Chattanooga, Tennessee
March 2 – 5, 2000
Games Covered: SCHOTTEN-TOTTEN, DIE SIEDLER VON NURNBERG, SKY RUNNER, KATZENJAMMER BLUES, PIRATENBILLIARDS
DAY 1
There’s no GOOD way to condense five days of gaming & friendship into a short e-mail, so I won’t even try. What follows is my rambling account of my fourth Gulf Games…
I volunteered to pick up Jay Tummelson from the Nashville Airport (as it’s 10 minutes from my house!)… not knowing that Jay would get stuck inside the rat trap known as our national transportation system. Flight delays and baggage problems put Jay in 3 hours late… without his luggage. (We speculated on which would bother Gulf Gamers worse: Jay without clean underwear or Jay without his new games.) Editor’s Note: The answer was Jay without new games!
It’s a couple of hours drive south to Chattanooga, and Jay was a great travel companion. I trolled for information about the new games (especially La Citta, which Jay announced later in the weekend that he’d JUST made the deal to do!) and enjoyed stories about Jay’s various dealings with German game companies.
We arrived at the Hawthorn Suites and began unloading our stuff (I had two LARGE boxes of games with me). The room was MUCH more spacious than the one for Gulf Games IV and we spent the next few minutes saying hello’s and helping Vickie Watson set up the decorations. ( Vickie is a tornado of decorating energy and a fount of hospitality… really. Gulf Games is so much better because of her input!)
Of course, we couldn’t hold off gaming forever… after a quick trip to the room, the marathon began!
SCHOTTEN-TOTTEN
This was my first play of this two-player duel. Designed by Reiner Knizia (whose very similar LOST CITIES I enjoy more), this blends the capturing mechanism of CAESAR & CLEOPATRA with, well, POKER. Playing one card at a time, players attempt to create better 3 card poker combinations on either side of a series of boundary stones (yet another pasted-on theme from Knizia). A player can win by capturing a majority of the stones OR by capturing three stones in a row, which is how I took Greg Schloesser. There is a nice twist… winning a stone (having a better combination than the other player can possibly achieve) ‘locks’ that row so that they can’t use it to discard otherwise useless cards.
Rating: 5
It’s nice, but it doesn’t have the strong theme or the tension of LOST CITIES… and yes, the theme of LC is pasted-on, too… but it’s executed so beautifully – I can pretend to be on an expedition. It’s a little hard to imagine myself corraling Scots in kilts – sorry, Desmond & Ian! – to move boundary stones.)
DIE SIEDLER VON NURNBERG
I’ve been looking forward to playing this highly-touted Settlers variant since it’s release was announced at Essen. I’d even considered purchasing a copy… but the *high* price scare me away.
Which was a good thing, as this (after one play, mind you) is my least favorite of the Settlers variants. The predictability of the deck may be a boon for those who dream of perfect bell curves, but I found it irritating. It becomes painfully obvious where to place settlements when certain numbers have been drawn repeatedly. As well, I concur with Jay in his critique that it’s “two games that don’t really fit together”.
Obviously, my rather pitiful showing didn’t help my opinion, either… although it was quite an honor to actually *play* a game with Jay Tummelson. Things stayed pretty even between the three front runners until Greg spurted ahead in the last couple of rounds.
Greg Schloesser 13 Tim Watson 8 Jay Tummelson 8 Mark Jackson 4
Rating: 5
OK… but I’d even rather play AB DIE POST meets SIEDLER (aka STERNFAHRER) which for all it’s flaws still has a higher “fun factor”.
SKY RUNNER
One of the new Ravensburger games (by way of Sweden)… this is an interesting spin on RAJ with a 2 ft tall 3-sided building for a board! Players bid for various equipment & climbing cards (as well as the right to choose who gets knocked down) with a set of number cards. You can choose not to bid and play climbing cards instead. It moves pretty fast and the narrowing building forces some interesting decisions late in the game. A last minute surge by Michael Bland passed me up and ended the game.
Michael Bland top of the building Mark Jackson -3 Tim Watson -6 Greg Schloesser -9
Rating: 6
Like all the games in the RAJ family ( MONTGOLFIERE, OLYMPIA 2000, TAKE 6, and my own TED GOES TO GULF GAMES… there are more, right?), the simultaneous card play mechanism can get tedious, but there is enough going on here (plus the nifty 3-D board) to make it a great family game.
KATZENJAMMER BLUES
This is yet another overlooked game from Rio Grande & Dr. Knizia. The artwork on the cards is wonderfully goofy (jazz cats in smoky neon colors singing odd variations on jazz & rock standards) and the victory point pieces are equally cool (mice in Blues Brothers suits with cigarettes hanging out of their mouths). The game itself is a set collecting game mixed with an auction. The biggest potential is your ability to spend all or most of your cards *very* quickly and be reduced to watching the game go on without you being able to affect play. With that warning in place, I taught the game.
Greg & I both scored well in the first hand, while Tim dug himself a hole with a pile of jokers. Tim won the second hand to get back into positive territory, while Michael managed an excellent third hand, yet not enough to take the victory away from Greg.
Greg Schloesser 19 Michael Bland 14 Mark Jackson 7 Tim Watson 5
Rating: 6
I find this to be a very interesting bidding game that plays *very* quickly once you get the hang of it.
PIRATENBILLIARDS
I played this dexterity game 3 times over the course of five days without winning. It didn’t matter if my opponents had played before or not, I couldn’t manage to score enough to win a game.
If you haven’t seen it, it’s a large wooden grid about 18 inches off the table, covered on the bottom with some kind of heavy-duty muslin. You set balls in the wooden grid and try to knock them (from under the muslin) across the board with oddly-shaped wooden mallets. (Yes, Frank Branham is the one who introduced us all to this game at Gulf Games IV).
Tim Watson 7 (heck, he OWNS the game…) 🙂 Michael Bland 4 Greg Schloesser 4 Mark Jackson 2
Rating: 7
It’s lots of fun to play, but the new is beginning to wear off. It’d be *great* for parties, though. Kind of LOOPIN’ LOUIE for adults.
