Navarre Beach, Florida
October 12 – 15, 2000
Mark’s “Letter From Navarre” – Wednesday
October 11th, 2000
Subtitled: Gulf Games Hasn’t Even Started Yet!
Games Covered: Hera & Zeus, Dragon Delta, Sticheln, Buddel Bande, Tohuwabohu, Golf Masters, Galaxy: The Dark Ages
Score for the Day:
8 games played (7 different games)
5 new games
4 wins
1 humiliation (at the hands of Ariel “Tiger Woods” Douds.
Dawn broke over the sleepy town of Nashville, TN, and who was sleeping? Not Mark Jackson, intrepid gamer! I had a serious case of “good nerves” (the same thing that kept me up all night previous to our Walt Disney World vacation) and managed to load 60+ games and a small suitcase for the 8 1/2 hour drive south to the Gulf Coast by 6:30 am.
My arrival in Navarre was delayed by a couple of shopping stops, but I still managed to be at “ground zero” for gaming in the U.S. last weekend by 4 pm. A quick phone call to the wife (“I made it OK, honey”) and the gaming began in earnest. (Actually, it was Florida…) 🙂
Hera & ZEUS
Ralph Anderson, a Gulf Games newbie, taught me Richard Borg’s two player battle game and quoted someone else as calling it ” Stratego on crack”. It reminded me a bit of CaesAR & CLEOPATRA with a dash of Magic thrown in. Either way, it’s not a bad pastime of a game, but I won’t be rushing out to buy it any time soon. (Granted, anyone wanting to send me a free copy will get a nice ‘thank you’ note… it’s not a bad game, just not a great one.)
I’m inclined to agree with both fans & sceptics of this game: Fans: yes, there is a definite learning curve here… Ralph had buried his Argus where my best hope was to Pandora it out… but I didn’t know that cuz I hadn’t played before… Sceptics: yes, there’s a lot of luck… Ralph pulled my Io out of an eight card hand, with nearly 10 cards still sitting in my deck…
Ralph used a Pegasus late in the game (he had burned through most of his deck) to pop Io out of my hand. This would be a theme this weekend when playing two-player games… Opponents: 1, Mark 0
Rating: 6 (but not an enthusiastic 6)
Dragon DELTA
Another ‘sort-of’ new game for me… I’d read a good bit about this RoboRALLY-ish race game and was looking forward to playing it. I wasn’t disappointed. It was fast-paced, easy to understand, and well-made. I’d be curious how this plays with less players, as we had the full complement of six.
Ty won easily, due to all of us having a major brain fart and totally ignoring a solid move to his finishing island. (Hats off to Ty for making this work.)
*Ty Douds
Cassie Berg
Calvin Douds
Tim Watson
Ralph Anderson
Mark Jackson
Rating: 6 (but this time, a strong 6… great boardgame filler, along the lines of METRO)
StichELN
Ralph is a *huge* fan of this simple yet nasty trick-taking game… so he talked Tim, Ty & I into giving it a go. (BTW, Sticheln = ‘needle’.)
There are five suits (if memory serves me correct) ranked 0-12 (the length of suits varies with the number of players). Players choose a ‘needle’ card – the suit which they do *not* wish to take – and place it face down in front of them. These are revealed and play begins.
The suit led in each trick is trumped by any other suit… and the highest trump card (regardless of color) wins. There are very few tricks that end without a trump. 0’s automatically lose the trick they are thrown in.
At the end of the hand, you add up the number of cards you’ve taken that were not in your ‘needle’ suit and receive one point for each of those. Cards in your ‘needle’ suit count face value against you. (This explains Ty’s consistently negative score.)
It’s a very nasty little game… everything is about controlling your losses and keeping ‘needle’ cards way… then poking other players HARD with their ‘needle’ cards. Enjoyable, but not one I’d go out of my way to play again. (Granted, I’m not a big trick-taking game fan.) Ralph suggests that this game is strongest with 3 people.
One hand (the last, I think) three of us had the same ‘needle’ suit, which meant one of us was going to get royally burned. Tim, that would be you.
