Week gaming ending 13 Oct

Lets go lets go lets go!

DOS RIOS

Often the 2 rivers combine...

Dos Rios is a worker placement game where during your turn you are trying to place your people at the best places to capitalize on the upcoming harvest which may activate all tiles that are irrigated by the river or certain tiles only. Whenever harvest is activated and your people are on that particular tile(tiles), you will get $100. The objective of the game is to be the first to build all 5 buildings (you will need $3000) or 4 buildings that are all irrigated (including a Hacienda) which you will need $2500. This is a game where there is a LOT of pushing, shoving, positioning and sabotaging the other players. A game of high interaction and careful planning. The game is rather simple to teach and play, but can be highly tactical and surprisingly deep. Not bad.

QUEBEC

So many colors!

I manage to bring out Quebec again. This game is very fun for me as there are so many avenues to win and you need to attract the other players to contribute to your building thus allowing for interaction during the game. I still have yet to grasp the scoring fully as I lost horribly in the game to the rest who are new players. This game could use good player aids though for players to refer as there are a lot of symbols and interesting concepts in the game. A good medium weight game that I recommend.

ELEMINIS

So I discard your poop, i mean earth..

I have heard of this game but never thought it will fit my group. A colleague of mine placed and order and we brought it out for 8 players during an office lunch session. Its a very light game where you just react to the card that you draw during your turn. Objective is to get 5 different types of elements in front of you (stars count as wild) and you win the game. There is a lot of screwage and its pretty hard to win unless people do not notice you or you happen to pick up the right card during your turn to win. This portion reminds me of Evil Baby Orphanage or Munchkin where there are a lot of things that others can do to stop you from winning but you just need 1 lucky draw/move to win. Party game and not really for me nor my usual groups.

AGRICOLA:ALL CREATURES BIG AND SMALL

Very low scoring game. I won with 11 points.

Brought out this game again and this time around, it was a pretty low scoring game. I am not sure is it because we were guarding each other very effectively or we both had the same mindset but I won by 4 points only. This game is surprisingly hard to find in Singapore at affordable prices. If you have read my previous post, you will notice that at Essen, they will be releasing an expansion for this with new special buildings and other stuff. I will be looking forward to that as this is a good game with nice bits. Now if they gave a few more of those (4) cardboard tokens then we won't have a leaning tower of Sheepples.

ANDROID: NETRUNNER

See my super protected remote server? Did not work :(

I was the corporation this time and I must say I have more fun playing the runner. This game requires a very good shuffle of the cards because if you don't happen to draw Ice during your first few rounds you are pretty much screwed as the runners can get their way with your servers. I do wish there was a rules translation to modern terms to allow for better understanding of the rules (i.e. Firewall instead of Ice, Hacking instead of Running) but after a few plays you get the hang of it and its smooth sailing. I was hoping that my very protected remote server can serve as my agenda scoring machine but I neglected my R&D which gave the Runner the final 2 points to win the game. This game lasted longer than usual due to the runner not having many icebreakers and me not having a lot of credits to do much. Still a very good game for me and I do look forward to the expansions that FFG has already announced.

SEASONS

Did not seem as fun anymore! Noooooo

Seasons! My copy is still with my wife in NYC and I managed to get a play with a friend's copy. As mentioned on several other places, the components are really nice. Dice are large and chunky and the art work is really astounding and Hi-resolution. Only complaints are the score board could have been larger and the player card could have been larger as well. This is because to keep track of your score and summoning limit, you use the standard cubes which are a little too big for the numbers they are covering. You also need a surprisingly large amount of space to play due to the number of cards you can summon. In the early stage of the game I was leading as I was getting 3 points at the end of every round for having at least 4 energy and it seemed like a difficult case for my opponent to beat me. Halfway through and near the end, he managed to score 20+ points due to the cards which counts the number of magic items that you have in play. At the end, we had thought we were at a tie until i realised every card in your hand deducts 5 points. So through this, I won by 5 points. Its not a bad game but sometime during the game I found the game has lost its luster and glamour for me. I was really looking forward to my copying reaching here and playing it with my wife but now it seems to have reached a new MEH level. What has happened? I am not too sure..... :(