Then, time for bed, as Michael Bland & I competed to see which one of us could keep Greg awake the longest with our snoring. (That’s AFTER we stole a pillow from the sleeping Lenny Leo.)
DAY 2
Games Covered: peek at ACQUIRE, AXIS & ALLIES: EUROPE, DIPLOMACY; STRATEGO: LEGENDS, CITADELS, BURIED TREASURE, SCHWEINS-GALLOP, SOLCHES STROCLHE!, KING OF THE ELVES, TIME PIRATES, KARDINAL & KONIG, DILEMNA, ARRIBA, VAMPIRE, SUFFERIN’ SPIRITS, ARBOS, MARK, DSCHUNGELRENNEN, NICHT DIE BOHNE, ZIRKUS FLOCATI, BRETON BOULE
Remember, Gulf Games hadn’t even officially STARTED at this point… but that didn’t stop us from digging in and playing! Games throughout the day were interrupted by the appearance of old friends (the Douds, the Bergs, Kenny Douds & Calvin, Sheldon Smith, Frank & Sandi, Ben & Marcia Baldanza) and new friends ( Jeff & Jennifer Buckey) and a couple of ringers from across the sea ( Ian Borthwick, Desmond Middleton)! 🙂 [They were even designated as the Scottish Relief Force on their name tags!] Chip, Carla & Buster arrived, strengthening the Nashville contigent. And, of course, the Metrogamers (+ Neil but – George) appeared in time to thrash me in a couple of card games before bedtime.
One of the key elements of the success of Gulf Games are those friendships… the fun of playing together and enjoying each others company. I’ve quoted him a number of times (and have finally titled my Strategist column after the quote) – Buster said it best: ” You guys like to win games but you love to play them.”
Peek at new Hasbro games…
Finally… I get to peer into the boxes of the first four releases from the new ” Hasbro-ized for our profit protection” Avalon Hill. An opening comment… I really like the box art on all of these games… very clearly from the same company and yet very individual in coloring and feel. Unfortunately, that’s not all there is to marketing a “niche market” game…
- ACQUIRE is the best of the lot, with big UPWORDS-sized tiles and 3-D chain markers. The card quality is good and they even renamed one of the cheapie companies “Sackson” in a very kind nod to Sid. This is a high-quality reprint with a nicely updated facelift.
- Also nice is AXIS & ALLIES: EUROPE. I didn’t have the opportunity to play, but it looked like a tighter A&A with the same high-quality pieces. (Someone else did, though… hopefully they’ll let us know what they thought!)
- The worst reprint is DIPLOMACY… while very pretty, the board seems more crowded and it’s very difficult to see the lines between provinces. The pieces are those much-used CONFLICT molds, which isn’t a bad thing, but it certainly doesn’t warrant a $45 price point for a game that’s easily available for much less than that on e-bay. Worse yet, the one-piece boards (in DIP and A&A:E) suffer from “American Board Trough Syndrome”… the copy of DIPLOMACY will probably stand to be opened and closed 4-5 more times before there’s going to be some splitting.
My biggest gripe is that there’s nothing new here… ACQUIRE is a very good game – the grandpa to many of the games we play today, but I just got a 3M copy from a thrift store for $2. AXIS & ALLIES: EUROPE looks nice but it’s just cashing in on the booming business of A&A expansions. DIPLOMACY actually is a *less* helpful production of a game that has probably seen the limits of it’s face-2-face popularity reached (though not via e-mail, where the game is still very viable). And LEGENDS (which I’ll review more fully in a moment) is a hybrid of STRATEGO and MAGIC:THE GATHERING.
The only hope is that BATTLE CRY (can someone explain why they would use the name of an OOP game that frankly is the weakest of the American Heritage series?) will draw in new crowds with it’s innovative system and fast play. As it currently stands, I’m really afraid that these games will not sell enough for Hasbro to justify keeping AH alive. Promises of new editions of COSMIC ENCOUNTER and TITAN won’t be enough to save AH from the dump heap.
Well, after that burst of negativitiy, on the with the games! 🙂
STRATEGO: LEGENDS
STRATEGO has always been an intriguing if flawed concept. (In David Parlett’s ” The Oxford History of Board Games,” he puts these games in the L’Attaque [sp?] family.) Variants on this idea of hidden pieces at war range from Columbia Games block system to the face-down cards of ZOON to the magnetic stand-up board of ZOMAX. At their worst, these games become static wars of attrition… at their best, they simulate the fog of war in a novel and attractive way.
So let’s start with the look of the game… as advertised on r.g.b., the board is simple but functional. (The artwork is small blocks of stylized territory symbols set against a black background.) The frame for the board is cheaply done (imagine a Seafarers-like puzzle piece frame out of lighter cardboard). OTOH, the pieces are beautiful… the artwork on them is stunning. (It’s borrowed from some defunct CCG… and it’s an excellent choice to establish the atmosphere of the game.) Each piece has a single symbol which denotes it’s strength… the plastic part looks like the STRATEGO pieces we grew up with (as opposed to those in the Winning Moves edition).
And that leads us to both the heart of the revision AND the real problem with the game: the battle rosters. Each side has three double-sided reference cards with the abilities, actions, death curses, and innate abilities of the creatures in their army. Thankfully, each army is divided into 3 ‘races’, each of which has a different background color on the pieces and the reference charts. There are a wide variety of game-changing/rule-bending things that can happen, depending on which characters you move and/or reveal. IF (and that’s a big “if”, mind you) you played this game often enough to learn the characters for both armies, these effects would make for an interesting game, especially when you add the collectable aspect of adding different characters to your army mix. (” Hey, I didn’t think you’d bring Clevut against me again…”)
However, Greg and I spent mucho time flipping our reference cards over and over and over to find particular pieces… I had help from Calvin & Ariel & Zane (all age 10 and under) which let me move in less time. I managed to free up a couple of powerful pieces early and decimate the front couple of lines of Greg’s evil forces… and, to the game’s credit, he was able to work his back into contention through some careful play. But my early lead proved insurmountable as I found his castle some 4-6 moves before he would have found mine. Evil evidently isn’t as tough as it used to be… as the forces of Goodness and Light defeated the Dark Greg!