Mark Jackson 2 11 7 8 = 28
Ralph Anderson 5 6 2 6 = 19
Tim Watson -6 5 13 -11 = 1
Ty Douds -6 -3 -3 -8 = -20
Rating: 5 (6 if I was in the mood for a trick-taking game.)
Buddel BANDE
I’d tried this kid’s game from Goldsieber’s “Maxi in der Minibox” collection once before with two players, to less than enthusiastic results. (Yes, my wife beat me. Sigh.) I was looking forward to trying it out with a) more players b) real live kids Gulf Games provided the perfect opportunity for both.
Each player gets three moles (one big, one small, and one that is “just right”… ok, medium-sized) with their player symbol (types of bugs) on the bottom of the mole. On a turn, you roll the dice, move *any* mole (of the type you roll) forward to the appropriate symbol on the second die. At this point, you get to pick up your mole and look at it’s… well, posterior. (Which shows you which player it belongs to…) Add a bright orange weiner dog who lets you ‘freeze’ a mole and you’ve got a race on your hands.
It’s not a bad little game… the production is very nice. But the gameplay is just a tad dry for kids (it had trouble keeping Kyle & Calvin’s interest). If I’m going to play a memory game, I’d still rather play Hallo DACHS (from the same series).
Kyle gave me a nice boost late in the game… while Calvin helped out Kyle. Kim was left with no choice but to put my last mole in the burrow for the win.
Mark Jackson 3 moles
Kyle Berg 2 moles
Kim Berg 1 mole
Calvin Douds no moles
Rating: 5 (+1 for nice bits, -1 for dry play)
TohuWABOHU
This party game from Goldsieber (out of their “Fun Games” line) got a real workout this weekend… I personally played it 3 or 4 times, and know it got played more than that.
This is not rocket science, people… 36 oddly shaped, brightly colored pieces are scattered about the playing surface. One player turns up cards from a deck and players madly stab the pieces on the cards with their index fingers. Cards captured by players are placed in front of them… and are fair game if they appear on the card again. The first player to 7 (or 8) pieces ends the round and gets a 4 pt bonus + the number of pieces they captured. Everyone else gets the number of pieces they captured. Play as many rounds as players. That’s it.
It’s a lot of fun in a frenetic kind of fashion… if you don’t like SOLCHE STROLCHE/BARNYARD CRITTERS or Set, stay away.
Mark Jackson 37
Kim Berg 15
Kayla Berg 7 Mark Jackson 40
Kim Berg 28
Ariel Douds 14
Kayla Berg 13
Rating: 7 (very playable, easy to teach, possible to make more difficult by turning pieces and/or cards over *or* by using the frames the pieces came in!)
Golf MASTERS
Yep, it was Goldsieber night… so, one more game from those masters of over-packaging. This time around it was the dexterity nightmare, uh, game, Golf MASTERS. Ariel Doud, a lovely little sprite of a 9 year old and I found ourselves without opponents at the same time… and the rest is history.
The game comes with 6 (I think) oddly shaped pieces of golf course (double-sided) and two metallic figures who have swinging golf clubs. You set a small white puffball on the course, set your figure in position, and flail away. You can’t stand on trees or water, you take penalty strokes, and there’s even a mechanism for dealing with bunkers.
As neither Ariel or I are golfers, and I’ve played literally 100’s of hours of PGA Tour Golf on my Macintosh, you’d think I’d have an advantage. No such luck. Without a freak incident on the 6th (and final) hole where I managed to score par, the score would have been even more out of whack. Another two-player game… Opponents: 2, Mark 0
There are rules in the game for an 18-hole course… but even I, lover of goofy games, found it getting a bit tedious with two players at 6 holes. I can’t imagine how long it would take with 4+ players. It’s going to be one of those ‘filler’ things… or a cute way to hook golfers into German gaming.