1955: THE WAR OF ESPIONAGE

Its a simpler reimagining of Twilight Struggle

Last game of the night I brought out 1955. This game reminded my opponent a lot about Twilight Struggle in terms of the push and pull mechanism of the game. We were pretty tired at this point so did not really think a lot and put up a lot of struggle. I manage to win by getting my opponent's home country into my area. I do like the game (now that I know the correct rules) and I hope to get more plays in before I decide if it stays or if it goes.

ESSEN

Yay! Its coming its coming and I cannot wait to look at the online shop to see what goodies i can grab. Though it will take a slow boat to reach me (as in real ship-shipping), its still way cheaper than paying for the air freight from usa to Singapore. Its surprisingly that most online shops in USA do not offer ship-shipping. I bet they will make a lot of money if they do as most people outside of USA can order more freely without the expensive air freight prices!

SECRET SANTA

Yay the BGG's secret santa sign up is now on! I had a lot of fun last year and I will definitely be joining this year again :) I wonder if the podcasters have their own secret santa where they give each other gifts. Hmm.. interesting food for thought.

Week of gaming ending 5th Oct

I have been gaming quite a lot lately as I am running through my GENCON goodies hoping to get a good sense of what stays and what has to go to make room for ESSEN goodies! :P So here goes my gaming session reports!

DESCENT 2nd EDITION

Laying some HURT on them heroes!

So I was pleasantly surprised and very excited when I heard that one amongst the group of lady librarians that I play boardgames with actually bought descent! We had a gaming session over the weekend and we brought it out for a go. All of them (except me) have not played Descent before so it was interesting to see how they interact and play the game. I have only played the 1st edition once when I joined a meetup in New York and it was an ok experience but took 2 or 3 hours to play.. The 2nd Edition was rather fast as it took just a little over an hour to setup and play. I, being the slightly more experienced gamer, took on the role of the overlord. On hindsight, I think I was a little too brazen being the overlord as I marched my boss creature up to the party of heroes to try to lay some hurt on them. I did manage to KO one of the characters though before they collectively brought me down. Components are excellent as usual of an FFG production though unpainted seems to leave something more to be desired. Gameplay is rather straight forward as you move, and if you can, fight. Roll some dice and see the results. Dice are also engraved so its easy to see the results of your role. The first introduction game though may not immediately capture the players in though this could have been bad Overlord-ing from my part. Still, I think this game will shine if there is a group of dedicated gamers that invest in their characters and want to play the campaign mode. I do hope that the gaming group can "level" up and get to like it enough to play campaign but we'll see. Players that do not prefer the co-op element should avoid this as it may get a little boring for them. 

DIXIT Odyssey 

Hoppity hop hop

We broke out Dixit for something light after our Descent experience and we played 2 games of this. One with the Party rules and the other with the normal rules. We much prefer the normal rules as you as the story teller get more incentive during the game. Though I personally felt that the Party rules had a bit more depth as you have to psycho analyse the group. This game involves a lot of creativity among the players as well as a lot of analysis to second guess people. The normal rules though tend to break down a little when the number of players gets larger mainly because even if your clues are obvious, there will be at least 1 or 2 players that will not get it and thus netting you the 3 points. The group had fun playing the game and that's always good! :)

KAKERLAKENPOKER

Here's a cockroach....no really its a cockroach!

I love this party game. Its light and fun to teach and play. Good card quality (though I may have to sleeve them soon from the many plays) and interesting art. Though its amusing to me that the different graphics used for the same animal seems to confuse people. There is a little symbol on the top left and right corners of the card but people tend to focus on the main picture and also miss the color tones used. Nevertheless, it requires players to try to out think others and this makes it very fun for me. It will also fit very well as a drinking game (if you lose, you drink) and that should make it more fun as one struggles to out think with a befuddled brain. Highly recommended!

