-1

Monday, January 21, 2013

Can you say Podcast! ;)


so we have recorded and finally managed to figure out this hosting and rss feed thing and our very first episode is ONLINE! :) I have submitted to iTunes as well and it may take a few days before its searchable and all. For the moment, you can click on the link at the side to start listening!

Feel free to leave comments here or geekmail us in BGG. I have also submitted for a guild and podcast entry on BGG and once its up I will update you.

Stay tune for the 2nd episode where Jon and I talk about a hidden gem in each of our collections.

The feed is here
http://s3.amazonaws.com/PushUrLuckPodcast/pulp_feed.xml

iTunes is here
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/push-ur-luck-podcast-pulp/id595424362?mt=2

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Urbanization, Noah, Geistes Blitz, Zooloretto Dice Game, Love Letter, Crows, Inception and Samurai the card game


HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

So the wife is now in Singapore with me and we managed to have a few good game sessions between us and with friends. However since its the christmas and new year season, I did not get to game as much as people are on holidays, I went to Hong Kong as well with my wife and so this recently played post will be rather short.
 
Urbanization
The rules were kinda confusing on this one and this is one game that I did not really know what I was doing even halfway through the game. I did some of the basic strategies like carving out enough land for myself so I won't be crippled later on and expanding through tech initially and generally not doing what the others are doing. I think the concept or terms used in the games are quite different from other usual terms that it confused me. Essentially you are to score points and win the game. You are trying to grow your city gradually without overstretching yourself as there is the dreaded feed phase every turn. You can make money and thus points by means of citizens in your city or by factories producing goods or by tech. I went quite early on into the factory route but did not know how to capitalize on it. My other friends enjoyed the game and felt it was good though. Maybe its just me :)

Noah
Played Noah again with the wife and friend in Hong Kong. I brought this along because its a very small box and quite fun to play. Not much new for me to add to this game except its a pretty easy going game, easy to teach and the variants are a MUST if you are playing with experienced gamers so that they will still find interest in this game.
 
Geistes Blitz
This game was introduced to me at my regular gaming group when one of them bought this from Hong Kong. So I took this opportunity to buy a few copies as well and played it with my wife. My wife loves it. I brought it to office to play as well and so far everyone has been enjoying it. Its a good filler game great for warm up and for preparing players for longer games ahead. The game essentially requires players to grab the item that appears as is (both color + shape of item) on a card that is drawn each turn OR grab the item that does not appear at all (both color and shape) on the card. If you grab the wrong item, you are penalized and must return a card that you have previously won. The game ends when the deck runs out and the player with the most cards wins the game. For a more tricker game, you can play with the variants which require you to say the item out instead of grabbing and even saying the item in a foreign language. Initially most players will find it abit difficult to play even the basic game but after multiple plays you will definitely get a hang of it and will mostly likely improve. Highly recommended!
 
Zooloretto Dice Game
A box filler with my order from the germany site it is basically zooloretto with dice. A very interesting note of the game would be when you remove dice from a truck, that truck is suddenly free for any remaining player to place dice in. So surprisingly it will pay more often than not to be the last 1 or 2 players. The game ends when 1 enclosure is left in a player's sheet or ALL enclosures are filled. Players will then count up their scores and highest score wins. Easy to teach and play and good amount of fun for the time length.
 
Love Letter

So yes yes everyone has been raving about this game and I must admit I was very apprehensive about the game because it seemed to be way too light for me to enjoy it even a little. My friend got me the japanese copy (because I love the art from there) for christmas and I proceeded to get a few plays of this in. I have played 2p, 3p and 4p and 2p and 4p experiences can be quite different. for 2p, once you have the No. 3 card where you compare cards and you have a rather high card (>5), you will usually win that round. No. 1 card where you have to guess is not as effective in a 2p game. For 4p, the reverse seems to be true. The No. 1 card can be surprisingly effectively, due to the number of cards that are already discarded. No 8. card, the princess, is a pain to have very early in the game. Its been quite well received and everyone who played it liked it because its small, easy to teach and play and quite a fast little game. The japanese version of the game have some rule differences and did not provide a lot of tokens to indicate round wins. That is because it seems that japanese version only instructs you to play once or twice to determine the winner whereas the AEG version states a certain number of tokens before you win the game. If you want something light and won't really blow your wallet, this is recommended.
 
Crows

A light-medium weight tile/worker placement game where players draw a tile and place it OR place a tile which depicts trash. After which, players will place their gem token on any empty tile on the board. Once all players have done so, then the crow-eeples on the board will fly towards the nearest gem token based on certain rules. Players will then score for each crow-eeple that is on the same tile as their gem token. Players remove their gem tokens and the round starts again. Once the number of face down tiles is finished, then players see who has the highest score and that person will be the winner. In this game, turn order is very important because sometimes being first will be very beneficial but most of the time being last and having special tiles which can screw up others' plans is better. We played a rule wrong involving scattering of a murder of crows (more than 5 crows in 1 spot after scoring) and this may have impacted our game. I will try it again before having any concrete opinion. So far its average for me. It is fun just not sure if it will last in my collection.
 
Inception

I mentioned about this game in a previous post and since I had a chance to head to Hong Kong, I bought a copy. They did not have the 1st edition that I played but they have the 2nd edition which has additional new elements to the game. We played the basic elements first and already trying to translate the cards was a tedious for us (sad to say!). Still we manage to play the game more or less but the game ended very shortly as most of the other players are still relatively new so they did not guard against my (as the dream master)'s power and a traitor (to their clause) helped me win the game. I will definitely need to spend some time to write proper translation to the game and make it easier to play and bring it out more often to play. I do think it is fun and interesting and the new features add quite a bit to the game. There are now nightmares which occur at each level, more characters and more powers and more cards for example there's a card that forces a change in character to a person which can be quite damaging depending on the differences. Pity these chinese games are not getting a lot of limelight in BGG. Asian games in general are slowly getting some recognition with japanese and korean games in the forefront but still much can be done especially from the publishers to break into the European and american markets.
 
Samurai:The Card Game

Last game I want to talk about in my list is Samurai the card game. I played my good friend's copy some time back and was itching to get my own copy. This is an abstract light-medium game where you are placing cards and hoping to be the majority when a village card is surrounded to win the respecting wooden piece (circle, square or triangle). The game ends when any one wooden piece is depleted or when the village deck runs out or when a player runs out of cards completely. The final scoring is tricky. Players compare to see how many majorities they have. If a player has 2 or more majorities, they will win the game (max 3 majorities anywaY). Otherwise, those with majorities will disregard that piece that has majority and count al other pieces. The player with the most pieces wins. Thus in the game, you are trying to outmanuver other players, make sure you have at least 1 majority AND still have most of other types of pieces. Another quirk of the game is that it requries quite a large space to play. That is because, dependant on the village cards that appear, players may sometimes concentrate on 1 side and thus leading the growth of the cards to 1 side only, creating a lopsided landscape.I would recommend this game to players who like abstract games and can spend around 30-40 mins on the game. Quite good for a Reiner game but absolutely no theme.
 
So all in all, still quite a few good gaming sessions. I still have some games waiting to play (especially Letters of Whitechapel) and i cant wait to bring them to the table. My german shipment with some anticipated games (like Sator) is unfortunately shipped back to the sender after being sent China by mistake (people Singapore is NOT in CHINA!!!) and repeated emails still have no response from them :(. I will also plan on starting something so cross fingers there and in my next post I hope to be able to share some exciting news :D