After 6 holes:
Ariel Douds —
Mark Jackson 5 strokes behind
Rating: 6 (bits are incredible, esp. the metallic golfers, but gameplay is only good for a 1/2 hour or so)
GalaxY: THE DARK AGES
As one of the foremost fans of Titan: THE ARENA, I have looked forward to the release of GalaxY since before the demise ofAvalon Hill. (Let’s now have a moment of silence, as per rule 7.3.4.3.2 in the revised errata of the expansion to “Death of a Game Company”.) On top of that, I’m becoming a *big* Dr. Knizia fan… anyone who can come up with Medici, IT’S MINE, LOST CITIES, TAJ MAHAL, etc., etc. is one pretty nifty guy. (I’ll forgive him Modern ART, esp. if TraumFABRIK works out as a decent game.)
So, this is really hard for me to say… but GalaxY is an excessively random exercise in futility. OK, my loss may be affecting my mood, but there wasn’t *anything* I could have done to change the fact that I lost. Nothing, zero, nadda, zip, the big goose egg… these all quite adequately number the options I had to fix my precarious situation. Oh, I could play cards and hurt others, but I couldn’t help myself.
Now, this happens sometimes in Titan: THE ARENA... but the game there is short enough that you can play 3 hands and balance out odd card draws. No such luck with GalaxY… our single hand took an hour & a half and left me with zero desire to play again.
Granted, it’s not a bad game… the mechanisms all work just fine and the added chrome (moving bases up & down, the extra powers) all seem to work pretty well. I’m not a big fan of the limited card draw (as it slows the game and limits options) but I understand in the context of the other mechanisms. It just is too random (and this from the guy who likes RIFFIFI and PAPUA) to be fun to play. [I would give it another shot with 2 or 3 players and see how it works… but no more 4-5 player games for me!]
I’ve blanked out most of the details of this game from my mind… suffice it to say that Craig, Greg & I spent the last two rounds blindly deciding whether Lenny or Ralph would win. Blech.
Lenny Leo 18
Ralph Anderson 14
Craig Berg 9
Mark Jackson 4
Greg Schloesser 1
Rating: 4 (and remember, I give TITAN: THE ARENA an 8)
Following this debacle, I headed off to bed, looking foward to more gaming in the morning!
Mark’s “Letter From Navarre” – Thursday
October 12th, 2000
Subtitled: Let the Racing Begin!
Games Covered: Jumbo Grand Prix, Battleline, Mystery Rummy #2: Murders in the Rue Morgue, San Francisco, Fette Bauche, The Reef, H/AH Cosmic Encounter, Ohne Furcht & Adel, Ausgebremst, Dschungelrennen, Schweins Gallop, Great Balloon Race, Quackshot, Buried Treasure, Turfmaster, Remmi Demmi, Palermo, Tichu
Score for the Day:
20 games played (18 different games)
6 new games
6 wins
1 humiliation (at the hands of Tim “Fish Matchmaker” Watson.
Late to bed (2 am) and early to rise (7:30 am) makes a gamer in need of caffiene & sugar in large amounts. So, I took care of that… and then the gaming began!
Jumbo Grand PRIX
Fast becoming one of my favorite short card games, Jumbo Grand PRIX combines a Lost CITIES-ish discard pile mechanism with a scoring system that looks a lot like For Sale and ends up with a very enjoyable card game. (Granted, it belongs on the shelf with the other Knizia card games with pasted-on themes…)
The deck has four suits (engine, tires, chassis, and driver), each ranked 1-7 twice. Players are dealt four cards to begin the game… and each round x scoring cards (equal to the number of players) are turned over. (Scoring cards are from 1-20.) In turn, you either discard one card to a discard pile (there is a separate discard pile for each suit) and draw two cards *or* you simply draw one card. You may only draw from discard piles you didn’t discard to… and if you draw both a discarded card and a face-down card, you must draw the discarded card first.
When all players have 8 cards, each chooses a set of four cards to lay down as their “car” for this race. In order to compete, you must have one card of each suit. Cards count their face value *unless* your three ‘car’ cards match in value (ie. your engine, tires & chassis are all 3’s)… then they count 21 pts plus your drivers value. If all four cards match values, they are worth 28 pts. Ties are resolved by the higher driver (and if drivers are tied, one of the driver cards of each value has a laurel on it to resolve ties.)