I didn’t start out wanting to like this game… I mean, it’s (a) collectible, and it’s (b) STRATEGO, a game I’ll play only under duress from my nephew. But I have to admit that the interesting powers and terrain variations could make this fun to play. OTOH, I won’t ever buy a copy as I’m unwilling to spend the time (5-10 games) to learn the game properly and the money (6 boxes?! $24 each?!) to acquire a full set.
The biggest question for me is ” Why didn’t Hasbro come up with a better way to do the same thing?” Perhaps symbols on the pieces for flying creatures (which all work the same) or terrain bonuses… or (my suggestion), a bigger board with bigger pieces (imagine stand up ZOON cards) that contain all the necessary information. It’d be harder to make it collectible…but I’d pay the $40 for a big game with 100 pieces like that.
Well, all that is moot… we have what we have… if you’re a fan of STRATEGO or M:tG, this might be right up your alley. And, hey, I’ll play a game with you if I can be the Good Guys. 🙂
Rating: 5 (7 if they did something/anything with those reference cards)
The next game we played was ” Mark & Greg Go To The Airport“. Directions from the hotel sent us the wrong way… although stopping at a convience store for directions did allow Greg to (a) find his razor, and (b) use it. After dropping off my rental car, we returned for more gaming!
CITADELS/OHNE FURCHT & ADEL
Well, from American near-misses to French/German direct hits… OHNE FURCHT & ADEL (which I will be calling CITADELS from now on because I can spell it without using cut & paste!) is a beautiful and enjoyable game. The artwork is as spectacular as the samples indicated… it has a wonderful painted quality to it that enhances the game.
And the gameplay is excellent as well. There’s been much discussion of CITADELS in the past year. It was one of the hits of the Gathering in 1999. I’d say it’s one of the highlights of the new games I played here at Gulf Games.
Each player is attempting to build a city of eight buildings… a few have special powers but most simply have value (both economic and victory point-wise). Each turn, players choose, VERRATER-like, from a series of roles that allow them to acquire money, cards, and/or do damage to other players. You have to balance what other players might do with what you need to do and/or need to defend… very tricky. I’m not sure what the playing time is (pretty short, I think… 1 hour?!… if you cut out all the distractions) but whatever it was zipped by as I was caught up in the parry & thrust of the game.
An early lead marked me as a target, while Shay (who’d entered the game near the end of Jay’s rules explanation) got cut a little slack… which she promptly reeled in to win the game. (No disrespect to Shay here… she played an excellent game. No wonder Ty married her!) 🙂
Shay Douds 31 Greg Schloesser 25 Mark Jackson 21 Jeff Buckey 14
Rating: 8
This is on my ” MUST BUY” list from Adam Spielt. ( Jay, I’d wait a year if I thought you had a snowball’s chance of producing this game.)
CITADELS was the first “official” game of Gulf Games… as we began tracking wins and recording who we played games with. As well, this marked the starting point of the BUTTON MEN competition, North vs. South. We divided all the participants over the age of 12 into two teams (geographically and/or by personal preference) and played 1 round games of Button Men against each other between ‘real’ games. (Each nametag had a ‘button men’ dice combination on it… for those of you who know the game, I used the standard characters and dropped out the one with only 4 dice and the one with 2 swing dice.) More on that later…
BURIED TREASURE
This is a nifty little set collecting game… improved from it’s original incarnation with the addition of the skull & crossbones cards. This one was CLOSE going into the last round (21-21-22-20) but my one point deficit on Kenny Douds proved insurmountable.
Kenny Douds 37 Mark Jackson 36 Calvin Douds 29 Lenny Leo 27
Rating: 6
It’s solid… not my favorite but good fun as a filler game.
SCHWEINS-GALLOPP
Racing pigs… yep, that’s what German games are famous for… those themes that just grab you and say ” buy me now!“
Anyway, this is a kid’s game with a little added oomph. 5 plastic pigs are lined up (one after another) on a circular track. The deck is shuffled and 7 cards are dealt to each player. The cards are the various colored pigs. So, when I play my card, I jump the pig whose color I played to the next empty space. If that happens to be the front of the pack, I get a food card.
Yawn, you say? Well, it’s not rocket science, but there is one nice twist. The only way you get to *keep* the food you earn in a round is by using your last card to move that colored pig to the front of the pack. If he doesn’t become the front-runner, your food has the same fate as Bill Bradley!
The most food after 3 rounds wins. (There are some variant rules for adding food to the track, but we just played the basic game.)
Zane Douds (youngest child of Ty & Shay) proved to be the superior pig racer in my first game. (I played another time later… hey, it’s short and kinda cute.)
Zane Douds 11 Mark Jackson 8 Shay & Ariel Douds 8 Lenny Leo 5 Calvin Douds 0
Rating: 6
Keep in mind that I’m rating this as a children’s game… this is a a 6 on the ” CANDYLAND – LOOPIN’ LOUIE” scale, not the ” GLOBAL SURVIVAL – EL GRANDE” scale.
SOLCHES STROLCHE!
Jay then brought out another children’s game that he’s thinking of doing… which was also the occasion of my first ‘official’ Gulf Games win. (Yes, I beat children at a children’s game to win a medal… pride is not a real problem for me!) 🙂
I have no idea what the title means… possibly ” Find the Neon Colored Animal” or something like that. Anyway, a bunch of heavy stock cards are laid out on the table, each depicting one of five animals (cow, horse, pig, dog, cat) in one of five neon colors (purple, blue, yellow, green, red). The top card of a second deck of cards is flipped over, and the game is on! The second card shows 4 different animals, each with a different color. Your job is to find the missing colored animal and slap it ala SLAP JACK. Kind of like SET for kids.