PASTICHE

Mix a little here, Dab a little there...

I first played Pastiche at my previous apartment when a gamer visiting from New Zealand popped by. That was the first version and did not have the fancy frames that this newer version had. The whole box is chock full of high quality components which makes it a very visually pleasing game to look at. I would have preferred the board to have an easy to view color chart so that we won't need to keep referring to our small player aid to see what colors we get. Overall I feel that this game is pretty light and the theme a bit dry for my taste. There is not a lot of interaction nor direct prevention of the leader from running away. The game also takes a little too long for my taste. While the game requires trading with each other, there is often not that much incentive to trade unless you are hitting the hand limit at the end of your turn. 

KARNAXIS

Its like Rat Race advanced!

So one from my usual gaming group bought this and brought it for us to try out. Its a game that reminds me of game of life or even Ratrace (from donkey years ago). Basically you have a character and some stats to start off with and throughout the years, try to earn as much money as you can. You can do so from a variety of ways which is working hard, achieving your Karnaxis (or goal in life), planning for retirement, stocks as well as setting up companies. Even though the theme is overused and not uncommon, I did not feel the game was very bad or boring. Granted there is now errata and new version of the rules to counter some of the complaints and lack of proper play testing, we still had quite a bit of fun. Oh and the art is horrible. It could have been done way better and may have brought up the level of enjoyment up quite a few notches. But nevertheless, it is pretty fun. You can play this solo as well. Not exactly a modern boardgame but still quite playable.

FARMERAMA

Water makes the world goes around!

Played another round of Farmerama before I sold my copy off. I realised that one of the elements of the game that I dislike is when you are performing your own actions, not exactly paying attention to others nor are others able to check on what you are doing. Though we are all honorable people and trust should be fundamental in your gaming group, sometimes, especially after a long game session, people can get tired and make mistakes and no one is usually paying attention to help you correct it. I feel I am beginning to shun games like that as it feels like a multiplayer solitaire. I am finding i like my games with a lot more interaction.

SIBERIA

Dig Dig Diggity

I have heard a lot of this game but I did not pull the trigger on it because well, the art was so-so to me. Luckily one of my gaming group friends got a copy and I had a chance to play it. Not a bad game but quite subjective to what you draw out of the bag. Every turn you get to draw 6 chits out of a bag and then you decide where to place them. There are several actions on your card and once an action has 2 chits, you can perform that action. Once you have arranged them, the player turn begins. Each player turn in the chits for that action they wish to perform and then perform that action. Each player plays and action and then the next player takes his/her turn and so on until all players have passed. Most of the actions involve digging up materials and you can dig up as many materials as you have workers on the map at the right locations. Then you sell them and immediately get the money. The player with the most money at the end of the game wins. One of the problems i have with this game is the trust issue i mentioned in Farmerama. Another is that there is not much incentive to spawn more goods on the map. You can spawn when you cannot place the chits on the board. Every such extra chit will translate into a good on the map which you ca choose from the supply on top of the board. But since players will tend to try to dig as much as they can to earn more money to win the game, you may end up not being able to reap what you sowed. Furthermore, its not that easy to create extra chits to cause the resupply. I may need a few more plays to "test the mechanisms".

AGRICOLA: All Creatures Big and Small

Not one of my better plays as I had thought I was doing well but I did not have a lot of high value buildings and lost the game. Its a pretty neat little 2 player game and with very little randomness, its all dependent on the players so in this way, I guess its somewhat like a chess game. The very nice animal-eeples really do help make the game more acceptable by the masses. Good game, Good game.

MARE BALTICUM

Hey that's my fish!