The player with the largest points takes the biggest number… you get the picture. Players who couldn’t complete a car (lay down cards with four different suits) don’t get anything… the extra scoring card is thrown away. (Ouch.) The cards left in your hand form the beginning of your hand for the next race. The game ends when all of the score cards have been used.
The trick in this game is saving good card sets for important races… but making sure you show up for every race. There is a trick to watching discards and what you pick up, as well… but it’s not a very heavy game. It’s just a lot of fun.
I don’t remember the details of our game (it goes fast and we were in ” Greg greeting newcomers” mode) but you can see how close the scores can be.
Mark Jackson 67
Ralph Anderson 63
Greg Schloesser 60
Rating: 7 (excellent filler from the king of filler, Dr. K!)
BattleLINE
It was 9 am, and for my first “official” game of Gulf Games (let the medal collecting begin!), I choose to get stomped at BattleLINE, the re-do of SchotTEN-TOTTEN (which I’d played at the last Gulf Games and decided I wasn’t so enamored of it that I had to own it.)
Nothing’s changed here… BattleLINE falls squarely in my “I’d gladly play it again but I won’t buy myself a copy” category. It’s POKER meets Lost CITIES with some tactics cards thrown in… but that means it’s just pretty good time-filler, not a great gaming experience.
However, it was another two-player game and… Opponents: 3, Mark 0
Ralph moved in early, I wasted a tactics card, I didn’t realize another tactics card existed (Mud, I think) which screwed up a “perfect” play on my part, and soon my forces were trudging behind Ralph’s chariot in the victory parade as he captured the first medal of Gulf Games.
Ralph Anderson 5
Mark Jackson 1
Rating: 5 (maybe a 6 on the right day… interesting, better than SCHOTTEN-TOTTEN, but it’s still not LOST CITIES)
Mystery RUMMY #2: MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE
This was my second time to play MR #2 with partners… which confirmed my first impression. This *is* a partnership game.
I won’t attempt to describe the game here… it’s got too many little twists and turns for that. (I did have to get used to using the ‘advanced’ rules, which we’d never played with but make a lot of sense.) Kim & I made up a lot of lost ground in the second hand, but the third hand was a blowout we could not escape from… and they managed to capture the monkey/orangatang (spelling may be wrong, I know, but I refuse to look it up) and blow past us in an ugly way.
Ralph Anderson/Greg Schloesser 17 31 56 = 104
Mark Jackson/Kim Berg 27 17 30 = 74
Rating: 6 (gosh, this works *so* much better as a partnership game… it’s a low 5 playing as individuals)
San FRANCISCO
Let the losing continue… ah, but in this case, at least I got to play a game I’d never played before…
Or did I? This is the Frankenstein monster of boardgames, gathered from parts of other great games and slammed together with glue and beautiful production. It’s got bidding mechanisms borrowed and/or stolen from RaJ and HIGH SOCIETY, an action card system that looks a lot like MERCHANTS OF AMSTERDAM, and gratuitous use of SettlerS roads. 🙂 (I think there’s more, but I only got to play it once.)
Amazingly enough, the hodgepodge actually works pretty well as a 5 player game. There are some interesting bidding decisions, the desperate need to convince *someone* to “take it for the team” when a particuarly juicy opportuntity comes up for the leader, and some nice moments of tension as you hope your plans won’t be destroyed by the random vagaries of fate and/or the other players.
It moves *fast*, too… almost too fast. And whoever did the card art needs to rethink the screened-in ruins graphics (it’s hard to tell sometimes what you’ll be bidding on)… but everything in the game (except your cash on hand) is public knowledge, so it’s not that big of a problem.
My favorite mechanism is the combination of the RaJ bidding system with a point system… you can use your influential people to obtain “building permits”, but then you pay for their use from your ‘influence points.’ (In other words, you can use cards over and over, but you have to be able to pay for them. Timing blowing out the last of your points to get the maximum end game push will be an interesting science.)
Our game seemed pretty close until the last few action cards, when Kevin had solidly locked up the lead and the rest of us fought each other to try and catch him.