It’s a good little game… fast, furious, and fun. I did well, but just barely beat off a charge from Calvin “I love to give game playing advice” Douds! 🙂
Mark Jackson 8 Calvin Douds 6 Shay Douds 5 Ariel Douds 5 Zane Douds 1
Rating: 7
Again, as a kid’s game… this SET with animals game works well even with *young* kids.
KING OF THE ELVES
Ty wanted to learn the newest addition to the ELFENLAND family, so we roped J ennifer Buckey and Lenny Leo into playing. (I’m convinced that four is the optimum number of players for this game… and I’m beginning to speculate that playing 3 rounds is sufficient… maybe giving a gold piece to the player who doesn’t get to start a round as compensation.)
Anyway, you’ve heard numerous descriptions of the game play… add cities to your kingdom, blah, blah, blah… thieves, obstacles, blah, blah… the whole “draw 3, discard 4” thing slows the game down, blah (we used K-ban’s suggestion of just keeping play going while a player decides what to keep & discard)… travel ala ELFENLAND… etc., etc., etc. (For me, I like the fact that I can mess with other players MUCH easier than ELFENLAND.)
Jennifer and I both did well in the early going… by round 3, I felt the need to slam her with all the obstacles & thieves I could find. That knocked her back but left an opening for Ty that he used to pick up some ground. I played round 4 defensively and won. (Sorry, Lenny, I don’t remember you being a factor… but I do enjoy playing games with you!) 🙂
Mark Jackson 99 Ty Douds 90 Jennifer Buckey 84 Lenny Leo 40
Rating: 7
It’s better than ELFENLAND (more ability to mess with each other, tighter playing time) but not as good as ELFENLAND + ELFENGOLD.
TIME PIRATES
The theme itself is intriguing… pirates wandering through time stealing treasures for wealthy clients. The board art is good, too… sci-fi-ish but clean & easy to use during play. The one possible graphic glitch: some artifact pieces have extra symbols which allow you to use them to travel through time or to trade artifacts with another player… they would be difficult to see under the wrong light.
The game is yet another set collecting romp from Alan Moon… in your turn, you can only take two actions: move from one time period to another (by following one of two lines into another century), collect an artifact (by picking it up off the board), or fulfill a contract (by turning in your artifact for “points” in the form of contracts). As well, a player can request (like FREIGHT TRAIN) at the beginning of their turn for a time period to be re-stocked with artifacts, and players may use the above-mentioned special artifacts in addition to their normal moves.
Each type of artifact has a number of available contracts: worth 2, 3, 4, 6 & 7… and costing 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6 of the same type of artifact (respectively). In addition, there are (numbers are sketchy in my memory here) wild card contracts worth 2, 3 & points.. and costing 3, 4 & 5 of the same type of artifact.
But, the Time Pirates are not only racing each other across the centuries, but also the Time Police (the cops, the fuzz, the Man), representing by a black pawn on the board and by Police chips mixed into the artifact bag. If you start your turn on the same space as the Time Police, you must lose your most valuable set (first wild cards, then the set you have the most of) AND spend your first action to vacate that century. The Time Police continue their cruise through time when time periods are refilled… if their chip is pulled (can you tell I’ve been ‘translating’ via Babelfish a bit too much?), they are moved that number of spaces and then another chip is drawn. When the eighth Time Police chip is drawn, the round is scored. The third time you score, the game is over.
Aaaahhh, time (unintentional pun alert) for one last wrinkle. You get a 2 pt bonus for having contracts in all five types of artifacts… and 2 pts for having the most valuable collection of contracts for each type. So, players stack their contracts into five face-down stacks and assign wild cards where they think they’d be the most helpful.
Next question: does Alan Moon borrow from himself more than any designer on the planet?! (OK, Knizia’s up there, too.) Note the GET THE GOODS timed scoring mechanism, and the FREIGHT TRAIN re-stock. Mind you, they’re both good ideas (my one game design, TED GOES TO GULF GAMES, borrows the timer idea as well). It’s just interesting to see them keep popping up.
My reviews of this are mixed… I had a decent time playing (with Calvin & Zane on my ‘team’) and thought it was good but not great. You know, an o.k. family game, maybe in the same class as ANDROMEDA. Then we found out that Jay had taught us a rule incorrectly… chips turned in for contracts do NOT return to the bag until you score the round. (We had put them back in the bag.) This would cut a good bit of time off the game and up the tension level, which means I will definitely have to give it another try.
Kim Berg 63 Mark Jackson 54 Ian Borthwick 52 Shay Douds 51 Jennifer Buckey 48 Tim Watson 45
Rating: 7
With the rule correction, this could be a wonderful family romp or a 45 min. gamer filler. It’s a big “PROBABLE” for my buy list.
KARDINAL & KONIG
Jay & I had talked on the drive in from Nashville about this intriguing new “push the wooden cubes” game, and I was looking forward to getting to play. (In fact, I enjoyed it enough that I played it again later in the weekend.)
Each player represents (I’m guessing here) the head of an order of monks, bent on influencing the Known World for good and the benefit of the people. (Yes this is an optimistic view of ecclesiastical power struggles… what can I say?) Anyway, each player has two resources at his disposal to accomplish his ends: cloisters and advisors. The ‘battle’ rages across 12th century Europe.
On your turn, you use the three cards in your hand (two identical cards can be used as wild cards… and all the cards except those for France allow you place pieces in one of two countries) to start monasteries (cloisters) and send advisors to the various kings. At the end of your turn, you refill your hand, choosing to take from two face-up cards or the top of the deck. When the deck runs out, you score the cloisters… the player(s) with the most in any country score the total number of cloisters in that country. The second place players(s) score the number of cloisters the first place player has, and so on.
In the second (and final) round, a number of new scoring opportunities present themselves. If you have a line of 4 or more cloisters (that cross a national border), then you score the number of cloisters you have in the ‘chain’. As well, the player(s) the most advisors in BOTH of two adjoining countries score the total number of advisors in both countries.
