Navarre Beach, Florida
October 12 – 15, 2000
The neat thing about this Gulf Games for me was that I got to fill in some of the blanks in my Germanic games education. Not next year’s games, but this year’s games and those of years past. Here are some of the ones I found noteworthy:
Tichu was fun. They’ve managed to make Frank’s Zoo/Great Dalmuti into an actual strategy game with a few weird twists. A deck of Tichu cards was my second pick from the prize table.
Hera and Zeus…. Well, I guess I can take it or leave it. If I knew somebody who thought it was the greatest game ever, I’d be glad to play it with that person. But I don’t, and there are better games.
Himmelssturmer/The Great Balloon Race. A simple yet clever game “for kids” with cool little balloons on clear plastic stands. I’ve been looking for this one ever since Frank Branham introduced me to it at some Tuesday night games in Atlanta a few weeks ago. Now I suppose my chances of picking up a secondhand copy cheap have become virtually nonexistent, as it seemed everyone who played this enjoyed it.
Ted Cheatham taught Lowenherz to the Douds brothers and me (and by the way, I guess Ted’s reputation is exaggerated…. he only got one important rule wrong!) and we all liked it quite a bit! In fact, it was on my must-buy list by about the third turn around the table, as soon as I’d grasped basically how it was going to work. I’ve been reading about this game ever since I first stumbled across r.g.b and Funagain Games, and it was a pleasure finally to get to play it.
San Francisco has to count as a new game. It was fine for what it was, but did the world really need yet another simultaneous bidding game where identical bids cancel each other? This one has structure and a nice rhythm, but there was nothing to my eye to raise it above the crowd.
Palmyra, an old Reiner Knizia game. Greg S., Sheldon Smith, Mark Jackson and I had a fine silly time playing this game. But I’d played it once before with a suspected wrong rule, and now, having played it with the rule right for sure…. it’s interesting but not so interesting I’ll seek it out to play again.
Likewise Auf Heller und Pfennig, an old Knizia title that had gradually been moving toward the top of my want list. Now that I’ve played it…. it’s interesting but not so interesting I’ll seek it out to play again. Though I admit I liked it a little better than I did Palmyra.
On the other hand, there was something about Knizia’s Members Only that quite appealed to me. I’m not sure what did the trick for me. It’s a dry calculation of odds with gradually more information coming your way and easy ways to screw your opponents up if you happen to hold the right cards…. but I thought it was fun.
My old friend Ralph Anderson was there — we hadn’t seen each other since our first year of college together back in 19* cough*cough* — and we had a great time catching up on old jokes and making up new ones. Ralph also taught me Mystery Rummy #1 (Jack the Ripper), and I am happy to say I can now see the appeal in that game. I’ll have to see if I can get Ward Batty — my old Canasta opponent — interested in playing it.
The above mentioned Ward Batty came down with me from Atlanta for the Navarre Beach festivities and had a very fine time at his first Gulf Games. On the ride back we discussed several games that were now on our games-to-buy lists, and if you added up the enthusiasm that was on both our lists, the overall winner was probably Billabong.
Billabong’s multi-space jump ability is something we’re both familiar with from the game of Traverse — which nobody else we talked to seemed to have heard of, so we’ll be sure and bring that next time — though it’s a simple race with only one type of jumper in Billabong, whereas in Traverse there are four types of pieces and a Chinese-Checkers-style setup where you have to get your set of pieces across the board from where you start. Anyway, we’re both in the market for copies of Billabong, in case anybody’s got them on their trade piles.
Ausgebremst we also both played and enjoyed. It’s an actual race game that actually works for six players without long waiting periods between moves — and that makes it unique in my experience, as much as I enjoy Turf Master and DTM Hock/Das Motorsportspiele.
Kapitan Wackelpudding…. Thanks, Ed Bonet, for bringing this one. What a hoot!
Sticheln was another new one on Ward and me. Ralph set out to teach it to us and it turned into a hard fought battle with Ward barely edging Ralph out in the tie-breaker hand. This one’s worth getting as a nice variation on the trick-taking theme. At the beginning of each hand, each player chooses one suit that will be his personal suit to avoid…. and the strategy develops nicely from there.
Was Sticht, on the other hand, was not as good a game as I’d hoped from reading the descriptions. Interesting, but for me the spark didn’t catch fire.
Tabula Rasa, which Derk was kind enough to teach me so I could play it in the tournament, was another Knizia game that was interesting but not so interesting that I’ll seek it out to play again. Ted Cheatham, even as he trounced me at it, expressed a similar opinion. Since I didn’t go to the next round, I didn’t get to/have to learn Schotten-Totten, which Ward played and said was actually quite good. So we’ll have to remember to put that on the buy pile.
Attacke….. eh. Even less interesting, frankly.
Quite a few other games were played….. but I did not take notes, as I had done in Chattanooga, so I can’t report on them all. Having expended all that energy on taking notes in Chattanooga, I had nothing left to write a report with last time, so I decided to go for the fun while on the spot this time, and I think that served me better.
It was a wonderful time! I apologize to all those whose names I have not mentioned here, who made the time so excellent. This being just my second Gulf Games, I was just starting to be able to put some of the names to the faces without the nametags to help, and I hope you’ll excuse me with the promise that I’ll try to do better next time. As many others have stated before me, what makes this event so special is indeed the people. I could not tell you where to find a nicer bunch of folks. We laughed — we played — we sang — we caroused. Enthusiasm, hilarity, camaraderie — the best possible competitive yet sublimely cooperative spirit.
The beach was beautiful, too! I never got into the water — barely scruffed my shoes in the sand, for that matter — but from time to time a few minutes would be spent in contemplation of the sky and the waves, and even that small bit was a great tonic for the spirit. I stepped outside for a breath of air between games on Saturday night and happened to catch the sky at sunset, a rich glowing pink in the west, and the sea a fabulous, shimmering indigo blue. Whew! Are we some kind of lucky schmucks to be living on such an incredibly beautiful planet, or what?
Thanks, Will Beckley, for getting me started on the telling of this tale. We missed you, too. (And you, too, George Michael!) Hope you’re enjoying life where you are and that we can all get together next time.