Kevin Gonzalez 21
Tim Watson 15 (more rods on board)
Ralph Anderson 15
Mark Jackson 13
Jay Jones 12
Rating: 6 (+1 for fast play, -1 for not having an original thought in it’s head)
Fette BAUCHE
From Klaus Teuber, designer of Die SIEDLER VON CATAN, comes this game of… exploding pigs? (It reminds me vaguely of a game I had as a kid… with a big plastic mat and molded hard plastic veggies that you fed a black plastic pig by sticking them in a hole in his back… I have no idea what the name of it was…)
Each turn, you roll the dice (a number die with 2-5 on it and a color die indicating one of the five pigs) and feed the pigs that number of chips. You must place at least one chip in the color of the pig you rolled, and the rest can only go in one other pig. When a pig bursts (thanks to a pop-off stomach), your turn ends… and everyone except the player who blew up the pig gets one point for each chip in the pig’s belly.
There’s actually a bit of a memory game here, as you must remember:
1) which pigs have small stomaches
2) which pigs you fed your chips
3) which pigs the leader fed their chips
As you can probably guess, this is not the second coming of EuphRATES & TIGRIS (though I’d enjoy the whole battle portion of that game a whole lot more if exploding pigs were somehow included!) Still, it’s a lot of fun and very fast (15 minutes or less, even with 4 players.)
Kyle took an early lead, which none of us managed to cut back.
Kyle Berg winner!
Mark Jackson -5
Tim Watson -6
Cassie Berg -7
Rating: 6 (a fun kids game with great bits)
The Reef
This is still a cute game… but it’s quickly wearing out it’s welcome. The main reason Tim & I played was to try and win a medal quickly. As you see, I lost out here.
Yet another two-player game and… Opponents: 4, Mark 0. (Sheesh… I hadn’t even been there twenty-four hours and I managed to rack up this record…)
Tim Watson 5
Mark Jackson 2
Rating: 5 (it’s a wife game, and I unfortunately don’t mean that as a compliment)
Cosmic ENCOUNTER
The Evil Tim-pire threatened the Universe… and we, the Clones, decided it was better to have a piece of the Tim-pire than to drift in the cold outer reaches of space with Cassie & Jay. That’s right, the only quick way to end a game of Cosmic ENCOUNTER, with an Alliance win.
I’m probably not the person you want reviewing CE… cuz I haven’t been a fan of either previous version (Eon orMayfair) or even of it’s spin-off fromAvalon Hill, DuNE. The idea is classic (and forms the basis of so many games since then)… a basic rules set that is made interesting by the inclusion of special powers for each player. (Ohne FURCHT & ADEL is a great example… and in keeping with my personal loves, Stephen “Snoop” Glenn has even invented a Powers Monopoly, with each player given certain powers to break the game rules!) But in practice, I’ve never particularly enjoyed the game.
This time around was no exception… yes, the bits are gorgeous and functional; yes, the rules are very clear (as you’d expect when you strip it back down to it’s original form)… but it’s still CE, with all that implies. (Random attacks, stupid rules on drawing your hand back to full, etc.)
Best thing I can say about the game… I won my first medal playing it. (Note: Jay, Tim & Cassie were great to play with… it’s not a player problem but a game problem.)
Tim Watson (Vulch)/Mark Jackson (Clone) 5/5 colonies
Cassie Berg (Zombie) 2 colonies
Jay Jones (Empath) 2 colonies
Rating: 4 (bits are incredible but it’s still COSMIC)
Ohne FURCHT & ADEL
This is probably my favorite new game of 2000 (with TIME PIRATES, DIE FURSTEN and BATTLE CRY right up there). However, I’m not a big fan of it with 6+ players (although it does work). For my money, the optimal number is 5.
Much hosing went on here… Ralph felt the power of the random assassin more than once, while a number of us made nice use of the Magician power to trade around our less than optimal hands. Jon took off late in the game and there was no catching him. Ralph’s last place finish is due to my Soldiering one of his buildings off the board in the last move of the game. (Ouch.)