Next game we played was Mare Balticum which is essentially a fish game with a unique movement mechanism. Each player has 3 actions per turn which you can either move a ship token (all ships must still be linked), fish (pick up a fish token where you have a ship on) and sell fish (at a port where your ship is there). Easy to teach and play and there is a bit of strategic depth to the game which is surprising given how light the game seems to be. The artwork is gorgeous and it was made known to me that they made the boards in clay and took a picture and printed the pictures out. That to me is awesome though they could probably sell the clay version as a deluxe version of the game. Good game, good game.

FIFTH AVENUE

what am i exactly doing here?

We had tried to play this game the last time but the rules kinda confused the whole bunch of us. It was rather late though so that may have contributed to the confusion. This round left most of us feeling lost and not being able to have a good grasp on the gameplay and the objectives. I sort of kinda got it halfway through the game but I did not win. This game requires a lot of "guarding" each other so as not to have a runaway victory so there's a lot of screwage involved. Definitely not a first play game and requires a few more plays to have a better understanding on what you need to do. Definitely a Euro game with a pasted on theme. There are some questionable design choices (the cards number from 4-6 which are used for auctioning) and art is dated. Might have potential but for now is a confusing game for me.

HOITI TOITI

Look at all the thieves that got caught

Another game that was won in an auction, this version is the predecessor to Hoiti Toiti. A player's turn consists of choosing a location and then choosing an action that you can do at that location. The winner is the first player that reaches the pink squares at the end. It is easy to teach and play but surprisingly deep because  you are always trying to guess what other players are choosing and trying to 1-up them. Will he be trying to steal my collection (which is used to score movement points on the board)? Should I play my police now to catch the thief? How much should I bid to win the art piece to my collection? Will I be able to play my thief to steal the bid? A very good game and I would like to see what improvements the new version has over the old.

LE HARVE

we tried to squeeze as much as we can into a small table

Le Harve. What else do I need to say about the game? Interesting playing 3 players as there are some buildings I have not seen when playing solo. I started aggressively building and was doing well until I struggled with getting loans or feeding. In the end my mid game strategy got screwed up and all I was doing is struggling to pay the food and loans. I lost with a score of 111. We barely broke the 150 score barrier though so either we were very good at blocking/guarding each other or the shuffle of the cards made it difficult game for us. Great game nevertheless and we all enjoyed ourselves!

Boardgaming in New York City

So in case you don't know, I was in NYC to visit my wife who is currently studying in Columbia. That also allowed me to make a side trip to GENCON 2012 of which I am very grateful to be able to do. While in NYC, I managed to get some boardgaming done as well and meet up with a friend, Gil, who designed Prolix.

AGRICOLA: All Creatures Big and Small

I'm the Rhino btw.. no points for guessing why :P

Agricola:All Creatures Big and Small - I scored
50 points and won! Wife wants a rematch.

I have been wanting to play some games with Wifey for some time now but given that she is now in NYC and I am still in Singapore, that is kinda difficult. Also, I have been shunning from 2 player games mainly because I do prefer more people in my boardgame sessions. After trying out Twilight Struggle, I decided to stop avoiding them and embracing them instead. Thus I went on a 2 player games buying spree and when I visited my wife, I decided to try one of them. We tried Agricola:All Creatures Big and Small. I had Morels as well but did not have a chance to try it. 

Agricola:ACBAS is a light version of Agricola and focusing only on the animals. It is a simple game and plays within 30 mins. It is also relatively easy to explain but I think I fudged this up a little. 

Side note: I MUST find someway to improve how I explain games. During GENCON, I have had the opportunity to see how the volunteers demoing games explain games to people.. The best seems to be able to merge story and theme with the mechanics. In most of my explanations I tend to just go for the nuts and bolts (win by most points, how you win? do this and that) and I hope to improve on this in the future.

