Like or Hate Night at EndGame
Jan. 13th, 2005 01:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aWent to EndGame tonight. When I got there I started feeling a bit muzzy-headed (probably wouldn't have gone if I was beforehand), so I was a bit off my peak, but still had fun because I got to play a bunch of new games.
First up was Condottierre (a game that I have to keep looking up to get the spelling right). This is an interesting auction-style game where you're given a random handful of cards with various values (or with various powers) and then try and win auctions of cities on a map of Italy. You play cards one at a time, and have to keep playing to stay in. There's a lot of brinkmanship in the game because there are some cards than can end the auction early, some than can force a draw, some that can pull cards back, etc.
On BGG, people seem to love it or hate it, and I now see why. It's got quite a lot of chaos, bluffing, or second-guessing in it, and pure strategists often don't like that sort of thing. I'm not sure I"m in the "love it" camp fully, but I thought it was a strong game that I want to play more (and especially not play abominably, like I did today).
Next up was Oasis, a game I've been bringing for many of the past 4 or 5 weeks because I've been wanting to play it again. Finally, I can retire it from my shoulder bag for a while. Here you make "offers" of cards to other people, in the hope that people will take your cards and thus give you the power to take cards earlier in future rounds. The cards are then turned in for resources.
The biggest problem I've always had with Oasis is that there's a ton of work required handing cards, pieces, and pogs back and forth. However, the tables at EndGame are a lot smaller than my dining room table; the game worked a lot better in that space.
The question I always have about Oasis is how much control you really have over things. In the end you score by multiplying a tile type (there are 3 + camels) times its associated scoring tiles (there are 4), and I always find that I have bad combinations of the two: a lot of a tile and few of its scoring or vice-versa. I haven't decided yet if I just don't pay enough attention or if you don't have enough power to really take what you want. More often I lean toward the latter.
Nonetheless, I have fun when I play Oasis, and as one of the players commented, it looks quite pretty.
Third game of the day was Web of Power. I've seen one of the players (Garth) bring it to EndGame and play it quite frequently, and I've been wanting to. Since he was in on that Oasis game, when we were setting up for something else I suggested it.
It's an amazingly simple majority-control game. You place in one of several regions based on cards. There are a few additional rules for placement, and two things you can place, and finally some mildly complex scoring that rewards you for barely winning majorities and for placing advisor tokens in adjacent regions.
Overall, I think the game is very clever. I gain more respect for Michael Schacht about every time I play another one of his games (last week it was Industria). This one just has tons going on, but is fast & simple. A definite lesson in how to do simple majority control (and a definite vote to get China, the new version of Web of Power, when it comes out).
I was about ready to go home at this point, but finally decided to stay around for Betrayal at House on the Hill, since my little brain power really wouldn't affect my play of that game.
It was entirely ridiculous, even more so than I expected. I wrote a full session report of it:
I played this game of Betrayal at House on the Hill as Vivian Lopez.
Most of the other players entered the house before me. For some reason, they had a general hankering to explore the upper stories. When I finally entered the house, I decided that I was already tired enough from the hike up there, so I just took a quick left from the entryway and found my way into the Organ Room.
(There were no human organs, just some strange musical instrument.)
Here I faced an EVENT, and was distressed to discover that it was a huge spider web. I stumbled in and was not MIGHTy enough to free myself. Unfortunately, the only other players anywhere near me were a little girl and a mad scientist; they weren't going to be much help either.
After a couple of rounds of struggling with the spider web, I was just about free. That's when the mad scientist decided to shrink us down to mouse-sized, and set his cats on us. Just before I would have broken free, one of the cats leapt on me and pinned me down. I spent one further round, trying to get free by outsmarting the cat; I failed.
(No one had pointed out that the cats were all wearing smoking jackets.)
Then the cat ate me.
Then the cat ate the little girl.
The other intrepid adventurers meanwhile managed to unearth a toy airplane, and hoped they could use it to escape the house. But, the cats kept knocking the airplane out of the air. They ate all the other explorers before they could escape.
There of course was a bit of dickering during the haunt about a rule (specifically, whether you added the airplane's movement on to your own, or it was a replacement). This was even after applying the two points of clarification/errata. We decided it was additive.
MY FINAL SCORE:
Spaces Moved: 1
Cards Drawn: 1
Fruitless Die Rolls: 4
Rules Arguments, Even After the Errata: 1
Fun game.
Yep, I'd known Betrayal at House on the Hill was random before I played, but I would never had guessed quite how much. The first (pre-haunt) phase of the game is pretty much 100% luck, while the post-haunt phase of the game does allow at least a teeny bit of strategy (as we decided which rooms to try and find the airplane in, and as the mad scientist decided how to move his cats around).
I'd rate the mechanics of the game a "1" out of "10" (entirely broken, especially when considering the terrible rules) and the theme an "8" (very good). I think the game is playable on Halloween and that's about it. It'll be off the RADARs except for holidays by 2006.
It was still worth sticking around to play this once.