Jon Pessano 31
Lenny Leo 21
Tim Watson 20
Mark Jackson 18 (tied with one gold each)
Rich McKiernan 18 (tied with one gold each)
Ralph Anderson 17 (cuz I hosed him…)
Rating: 8 (still my pick for SdJ this year…)
AusgeBREMST
OK, it can be kind of random and the whole “my turn is hosed” mechanism can make you grit your teeth in pain, but this is one of the fastest moving auto race games out there… and there is some strategy and control.
The first edition of this game, the stunningly beautiful but even more luck-ridden AVE CAESAR now fetches insane prices at auction. Frankly, it’s *not* the best implementation of the game system, though. That honor goes squarely to AusgeBREMST.
Each player has deck of movement cards, numbered 1-6 multiple times. At the beginning of the game, they sort these cards into four “gear” (piles) as well as throw out two cards (pre-determined by the game rules) into their “pit stop” pile. Then they pick up two cards (you can draw from any pile) and the game begins. [There’s also a system for ‘tuning’ your car, which I won’t try to explain but works surprisingly well.]
If you can move, you must, even if it forces you to the outside. (A bad thing in a game where using up your high moves on wasted spaces can spell the difference between first and last.) If you can’t move your full movement allowance (due to cars blocking the raceway ahead), you don’t move. And, yes, the raceway is filled with chicanes and tight turns.
Worse yet, anyone in the lead can’t play a “6” unless their hand is filled with sixes and
a) they are in a chicane OR
b) they are tied for the lead with someone else whose hand is filled with 6’s.
I pity the fool who finds himself in the lead but is unable to capitalize on it.
And that’s where the strategy in the game comes in… saving small cards for tight situations, deciding when (or if) to pit and get two new cards, making sure you don’t end up with a hand full of 6’s and the lead, planning to end up in a chicane with the pack behind you, etc.
One race takes about 20 minutes… and optimally, you play 3+ races and total up the points over those races. (Granted, I haven’t got to do this, as I’ve always been teaching this game.)
My early lead in the first lap evaporated during a series of ugly chicane incidents… and Ralph fell victim to the whole “can’t play a 6 if I’m in the lead” problem, leaving an opening for Jon Pessano to take the win. Stven beat the blocking car (which was a considerable accomplishment considering how his race was going) but liked the game very much, which ought to be a recommendation. (That’s one of my most important tests: if I want to play a game again and again, even after getting beaten repeatedly… Union PACIFIC, BASARI, and Battle CRY all fall in this category.)
Jon Pessano first
Ralph Anderson second
Mark Jackson third
Ward Batty fourth
Stven Carlberg fifth
Blocking car sixth
Rating: 7 (this is one of my favorite auto race games… moves *very* fast and furious, with some control due to the gear box mechanism)
DSCHUNGELRENNEN
From “real” racing to, well, animal racing. The animals of the jungle are having their annual “Race For To Save the Tse Tse Fly” or whatever, and so teams are formed of five species and begin their long run to the finish line. (It sounds kind of like an old bar joke: “A monkey, a bear, a elephant, a crocodile, and a tiger walk into this jungle…”
It’s “roll’n’move”, but with a couple of nice twists… no piece can occupy the same space as another piece, so the race quickly becomes a giant game of leap frog. And the game ends when each species has one finisher, so you can choose to close the game down if you’re in the lead, or leave an animal behind as you attempt to get other animals in for points.
Details are sketchy here, except that Zane and I managed to pull off a nifty dual win…
Mark Jackson 14 (tied for win)
Zane Douds 14 (tied for win)
Timothy McCarthy 8
Ariel Douds 6
Calvin Douds 6
Rating: 6 (as a kid’s game… but still a lot of fun to play… one of my favorite “roll’n’move” games)
SCHWEINS GALLOPP
About to be released by Rio Grande as GallOPPING PIGS, this is one of those German games that *looks* like it’s a race, but it’s not. (EdISON & CO. is another.) Each player is dealt a hand of cards which allow them to move one of the pigs. If the pig you move goes to the front of the pack, you get a veggie. But you only get to keep your veggies if you move a pig to the front of the pack on your last move. Play three rounds and the highest score wins.