I will not go into details of the game because you can read a lot of the reviews online at BGG. It is a fun game and my wife demanded a rematch after our first play. I must say having very cute components is certainly a draw factor to me now when playing games. They could have easily provided cubes to represent the animals as they did in Agricola (without the animals expansion) but I am so glad they went with the horses and sheeps and pigs. Its light, fun and attractive, I highly recommend it for those who are into 2 players or hoping to draw their other halves into the world of board gaming!

GOA

GOA - I have heard so much about this and
finally manage to try it. Interesting Euro which
will definitely reward more plays so that you
get a hang of what is important. I am starting
to realise i suck at Auction games.

The last time I was in NYC, I attended a Meetup at the cafe Cosi. I decided to head on down again this trip as well as meetup with Gil who had helped me previously. I saw some familiar faces and when Gil was here, we decided to play his favorite game, Goa. Now I have been hearing about Goa for some time now but never had a chance to play it so I was quite excited to try it. Goa, like a lot of euro games out there, is all about obtaining resources and then using these resources to advance yourself and thus position yourself to score points during the end game. Each player usually have 3 actions per round and each round starts with an auction. The unique part of this auction is the market (center of the board) with which each player will choose a tile for auction during that round. Each player also has a player mat which shows the progress of each sections which will help the player in subsequent rounds and count towards the final score during the end game scoring. During the early part of the game, I thought I was doing quite well as I was proceeding at a steady pace. But nearing the end of the game I realize I was not utilizing the tiles in the market well and lost out in the end. Its a typical EURO game and kinda feels dated to me in a way. Still fun though!

VILLAGE

VILLAGE - One of my favourite games of 2012.
There were 2 tables of this being played and
I won handily as I had majority in 3 of the regions.
I am RED player btw.

After Goa I was looking around for another game to play before meeting my wife for dinner and Gil did break out Village to play. There was another player who wanted to play so I gave up my seat, since I do have a copy at home. Then another group brought out Village as well so I decided to join them. Village is a very fun Euro that is recently released and I was glad I snagged a copy from Germany. It is not too difficult to explain but perhaps needs a few plays to grasp what is important. It is colorful with good components (except when you have to stick the stickers right at the beginning). The unique mechanism is the killing of your own people which itself is a viable strategy and may score you points in the end as well! This also helps to speed the game along too. This game only 1 player concentrated on the customers whereas the rest of us tried the various areas. I was lucky in that I manage to have majority in the travelling section and the book of honors. I even managed to have majority in the Chapel which sealed my victory. A very good game and a good contender for my game of 2012.

All in all, I had a lot of fun while in NYC and I cannot wait to be back. I sure hope to be able to play some more 2 player games with my wife!

Agricola: All Creatures Big and Small

Quick review on Agricola:All Creatures Big and Small. Now I had never thought I will get any 2 player games because mainly it will limit the people I can invite over to play this game. However after getting Twilight Struggle, I decided to take a look at 2 player games as well. Since I am in NYC now, I decided to get a few 2 player games so I can play with my wife.
After Gencon2012 (pictures and short writeup will be coming soon! so wait for it! :)) I was still itching to play games so I decided to break out Agricola:ACBS to play with the wifey.

1st round

2nd attempt, 50 points this time

It is a quick and fast game for 2 players. It is tightly designed, has awesome components (wifey loves the little sheepeeples) and quite fun to play. Its not very thinky and easy to pick up but since the "market" is rather tight there will be a lot of interaction between the players. 

Players take turns placing each of their 3 workers onto the "market" to obtain resources or build special buildings. Players are trying to maximize the space on their own farms and have as many animals as they can. Each animal type that you have less than 4 in your farm will cost you 3 demerit points. Otherwise, everything else will count as points for you. The player with the most points will win.

Not sure if it can last 10+ plays though as usually the first few moves are quite similar. I think the main replayability will be when both players are aware of each other's moves and plan to block. That will probably make it even more competitive.

I cannot wait to try the other games with the wifey and see how it goes :)