One final rule: a country can only have as many advisors (from all players) as the number of cloisters held by the first place player. (This is the rule we screwed up in our first game – which I won… kind of throws a pall over my victory, eh?)
Mark Engleberg said it well… there’s nothing terribly original here… but what IS here is very, very good. I see this occupying a closer niche in our gaming group… at 30-45 minutes and very fast game play, it will work very well! (I think it will also work well as introduction to non-gamers for games like EL GRANDE and EUPHRATES & TIGRIS… again, short playing time and simple rules – with the cards reducing your options to managable levels.)
Mark Jackson 0 Desmond Middleton -6 Michael Bland -9 Jennifer Buckey -19
Rating: 8
EL GRANDE-like with nice graphics and quick play… and some very interesting scoring trade-offs. On my ” MUST BUY” list.
DILEMNA
Jay had a copy of this on his pile… we were looking for something ‘different’ to play… the rules were in English (as well as German and French)… and here it was. Open the box and find a plastic ash tray (large enough to throw cards into), a number of red wooden markers (life blocks), five wooden circles with crossed swords on one side and a handshake on the other (dueling stones), one green wooden hexagon (stumbling block?!), and a set of 10 cards (1-10) for each player.
In turn, each player takes the stumbling block (a big name for a player turn marker) and throws one of their cards into the ashtray. The first player to throw a *different* numbered card into the ashtray duels with them for the two cards. They take their dueling stone and choose one side, placing it under their palm. The choices are revealed simultaneously and the duel resolved. If both players choose peace (handshakes), they trade cards. If one player chooses war (swords) and the other peace, the warrior gets both cards but loses one life block. If both players choose war, both cards are thrown out of the game and they both lose one life block. (In a 5 player game, you only get 2 life blocks). When a player runs out of life blocks, he can only choose peace in a duel. Finally, if no one throws a second card, the player who started the turn gets to keep his card.
The objective is to capture the most points worth of cards. Early moves seem obvious (I’ll drop my 1, so someone will drop their 2, then we’ll trade), but even those moves are better short term than long (if I hang onto my 1 right now, I may be able to force an *ugly* trade later!) What seemed simple at first turned out to be a bit more complicated. Jay called it a party game, and I’m ready to guardedly agree, but it defintitely has more going on strategy-wise than most party games. I’d say it’d be better with 4-5 non-gamer friends who want a little more mental challenge than APPLES TO APPLES.
For most of the game, we thought Sheldon & Kim had it tied up… but we hadn’t reckoned on Michael saving some low cards for late in the game and sucking up some major points… good playing, Michael!
Michael Bland 67 Sheldon Smith 59 Kim Berg 58 Mark Jackson 48 Cassie Berg 42 (Cassie’s low score proved the fatal nature of the being the first person to run out of life blocks)
Rating: 7
At the right price, I’d be happy to own this interesting little filler game. (It took about 20 minutes to play.)
ARRIBA
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… cross SET with TWITCH and thrown a nasty wooden baton into the middle of the table and you’ve got ARRIBA. This is *not* sophisticated gaming, but it’s compact size (unlike American party games, this one is *not* over-boxed) and laughter-filled game play make it a winner.
Sheldon showed us his gift for acquiring cards (not a good thing in this game), while Kim Berg managed to knock over a chair in her dive for the baton. Finally, I thought we’d have to call in for a counselor for Jeff & Jennifer Buckey after he took the baton from her (lowest person on the baton wins) just as she was poised to beat me. 🙂
I, however, continue my reign as ArribaWarrior (having won 3 out of my 4 games!)
Total (1) (2) (3) Mark Jackson 10 0 0 10 Jennifer Buckey 14 6 4 4 Michael Bland 28 14 8 6 Kim Berg 41 29 2 10 Jeff Buckey 42 18 24 0 Cassie Berg 49 6 38 5 Sheldon Smith 54 6 3 45
Rating: 8
Again, this is on the party game scale ( TRI-BOND to TABOO) rather than strategy games. It’s a lot of fun to play and the patterns on the card are wonderfully sneaky and hard to tell apart.
VAMPIRE
After vetoing this earlier for a younger audience (that was my doing… the art is cartoonish but bloody), we gave this new RUMMY-like game from Knizia a shot.
First problem: My complaints about SCHOTTEN-TOTTEN seem equally valid here… this game could be about literally anything. I’ve always thought that BASARI kind of had a lock on disconnected themes, but it looks positively ‘American’ compared to VAMPIRE.
That said, the game itself is a simple RUMMY variant with a LOST CITIES-like discard scheme. Players are (ha!) vampire hunters, collecting cards worth one or two points and then melding them in sets of three or more. On your turn, you can take 2 cards from the deck, then meld or discard one card to the appropriate discard pile (one for each ‘suit’ of vampires), OR you can pick up the entire discard pile of one suit and then you must meld. A second meld of a type of vampire you already have sends the first meld off to the discard pile.
The game ends at the (hallo, Knizia!) end of the deck OR when (hallo, Knizia again!) one player has a meld in each suit. (Shades of ZIRKUS FLOCATI). At that point, the lowest meld on the table of each type (counting not melding as a zero meld) is discarded and players count up their points.
That’s it. Really.
Can’t say it’s a bad game… but it’s not really about anything… and the card play is interesting but not spectacular. Yes, I’m damning it with faint praise, but I guess I was expecting a little more here. (To be fair, the art is not terribly graphic but rough for the RUMMY-like nature of the game.)
All I can remember from our game is that Sheldon (who was to my right) kept picking up what I needed then laid down his final meld to end the game with me poised to lay down a monsterous meld in my next turn. Boo, Sheldon! 🙂
Sheldon Smith 27 Chip Triplett 24 Mark Jackson 20 Sandi West 19 Frank Branham 12
Rating: 5
I should note that my wife enjoyed the game of this she played later in the weekend… evidently going out fast & furious with a win.