Timothy edged me out at the end… shoot.
Timothy McCarthy 11
Mark Jackson 10
Zane Douds 7
Calvin Douds 7
Cassie Berg 5
Rating: 5 (fun but lighter than air… game could blow right off the table with a strong breeze…)
THE GREAT BALLOON RACE
Yep, it was the day for root beer & pretzel racing games… in this case, the joyous little creation by Nik Sewell, THE GREAT BALLOON RACE. I played this for the first time at the Destin Gulf Games and promptly bought a copy from Frank “I have too many games” Branham.
It’s another “roll’n’move”, but there’s a bit of strategy here thrown in with the UnderCOVER mechanism of a secret objective. (You receive a card at the beginning of the race showing three balloons… if all three of them are finished on your turn, you win!) Different spaces allow you to deflate balloons, force them to move backwards, or even get struck with lightening!
What is neat to me with THE GREAT BALLOON RACE is that works equally well with kids and/or adults. (See my report later in my Gulf Games letters on our “adult” game of this classic.) In fact, both of these playings were extremely close… two of the best I’ve ever been involved in.
Zane Douds (winner)
Mark Jackson, Timothy McCarthy, Shay Douds, Sus Lundgren, Ariel Douds,
Calvin Douds, Lenny Leo
Rating: 6 (It’s such a good ‘little’ game, with gorgeous components and very easy to teach to newbies.)
QuackSHOT
Put some plastic animals on a spinning base (spring-loaded so they jump out if hit)… add some farmer pieces jumping about trying to save the animals… give each player a duck armed with a bow & arrow and let the plastic plungers fly! The player with the last man/animal standing wins.
OK, one game of this (first person to win three rounds) is fun. Two is all right (but not so much when you’re intentionally not winning so the kids can have some fun.) Three games is one too many… sigh. After this, I went to get dinner.
Mark Jackson 3
Sheldon Smith 1
Calvin Douds 1
Timothy McCarthy 0
Zane Douds 3
Timothy McCarthy 2
Calvin Douds 2
Mark Jackson 1
Kayla Berg 3
Kyle Berg 2
Mark Jackson 1
Timothy McCarthy 0
Rating: 9 (on the kid’s scale… though this wears out it’s welcome quicker than LOOPIN’ LOUIE)
Buried TREASURE
I arrived back with my chicken sandwich in time to get involved in this “I play this game every Gulf Games” game… in fact, this is the first time I *haven’t* played it with Calvin Douds. 🙂
It’s not a bad little game (a bit dry, perhaps), but after it was over I realized once again that I’m the victim of another “Lost & Found” rule… I keep forgetting that you can play cards on *other* players! Not sure if it could have helped, but it certainly wouldn’t have hurt.
Shay Douds 9 10 17 = 36
Jay Jones 11 12 11 = 33
Kim Berg 16 0 13 = 29
Mark Jackson 4 14 9 = 27
Rating: 5 (but, I always screw up that one rule, so I’m not sure I’ve ever given the game it’s fair chance)
TurfMASTER
By now, you probably realize that I enjoy race games… in fact, my first two ‘intelligent’ race games were AH’s Speed CIRCUIT and WIN, PLACE, & SHOW. Well, Speed CIRCUIT has long since hit the trade pile, but I still own (and occasionally play) WP&S. So the thought of a new horse racing game…
Evidently I’m not alone, as we quickly gathered 8 players for a game of TurfMASTER. The buzz on this game has been very positive, and I was looking forward to giving it a spin.
But after two of the regular three races, we quit. It’s not a bad game, mind you. It’s just way too long for what it is. (Ken opined, and I’d be inclined to agree, that this would work better with experienced players.)
One round of dice rolling (where all players use the same dice roll) followed by one round of playing cards, followed by another dice roll (etc.) plus some pretty strict rules about moving to the inside and jumping hedges… again, the game itself is very good (with great bits) but it just didn’t hold up for that many new players.