Ironically, I think every game I played tonight is one that some folks love and others hate. I ended up with one love (Web), two like-a-lots-but-with-reservations (Oasis, Condo), and one hate (Betrayal).
First up was Condottierre (a game that I have to keep looking up to get the spelling right). This is an interesting auction-style game where you're given a random handful of cards with various values (or with various powers) and then try and win auctions of cities on a map of Italy. You play cards one at a time, and have to keep playing to stay in. There's a lot of brinkmanship in the game because there are some cards than can end the auction early, some than can force a draw, some that can pull cards back, etc.
On BGG, people seem to love it or hate it, and I now see why. It's got quite a lot of chaos, bluffing, or second-guessing in it, and pure strategists often don't like that sort of thing. I'm not sure I"m in the "love it" camp fully, but I thought it was a strong game that I want to play more (and especially not play abominably, like I did today).
Next up was Oasis, a game I've been bringing for many of the past 4 or 5 weeks because I've been wanting to play it again. Finally, I can retire it from my shoulder bag for a while. Here you make "offers" of cards to other people, in the hope that people will take your cards and thus give you the power to take cards earlier in future rounds. The cards are then turned in for resources.
The biggest problem I've always had with Oasis is that there's a ton of work required handing cards, pieces, and pogs back and forth. However, the tables at EndGame are a lot smaller than my dining room table; the game worked a lot better in that space.
The question I always have about Oasis is how much control you really have over things. In the end you score by multiplying a tile type (there are 3 + camels) times its associated scoring tiles (there are 4), and I always find that I have bad combinations of the two: a lot of a tile and few of its scoring or vice-versa. I haven't decided yet if I just don't pay enough attention or if you don't have enough power to really take what you want. More often I lean toward the latter.
Nonetheless, I have fun when I play Oasis, and as one of the players commented, it looks quite pretty.
Third game of the day was Web of Power. I've seen one of the players (Garth) bring it to EndGame and play it quite frequently, and I've been wanting to. Since he was in on that Oasis game, when we were setting up for something else I suggested it.
It's an amazingly simple majority-control game. You place in one of several regions based on cards. There are a few additional rules for placement, and two things you can place, and finally some mildly complex scoring that rewards you for barely winning majorities and for placing advisor tokens in adjacent regions.
Overall, I think the game is very clever. I gain more respect for Michael Schacht about every time I play another one of his games (last week it was Industria). This one just has tons going on, but is fast & simple. A definite lesson in how to do simple majority control (and a definite vote to get China, the new version of Web of Power, when it comes out).
I was about ready to go home at this point, but finally decided to stay around for Betrayal at House on the Hill, since my little brain power really wouldn't affect my play of that game.
It was entirely ridiculous, even more so than I expected. I wrote a full session report of it:
I played this game of Betrayal at House on the Hill as Vivian Lopez.
Most of the other players entered the house before me. For some reason, they had a general hankering to explore the upper stories. When I finally entered the house, I decided that I was already tired enough from the hike up there, so I just took a quick left from the entryway and found my way into the Organ Room.
(There were no human organs, just some strange musical instrument.)
Here I faced an EVENT, and was distressed to discover that it was a huge spider web. I stumbled in and was not MIGHTy enough to free myself. Unfortunately, the only other players anywhere near me were a little girl and a mad scientist; they weren't going to be much help either.
After a couple of rounds of struggling with the spider web, I was just about free. That's when the mad scientist decided to shrink us down to mouse-sized, and set his cats on us. Just before I would have broken free, one of the cats leapt on me and pinned me down. I spent one further round, trying to get free by outsmarting the cat; I failed.
(No one had pointed out that the cats were all wearing smoking jackets.)
Then the cat ate me.
Then the cat ate the little girl.
The other intrepid adventurers meanwhile managed to unearth a toy airplane, and hoped they could use it to escape the house. But, the cats kept knocking the airplane out of the air. They ate all the other explorers before they could escape.
There of course was a bit of dickering during the haunt about a rule (specifically, whether you added the airplane's movement on to your own, or it was a replacement). This was even after applying the two points of clarification/errata. We decided it was additive.
MY FINAL SCORE:
Spaces Moved: 1
Cards Drawn: 1
Fruitless Die Rolls: 4
Rules Arguments, Even After the Errata: 1
Fun game.
Yep, I'd known Betrayal at House on the Hill was random before I played, but I would never had guessed quite how much. The first (pre-haunt) phase of the game is pretty much 100% luck, while the post-haunt phase of the game does allow at least a teeny bit of strategy (as we decided which rooms to try and find the airplane in, and as the mad scientist decided how to move his cats around).
I'd rate the mechanics of the game a "1" out of "10" (entirely broken, especially when considering the terrible rules) and the theme an "8" (very good). I think the game is playable on Halloween and that's about it. It'll be off the RADARs except for holidays by 2006.
It was still worth sticking around to play this once.
Ironically, I think every game I played tonight is one that some folks love and others hate. I ended up with one love (Web), two like-a-lots-but-with-reservations (Oasis, Condo), and one hate (Betrayal).
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