SUFFERIN’ SPIRITS
Frank Branham and I are both big fans of the designs of Nic Sewell ( LUFTSCHLOSSER, DIE ERBRAFFER, ELIXIR, etc.). He specializes in quirky games with odd themes.
None is odder than the difficult-to-acquire SUFFERIN’ SPIRITS, in which the players attempt to put to rest the spirits of the deceased by finding their favorite objects. (After playing, this is one of those games whose rarity has enhanced it’s rep… and whose playing will quickly destroy it!) Though the board (with it’s plastic graves with spaces to slide cards into) is cute in a macabre sort of way, the game itself is dire. Move, look under the tomb, hope to find something useful, avoid spirits. Lather, rinse, repeat. No opportunity for clever play, no random weirdness to keep things interesting… yawn.
Sandi West 19 Mark Jackson 17 Chip Triplett 16 Frank Branham 13
Rating: 3
It gets the standard “nice bits” 3… nothing more. Yawn.
ARBOS
After a couple of games about the afterlife, it was time for something a little more, well, nourishing? So, we built a tree.
Or, better put, we TRIED to build a tree. ARBOS is one of the many (how many, Frank?) balancing games in the collection of Frank Branham. In this relatively inexpensive (40 DM) gem, players add branches & wooden leaves to a very tippy base. Everything you knock off goes in your pile. (Nice touch… the base is adjustable to vary the difficulty of the game… I saw Douglas & Emily Cheatham – real youngsters! – playing it later in the weekend.)
As for our game, I was doing fine down to my last leaf… which caused a major fall. Sandi moved in to win. Sigh.
Rating: 7
On the party game scale… I still like SATURN better, but I can actually afford ARBOS.
MARK
More strangeness from the Land of Frank… this time, it was a Franjos game about recycling entitled MARK. Hard to resist a game that (a) has your name on it, and (b) uses baby food jars & bottle caps as pieces.
I’m not sure exactly how the recycling theme fit… basically, you rolled the dice each turn and got to add different materials to your warehouse… or move them into your processing plant… or move them onto the market (where they earn money by position for the end game.) The market is a bit like the city board in SHOWMANAGER. Occasionally, the dice force you to auction a piece. It was pretty pointless.
I did well, but not nearly as well as Ken.
Ken Girton 322 Mark Jackson 275 Frank Branham 142 Sandi West 141
Rating: 4
If someone gave me this game, I probably wouldn’t trade it. And with that ‘ringing’ endorsement, on to the next game.
DSCHUNGELRENNEN
Trying to stay light & fluffy as the night wore on, I pulled one from my collection, the jungle conga line that is DSCHUNGELRENNEN – meaning “Jungle Race”. Players have five animals, who move based on the roll of a special die. Importantly, animals can not share spaces, so as the track to the top of Jungle Mountain gets crowded, your pieces are making HUGE leaps over 10-15 pieces at a time. There are some rules for rolling ‘jokers’ and landing on a some ‘joker’ spaces, but that’s really unimportant. Each animal that makes it up the mountain receives points based on their finish. (In a kind of predator-centric thing, tigers are worth the most, then elephants & gators, and the low-end animals are monkeys & bears.) When first place is taken for each type, the game is over and points are scored.
My theory: Frank Branham use mental telepathy on the die… you look at the scores and you be the judge?! Believe it or not! 🙂
Frank Branham 25 Cassie Berg 8 Sandi West 6 Ken Girton 6 Mark Jackson 1
Rating: 7
On the children’s game scale, people…. sheesh. Anyway, it’s a lot of fun and it actually has some interesting decisions mixed in with a simple roll’n’move.
NICHT DIE BOHNE
Translated from the German, this means ” Lenny doesn’t have a snowball’s chance of winning.” OK, maybe not.
Not a bad little card game that I have a hard time describing ( Greg did a real good job not too long ago)… it works better with more players. The real joy this time around was playing with Derk “I can’t let something go uncommmented upon” Solko… he had me rolling most of the game.
Ken Girton 147 Sandi West 124 Mark Jackson 110 Ben Baldanza 82 Derk Solko 44 Lenny Leo 26
Rating: 7
I’m not sure I’d ever buy this game (I can see how darn MEAN it could get with the wrong crowd) but I’d be willing to play again in a heartbeat (esp. with Derk!)
ZIRKUS FLOCATI
The tightest game of this little gem I’ve ever played (just look at the scores!) I still think this game from Knizia about flea circuses is the UberFiller… the ultimate of “just a quick game before someone else shows up”. The tension of drawing cards, deciding whether to chase trios or the gala, keeping close enough track of cards to intelligently pull cards from others hands… aahhhhhh.
Ben Baldanza 44 Lenny Leo 43 Sandi West 41 Mark Jackson 37 Ken Girton 37 Derk Solko 37
Rating: 7
Ben suggests that the Gala strategy is the only one to pursue… this gives me a little pause, because if that’s true, then it’s not the great game I’ve been enjoying… have to try out this theory…
BRETON BOULE
Another large wooden game from AbacusSpiele… essentially horseshoes with ping-pong balls 1/4 filled with sand and a felt covered tipped box.
Granted, I didn’t do all that well, but unlike Craig Berg, I did manage to hit the box. (OK, I couldn’t score… sue me!)
Lenny Leo 13 Cassie Berg 5 Mark Jackson 0
Rating: 5
It’s kind of neat how the balls stay still on the tilted playing field, but no big deal as a game.
SCHWEINS-GALLOPP
One last game before bed… Cassie edges me out in my second playing of this children’s game.