I’d be willing to try it again, but as you’ll see from one of my later reports, the much more luck-ridden The Really NASTY HORSE RACING GAME was a whole lot more fun to play!
2 out of a normal 3 races…
Ken Sheffield 50
Sheldon Smith 50
Ty Douds 40
Jay Jones 30
Craig Berg 30
Mark Jackson 20
Lenny Leo 0
Brantley Tyndall 0
Rating: 5 (maybe a 6, but it’s *awfully* long for what it is… might be better with experienced players)
Remmi DEMMI
Call it Advanced Pit… REMMI DEMMI is another one of the Goldsieber “Fun Games” line and manages to capture the energy and fun (yes, Greg, fun!) of Pit while shortening the playing time and increasing the confusion. (Confusion is good.)
There are three suits (colors) and three types of cards in each suit (running man, jumping man, celebrating man). Your objective: as quickly as possible, trade (ala Pit) your way to a hand of nine cards in which all are one color and one or two types *or* all are one type and one or two colors. The first player to accomplish this feat snatches the 4 pt marker from the table, followed by the 2nd place & 3rd place players getting the 3 pt and 2 pt markers. A timer (which can be set for ‘lightening’ or ‘snail’ pace by the dealer) only adds to the tension.
If you mess up (and claim a marker when you haven’t accomplished the goal), you get -5 points… a hefty deficit to climb out from under. Play 7 rounds, and the game is over.
I think we played five rounds this time, as Greg was audibly whining (bring on the pacifier!). How you can enjoy Arriba and not this is just weird, Mr. Schloesser.
Mark Jackson 8
Cassie Berg 3
Ralph Anderson 3
Kay Jones 3
Greg Schloesser 0
Craig Berg 0
Vonda Matthews -1
Calvin Douds -5
Vickie Watson -5
Rating: 6 (it’s very cool… but seems to confuse people the first time out… those who don’t like Pit should run when you see it coming!)
PalERMO
I just discovered this morning that PalERMO was a 1992 Spiel des Jahres nominee… and deservedly so. It pre-dates Linie 1 and yet in some ways manages to use the same kind of game structure (build the board, then race on it) to much greater effect. (Yes, I know, DampfROSS does the same thing, yadda yadda yadda…)
In short, players are mafioso, divvying up the bars & pubs of Palermo, then attempting to make their collections as quickly as possible. Time is money, you know, so finishing first is worth a tidy little bonus based on how long it takes others to finish.
The first phase of the game has the players placing businesses on an empty, both creating streets and claiming “their” stops. The second phase has the players racing about, trying to stop at each business with the maximum number of movement points left over (you’re “paid” in unused movement points). Here’s where the tradeoff between speed and cash makes a difference… the faster I go, the more points I get at the end of the game. The more points I get from collections, the slower I move. Which is better? Making this worse: each collection raises your movement points by one… thus speeding up the game and making things very tense. (And let’s not forget about your “bro-in-law”, the policeman, who can slow other players down if you remember to use him correctly!
One of the things I forget to remind (there’s a turn of phrase) newbies is that finishing first is deceiving. While I was receiving 3 pts per turn, other players could be racking up big collections on the board. As it turned out, I held on to a slight lead, but it’s always a very careful decision on when to go out.
Mark Jackson 45
Ken Sheffield 43
Ralph Anderson 40
Jay Jones 39
Rating: 7 (and climbing… as repeated play helps you scope out some of the strategies)
Tichu
I’m not sure I understand the fascination of this trick-taking card game. It’s interesting, and has some sneaky little twists (maybe too many of them), but I’d much rather be playing CANASTA.
Derk and I kept it close until the end… well, the end as we decided to call it, since Ralph said the game’s supposed to go to 1000. (Blech.)
Ralph Anderson/Cassie Berg 505
Mark Jackson/Derk Solko 495
Rating: 5 (interesting, but not worth the mental energy for me)
Bedtime again… Tichu wore me out… “more gaming in the morning” is my cry!
Keep your eyes peeled for:
Mark’s “Letter From Navarre” – Friday
October 13th, 2000
Subtitled: More Racing… and in Costume!