Cassie Berg 11 Mark Jackson 10 Lenny Leo 7 Mark Engleberg 5
DAY 2
Games Covered: SANTA FE, CAN’T STOP, TAKE 6, GALLOP ROYALE, AB DIE POST, PIRATENBILLIARDS, DON PEPE, TAKE IT EASY, AVE CESAR, FRANK’S ZOO, IN TEUFEL’S KUCHE, SPACEBEANS, KARDINAL & KONIG
SANTA FE
First up, the classic Alan Moon railroading game (that is rumored to be undergoing a refurbishment and rerelease, but I haven’t heard anything official about that). We had a number of delays (greeting newcomers, fixing problems, etc., etc.) but that doesn’t explain my lack of enthusiasm for a title I once had on my “must have” list.
A short story: in the summer of 1997, I came upon a store in Carlsbad, CA, which had White Wind’s ELFENGOLD and SANTA FE for $42 each. Cash was getting tight (having bought EL GRANDE, SINDBAD, & DSK in San Francisco the week before), so I could only get one. One! Knowing as little as I did, I chose ELFENGOLD. Oops.
But back to GGV. It’s still a neat idea for a game (though I’m not sure it’s a good 5-6 player game)… in fact, I think my first play of this (with Ted, many moons ago) was 3 or 4 player. (It was, for whatever reason, much FASTER with Ted. Then again, that’s kind of true of any game you play with Ted.) 🙂
Anyhoo… I managed only to not be last at this little expedition in rail building… my last few turns were spent trying not to spend money while not giving my opponent’s more money. Blech. Meanwhile, there was (as you can see from the score) a very tight race for first place going on that Chip & I had NOTHING to do with.
Tim Watson 106 Greg Schloesser 103 Dennis Mills 102 Mark Jackson 91 Chip Triplett 78
Rating: 6 (and headed down)
It looked a lot better a couple of years ago… it hasn’t aged well. I am, however, interested in seeing what Alan does with it (ala AIRLINES -> UNION PACIFIC).
CAN’T STOP
On the other hand, certain games don’t seem to age *at all*… CAN’T STOP is a delight every time you play it.
Of course, that’s on days when Lenny hasn’t made some odd pact with Lords of the Dice to hand him the game in 10 minutes, as he left Gail & Lindsay & I in the dust… he’d won and none of us had closed out a column. Sheesh.
Rating: 8
One of the all-time great dice games.
TAKE 6
Another German classic became the quick way to rope *lots* of people into a game. While the more the merrier in TAKE 6, the more the more mayhem…. and this was accentuated by the number of kids in the game. (This could well be construed as whining, as none of the adults had less than 22 points after two rounds!)
Calvin Douds 6 + 0 = 6 Karie Rodriguez 18 + 0 = 18 Gail Schloesser 11 + 11 = 22 Lenny Leo 18 + 12 = 30 Kayla Berg 5 + 26 = 31 Shay Douds 18 + 16 = 34 Mark Jackson 28 + 9 = 37 Lindsey Schloesser 19 + 32 = 51
Rating: 6
The only answer I know to the question: “We’ve got 20 minutes & 10 people… what do you want to play?”
GALLOP ROYALE
This attractive gem is in line for a gaming award for “most unfairly downgraded.” I’ll grant you that it isn’t rocket science, but it’s still a very playable and enjoyable game.
For those who haven’t sampled Klaus Teuber’s odd take on pre-French Revolution life, each of the players takes the role of a bored noble at the Gardens of Versailles. With nothing better to do, the idle rich decide to race sedan chairs.
Here’s where the problem with the P.R. about GALLOP ROYALE rears it’s ugly little head… this ISN’T a racing game. Yeah, yeah, there’s six races, but they’re just excuses to laugh and cut up while you watch the sedan chairs see-saw back & forth toward the finish arch (or the pond!) The real game is in the auction rounds, where nobles (players, that is) bid for teams of sedan bearers. These hefty young men are represented by cards, numbered 1, 2, 3, 5, -2 (the Doofus), and +2/-2 (the Sneaky Bearer). Each of four cards in a team is then assigned a space and number on the sedan chair in front of each player. When a race occurs, players roll a four-sided die in turn and move the number of spaces equal to the bearer in that space.
Like I said, the race isn’t exactly a strategy game. The only way you can affect the other chairs is through the use of the Sneaky Bearer, who can move one (or two) chairs a total of two spaces forward, *and* one (or two) chairs a total of two spaces backward.
Back to the auctions, which are the heart of the game. Each player is dealt a bearer, which only he can see. In turn, you may bid or drop out… if you drop out, the bearer you’re holding is discarded (sight unseen) if there are still 4+ players in the bidding. If not, he sits face-down, awaiting the winner of the bidding. Thus, bluffing is key. As well, it may pay to drop out early in order to deny another player a particularly good bearer.
Auctions occur at the beginning of the game as each player buys a team (the last guy takes a random team for 10 gold pieces). Then, at the end of each race, 1st – 3rd places pay off financially and last place gets to choose one bearer from each team (including his own) to send away. The missing spaces are filled randomly… followed by two auctions for new teams that all players can participate in.
And so it goes… the primary focus here is on money management, skillful bluffing, and hooting & hollering during the races. Clocking in at 75 minutes, it’s great fun for 4-6 players.
In our game, the Bergs ( Cassie & Craig) sewed up the lead, fending off only Buster in a late challenge. Meanwhile, I was down in the pond with Evan Jones & Jay West (from QED Games)… our consistently mediocre teams doomed us to a wet life of failure.
Cassie Berg 117 Craig Berg 81 Buster Williamson 74 Evan Jones 55 Mark Jackson 39 Jay West 17
Rating: 7
It’s not rocket science, but I’ve had a blast every time I’ve played it… and that’s gotta count for something.
AB DIE POST
OK, so it was an afternoon filled with Goldsieber’s less-famous outings… if you want to complain about an over-boxed game, here it is. One medium-sized board, 6 wooden markers, six plastic biplanes, a deck of cards, and the Cloudshaker… it would fit *easily* in the Rio Grande MEDICI box… but, no, it’s in one of those *big* Goldsieber boxes.
By this point, if you don’t know me, you might think I’m about to pan AB DIE POST. Not on your life! It’s like BLACKJACK with a serious children’s game feel… it’s like STERNFAHRERS VON CATAN without the 3 hour playing time… it’s like CANDYLAND with airplanes… ok, so it’s not the greatest game. I still like it.
Ted’s daughter, Emily, and I fought for the lead through 3 races… and she beat me out by *one* point at the end.
Emily Cheatham 15 Mark Jackson 14 Ted Cheatham 13 Mike Bland 12 Cassie Berg 10 Calvin Douds 8
Rating: 5
I’ve called this one a ‘6’ before, and I still wouldn’t trade it away… but it’s kind of weak. Fun, though…
PIRATENBILLIARDS
More hitting balls with sticks, more losing games for Mark... this time, taking second to Ted in a game with his children, Emily & Doug.
DON PEPE
Gosh, I *wanted* to like this game… imagine a colorful FAMILY BUSINESS-like boardgame with the added victory condition of earning money while you bump people off… but it just didn’t work for me.
First, it’s too slow… despite the lack of options, it takes players a *long* time to decide on their moves (which is fatal in a game like this.) Second, it has only the illusion of control – between the randomness of the card draw and the odd vagaries of the board, it’s difficult to feel like you’re really making progress.
Understand, I was the Don by the end of this thing… I figured out how badly I needed cash and avoided bumping off people unless they would have a very hard time retaliating.
Mark Jackson 16 Michael Bland 14 Will Beckley 13 Chip Triplett 8 Gail Schloesser 6 Buster Williamson 3
Rating: 4
Not enough fun for the time invested… give me FAMILY BUSINESS any day over this one.
TAKE IT EASY
Ken Girton edged me out by one lousy point at our table… not that it would have won the tournament, but it’s a bragging rights thing. Lousy Ken… 🙂
Ken Girton 186 Mark Jackson 185 Gail Schloesser 157 Shari Jackson 156 Vicki Watson 151 Neil Carr 128 Buster Williamson 113 Stven Carlberg 112
Rating: 8
BINGO with attitude.
AVE CESAR
I own AUGREBREMST… and I like it, but I have trouble convincing people to play it. (Could be the cartoony/weak graphics… or that not many of the folks around Game Central Station like race games…) Anyway, I’d heard about AVE CESAR ( Frank had a French copy) and wanted to see the “classy-looking” version of this race.
Hear my jaw drop and hit the floor… the board art is gorgeous & functional, the molded chariot pieces are very cool, and the molded coins (to denote your homage to Ceasar) add a nice touch. Yes, the gameplay is weaker than AUGREBREMST (the tunable decks are a nice touch) and both systems are inherently random… but we had such *fun* playing a quick 20-minute race (esp. with Derk muttering his way to victory!)
My early lead proved fleeting, as Derk & Jon alternately conspired to hose Ted & I out of position… at the same time stranding my wife short of the finish line. (Last time she’ll be playing *this* game!) 🙂
Derk Solko 1st place Jon Pessano 2nd place Buster Williamson 3rd place Ted Cheatham 4th place Mark Jackson 5th place Shari Jackson did not finish
Rating: 6
AUGREBREMST is the better game (a ‘7’) but the graphics on this one are infinitely superior.
FRANK’S ZOO
At first, I though that the ‘new car smell’ was wearing off of FRANK’S ZOO… then I looked again and realized we violated my cardinal rule for this game – “Just because it *says* it’s for 6-7 players doesn’t mean it works well with that many.” Note to self: play with 4-5 players only to increase hand size and control… the reduced number of points also lengthen the game slightly and lessen the importance of any single hand.
All I remember is being partnered with Kayla on one giant-size disaster of a hand… ouch.
Cassie Berg 22 Buster Williamson 21 Kim Berg 20 Mark Jackson 17 Shari Jackson 16 Kayla Berg 10
Rating: 7
With the right number, this is the gamer replacement for THE GREAT DALMUTI.
IN TEUFEL’S KUCHE
I’ve been bringing my copy of this odd cross between DON’T WAKE DADDY and the Keystone Kops to every Gulf Games since GGII… and it gets played every time. Maybe it’s the cute little chef’s hats on the demons… or the way the Uberteufel pops up… or the joy of seeing someone else drag your bottle of milk into their kitchen… but whatever it is, this game deserves some attention just because it’s so darn lovable.
Now, for the caveats: it’s (a) OOP (b) tough to find (c) expensive when you do find it, and (d) only works with four players
Besides that, it’s a great game.
Shari ran roughshod over us… esp. Buster, who only managed to acquire a bottle of milk as Kyle and I beat on him.
Shari Jackson 10 Mark Jackson 8 Kyle Berg 3 Buster Williamson milk
Rating: 8
More fun than a barrel of monkeys… or the actual BARREL OF MONKEYS game… or a heck of a lot of other games I’ve played. Record number of punches by one player without popping the devil on my game: 40!
SPACEBEANS
This wasn’t my first playing of the Uwe Rosenberg game, but it was the first time with the right rules (play passes to the left, cards to the right). I still don’t find much here, but my wife seems to like it.
As you can see, this was a 2 person game, with Vicki, Shari & I just putting in an appearance.
Gail Schloesser 26 Shay Douds 22 Mark Jackson 15 Vicki Watson 11 Shari Jackson 3
Rating: 5
This is the first Uwe game I haven’t really enjoyed (and, no, I haven’t played his pre- BOHNANZA stuff or S. JAGD).
KARDINAL & KONIG
I enjoyed this one enough to be talked into another game (this time playing with the full set of correct rules). Meanwhile, Shari was cleaning the table at VAMPIRE. One of the things I liked most about WEB OF POWER (it’s Rio Grande name) is how close the scores were at the end… everything was important. Vonda tried collaring Avignon down in the left lower corner, but this took too much away from other scoring opportunities for her to win.
Dennis Mills 63 Greg Schloesser 56 Craig Berg 54 Mark Jackson 53 Vonda Matthews 42
1 am – time to go to bed if I’m going to do my semi-annual “dawn to dawn” Saturday at Gulf Games…